Page 29 of Wedding Crasher

‘It’s no joke, Gabe. Just make sure that filthy great hearse is out of sight and try not to wheel any dead bodies across the pavement when the bride’s outside, okay?’

He picked up the list again and whistled. ‘Business seems good. Maybe you could think about calling off your hate campaign after all.’

‘Those weddings were booked long before you arrived here. It’s next year’s bookings that will suffer. And the year after that. Assuming we’re still here by then, which I very much doubt.’

She couldn’t be sure, but he looked less comfortable than he had a moment ago. Maybe a drop of compassion lurked somewhere underneath all that hair and charm.

‘And for your information, there is no hate campaign.’ His words had hit a raw nerve. ‘You make it sound petty and personal, and it’s neither of those things. It’s business, pure and simple.’

Gabe studied her in silence and then slowly folded the list of wedding dates in half.

‘Sure. Leave it with me. I’ll take care of it.’

His abrupt gear change from teasing to deadly serious left her flailing for a suitable response.

‘Gabe …’ They were distracted by a sudden, loud smash in the street below and sprang out of their seats. The front window of the funeral parlour lay shattered in a thousand pieces across the pavement, and as they watched, a visibly shaken Melanie emerged onto the street with what looked horribly like a house brick clutched in her hand.

‘What the …’ Gabe muttered as he flung Marla’s office window open. ‘Hang on, Mel! I’m coming,’ he yelled.

He turned to Marla. The incensed look of accusation in his eyes stole her breath away.

‘Not a hate campaign, eh? Well it fucking looks like one from where I’m standing.’

Marla gasped at the conclusion he’d leapt to.

‘Gabe, please! I swear, this hasnothingto do with us. I would never …’ Marla couldn’t articulate past his automatic assumption of her guilt. Surely he could see that mindless vandalism wasn’t her style? He had to understand that she’d never stoop so low.

He held a hand up to silence her, his usually Jagger-esque mouth twisted into a thin line of distaste. ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’

Gabe ripped up the list she’d given him earlier and hurled the pieces across the office floor.

‘You’ve just picked yourself a fight with the wrong man, Marla Jacobs.’

He stalked out of the office.

Marla stood rooted to the spot in shock, both by the thuggish vandalism and Gabe’s instant assumption. Quite why Gabe’s opinion of her mattered so much wasn’t something she was prepared to give any headspace to. Sour fear unfurled slowly in her belly.Didthis have anything to do with their campaign?Hadshe been the indirect cause of this? Jesus, she hoped not.

She watched Gabe run across the pavement to Melanie; unable to drag her eyes away as he eased the brick from her fingers and wrapped his arms around her slender body. Heavy footsteps echoed up the old wooden staircase towards the office. Marla shivered, and turned away from the window. Jonny appeared, his face a sickly shade of green, beneath his usual tan.

‘Er, Marla? There’s something I really need to talk to you about.’

Marla’s horror spiralled as she listened to Jonny’s heartfelt explanation of how his well-intentioned online petition had grown to leviathan proportions. It had gone viral, and it now appeared that he’d lost any kind of control over it. His over-zealous pleas had been taken as a call to arms, and he’d been troubled over the last week by emails landing in their in-box threatening to ‘make sure that Gabriel Ryan never opened for business’. It was pretty obvious that the incident on the street this afternoon was linked, but what the hell were they going to do about it? And worse, what might come next? Sure, she wanted the funeral parlour gone. But not like this. Not because of a dirty hate campaign in her name. If this got out, her professional reputation would be in tatters, but it was the possibility that someone might get hurt that filled her with shame.

She wasn’t even aware that she was crying until Jonny put his mug down and handed her a tissue.

Half an hour later, Marla picked her way over the broken glass on the pavement, feeling gaudy and mildly ridiculous in her sky-blue vintage tea-dress and patent red heels. The Dorothy-esque qualities of her outfit had appealed when she’d dressed that sunny morning, but right now she felt more akin to the cowardly lion. Jonny’s revelations had robbed her of any rights to indignation or the moral high ground, leaving her with apologies to make and humble pie to eat.

She sucked down a deep breath and pushed the funeral parlour door open.

Unsurprisingly, Gabe’s receptionist didn’t throw down the red carpet to herald her arrival. In fact, given the outraged look in her pink-rimmed eyes when she looked up, Marla could only count herself lucky that Melanie didn’t throw the jug of flowers from the reception desk at her instead. As it was, the younger woman pulled herself up to her full height and stared Marla down across the desk.

‘I need to speak to Gabe,’ Marla said quietly.

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry of outrage twisted from the other girl’s throat as she folded her arms across her chest. ‘I don’t think so, somehow.’

‘Look … I really am sorry about all of this …’ Marla cast an uncertain glance behind her at the shattered window. She really wanted to tell this to Gabe himself, not his hostile receptionist.

‘Please. Ask him if he’ll see me?’

---