Page 106 of The Wedding Game

I nod.

‘You need to stop crying,’ he urges softly.

‘I can’t,’ I answer honestly. Tears of sadness have merged into tears of joy.

‘You need to stop crying because I can’t kiss you when you’re crying, it’s too weird,’ Chris says, moving towards me and making me laugh, the way he always has. Then his mouth is only a fraction away from mine, and then his lips are on mine and I fall against him as he lifts me out of the regret I’ve been in, ever since that first moment we said goodbye and I let him go. I press myself into him, desperately, hungrily, letting him kiss me and kissing him back – his arms around me, and mine around him. This is a level of intensity I never thought I’d feel, with a man I never thought I’d have, at a time and in a location I could never have imagined.

Chris kisses me for what feels like for ever and then I pull back from him and look into his dark eyes. I love him so much.

‘Be my plus-one?’ he asks and I laugh. ‘Please don’t leave.’

‘I’m not going to leave,’ I say, and his hand finds mine.

‘I need to go back inside to watch my brother get married. Come with me?’

I said no to this man when he uttered those three words once before. I won’t make the same mistake again. ‘Yes,’ I reply as I kiss him again, followed by, ‘Do you think they’ve noticed you’ve gone yet?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he says regretfully as we make our way back towards the church door. As we reach it, he kisses me once again. ‘I snuck out down the side while the vicar was talking, but by now they’ll have definitely noticed I’ve gone,’ he says, tapping his jacket pocket, ‘because as the best man … I’ve got both of their wedding rings.’

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

The rest of the wedding blurs as Chris deposits me at the back of the church and he slots back into the front pew, resumes his seat and then stands when told to, passes the rings to his brother and Victoria, who place them adoringly on each other’s fourth fingers.

Then we sit, we stand, we sing and I’m here without being here, in a cloud of my own happiness until I find myself being swept along outside with the other guests, walking into the sunlight and the temperate, lulling heat of the churchyard. Now that we’re in the open, Scarlet demands a full debrief (there was only so much I could convey silently with my eyes and my wide smile) and I tell her everything that passed between Chris and me, as we’re directed to throw confetti. The photographer snaps away and, when he’s finished, guests break away to talk and offer congratulations. Scarlet squeals with excitement as I tell her that Chris and I are … I don’t know what Chris and I are, but it’s certainly not what we were before. I look across to where he’s talking to his brother, his gaze finding its way over to me every now and again, and his wide, knowing smile matches my own.

And then Scarlet says she’s going to thank Victoria on mybehalf for casting Chris free and shacking up with his brother, so that he and I could come back to each other.

‘Please don’t do that,’ I say, flying with happiness, when only an hour earlier I was sinking in misery. ‘Not on her wedding day, for God’s sake. Save that chat for another day.’

‘No, I’m going to,’ Scarlet says and scurries off.

And there Chris is, next to me again. It’s as if the world has grown silent, and although there’s the jubilant noise of a wedding crowd in full confetti-throwing mode, I barely notice. It’s as if it’s only Chris and me. His fingers find mine and he looks down at our hands. His smile reaches his eyes, making them crinkle in a way I hadn’t realised I’d missed.

‘Hello again,’ he says softly, his gaze thick with meaning.

‘Hello,’ I reply in a tone that matches his. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

‘Go on then, how much of this did you have on your bingo grid?’ he starts with.

‘Ha! None of that, I can assure you.’

‘Oh, I had all of it. I’ve won then.’

I smile, his hand finds mine and then he kisses me.

‘Big Talk round seven,’ Chris says.

‘How do you know we’re on that number?’ I query. ‘Or are you just chancing that I won’t call you on it?’

‘I worked it out,’ he says, pulling me towards him and stroking my bare arm absent-mindedly.

‘Really?’ I ask, attempting not to be distracted as his hand moves up and down my arm deliciously, over and over again.

His eyebrows lift and he nods. ‘Really. I replayed everyconversation we had, every Big Talk and every minute I was with you, and I worked out we’re on round seven, although I think there were a lot of unofficial Big Talks in between, and we didn’t bother labelling them.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’ He still has the same effect on me that he had that first night I met him three years ago.

‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ he says. ‘And I can’t tell you how desperately sad that made me.’

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