Page 71 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“I mean it!” I said, as they stood up in the water like a pair of naughty schoolchildren in front of their headmistress. “Just try and look normal!”
I climbed over the picket fence and stood by the edge of the fountain, hoping to hide the two wet and bedraggled men standing behind me. At least we were over here, a little bit out of the way—perhaps no one would notice us.
Maddie and Felix appeared in their going-away outfits, my wedding gift to them. They’d been outfitted in clothes of their choice (Maddie’s choice mostly) from Selfridges, when we’d had a fun day out, just the three of us in London, in the January sales. And as they climbed up into their carriage, Maddie wearing an elegant winter white trouser suit and Felix looking much more casual now in a petrol-blue cashmere sweater and navy blue cords, Maddie was still carrying her bouquet.
“Ladies,” she called. “The time has come for us to see who will be the next lucky female to walk down the aisle! Are you ready?”
There was a surge toward the carriage as half the guests piled forward. I held my ground by the fountain—there was no way I was going to leave these two delinquents alone for a second.
Maddie stood up and looked around her, then she peered out into the sea of guests.
Oh no, she wasn’t looking for me, was she?Justthrowit, Maddie, I willed her.Don’t worry where I am!I prayed she wouldn’t see me, or that, if she did, there was no way she’d get the bouquet this far.
But she spied me standing by the water and grinned. Then she closed her eyes, reached way back behind her, and threw the bouquet as far into the distance as she could. I’d forgotten that Maddie used to play in a women’s American football team when she was at university and could easily throw a ball twenty meters down a field. As if in slow motion, the bouquet sailed over the heads of the desperate females—who jumped and leaped in the air to try and intercept it—and landed firmly in my hands, ready for a touchdown.
Everyone turned to look at me.
I held the bouquet aloft and quickly moved forward to try and distract attention from Sean and David, still standing in the water behind me.
Maddie waved, then winked at me knowingly, as she saw the two bedraggled men. Then she and Felix sat down, and everyone waved good-bye as they rode off together, out of the park gates and along to a taxi I knew was waiting around the corner ready to take them to their hotel in the center of Paris.
Slowly, the crowd began to disperse as everyone moved back into the hotel.
I turned around to look at the two disheveled specimens behind me.
“I guess I should be saying thank you for providing me with yet another movie scene to add to my collection,” I told them sternly. “You two did a fine job of recreating the fight betweenMark and Daniel in the second Bridget Jones film. But I won’t, because you’re just ridiculous. Two grown men fighting about…well, whatareyou fighting about?”
Sean and David looked at each other and I thought for one awful moment they were going to start again.
“David, just wait there,” I said, holding up my left hand like I was directing traffic. “I just want to talk to Sean for a moment. Sean,” I said, beckoning him with my right hand, which was still holding Maddie’s bouquet, “you come this way.”
We left David standing in the fountain, as Sean waded through the water toward me. The wet white shirt that clung tightly to his torso had become almost transparent as he climbed out of the water.
“I’m sorry…” he began as he pushed his hair back off his face.
“Over here,” I said, pulling him away from the water and out of David’s earshot.
“Hey, did I give you another movie moment there?” Sean asked. “I must have looked a lot like Mr. Darcy coming out of the water just then.”
He had, actually, but I’d tried hard not to think about it.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “And anyway, you’re thinking of the TV adaptation ofPrideandPrejudice, there was no lake scene in the film.”
Sean shrugged. “You’re the expert.”
“Look, Sean, you’d better go and get some dry clothes on,” I said, aware that David was still close by. “And then maybe you should go and find Danielle. She must be wondering where you are—that’s if she didn’t notice you in the water.”
“I doubt it,” Sean said. “I think she got the message when I wouldn’t dance with her to Robbie Williams. I hate that song.”
I smiled. Of course he’d hate it; I should have known.
“What’s funny about that? I do. Anyway, I was looking for an excuse to get away from her—she was really starting to get on my nerves.”
“But I thought you were enjoying her company?”
Sean frowned. “No. I was just putting up with her for something to do.”
“But I thought…”
