Free The Plus-One Agreement by Charlotte Phillips

onto the gravel drive as Adam emerged, beaming, from a yellow Rolls-Royce, quiff cemented in place, wearing dark glasses like a celebrity. Ernie was right by his side. A gang of porters staggered under a stack of luggage. Obviously overpacking ran in the family.
    ‘Your brother’s here,’ he said, to distract her, because he couldn’t imagine a time when he’d be keen to discuss his future wedding plans.
    * * *
    Emma scrambled off the bed and joined Dan at the window.
    ‘We’d better get ready for the drinks party,’ she said, turning to her heap of luggage and proceeding to unzip.
    He checked his watch.
    ‘But it’s hours away.’
    As if that mattered...
    ‘I need to make a good impression,’ she said. ‘I hate being late. And you have to help me keep my parents in check.’
    She looked up at him, suddenly feeling awkward, with a bottle of pink shower gel in one hand and a loofah in the other.
    ‘Do you want to use the bathroom first? I mean, perhaps we should work out some kind of rota.’
    ‘For Pete’s sake, we don’t need a rota,’ he said, his tone exasperated. ‘It’s two days. You take the bathroom first. You’re bound to take longer.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She made an indignant face. ‘That you look great just the way you are but I’m some hag who needs work?’
    He laughed out loud.
    ‘No. It means I’ve never met a woman who takes less than half an hour to get ready.’
    She turned towards the bathroom, her arms now full of toiletries.
    ‘And you don’t look like a hag,’ he called after her. ‘You never have.’
    It was the nearest thing to a compliment he’d ever given her.

FIVE
    Dan gazed out of the open hotel room window and listened to the soft sound of falling water from the shower in the en-suite bathroom. It had kicked in five minutes after Emma had shut the door firmly and twisted the lock, as if she thought he might burst in on her.
    The marquee was now bathed in early-evening golden sunshine. The sweeping lawns were perfectly manicured, and a lily pond lay on the far right of his view. If he leaned forward far enough he could see an ornate wrought-iron bench set to one side of it. He wondered how many brides’ backsides had been plonked there over the years. It really was the perfect photo opportunity.
    He was at the cream of wedding venues in the south of England and it was only natural that it might whip up a few passing thoughts of his one and only brush with marriage, right? Just fleeting thoughts... That was all.
    Maggie and Blob.
    The name filtered back into his mind before he could stop it.
    Blob, he had called him—or her—after the fuzzy early scan which had been completely unintelligible to both of them except for the blob with the strong and speedy heartbeat. It had made Maggie laugh. An interim holding name while they bandied about proper full-on names. Andy or Emily. Sam or Molly. To delete as appropriate once they knew the gender, at a later date that had never arrived.
    Four months hadn’t been later enough.
    Maggie and Blob.
    An unexpected twist of long-suppressed dull pain flared in his chest—the blunt ache of an old injury. He wrenched his mind away forcibly. For Pete’s sake, what was he doing? He did not need a pointless trip down memory lane right now.
    He rationalised madly. He hadn’t been near a wedding in donkey’s years. Without a family to speak of, things like weddings didn’t crop up all that often, and this place was Wedding Central. It was bound to stir things up. But that was all this was—just a momentary blip. He had dealt with Maggie and Blob. They were part of the past and he’d left them there with admirable efficiency. He’d dealt with it all and moved on.
    Perhaps that was part of the problem. His life was drifting into predictability, leaving his mind free to wander where it shouldn’t be going. He needed to up the stakes at work—perhaps a new business venture. Work had always been the solution