Page 142 of The Wedding Forecast

‘Did you tell them he’s not?’

‘No. I wasn’t sure what your plan was.’

‘Surprisingly, I don’t actually have a plan for the mums barging in at the crack of dawn with the wrong impression of which man is in my bed,’ I say.

‘Well, now is the time to make one,’ Hayley says.

‘What should we do?’ I say.

‘Come down separately,’ Hayley says, getting up to go.

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know. I’m giving you the beginning of a plan, you have to have some input too.’

‘You know what? Let’s just get up and go down there. I am an adult. This is no one’s business and I don’t have to answer anyone’s questions.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Hayley says as she leaves.

I pull on an old T-shirt, leggings and my bathrobe and Mac gets into his clothes from last night.

‘Should I try and sneak out?’ he says. ‘Climb out the window and shinny down the drainpipe?’

‘No, just come down. My mother is not worse than a broken neck, surely.’

‘They’re going to think—’

‘What?’

‘That I seduced you away from your soulmate.’

‘You did.’

‘Be serious. What are we saying?’

‘We’re saying nothing.’

‘You have to say something. Or do you have a Patrick mask here I can wear?’

‘You’re too short to be Patrick, sorry.’

‘Hey now, don’t underestimate my acting skills. I can project the presence of a much taller man.’

‘And too handsome. And your voice is too sexy.’

‘That’s better,’ he says, kissing my neck from behind. He touches my arm, and then turns me around to face him.

‘You didn’t tell me I was in your book acknowledgments.’

‘You read the acknowledgments before the book?’

‘I wanted to see who made the cut,’ he says.

‘Only a select few have the immense privilege.’

‘I’m honoured.’

We stare at each other and smile. I wrote, as my last line in the acknowledgments, Thank you to Cormac, for helping me figure out the ending.