Ghosted: Wicked Wedding Planners Series

by Alyssa Parsons

  Ghosted

  Book 1

  Wicked Wedding Planner Series

  Alyssa Parsons

  Ghosted, Wicked Wedding Planner series Copyright © 2018

  No part of this publication or any of the information herein may be quoted from or reproduced in any form, including but not limited to photocopying, printing, scanning or any other printed, digital or audio formats without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, or situations past or present is completely unintentional.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Coming Soon…….

  Haunted

  Chapter 1

  ‘H

  e’s back.’

  Those two little words have just been spoken by my best friend Leanna.

  Those two little words were also all it took to shatter my world that day.

  It was a shame as I was having a really good day at work. It was one of those days where everything was going to plan. All my clients had been really lovely and good fun to deal with. Not a neurotic or high maintenance bride in sight.

  I was looking forward to getting home and running a nice hot steamy bath with the expensive bath oils I had gotten for Christmas. Then I was going to catch up with my trashy tv – it’s one of my guilty pleasures. You can’t beat a bit of reality tv with crazy housewives and fame-hungry wannabes.

  Total bliss!

  So yeah, it was all going great, until Leanna comes in to my office. She is short of breath and talking so quickly, I can’t make out what she was saying.

  ‘Oh my god,’ she says as she struggles to talk and gasp in air at the same time.

  ‘…here…and saw him…. I can’t believe….back and it’s definitely…….,’ Leanna continues on breathlessly.

  ‘I can barely understand a word you’re saying,’ I tell her. I am puzzled at what is going on with my friend. She rarely ever gets flustered like this.

  ‘It’s him,’ Leanna starts gasping for air again, ‘I ran all the way here to tell you.’

  ‘Just calm down and breathe for a minute,’ I am completely confused at what is going on.

  I try and get her to sit down but just keeps doing this really annoying heavy breathing and gasping for air thing for ages. I was starting to get really irritated as she wouldn’t tell me what was going on.

  Finally she sits down on the bright pink sofa which dominates the reception area of Wedding Boss. Wedding Boss is the wedding planning business I set up with my friend Nicki Spencer, 3 years ago. We first met at college where we were taking the same business course. It wasn’t until we bumped into each other 5 years ago at a business conference that we had become friends. Our wedding business was growing every year and I loved every minute of it.

  Anyway back to Leanna. She eventually regains her breath and is now lying down on the sofa. She finally comes out with what she has been trying to say.

  ‘He’s back,’ she says with a look on her face that tells me everything.

  I immediately freeze and feel a wave of nausea ride up my stomach. Just as fresh as the wounds from 8 years ago, it all comes rushing back. I start to feel dizzy so I sit myself down on the sofa next to Leanna.

  ‘No, he can’t be,’ I am just about able to whisper back.

  All this time, I thought I was over him and had moved on with my life. The knowledge that he was back in town has just thrown me into a complete emotional turmoil. This might sound dramatic but it’s true.

  Caspar Danes is back in Roseford and the news has shaken me to the core. My whole body goes completely numb with shock. For a while I can’t even think. My mind literally goes blank. After what seems like ages, this horrible feeling finally starts to pass. I stand up and pull Leanna into my office so she can tell me more.

  As soon as we get into my office, I switch into interrogator mode.

  ‘How do you know he is back?’ I ask her. I want to know how she has come by this piece of information.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ I start shooting questions at Leanna, without giving her time to answer any of them.

  ‘Gemma text me,’ Leanna shows me her phone. ‘He was at the gym today to join up and she saw him.’

  Of course that’s where he had been spotted. After all that was where we had first properly met. I stay quiet as Leanna fills me in on the brief conversation she’d had with Gemma following the Caspar sighting.

  Gemma didn’t know much but she had found out that he has just moved back into the area. He had come in to join the gym. Her manager Luke had been the one who had processed Caspar’s paperwork but Gemma had been able to overhear snippets of their conversation. Unfortunately, she hadn’t heard much of the conversation between Luke and Caspar so more detailed information is lacking at the moment.

  Details I wanted to know like …. Was he seeing anyone? Why had he come back to Roseford?

  Gemma, bless her hadn’t wanted me to tell me by text so she had sent Leanna over to my office to deliver the news in person. I lean back into my office chair mulling over this news. I can’t believe he is back. I always felt like there was unfinished business between us. How dare he come back here after all this time and carry on like nothing has happened?

  Well of course he can because he probably hasn’t even thought about me. Plus I don’t own the town of Roseford. If I did, I would have banned him from ever setting foot here again. I feel so angry and confused right now.

  Getting through this afternoon was going to be hell. Honey Edwards, my 2:00 pm appointment has turned up 20 minutes early so I have to cut things short with Leanna.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ she hugs me before she leaves my office.

  I spend a few minutes reviewing Honey’s file which also gives me a bit of time to compose myself. I check over my appearance in the mirror in my office. Once I am happy with how I look, I buzz through to reception to let Honey through.

  Honey is a lovely girl but you need seriously high energy levels to keep up with her. Any other time she is great fun but I was not in a state of mind to deal with her. Jodie, my receptionist leads her into my office.

  Honey walks in, looking magnificent as usual in a style that only she can pull off. Today she is working a seriously amazing killer look. She is wearing an extremely bright turquoise trouser suit teamed with a coral pink blouse and very high red heels.

  Did I mention she has a totally quirky dress sense? It’s because she likes to be noticed. Her glossy dark brown hair is pulled pack into a sleek, sophisticated bun.

  Honey is no conventional bride by any means. She has decided that she wants a pineapple themed wedding. I mean who has ever wanted a pineapple themed wedding?

  She wants a completely unique and classy wedding. She wanted to choose something that hadn’t bee
n done before. That was the brief she had given me during our first planning meeting.

  I am pretty sure pineapple themed weddings are not that common. Unless you live on a tropical island somewhere. So I am fairly confident that Honey has nailed the unique wedding bit. At least in Roseford, she has.

  Luckily I had already done some research last week and was well-prepared. It did help that Honey has a generous wedding budget which helps a lot when you want to avoid creating a tacky wedding.

  Honey wants a custom-made wedding dress, which can be done once we find the perfect lace.

  While researching various pineapple wedding ideas, I have stumbled on to an absolute winner. Surprisingly, I found out that you can get pineapple-patterned lace. There are some really delicate and pretty patterns available. Who would have even thought it?

  I had also found some pictures of wedding dresses made with pineapple-patterned lace. Some of them are absolutely stunning. Maybe this pineapple theme isn’t so wacky after all.

  I start our appointment by showing Honey pictures of the lace samples I had found. She is absolutely blown away by the lace. Then I show her some of the wedding dress designs I have found online which I thought would complement her figure.

  ‘OMG – that’s amaziiiiing,’ Honey trills as she looked through the images on my laptop. ‘I am so excited, I didn’t realise you could get pineapple lace.’

  ‘I know, right,’ I beam back at her.

  Being in Honey’s presence lets me temporarily forget about the bombshell that Leanna has just dropped on me. Thank goodness.

  I tell her that it would be a good idea to try on some wedding dresses so that she could work out which style would suit her best before we went to meet with the dress designer.

  We arrange a time in the diary to go to a bridal boutique so she could try on some dresses and pick ‘the one’.’

  ‘Have you thought about your cake yet Honey,’ I look up at her over my laptop. I was intrigued to hear what kind of cake Honey had in mind.

  ‘Ok, so I want a three-tiered cake and I was thinking I could have different pineappley cakes,’ she looks at me in anticipation.

  Pineappley? I mean is pineappley even a word, I think to myself.

  I have been involved in a lot of wedding cake tasting sessions. It is definitely, one massive perk of being a wedding planner. But a ‘pineapply’ cake was not a wedding cake I had ever encountered before. Challenge!

  ‘Yeah that shouldn’t be a problem,’ I answer her while trying to think fast at the same time.

  ‘Exactly what I thought,’ Honey beams back at me.

  ‘I’m sure you could have like a pineapple jam filling instead of the usual strawberry jam there is in a traditional sponge cake.’ I don’t want to disappoint her so I start coming up with some ideas.

  ‘Then maybe instead of a carrot cake, we could have a pineapple cake with cream cheese frosting,’ I continue on determined to seem confident about pineapple wedding cakes.

  ‘You are such a genius.’ Honey gives me one of her dazzling smiles.

  ‘I do think it may be worth considering a non-pineapple layer….,’ I pause and wait for her reaction.

  ‘A non-pineapple layer?’ Honey looks shocked that I even made such a suggestion.

  ‘Well it’s just that you may have some guests that really don’t like pineapple,’ I explain my thoughts on this issue.

  Honey doesn’t say anything.

  ‘I mean it gives them an option and makes sure that everyone can enjoy the cake.’ I add.

  Honey sits back in my cream leather recliner, looking at me like I had just suggested she deliver her first born child to the devil himself.

  ‘You know, maybe you should consider a vanilla or chocolate layer,’ I continue rattling on.

  Honey does not look impressed at this suggestion.

  ‘Perhaps we could decorate the non-pineapple cake with pineapple decorations,’ I throw in as a sweetener.

  ‘I suppose,’ I could tell that Honey wasn’t really that convinced.

  ‘What does Steve think about the pineapple theme?’ I ask her tentatively.

  Steve, Honey’s fiancé is your typical manly stocky rugby player type who was perfectly happy to leave Honey in charge of all the decisions. I got the feeling from the initial meeting I had with Honey and Steve, that he was more than happy to just turn up on the day and let her get on with the planning. Honey didn’t seem bothered at all by this as she wants to be in total control of the wedding.

  ‘He thinks it’s a bit different but he’s leaving it with me. Thank goodness,’ Honey replies.

  ‘Right we need to arrange a cake tasting session with Thom,’ I start typing some notes so I don’t forget anything from our meeting. I am a bit OCD and like to be thoroughly organised with everything.

  Thom is an amazing baker who owns a cake shop just a few shops down from our office. He has made cakes for a lot of our brides. He is also quite easy on the eye. We had been out on a few dates last year but nothing really came of them. We have remained good friends though and he is a great asset to my business.

  ‘Right, your job for this week is to pick a wedding dress style,’ I refocus my attentions onto more urgent tasks. ‘Then we can see Debbie, the dress designer to get some designs sketched.’

  Honey nods in agreement.

  ‘It’s probably going to take a few weeks to get that lace delivered from abroad, so I need to order it this week,’ I tell her.

  I finish up with Honey and send her through to Jodie, our receptionist to book an appointment for our cake tasting with Thom. Work is my saviour right now because it’s distracting me from thinking about Caspar. And that’s a good thing otherwise I would go into full blown panic mode if I thought about him.

  My next appointment is at 3pm with a couple called Jasmine and Timothy. Timothy is one of those boring, slightly geeky accountant types. With mousy brown hair and a grey complexion, probably due to a lack of sunlight, he is not an attractive man. Jasmine is a fairly pretty girl with dark brown medium length hair, a pale complexion and big brown eyes.

  Most grooms don’t get that involved in the planning of a wedding. Usually after the initial planning meeting, you rarely see the groom again until the actual wedding day. Timothy was one of the exceptions. I suspect it is due to Timothy’s controlling personality rather than him being an enthusiastic groom.

  So basically, Jasmine and Timothy appeared to be joined at the hip and turn up to every appointment together. However, Jasmine seems to love having him around. They are due to be married in 2 weeks so we are going through the final checklist.

  I don’t know if it was my mind playing up as I am so distracted, but I feel like Timothy is acting a bit strange today. He keeps asking strange questions. He specifically wants to know if any of the deposits they have made for the wedding are refundable. Jasmine seems fine with his questions so I just put it down to his general weirdness.

  5 pm finally comes and it’s time to leave the office. This is usually a good thing but without the distraction of work, I am left to deal with my thoughts. I can’t face going home straight away. Nicki and Jodie have already left so I call my Auntie Jo.

  Luckily she answers her mobile and I fill her in on my news.

  ‘Oh Sammi, that is a massive shock,’ Auntie Jo sounds devastated for me.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. My mind is all over the place and I can’t calm it down,’ I tell her.

  She tells me to write down everything I am thinking when I get home as it is a good form of therapy. It will help me to process my thoughts and calm me down. I thank my Aunt for her advice and hang up.

  I get into my car and silently curse the rush hour traffic. Every traffic light seems to be stuck on red for hours. It’s giving me too much time to think and all I want to do is burst into tears. I need the sanctuary of my home. It was hell having to sit in the car and hold my tears back.

  Finally I pull into my drive. I throw my bag and keys onto the floor
and run up the stairs to my bedroom.

  I will take my aunt’s advice but first I am going to read through my old diary. Talk about reopening old wounds but I have never re-read my diary entries relating to my time with Caspar. I feel it is now the right time to do it. I have been suppressing this episode in my life for far too long. I need to face this particular demon so I can start to get some sort of grip on reality.

  Who would have thought that I could feel exactly the same intensity of pain I felt when Caspar left me. I never thought this pain could hit me so hard again after all this time had passed. I thought I had been managing perfectly well until I heard he was back in town.

  I drag my dressing table chair to the wardrobe and yank the doors open. I quickly climb onto the chair and reach for the large sparkly silver gift box that holds the memories of special moments in my life. I tip the contents of the box out onto my soft cream carpet and rummage through pictures, old letters and diaries.

  Finally I find what I am looking for. The bright blue sparkly diary I kept during my college days.

  I quickly flick through it and find the entry I am looking for. I only manage to get through a couple of pages before crumpling up into a heap on my bedroom floor. Then I just lie there and start to cry. I cry and cry until I am so exhausted that I fall asleep.

  Chapter 2

  I t’s been years since I wrote in a diary. In fact, I first started keeping a diary was when I was 18 years old when Caspar Danes had come into my life. It was the most happy, emotional, insane time I have ever felt. Writing in a diary at the time was my way of coping with the intense feelings I was experiencing.

  So where do I begin?

  Caspar Danes. Possibly the most good- looking guy I have ever seen in my entire life. I had instantly fallen in love with him. I hadn’t quite believed my luck when he had apparently fancied me too.

  But that was then and this is the now, 8 years on. Presently, Caspar Danes is completely out of my life. I am not even sure he had ever even loved me. I have never had any closure from him since he left me.