Sorry—tried everything I could to stop Mum. Love, Dad.
Nick stared at the text again. What on earth could his father mean?
Samantha began barking out new orders. “Okay, now it’s time for the groom and his best man to enter. Nick and Colin—both of you will be at the staging area to the left of the pavilion while all the guests are being seated. When you hear the cello solo begin, that’s your cue to walk down the path toward—”
“?’Scuse me for one sec,” Nick said, dashing away from the arch. He stood at the back corner of the forecourt, frantically trying to call his father. This time, it went straight to voice mail: “I’m sorry, but the person you called has a voice-mail box that has not been set up yet. Please try your call again later.”
Damn. Nick tried calling his father’s regular Sydney number, an avalanche of dread suddenly beginning to engulf him.
Colin came up to check on him. “Everything okay?”
“Um, I don’t know. Hey, don’t you have security wherever you travel?”
Colin rolled his eyes. “Yes. It’s a big nuisance, but Araminta’s father insists on it.”
“Where’s your security detail now?”
“There’s a team posted outside the gates, and that woman over there is Araminta’s personal bodyguard,” Colin replied, indicating a woman with a frizzy spiral perm seated inconspicuously among Rachel’s relatives. “I know she looks like a bank teller, but let me tell you, she’s former Chinese Special Forces and can disembowel a man in under ten seconds.”
Nick showed Colin the text message from his father. “Can you please call your security people and request extra backup for tomorrow? I’ll pay whatever it takes. We need to go into full lockdown and make sure that only the people on the guest list are allowed onto the property.”
Colin grimaced. “Um, I think it’s a little too late for that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look dead ahead. Twelve o’clock.”
Nick stared for a second. “No, that’s not my mum. That’s a cousin of Rachel’s from New Jersey.”
“I mean look up. In the sky…”
Nick squinted into the bright blue sky. “Oh. My. Fucking. Hell.”
• • •
“Viv, is Ollie ready?” Samantha said, bending down to give Rachel’s little toddler cousin the blue velvet pillow for the wedding rings. The boy took hold of the pillow for two seconds before it suddenly blew out of his hands. The branches on the towering oak trees began to tremble, and a deafening hum filled the air. From out of nowhere, a large black-and-white helicopter zoomed over the portico and hovered above the great lawn as it slowly began to land. Samantha and Rachel stared in horror as the wind gusts from the giant propellers began to tear apart everything on the portico like a tornado that had just touched down.
“Get away from the trellis! It’s coming down!” a workman screamed as everyone began running for cover. The arch toppled over just as the trellis began to collapse. Parts of bamboo began blowing off the structure at high speed, and the wisteria buds were blown clear off their stems. Aunt Belinda screamed as a big clump of jasmine hit her in the face.
“Hiyah, everything is ruined!” Kerry Chu cried.
When the propellers of the AgustaWestland AW109 finally ground to a halt, the forward door opened and a burly man in dark sunglasses jumped out to open the main cabin door. A Chinese woman clad in a chic saffron-colored pantsuit stepped out.
“Jesus, of course it’s Auntie Eleanor!” Astrid groaned.
Rachel went absolutely numb as she watched Nick sprint across the lawn toward his mother. Colin and Araminta rushed up behind her, followed by a Chinese lady with a bad perm, who was for some reason brandishing a gun.
“Let’s get you back to the house,” Colin said.
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Rachel replied. Witnessing the sheer absurdity of the situation, a sudden realization had come over her. She had absolutely nothing to fear. Nick’s mother was the one who was filled with fear. She was so afraid of this marriage actually taking place that she would go to all the trouble of chartering a helicopter and landing right in the friggin’ middle of their wedding site! Rachel found herself involuntarily walking onto the lawn toward Nick. She wanted to be by his side.
Nick stormed up to his mother in fury. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Eleanor looked at her son calmly and said, “I knew you were going to be mad. But there was no other way to reach you since you refused to return any of my calls!”
“So you think you could stop my wedding by launching this…this invasion? You’re out of your fucking mind!”
“Nicky, stop using that kind of language! I did not come here to stop your wedding. I have no intention of doing that. In fact, I want you to marry Rachel—”