Love Me Or Leave Me. Claudia Carroll

think it’s a fabulous idea!’ Lucy had told him delightedly at the time, feeling like a burden had been lifted from her shoulders.

      ‘And you’re sure you don’t mind missing out on doing the whole big white wedding thing?’ he’d asked her, a bit worriedly. ‘It’s perfectly alright for me, you know, I’ve done all this before, I’ve had the whole shindig. But this is your big day, sweetheart, and all I want is for you to be happy.’

      ‘I couldn’t give a damn where we do it, you know that,’ Lucy whispered into his chest, snuggling into him, loving the feel of his arms locking tightly around her. ‘As long as we’re together, isn’t that all that matters?’

      ‘Excellent,’ he twinkled, lightly kissing her forehead. ‘Then it’s settled. Apart from the family, let’s say nothing to anyone. Let’s just book it and then think of how surprised everyone will be when we come back as man and wife?’

      ‘You see?’ she’d laughed happily at him. ‘This is why I love you! You’ve just solved so many problems in one fell swoop and no one can possibly take offence at our going away now!’

      ‘And of course there’s something else,’ he’d added, leaning in to kiss her properly now. ‘Technically, our wedding will actually be our honeymoon too … so …’

      ‘So … what you’re saying is …’ she teased, nibbling on his ear, knowing right well the effect it had on him. ‘The minute we’re married, we can go straight from the boring church bit, skip the whole reception part and really start putting our honeymoon suite to good use?’

      ‘Well, now you just read my thoughts.’

      Lucy didn’t remember much more about that night after that.

      Mind you, it hadn’t been easy, breaking it to her own mother and the rest of her family that there wouldn’t actually be some big fancy-schmancy wedding at home. Instead, just a tiny, strictly private beach wedding abroad, followed by a New Year’s Eve dinner back home instead. Lucy hated seeing the hurt in her Mum’s red, rheumy eyes at the news that she wouldn’t be able to go to her adored youngest girl’s wedding, but she still held firm. After all, she and Andrew had a deal; just the two of them and no one else.

      But of course at the very last minute, and as soon as they heard the wedding just happened to involve a freebie trip to the Caribbean, Alannah and Josh had managed to inveigle themselves along. Lucy was tight-lipped with fury about it, but figured, this is the man I love and these, after all, are his kids and I’m about to be their stepmother. So what can I do?

      The song played on as yet more memories resurfaced. Getting worse and worse it seemed, each and every time.

      There had been the wedding dinner, with tensions around the table almost ready to skyrocket. They’d made a dismal little party that night; just herself and Andrew, side by side, clutching hands with Alannah and Josh at the table opposite them, glowering on. Just the four of them.

      And the killer was that it could have been perfect. It should have been perfect. It should have been relaxed and romantic, just the two of them in this tropical paradise, just like they’d planned. But it was hardly likely either Lucy or her husband of barely two hours would look back on this day without shuddering, Lucy remembered thinking, glancing round the table in the Mexican restaurant and trying her level best not to vomit at what was going on around her.

      ‘So anyway Dad,’ Alannah harped across the table at him, while poor, patient Andrew listened on, glancing between Alannah and Josh. Both of them, by the way, with faces like thunder on this, the happy occasion of their Dad’s second marriage. Almost as though they’d been forced to come all this way to this fabulous, five-star resort hotel on a sandy white Caribbean beach with guns pointed to their heads, when in fact the exact opposite was the case.

      ‘If you could just see your way to fixing up for my hotel room, Dad, I’d be very grateful,’ Alannah was trying to cajole Andrew. ‘I’m just a bit cash strapped at the minute, you see. What, with all the expense of Christmas and then having to buy an outfit for this wedding … well, you know yourself. Chi-ching. Anyway, you don’t mind stepping up to the plate a bit here, do you? Come on, you wouldn’t begrudge me today of all days! After all, I did travel out all this way, just to be here for you.’

      Lucy stayed tight-lipped and managed to say nothing. At the very least, she thought gratefully, the sound of the restaurant’s mariachi band playing some long-forgotten song the Gypsy Kings had a hit with approximately fifteen years ago, went some way towards drowning out the conversation a bit. Just look out the terrace onto the sea, she told herself, shivering slightly against the cool of the restaurant’s air conditioning and pulling her wrap tightly round slender, tanned shoulders.

      Forget about this tortuous evening and instead think about how sparkly the distant Caribbean looks in the moonlight. Focus on the warm, tropical breeze that’s gently wafting through the restaurant’s open terrace doors. Focus on Andrew, her soulmate, lover and now brand new husband. Focus on just about anything except Andrew’s two adult children.

      ‘Oh yeah … and another thing,’ Alannah was still droning on in that nasally, whining voice that was not unlike listening to nails being dragged down a blackboard. ‘Just to let you know, Dad, I seem to have built up a serious load of room service charges. Only telling you so you don’t have a heart attack when you see the final bill! Oh … and by the way, for Christmas, I saw the most fabulous sapphire ring in the jewellers … not dropping hints or anything, just pointing you in the right direction, that’s all!’

      Give me strength, Lucy thought, flushing like a forest fire from a combination of the warm, tropical breeze, the huge meal she’d just gorged herself on, and the very real sensation that she could strangle Alannah with her bare hands, wedding day or no wedding day.

      And no, it wasn’t the bloody money, of course it wasn’t. Andrew’s cash was his to spend in any way he saw fit and Lucy would have been the last person to begrudge him splashing out on his two kids. After all, why shouldn’t he? He was a wealthy man with pots of money to go around and Lucy wasn’t the type to give two hoots what he chose to do with it. He could have gone and blown the whole lot of it on Mars Bars and she’d just have laughed.

      No, what got to Lucy more than anything were Alannah and Josh’s never ending list of demands towards their Dad, almost like they were extorting guilt money. And at the end of the day, guilt over what? Andrew had split with his ex well over five years ago, surely time to put all that behind them and move on?

      And oh dear God, did the pair of them know so well how to pick and choose their moment. Perfect timing now for them to lay yet more demands on their father, when he was sitting back at the end of his wedding day; relaxed, chilled out, glass of brandy in one hand, cigar clamped to the other.

      ‘Oh yeah, and another thing I’ve been meaning to say to you, Dad,’ Josh chipped in, sitting with the full of his long, bony back to Lucy, patently ignoring her and putting Andrew square on the spot now. On the man’s wedding day.

      ‘You have to understand that having the reception in that fancy restaurant Pichet, when we all get back to Dublin next week is kinda upsetting for Mum. It’s just that she often goes there for lunch with the girls and she feels it’s really insensitive towards her. I mean like, the maître d’ is a really close pal of hers. And after all, it is, like, the season of goodwill and everything. I mean, it’s Christmas Eve and Mum’s probably all on her own at home right now …’

      Josh, by the way, was all of twenty-eight years of age and still living with his Mammy, with all the attendant comforts that entailed. And who’d turned up to the wedding ceremony today dressed in a pair of Bermuda shorts and looking exactly like a Shane McGowan song. Almost as though he was trying to feign maximum disdain for his father’s second marriage.

      ‘Bit much, flaunting it right in front of Mum’s face, don’t you think?’ Josh was still hammering on, no matter how hard Lucy tried to tune him out. ‘It’s just really hard on her, you know. So is it too late to … you know … like, just cancel