Bad Brides
Praise for Rebecca Chance:
Praise for
Divas
:
‘Rebecca Chance’s
Divas
sizzles with glamour, romance and revenge. Unputdownable. A glittering page-turner, this debut had me hooked from the first
page’ Louise Bagshawe
‘I laughed, I cried, I very nearly choked. Just brilliant! This has to be the holiday read of the year’ Olivia Darling
Praise for
Bad Girls
:
‘Glitzy, hedonistic and scandalous, this compelling read is a real page-turner’
Closer
‘A fun, frivolous read’
Sun
Praise for
Bad Sisters
:
‘Blistering new bonkbuster’
Sun
‘A gripping and exciting novel’
Closer
Praise for
Bad Angels
:
‘The perfect bonkbuster for lazy holiday reading’
Star
‘Pure festive escapism’
Heat
Praise for
Killer Heels
:
‘The perfect sunlounger fodder in the form of power games, illicit romps and some menacing high-heeled shoes’
The People
‘A perfect mix of sex, secrets and back-stabbing, this sizzling bonkbuster deserves a place in your beach bag’
Closer
Praise for
Killer Queens
:
‘I give
Killer Queens
five stars – massively enjoyed the book – and it’s perfect for all the royal celebrations we’re having!’
Sun
Also by Rebecca Chance
Divas
Bad Girls
Bad Sisters
Killer Heels
Bad Angels
Rebecca Chance’s Naughty Bits
Killer Queens
First published in Great Britain by Simon and Schuster, 2014
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Rebecca Chance, 2014
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc.
All rights reserved.
The right of Rebecca Chance to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Paperback ISBN 978-1-47110-172-4
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-47110-171-7
eBook ISBN 978-1-47110-173-1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset in Berling by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
To all the brides out there – good or bad!
Enjoy your special day!
Huge thanks to:
At Simon and Schuster: Clare Hey and Carla Josephson, who’ve slaved to get this book into print on a very tight deadline. Sara-Jade Virtue and the amazing marketing team
– Alice Murphy, Dawn Burnett, Ally Glynn – who work just as hard promoting the books. Dominic Brendon, James Horobin, Gill Richardson, Rumana Haider and Rhedd Lewis are raising my sales
with every book, and I’m incredibly grateful. Hannah Corbett in publicity has been brilliantly efficient and very generous with the bubbles!
At David Higham: Anthony Goff, my ever-wonderful agent. Marigold Atkey has been helpful and efficient way beyond the call of duty, and Chiara Natalucci and Stella Giatrakou in
foreign rights do a fantastic job of selling Rebecca Chance overseas.
Emma Draude and Sophie Goodfellow at Emma Draude PR, who are getting reams of fabulous coverage for my books. Lucky me!
Antonio di Meglio, whose beautiful chandeliers feature in the book, and Massimo Panuccio, of Sartoria Massimo, who was kind enough to do fabulous sketches for Brianna Jade and
Tamra’s dresses for the ceremony, you can see them on www.pinterest.com/rebeccachance1/badbrides.
Travis Pagel is my marketing guru, and Marcos ‘stop me’ Malkmuth is my personal DJ . . . Love you boys!
Dan Evans at Plan 9 and Oscar Henriquez for my beautiful new website www.rebeccachance.net.
Marco and Alice Baldini, for getting married with perfect timing for me to use the details in this book! And Gabriella and Leonardo Lenzi of Tenuta Neve d’Agosto for
their exquisite taste, plus all the fascinating information about the history of their beautiful venue.
Matt Bates and Karl Frost, fantastic friends, wonderful company and a gorgeous couple!
Michael Devine of www.makethemostofyourgarden.com designed Tamra’s ridiculously extravagant Chelsea garden so wonderfully that I almost believe it exists!
My intern, Lydia Laws-Wall, who’s an absolute star. I feel so lucky to have her!
Paul Willis, Greg Herren, and Beth Hettinger Tindall gave me amazingly detailed help with the description of Kewanee Hog Days and Illinois corn-fed life. Thank you three so
much, you really brought Tamra and Brianna Jade’s backgrounds to life. Emma Louise, aka ‘The Harry Potter Girl’, Kevin Loh and Emma Beynon for sharing the #bananalove!
I honestly don’t think I could have written this book in a very short amount of time without the Rebecca Chance fanfriends on Facebook to cheer me up, distract me and
banter with! Thanks, Angela Collings, Dawn Hamblett, Tim Hughes, Jason Ellis, Tony Wood, Melanie Hearse, Jen Sheehan, Helen Smith, Katherine Everett, Julian Corkle, Robin Greene, Diane Jolly, Adam
Pietrowski, John Soper, Gary Jordan, Louise Bell, Lisa Respers France, Stella Duffy, Shelley Silas, Rowan Coleman, Serena Mackesy, Tim Daly, Joy T Chance, Lori Smith Jennaway, Alex Marwood, Sallie
Dorsett, Alice Taylor, Joanne Wade, Marjorie Tucker, Teresa Wilson, Ashley James Cardwell, Margery Flax, Clinton Reed, Valerie Laws, Simon-Peter Trimarco, Kelly Butterworth, Kirsty Maclennan,
Amanda Marie Fulton, Marie Causey, Shana Mehtaab, Tracy Hanson, Nancy Pace Koffman, Katrina Smith, Helen Lusher, Russ Fry, Gavin Robinson, Laura Ford, Mary Mulkeen, Eileen McAninly, Pamela Cardone,
Barb McNaughton, Shannon Mitchell, Claire Chiswell, Dawn Turnbull, Michelle Heneghan, Jonathan Harvey, Jeffrey Marks – and Bryan Quertermous, Derek Jones, David W. Rudlin and Colin Butts, the
very exclusive (i.e. tiny) club of my straight male readers. Plus of course Paul Burston, the Brandon Flowers of Polari, and his loyal crew – Alex Hopkins, Ange Chan, Sian Pepper, Enda
Guinan, Belinda Davies, John Southgate, Paul Brown, James Watts, Ian Sinclair Romanis and Jon Clarke. And the handful of beloved relatives brave enough to read my books – Dalia Hartman
Bergsagel, Ilana Bergsagel, Sandy Makarwicz and Jean Polito. If I’ve left anyone out, please do send me a message and I will correct it in the next book.
Kirsty Mcdonald won the Twitter competition to have her name in the acknowledgements: here it is. Congratulations!
Thanks to Vina Jackson and Stella Knightley for their lovely quotes – fantastic writers and very good friends.
Tarquin’s surreally nonsensical lyrics were crowd-sourced on FB but ended up mostly coming from the deliciously twisted brain of Dorcas Pelling.
The gorgeous team of McKenna Jordan and John Kwiatkowski and everyone at Murder by the Book, for bringing my smut to Texas.
And as always – thanks to the Board. We are so lucky to have each other.
Lastly, to the FLs of FB, all of whom are
Gone With the Wind
fabulous. Twirl!
Readers of my previous novel,
Killer Queens
, will recognize members of the royal family that feature in
Bad Brides
. You absolutely don’t need to have
read that book before starting this one, but for those who haven’t read
Killer Queens
, all you need to know is that I created a set of British royals who are definitely not the
Windsors – though some of mine may share a few similarities with certain real-life royals! The heir to the throne in my parallel universe is Prince Oliver, whose son and heir Hugo recently
married his long-term girlfriend, Chloe Rose. And the character who reappears in
Bad Brides
is Hugo’s sister Sophie, who was previously both a brat and a bitch, partly due to the
death of her mother Princess Belinda in a ski accident years ago.
However, since the events of
Killer Queens
, Sophie’s become much nicer to entertain at an engagement party in your newly renovated stately home – should you want to invite
her! Just make sure you have some good-looking young footmen in uniform for her late-night entertainment . . .
Prologue
London, August
‘Ladies, gentlemen, thank you so much for coming out this evening!’
Jodie Raeburn, editor of both
Style UK
and its latest offshoot,
Style Bride
magazine, launching that very day at a hyper-fashionable party in Harrods Bridal Boutique, surveyed
the packed room of glitterati with considerable pride. Because shepherding the debut issue of
Style Bride
into print had been, without question, the most teeth-rattling, white-knuckled
roller-coaster ride of her editorial life.
In all her years of wrangling temperamental photographers, coke-crazed fashion designers and anorexic models, Jodie had never had to cope with a last-minute crisis this dramatic. She had made a
strategic decision to have two celebrity brides-to-be compete against each other for the cover of the magazine and the prestigious title of
Style
Bride of the Year, hoping to garner
maximum publicity for her new launch and impress her highly demanding managing editor.
And, as far as publicity was concerned, Jodie had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Two crack
Style
teams had watched in shock and awe as both wedding ceremonies took very unexpected
turns, cameras capturing every moment of the drama, prompting an emergency of epic proportions. Jodie had been forced to delay publication of the magazine for several weeks, which would usually
have signalled disaster: but her team had worked round the clock, and the press coverage of the competing brides’ various meltdowns had been so compelling that
Style Bride
had almost
doubled its advertising as bridal designers and cosmetic companies fell over themselves in a last-minute race to appear in a magazine that was bound to fly off the shelves. Even with the huge
printers’ bill, the first issue of
Style Bride
was already a raving financial success.
As she continued with her prepared speech, Jodie’s mind raced back to the choice she had thought she was making months ago. The candidates for
Style
Bride of the Year had been
narrowed down to a shortlist of two: on the one hand, exquisitely pretty Milly Gamble, a young starlet on the rise, engaged to Tarquin Ormond, even more famous than her as the lead singer of a
folk-rock band garlanded with Brit awards and Grammies. On the other, Brianna Jade Maloney, nicknamed the ‘Fracking Princess’ by the media, an American ex-pageant beauty, all teeth,
hair and golden tan, whose marriage to Edmund, Earl of Respers, had been arranged by her equally gorgeous mother, Tamra.
Tamra was here tonight, the Fracking Queen herself, resplendent in a stunning cocktail dress. And so was Brianna Jade, close to the podium, dressed more demurely than her mother, but still with
that polished, American-groomed glow about her, radiantly beautiful as always. Jodie scanned the crowd to see if she could spot Milly or Tarquin, but the head count was so dense that she
couldn’t pick out their near-identical ringleted blonde curls.