Claimed For The Billionaire's Convenience. Melanie Milburne
a couple of her friends who had the sort of families you read about in crime novels. All of Holly’s family were supportive and loving. Katie and Meg were happily married, and now Belinda was joining them, which left Holly the odd one out.
Again.
Her baby sister was getting married, which meant everyone would look at Holly and ask when she was going to find herself a husband. Argh. Like she needed another man in her life after being jilted not once, but twice.
How could she get through another family gathering with no partner in tow? How could she bear the looks and pointed questions about her lack of a love life? Her family thought any young woman pushing thirty should have a husband on the horizon if not in hand. Especially if said young woman was a wedding florist and was surrounded by blissfully happy brides every day of the week, and yes, even on weekends.
Double argh.
Holly was the go-to wedding florist in London. Obsessed by all things bridal since childhood, she had built her business on wedding flowers. She also did flowers for funerals, parties, corporate functions and so on, but it was her wedding work that had lifted her profile. She’d done the flowers for a minor celebrity’s marriage four years ago. The reality-TV star had more followers on social media than the Kardashians.
Holly’s shop was her life. She didn’t have time for anything else. Being successful professionally made up for not being successful personally. Her failed relationships were as bad as having dead flowers on display in her shop window. Withered hope, dried-up dreams, bruised ego.
Why her family thought she couldn’t possibly be happy remaining single was a constant source of frustration to her. Plenty of people were happy being single. Lots and lots of people were single and loving it. Not everyone wanted the fairy tale. The fairy tale sucked if your handsome prince decided to run off with another woman the week before your wedding. It sucked even more if your second handsome prince—because who didn’t try things twice to see if they could get it right the second time?—also took off. But this time on the day before the wedding with his personal trainer.
Holly had been cured of fairy-tale fever by two fickle fiancés.
Permanently cured.
‘Will you be doing the flowers for your sister’s wedding?’ Jane, her chief assistant asked, coming in from the cool room with a bunch of white roses.
Holly cleared a space on her workbench for the roses. ‘Yep. And I’m chief bridesmaid. Again. Go me.’
‘Three times a bridesmaid...’ Jane stepped back as if she were trying to avoid contamination by association. ‘Glad it’s you and not me. Aren’t you worried you might jinx your chances of—’
‘No.’ Holly picked up one of the roses and snipped the stem. ‘Because I don’t want to get married.’
‘Don’t you want to have one more go? To see if this time—’
‘Nope.’ Holly took another rose and snapped off the stem. ‘I do not.’
Jane glanced at the invitation on Holly’s desk. ‘So who will be your plus-one for Belinda’s engagement party?’
Holly wrapped fine green wire around the stem of a rose like she was tying up one of her cheating exes. ‘I’m not taking anyone.’
Jane gave a series of exaggerated blinks. ‘You’re going alone? To one of your family’s parties? Isn’t that a bit...erm, risky after the last time?’
Holly pressed her lips together so hard she could have cracked concrete. ‘I told my mother in no uncertain terms she is to refrain from setting me up with techie nerds. The ones with dandruff who get blind drunk because they’re nervous about meeting a real woman in the flesh instead of an avatar on a computer screen. I’m fine being single.’ She picked up another rose and began wiring it. ‘Just because everyone in my family is partnered doesn’t mean I want to be.’
‘Speaking of the absence of partners...’ Jane handed over the printout of a new order that had come in overnight via the website. ‘You’ve been asked to do the flowers for a divorce party. That’s a first, isn’t it?’
Holly frowned and peered at the form. ‘Hmm, that’s from Kendra Hutchinson. She was one of my brides about four years ago, before you came to work for me. Big socialite wedding. Massive. I paid off my overdraft with that account. I was up two nights in a row doing the flowers. I knew she was wasting her time marrying that guy. She knew he was getting it on with one of the bridesmaids but she still went ahead with the wedding. She was so blinded by love she needed a guide dog. No. Two guide dogs and a white cane.’
‘Weddings are expensive things to cancel at the last minute.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Holly grimaced and snipped off another stem. And dead embarrassing.
‘Do you know who handled Kendra’s divorce?’ Jane’s tone and twinkling eyes were straight out of the schoolyard gossip handbook. ‘Zack Knight, the celebrity divorce lawyer who’s made his millions by dissolving peoples’ marriages. Maybe you’ll meet him at the party.’
Holly stretched her lips into a smile that felt like it belonged on a corpse. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Not.
Jane’s expression lost some of its sparkle when she looked at the divorce party order printout again. ‘I hope we’re not going to only do divorce parties and funerals now...’
A clench of panic gripped Holly’s gut like a bad case of giardia. During the last week, three of her biggest clients had cancelled their wedding bookings without explanation. It had never happened before and she was trying not to worry. Yet. But she had a mortgage and expensive renovations on her new house to pay for. Staff to pay. Hell to pay if she failed. ‘It’ll be fine. All businesses go through downturns. Things will pick up now that it’s spring. Not that you’d notice by the weather.’
Jane chewed her lower lip, her finger absently flicking the corner of the paper. ‘It’s just with my nephew’s autism therapy costing so much I couldn’t bear to cut back my hours, or worse, to lose this job.’
Holly would rather live on the street than see Jane short of money to fund her young nephew’s therapy. She took Jane’s hand. ‘You are not going to lose your job. I can’t run this place without you.’ She let her assistant’s hand go to pick up her secateurs. ‘Anyway, I hear divorce parties are big business these days.’
‘But weddings are your speciality,’ Jane said. ‘You love everything to do with weddings. Everyone knows that. Do you think it’s because you’re so anti-men?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘You’ve not exactly made it a secret you think all men are bastards,’ Jane said. ‘A few of those social media posts of yours have been a little negative and you haven’t had a date in what...two and a half years? What if that’s putting off potential clients?’
Holly snipped another stem off a rose. ‘I hardly see what my opinion of men has to do with running a successful floristry business. I don’t need a man in my life. I’m fine. F-I-N-E. Fine.’
‘If you don’t get more wedding work, you’re finished.’ Jane’s tone was grim. Funereal grim. ‘There are other wedding florists in London, you know. Competition is tough. What you need is an image makeover. Or a man. Or both.’
Holly put her secateurs down. ‘What is this obsession with finding me a partner? Why does everyone think a woman is lacking something if she hasn’t got a man in her life?’
The computer pinged to say another order had come in. Jane moved across to read the screen and sighed. ‘There goes another one. The Mackie wedding in June. Cancelled.’
Holly came over and peered at the email, her stomach feeling like she’d ingested thorns. Hundreds and hundreds of prickly thorns. Like the other three cancellations, there was no explanation. Was it her fault? Had she been too vocal