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She’d been teasing him about his speech from almost the moment they got engaged. She’d asked him if he needed any tips on his performance. After all, she’d recently finished her performing arts degree and was now teaching in a school. Smiling, Trev had thanked her for her offer, but he’d said he’d be fine, ‘seeing as he’d done this kind of thing before’.

Secretly, Zennor had felt a little naïve for even asking, realising that a successful businessman like Trev, who ran a hospitality recruitment company, didn’t need any help with public speaking.

She puffed up with pride as Trev stood up to speak. Of course, every bride must think her new husband handsome, but she thought he’d never looked more imposing than today. He filled out his suit as if he’d been born to wear formal wear every day. No wonder, either. He’d had it tailor-made to fit his athletic six-foot frame, honed by playing tennis and gruelling workouts with his personal trainer.

‘Thank you, Hayden and Ari, for your brilliant speeches. You’ve given me a hard act to follow, but since I have to, I’ll start with the easiest part.’ He turned to Zennor with a broad smile. ‘On behalf of my wife and I …’

She glowed inside as the ripple of applause rolled round the room. Trev carried on, thanking the guests and the bridesmaids – Zennor’s best friend, Roo, and the teenage daughter of Trev’s cousin.

‘Finally, I’d like to thank – and you’ll forgive me for saying this – by far the most important person in the room: my beautiful wife, Zennor.’

Trev turned to her and addressed her directly. ‘I am amazed that she has done me the honour of marrying me. I probably don’t deserve her. No, I definitely don’t deserve her – and she could have married a hundred other men – but she chose me, and for that I can never express how happy I am.’

She shook her head, a little embarrassed by the praise but more fearful she might burst into tears.

‘But even if I can’t find the words to say how I feel about her, I know some people who might be able to …’

Trev looked into her eyes as if she were the only person there. He had that way about him, of making you – anyone – seem like the most important person on the planet.

‘What have you done?’ she murmured, butterflies taking flight in her stomach.

‘Wait and see,’ he whispered back and nodded to the hotel wedding manager who was standing at the back of the room.

A few seconds passed in silence before gasps rippled through the guests as four men emerged from different parts of the room singing a cappella. A moment ago, they’d merely been bow-tied waiting staff, so good at their job they were almost invisible. Now, they were like gods with soulful voices that could make your heart melt.

Trev reached for her hand, grasping it tightly as the waiters reached the top table. One was a grey-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and two were red-headed guys, so alike they had to be brothers. The fourth was taller, with dark blond hair secured in a ponytail. Zennor couldn’t remember him waiting tables, but she recognised him instantly. How could she ever forget Matt Veryan?

The fingers of her free hand tightened around the edge of the velvet seat as Matt and his fellow singers approached the top table. Her heart fluttered like a bird trapped inside a cage.

Surely Trev could feel her pulse racing. Did he realise that, in this very moment, she would rather be anywhere other than that function room?

CHAPTER TWO

Where had Matt come from? Why was he here at her wedding? Had Trev invited him or known that he would be with the singers?

Surely not, based on the confusion in Trev’s eyes as the group began a song that Zennor knew so well she could have sung every word. As a performer herself, she’d heard it many times: a Cornish folk ballad about the love between a young couple, ‘My Sweet Nightingale’.

It was meant to be a sweet song, about love and passion and seduction, yet every word felt hollow as they sang. All she could hear was Matt’s voice.

‘My sweetheart, come along,

Don’t you hear the fond song,

The sweet notes of the nightingale flow?

Don’t you hear the fond tale

Of the sweet nightingale

As she sings in the valley below …’

Zennor risked a glance at Trev and saw he was tight-lipped and rigid at her side at the sight of her ex, Matt. He couldn’t have known that Matt was part of the group. Matt, who hadn’t even been invited to the wedding, whom Zennor hadn’t known was within fifty miles of the St Piran’s Spa or St Ives. Matt, her first love, her teenage crush, and the man whom she’d once fantasised standing next to as she made her marriage vows.

She’d been young then; barely out of school. A world away … She’d been on her way to uni and Matt had been – well, who knew what his plans had been when they were that young. He’d filled his time with helping at the Surf Club, doing odd jobs on building sites, and grabbing singing jobs where he could. She was eighteen and he barely nineteen. She’d thought they loved each other. They’d kept in touch while she was at uni and he stayed in St Ives but one day he’d messaged her to say he was in Sydney. With no warning, he’d simply taken off. She’d had no choice but to finish her degree, get on with her life, and try to forget about him.

The song went on but Zennor no longer heard the words.

Although she’d known he’d returned to another part of Cornwall, she’d had no contact with him until a few months before the wedding when she and Trev had bumped into him at the Surf Club. He’d barely exchanged a word with her and acted as if he didn’t care that she was now engaged to Trev – as if they’d never been close.