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“Did you book a venue in the end?” Mel asks. Obviously, they would have by now, but she’s a little behind on the plans.

“Landmark London,” Hattie says. “You know, the hotel.” Mel isn’t sure which hotel Hattie means, but she nods anyway. “It’s easy for Dylan’s family—they’re flying in from America and we can put everyone up in rooms there—you guys all included, of course.” Mel catches the way Kristen looks down at her plate as Hattie says this, though no one else seems to notice. What is that about? “There’s a spa and everything and I’m going to have a proper pampering session the morning of—it’ll be great. Plus the ballroom is, like, epic. Isn’t it, Dylan?”

Dylan reaches out to take Hattie’s hand on the table. “It totally is. We’re expecting everyone to bring their best dance moves.” He grins round at them all.

“Sounds great, Hatt,” Mark says. “A bit more extravagant than our wedding…”

“Nonsense, your wedding was lovely,” Susan says absentmindedly. They’d been married by the time Mel had met Finn, but she’d heard about the barn wedding, the fairy lights, how gorgeous Kristen had looked. “It does all sound very expensive, though, Hattie love?”

Hattie waves a hand in the air. “All weddings are expensive, no point in denying that. And we want ours to go down in history, don’t we?” she adds to Dylan.

He swings an arm around her shoulder, sitting back in his chair to take a break from eating. “We do. And what’s the point in being a movie star if you can’t spend your money on throwing a massive party?” He quails a little under Hattie’s look and clears his throat. “Not that it’s all about the party, of course.”

“Plus I’m funding half of it,” Hattie announces. Mel remembers Finn saying at one point that he was pretty sure Hattie was the richest of the lot of them—but because none of them totally understand what, exactly, she does, none of them can really fathom it.

“Well, you mustn’t feel you have to pay for everyone’s rooms,” Susan says. “I’m sure people will love just being there with you to celebrate.”

Mel makes sure she’s smiling at the right moments, but is grateful for the massive meal in front of her, giving her a legitimate reason not to be contributing much. Because all this talk on weddings is only reminding her that she’s not going to have one. She tells herself it doesn’t matter, that she’s happy single—or that she’ll learn to be, at least. That she has time, that plenty of people don’t get married—but it does nothing for the pit in her stomach that all the beef Wellington in the world doesn’t seem able to fill. A good thing about big families, Mel has learned since meeting Finn, is that you can get away with not saying very much if you don’t want to.

“Anyway, I have to give the caterers answers in January,” Hattie continues, “which feels ridiculously early, but there we go. And I’m stuck. The beef option is filet mignon with a red-wine reduction, then there’s this sea bass option, which sounds amazing, but there’s also a black cod thing, which Dylan likes, don’t you? And they are always less good on the veggie options, but they have this eggplant thing, which sounds nice, or cauliflower steak, which I’m pretty sure is just cauliflower and then actually this is reminding me of vegetable Wellington.” Mel has always admired Hattie’s ability to talk without breathing, one word merging into the next. She gestures around with her wineglass when no one immediately answers. “We’ll obviously have late-night grilled cheese for everyone, and there’s the cake, which is going to be—”

“Epic?” Finn suggests.

“Exactly. But I’m stuck on the mains—I have to get it down to three. What does everyone reckon?”

“Ah…” Mel is struggling to remember everything she listed. “Sea bass is usually a winner?”

“Exactly,” Hattie says again, nudging Dylan in the side in an “I told you so” gesture.

“I suppose Wellington might be dry,” Finn muses. “Not that ours is, of course,” he says quickly when Mel raises her eyebrows at him. “But a mate had a dodgy one in a pub once…”

“Can’t go wrong with steak,” Mark says approvingly. He wrinkles his nose. “Not sure about cauliflower steak, though—what even is that?”

“It’s actually really nice,” Kristen says. Mark shrugs in a way that clearly means if you say so.

“Mum?” Hattie looks over at Susan, who is sitting at the head of the table. “What do you think?”

Susan smiles at Hattie. “I think whatever you want will be lovely, love.”

Hattie looks a bit disappointed at the lack of engagement, and for a moment no one says anything more, with just the sound of cutlery scraping the last of the meal.

“So, Finn,” Mark says, his voice booming across the table in a way that clearly means business. Finn straightens at the sound of it and Mel finds herself doing the same automatically. “Have you thought any more about my suggestion?”

“What suggestion is that, exactly?” Finn asks mildly.

“Conveyancing. I could get you an internship, remember? We talked about it a couple of months ago.”

Had they? Mel can hardly imagine Finn as the conveyancing type—and didn’t you have to get a law degree for that?

Finn snorts, proving her suspicions right. “I didn’t realize that was a serious suggestion.”

“I’m just saying, if you like working in property, it could be the way to go. I mean, the redecorating thing is fun, but it can’t be forever, right? What if you and Mel want to settle down properly, have kids?”

Mel swears she can feel tension ripple around the table—or is that just her? She finds herself gripping her fork a bit too tightly, and makes herself put it down. She’s not sure where to look. Finn, it seems, is also trying carefully not to look at her. She picks up her napkin, refolds it. Sincerely hopes no one is looking at her. They used to talk about this, before he moved to London—how they could make it work, where they’d want to go if Finn carried on flipping houses. Then Finn had decided he had to, indeed, settle down—and look how that had worked out.

“I don’t think conveyancing is the answer,” Finn says, and though his tone is mild, Mel catches the tension underneath. Not only her, then.

“I’m only saying—”