The Importance of Being Married (39 page)

“Of course, sorry. I’d better continue trying to track down your fiancé and Marcia…”

“Anthony’s at client meetings all morning,” I said, hitting on a link to
GILES WHEELER
,
FLORIST TO THE STARS
. His client list read like a who’s who of the celebrity fraternity. Immediately I started typing him a desperate message. “But as I said, I don’t know about Marcia.”

“Okay, well, thanks anyway,” Max said, then frowned. “Isn’t that the lawyer from the funeral?” he asked, looking over at reception. “What on earth is he doing here?”

“Lawyer?” I asked vaguely, hitting
SEND
.

“Yes, you know, Mr. Taylor, wasn’t it?”

My heart stopped immediately and I turned around. Then my eyes widened. Max was right. Mr. Taylor was right there. Talking to Gillie in reception. As quickly as I could, I jumped up and raced toward him.

“Jess?” Max called after me, but I could barely hear him.

“Mr. Taylor,” I said, nearly colliding into him in my panic. “What…what are you doing here?”

“Ah, Mrs. Milton,” he said. “I was hoping to talk to you. You’re very difficult to get hold of, you see. I thought perhaps that the mountain should come to Muhammad, so to speak.”

“Mountain?” I shook my head desperately. “No, no. I mean, Muhammad will come to you. I will. Just as soon as…Just as…” I turned my head slightly to see Gillie staring at me curiously. I had to get him out of the building. But more urgently, I had to get him away from Gillie and other prying eyes. “Um, look, why don’t you…come to the meeting room,” I said quickly.

“Lovely,” he said cheerfully, picking up a large briefcase that I eyed with alarm. Maybe the meeting room wasn’t such a good idea. What if he asked me for identification papers? What if someone came in?

“Jess?” I looked up at Max, who was walking toward me.

“Not right now,” I said anxiously. “I’m just…I won’t be a minute. I’ll be in the meeting room.”

“But I need the meeting room,” Max said, frowning. “Chester’s going to be here any minute.”

“Ah, Anthony. How nice to see you again,” Mr. Taylor said brightly, holding out his hand to Max, who eyed it suspiciously.

“No,” he said. “I’m…”

“Very busy,” I interrupted, tugging Mr. Taylor’s arm. This was almost as bad as my dream. If I’d been naked, it would have been.

“He’s very busy indeed.” I looked back at Max uncomfortably. Then I bit my lip. Mr. Taylor thought Max was Anthony, thought we were married. I was so close, I couldn’t ruin it all now. “Um, darling, why don’t you try Marcia again and see if she’s on her way in?”

“Darling?” Max stared at me.

“Not now, sugar,” I said, my voice rising several octaves as I felt my hands going clammy. “I’ll be with you just as soon as I can.”

“He seems rather perturbed,” Mr. Taylor said concernedly. “Is he okay?”

“Anthony? Oh, he’s fine,” I said quickly. “He’s just fine and dandy.” I pulled him into the meeting room, but as I did so I heard a familiar voice and stopped in my tracks.

“Hey, guys. Great to see you. So, Jessica, how are the preparations going? Anthony tells me you’re doing an amazing job.”

I turned around abruptly—Chester had just arrived in reception.

“Chester!” Max attempted a broad smile. “Hi!”

My heart sank. “Chester! Great to see you, too.”

“Preparations?” Mr. Taylor asked, behind me. “What are you preparing for?”

“A…a launch,” I said quickly. “A project we’re working on.” I bit my lip. “Um, look, now isn’t really a great time for our meeting. Maybe it would be better if I called you later?”

He shook his head. “Later might be too late, that’s the problem.”

“It won’t be,” I assured him. “I’ll call you really soon. Very soon indeed.”

He looked at me reluctantly as I dragged him back to reception. “You do realize that you’re running out of time, Mrs. Milton?” he said, as we passed Chester. “You’ve got just over two weeks to complete the paperwork. You know that, don’t you?”

“Mrs. Milton? Not yet, she isn’t,” Chester said affably, apparently overhearing what Mr. Taylor had said. “Week or so to go, huh, Jess?”

I smiled weakly. “Oh, something like that,” I managed to say.

“Not yet? What does he mean?” Mr. Taylor asked, looking at Chester with confusion.

“He means…,” I said, biting my lip and doing my best to walk Mr. Taylor quickly toward the main doors, “that I…I haven’t changed my name. Yet. But I’m going to.”

“You are?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I see,” Mr. Taylor said thoughtfully.

“So, I’ll call you next week?” I said, opening the door for him. “And thanks for coming around. Sorry I couldn’t be more…”

“Jess!” As the door opened, Anthony swept through, Marcia behind him, both carrying shopping bags. “Hi, gorgeous.”

I frowned at him. He’d been shopping? I thought he was at a client meeting. Then I shook myself. Mr. Taylor was this close to finding out the truth and I was worrying about a shopping trip?

I tugged at Mr. Taylor’s sleeve and tried to avoid Anthony’s eyes but it turned out Anthony wasn’t interested in looking at me; instead, he grabbed me and kissed me smack on the lips. Then he looked up and saw Chester. Immediately he let go of me and walked over to clap him on the back. “Chester. Good to see you. How’s it going?”

Mr. Taylor’s eyes widened as Marcia tottered past him, avoiding my eyes.

“And that is?” he asked, looking utterly baffled.

“Um, that’s Anthony’s best friend,” I said, my mind racing frantically to explain the kiss, the term of endearment. “He…he always calls me gorgeous. He’s…gay,” I concluded.

“Gay?” Mr. Taylor asked, his voice suddenly a whisper. “Well, well. Well I never.”

“Yes,” I said, attempting a smile. “So, there we are. And now you’re going to go, and I’m going to see you soon?”

“I do hope so,” Mr. Taylor said as I almost pushed him out of the building. “I do hope so very much.”

“He thought you were called Jessica Milton,” Gillie said a few seconds later, as I passed her reception desk on the way back to my desk. “I tried telling him you were still Jessica Wild for the time being, but he didn’t seem to understand.”

“No,” I said, wiping some drops of sweat from my forehead. “No, he’s a bit…deaf, I’m afraid. Bit senile, too. Gets confused.”

Gillie nodded sagely. “That’ll explain it, then.”

“Explain what?” I asked tentatively.

“Explain why he looked all funny when I asked him if he was going to the wedding.”

“You…you asked him that?”

“Shouldn’t I have?”

I gulped. “And did you…did you tell him when it was?”

Gillie shook her head. “Of course not. I’m not stupid. I figured if he didn’t know about it, you didn’t want him to know.”

“Exactly,” I breathed.

“So I pretended I was talking about Liz Hurley’s wedding.”

“You did?”

She nodded. “He didn’t know who she was, either, though.” She shrugged. “To be honest, I think he’s a few marbles short of a chess set, if you get my drift.”

I leaned over the reception desk and kissed her on the cheek. She giggled and pushed me away to answer the phone. “Hello, Milton Advertising? Yes, she is. Just one moment.” She raised an eyebrow. “Jess, it’s for you. Want to take it here?”

I turned around reluctantly. “For me? Who…who is it?”

“A man,” she mouthed. “Giles someone.”

“Giles? I don’t know a Giles. I…”

“Says he wants to talk to you,” Gillie said, shrugging.

My heart racing, I took the receiver Gillie was holding out to me. No doubt Mr. Taylor had seen through Gillie’s tall tales. This was probably him telling me he knew the truth, telling me that Grace’s will was null and void and I was going to prison for impersonation.

“Hello?” I asked, hardly daring to speak. “Jessica Wild speaking.”

“Jessica Wild. It’s Giles Wheeler here. I got your message. I’m so sorry your florist ran out on you. I can’t believe a florist would do that. It really doesn’t fit with our professional code.”

The florist. Of course. The florist who was laboring under the false belief that I had appointed another florist months before, but he’d run off to Bermuda with a former client, leaving me in the lurch. Hey, I’d been desperate. “Your code? Florists have a professional code?”

“Of course we do. Now, I am, naturally, busy on the day of your wedding. I already have two weddings and one party that day. But I can squeeze you in, if we can work quickly. So, are you free to meet later today?”

I thought for a moment. Fenella had sent me an appointment blocking out several hours that afternoon that said, simply:
Pls keep free—I will be with caterers and need to get hold of you.

“This afternoon’s good,” I said quickly. “Where are you based?”

“Me? No, I’m coming to you. I want to see where you live, who you are, what you want from your flowers. Okay?”

“Um, okay. I live in Islington.”

“Islington,” Giles said thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, I think that might work.”

“It might?”

“The wedding,” he said, ignoring my question. “Is it going to be in Islington, too?”

“No. No, the wedding’s going to be at the Park Lane Hilton.”

“The Hilton. I see. Urban metropolis meets Islington savoir faire. Yes, yes, I can see this working. I’m loving it, in fact. So, shall we say three
PM
?”

He sounded so excited, I found myself nodding. “Okay!”

I gave him my address, agreed that there was “lots to think about,” then, feeling slightly better about things, turned back to Gillie.

“I have to go home,” I said, relief flooding my body at the prospect of getting out of there. “Can you tell Anthony I’m seeing the florist?”

“Sure, no problem.” She smiled as I walked back to my computer, deleted Fenella’s appointment, and picked up my coat.

Chapter 27

BY THE TIME I
got home, my heart was still pounding in my chest and my mind was racing with questions. But, as I kept telling myself, everything was okay. So long as Anthony didn’t know about Mr. Taylor, Mr. Taylor didn’t know about the wedding, Max didn’t know this marriage wasn’t entirely the romantic commitment he thought it was, and Fenella didn’t know that I had completely forgotten about the flowers until this morning, everything would be okay. Everything would be fine.

So when Giles arrived, looked me up and down, then swept into the sitting room and announced that he’d looked deep into his soul and knew, just knew, that Grecian was the way to go, I found myself agreeing on the spot. In retrospect, I realized that Grecian probably wasn’t what Fenella had in mind; in fact I was pretty certain it wouldn’t entirely work with her minimalist theme, but I figured it didn’t matter in the great scheme of things. He was promising flowers, and that meant I could tick something else off my to-do list.

“By Grecian, do you mean togas?” I asked curiously, handing Giles a cup of tea. He’d been in the flat only a few minutes, but he was already spreading out photographs on the sitting room floor. He was tiny—about five feet tall—skinny, and wearing a pin-striped suit with a bright pink shirt and cowboy boots, which, I realized, meant that without them he was probably only four foot ten.

He rolled his eyes. “Darling, this is not the ’eighties. I mean vine leaves. I mean decadence. I mean maximalism. Grapes. Wine. Huge overflowing table displays and restrained walls. I want twigs, tall twigs, like trees, around the reception hall, with little fairy lights that come on as the sun goes down. Like an enchanted forest. Magical. Like
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
”

My eyes lit up. “I love that play. And I love the idea of an enchanted forest. You know?” An image floated into my head of me as the Fairy Queen, all ethereal and dream-like. I felt Giles’s eyes on me and reddened slightly. “But it’s not exactly…Grecian, is it?” I asked.

He looked at me reproachfully. “You have to think outside the box,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re talking classical. Magical. Aphrodite. Titania. They are one and the same.”