The Boy and the Bridesmaid: A Short Story

PRAISE FOR KATEY LOVELL

‘Magical and sparkly short stories, highly recommended’

Sky’s Book Corner

‘I’m so glad I picked this up, it’s gorgeous!’

Rather Too Fond of Books

‘Swooning all the way through’

Reviewed the Book

‘An absolutely wonderful debut’

Little Northern Soul

‘Quirky, cute and utterly romantic’

Bestselling author Rebecca Raisin

‘Sweet, romantic, perfectly formed coffee break reads. I loved them’

Bestselling author Carmel Harrington

The Boy and the Bridesmaid

The Meet Cute Series

KATEY LOVELL

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016

Copyright © Katey Lovell 2016

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Books Covered

Katey Lovell asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

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written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008166663

Version 2016-05-09

For Andrea Seymour, my one and only godsister

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Katey Lovell

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Meet Cute Series

The Boy and the Bridesmaid

Also by Katey Lovell

Katey Lovell

About the Publisher

About HarperImpulse

The Meet Cute Series

The Boy in the Bookshop

The Boy at the Beach

The Boy at the Bakery

The Boy on the Bus

The Boy with the Board

The Boy with the Boxes

The Boy at the BBQ

The Boy under the Mistletoe

The Boy and the Bridesmaid

The Boy and the Bridesmaid

Maria wished she’d been more prepared. She should have known her emotions would get the better of her, after all, weddings are notoriously tear-jerking events. Snuffling inelegantly into her napkin, she silently apologised to the hotel staff for sullying their table linen.

She didn’t used to be like this, crying at the drop of a hat. Now the smallest of things could bring a tear to her eye. She’d even cried at EastEnders the other night. Anxiety had changed her; not just the crying, but the panic attacks where she could hardly breathe, the feeling of a hole through the centre of her body, as though she were an apple that had been cored, the difficulty to remain focussed even if things interested her.

She was distracted now. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the band setting up. They were behind the white drape which acted as a partition, but being placed at the end of the top table she could see right around it.

There were four guys in all. One of them, Harrison, she recognised as her cousin Lucy’s boyfriend. He was one of those hipster sorts who wore skin-tight jeans with a plain white t-shirt. James Dean cool. She’d only met him the once, but he’d seemed nice enough and obviously cared for Lucy. Then there was a brown haired guy shifting the speakers, and struggling by the look of it. He beckoned to one of his bandmates, a short redhead who looked a bit like Ed Sheeran, to give him a hand.

But it was the boy at the front fiddling with the mic stand who’d grabbed her attention. His skin was smooth and dark, his hair cropped short to his head. He had the faintest hint of stubble covering his angular jawline and his eyes were fixed with concentration on the job in hand.

Maria had never seen anyone so handsome before, at least, not in real life. If he’d been in the magazines she and Helena had squandered their pocket money on in their early teens, she’d have definitely made room for him on her section of the bedroom wall. He wouldn’t have looked out of place next to the David Beckham posters that had doubled as wallpaper in the room the sisters had shared.

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