Page 116 of Wedding Crasher

He studied her face for a few seconds before he answered. ‘Okay.’

‘Will you be leaving again soon?’

‘Depends. Will you be done with the small talk soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank God for that.’

He glanced around the waiting area with its constant ebb and flow of people.

‘Come on. Let’s go and find somewhere more quiet.’

Dan jumped out of the taxi he’d just paid an extortionate fare for and watched in relief as Gabe and Marla left the reception area.

How the hell would he have explained his presence here to them, when he couldn’t even explain it to himself?

Cecilia leaned against the side of the drinks machine as Jonny stabbed at the buttons.

‘Well, let’s just hope those two stop pissing around and get their act together,’ she grumbled under her breath.

Jonny stared at her in amazement. Firstly, he’d never heard her swear before, and secondly, he hadn’t thought she possessed the perceptive powers to have noticed what was going on with her daughter.

‘What?’ She arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m her mother. I gave birth to the girl. Well, almost, anyway.’

‘Almost?’ Jonny’s mind boggled.

Cecilia waved her arm around in an airy fashion.

‘Heck, Jonny, I’ve told you enough times that I’m built like a Barbie doll down there. She’d never have got out.’

Jonny shoved his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes before she could say any more.

‘La la la! Stop talking, I can’t hear you.’

Cecilia rolled her eyes and waited for him to stop humming and open his eyes.

‘All I was going to say, if you’d let me finish,’ she shot him the daggers, ‘is that I’m hopeful for an Irish extension to the family.’

‘Still match-making, I see.’

Jonny jumped at the rich voice behind him, and turned to see a vaguely familiar guy in doctor’s whites smiling at Cecilia.

‘Robert!’

Jonny noted the way Cecilia turned pink and straightened her shoulders, and the dishy doc slotted into place in his head as the ex-husband from Franco’s.

‘Cecilia, we must stop meeting like this.’

Something in Robert’s twinkling eyes told Jonny that he didn’t actually mean those words at all, and for the second time in half an hour he felt like a third wheel.

‘I’ll just go and check how Emily’s doing,’ he muttered, and left Cecilia in the capable-looking hands of her suave ex-husband.

‘You have a beautiful son.’

The midwife wrapped a towel around the tiny, gunky-but-perfect child, before placing him in his mother’s outstretched arms. Tom stood beside Emily and smoothed a damp strand of hair back from her brow.

‘You were amazing.’ He kissed her forehead and gazed down at the baby. ‘Hey there little guy.’