Six Days Read online

  Six

  Days

  ALSO BY DANI ATKINS

  Fractured

  The Story of Us

  Our Song

  Perfect Strangers

  This Love

  While I Was Sleeping

  A Million Dreams

  A Sky Full of Stars

  The Wedding Dress

  Six

  Days

  DANI ATKINS

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,

  part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Dani Atkins, 2022

  The moral right of Dani Atkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781800246546

  ISBN (XTPB): 9781800246553

  ISBN (E): 9781800246577

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  To Debbie

  Who reads them first

  Contents

  Also by Dani Atkins

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  SATURDAY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  SUNDAY: DAY ONE

  Chapter 8

  MONDAY: DAY TWO

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  TUESDAY: DAY THREE

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  WEDNESDAY: DAY FOUR

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  THURSDAY: DAY FIVE

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  FRIDAY: DAY SIX

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  SATURDAY

  1

  The bedroom door still creaked when it opened. Dad had never fixed it, and I kind of liked that. He stood in the opening now, a stranger in a suit I’d never seen before.

  For a long moment neither of us spoke. He was the first to break the silence. ‘You look beautiful, Gemma.’ His voice was gruff and oddly husky. ‘If only your mum was here to see this.’

  I turned in a rustle of tulle and sequinned lace to face the man I’d loved my whole life and half of his. Dad was practically unrecognisable in the charcoal-grey morning suit. The haircut he’d had the day before was so short it looked as though he might be planning on enlisting after the ceremony. And the habitual salt-and-pepper stubble had been banished by a razor so sharp I could see where the blade, in an unsteady hand, had nicked him. The two small cuts were the only splash of colour in his uncommonly pale face.

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ I said, trying to summon up the strength I’d set aside for this moment. Because I’d always known those words were going to be spoken today. The only thing I hadn’t been sure of was whether he’d be the one to say them, or me.

  He held out his work-roughened hands and I placed mine in them and suddenly I was eight years old again, falling off my bicycle; or twelve, when my pet rabbit died; or fourteen, when the boy I liked asked someone else to the school dance. Dad had been there for all those moments – but as part of a team. I could see how difficult it was for him now, to face this big milestone in my life without Mum beside him.

  ‘You look just like her,’ he said softly. It was a refrain I’d heard countless times before. Teenage me would probably have rolled the green eyes we shared and vowed to dye my hair a different shade from its natural auburn. But the me I’d become since losing Mum three years ago snatched eagerly at every similarity, as if it were a strand of a fast-unravelling rope.

  I turned to the mirror and slid my hand into the crook of his arm, the way I would do in less than an hour when he walked me down the aisle. And for the first time I could truly see it. I did look like the woman in the silver-framed photograph in the lounge. True, our wedding dresses were totally different, and her hair had been styled in an elaborate up-do, while mine was left to curl softly in beachy waves down my back. But the expression on her face as she looked at the man standing beside her was one I recognised from a hundred Facebook posts. It was the one I wore when I looked at Finn.

  With excellent timing, the door of my old bedroom flew open and the whirlwind that was Hannah Peterson stood in the frame, my wedding bouquet in her hands. Her eyes darted between Dad and me. ‘No one had better be crying in here,’ she warned, only half joking. ‘I’ve only been gone five minutes.’ After twenty-five years as my closest friend, Hannah had practically attained sibling privileges and would think nothing of taking either Dad or me to task if she thought it necessary. ‘Remember our agreement: no tears until after everyone has said “I do”, okay?’

  ‘How does that poor husband of yours put up with you?’ Dad teased, passing an arm around my chief bridesmaid’s shoulders and giving her a fatherly squeeze.

  ‘Noise-cancelling headphones, mainly,’ she shot back with a wicked grin. ‘The bridesmaids’ car is waiting downstairs, and the driver says yours is just a few minutes behind,’ she said, slipping back into her role of unofficial wedding planner. I swear if she’d found a place to squirrel away a clipboard in the folds of her magenta taffeta dress, she’d have happily carried one all day.

  ‘Where’s Milly?’ I asked, looking beyond my friend for her adorable little girl. My goddaughter would be four in a few months, almost the same age her mother had been when our friendship had begun. I simply couldn’t imagine having anyone but Milly as my flower girl.

  ‘At the moment she’s busy tormenting your cat,’ she said, turning to my dad with an apologetic ‘Sorry’. ‘Then she’ll probably move on to destroying the fake posy I gave her. She’s not getting her hands on the real one until the moment the church doors open.’

  I flashed my friend a grin. ‘You really do think of everything, don’t you?’

  ‘I just want today to be perfect for you, that’s all,’ she said, sounding choked and for a moment very un-Hannah-like.

  A squeal that could have come from either her offspring or the cat travelled up the stairs, and Hannah spun on an elegant satin shoe and turned to go.

  ‘I’ll see you both at the church doors,’ she said, blowing a kiss our way and disappearing from the bedroom in a cloud of perfume.

  A few minutes later, the front door closed with a reverberating shudder and the house heaved a quiet si
gh of relief as it finally fell into silence. The hairdressers, the beautician and the florists were all long gone; so too were family and friends, who would be comfortably settled in the flower-bedecked pews of the church by now.

  Everything and everyone were exactly where they were supposed to be. So why did I have this niggling feeling of unease? It had been there since my phone’s alarm had woken me early that morning. Still half asleep, I’d lain blinking up at the ceiling, trying to work out where I was. Unthinkingly, I’d reached out for Finn, but the unoccupied half of my old double bed was cold and empty. Was this how Dad felt every single morning? It was a heartbreaking thought to begin what is traditionally billed as the ‘happiest day of your life’.

  I swung out of bed and finally found my smile as I looked at the ivory lace dress I’d be wearing later that day when I married the man I loved.

  Unable to resist the temptation, I reached for my phone, pulling it towards me by its charger wire, as though reeling in a fish. Was it too early to send Finn a ‘good morning’ message? Was that considered as unlucky as seeing him, or was modern technology beyond the reach of old wives’ superstitions? I decided a quick WhatsApp was worth the risk.

  Good morning, Mr D. Happy wedding day! Can’t wait to see you later. xxx

  I spent five whole minutes with the phone cradled in the palm of my hand, waiting for him to reply, before eventually setting it aside with a small feeling of disappointment. Finn was probably already in the shower or still out on his morning run. Or hung-over, suggested a troublesome voice in my head. I tuned it out because I really didn’t want to revisit that particular dispute.

  ‘You do realise no one has a stag do on the night before their actual wedding any more? They have it weeks before the big day, so they have time to recover.’

  ‘There wasn’t time to fit it in,’ Finn had replied, winding his arms around my waist and drawing me against him. ‘I’ve been working flat out to make my deadline before the honeymoon.’ He’d bent down and kissed me then in the way that always made my knees forget how to hold me up. ‘You may not know this, but I’m about to get married,’ he’d whispered into the curve of my neck.

  ‘So I heard. She’s a lucky girl.’

  Finn shook his head, his eyes fixed on my face. ‘No. I’m the lucky one.’

  *

  Dad was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs I’d slid down, skipped down, even fallen down on occasion over the past thirty-three years. There was a proud smile fixed firmly on his face that threatened to take me down far more effectively than the staircase ever could. Through the open front door behind him I caught a glimpse of a gleaming silver Bentley decorated with ribbon streamers, waiting at the kerb.

  ‘Before we go…’ began Dad, so nervous his Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down as if it were looking to escape. He cleared his throat, which settled it slightly. ‘I have something I want to give you,’ he said, fumbling awkwardly in the pocket of his suit jacket. ‘It’s from your mum and me.’

  I could already feel the prickling threat of tears as I reached for the small velvet jeweller’s box. The beautician’s carefully applied bridal make-up, complete with ‘tsunami-proof’ mascara, was suddenly in jeopardy.

  I took the box and held it in my trembling hands for a long moment before springing open the lid. The chain of the necklace was silver and delicate, but it was the pendant hanging from it that came close to undoing me.

  ‘It’s Mum’s stone, the one from her engagement ring,’ I breathed, recognising it instantly from a kaleidoscope of memories.

  ‘She would have wanted you to have it,’ Dad said, his voice suddenly gravelly and scratchy. ‘I thought if we had it made into a necklace, it would feel as though she was still with us today.’

  I turned to the hallway mirror and lifted the hair from my neck to fasten the chain. The pear-shaped diamond dropped like a falling star and settled on my bare skin, just above the curve of my cleavage. I felt the weight of it close to my heart as I hugged my father tightly. ‘I love it. I really do. But Mum was always going to be here today, even without this. Wild horses couldn’t keep her away.’

  Dad held my hand tightly in his as he led me down the crazy-paved pathway to the car, climbing in carefully behind me and settling himself on the small section of seat my dress wasn’t occupying. It felt as though we were being swallowed by suds of tulle, but it was only a thirty-minute drive to the church.

  ‘Nervous?’ Dad asked. It was the same question he’d put to me when he’d dropped me off for my first day at school, and then again, thirteen years later, at university.

  This time the answer was an easy ‘No’.

  ‘Just excited for this next chapter of my life to begin,’ I said, leaning across the ocean of ivory fabric to kiss his cheek.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, his voice laden with love and pride.

  *

  Having a big white wedding had never been high on my wish list. But life has a funny way of changing your plans. You meet someone you love, you lose someone you love, and suddenly you’re trying on meringue dresses and booking a church and a venue. This wedding was very much a homage to Mum, for this had been her dream for me.

  ‘She would have loved you,’ I remember telling Finn. We’d left the cities and towns behind and were now streaking through the villages and hamlets towards my childhood home for his first meeting with my dad.

  Finn had taken one hand from the steering wheel and warmly squeezed mine. ‘If she was anything like you, I’d have loved her too. But it’s your dad I’m more worried about. I have a mental image of him patrolling the hallway tonight in case I stray out of the guest bedroom.’

  I’d laughed, although in reality he might not have been too far off the mark. ‘Well, you know what dads are like.’

  ‘Not so much,’ said Finn.

  If I’d had just one superpower, it would have been to rewind time and take back my unthinking comment.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Finn. I—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, cutting me off and changing the subject, the way he always did whenever his parents were mentioned. ‘So, do you think one bottle of Scotch will be enough to charm him or should I have gone for a case?’

  ‘Dad’s going to love you,’ I’d said. ‘Everyone does when they first meet you.’

  Finn’s eyes were on the road, but there was no mistaking the wry twist of his mouth.

  ‘You didn’t.’

  2

  THE FIRST MEETING

  Seven years earlier

  ‘Hair up or down?’ I asked, walking into our flat’s tiny kitchen, where Hannah was busy scrolling through something on her phone. She set it down and scrutinised not just my hair but my chosen outfit. The smart black trousers and tailored white shirt had looked good in my bedroom mirror two minutes earlier, but they weren’t getting the reaction I’d hoped for.

  ‘It’s a waitress job you’re going for, right?’

  I pulled a face at her snarky comment and released my grip on the makeshift bun at the top of my head. My hair tumbled down over my shoulders, softening the whole look.

  ‘Better,’ declared my friend.

  ‘I just want to look professional… and intelligent.’

  ‘There’s more to being smart than having a sensible hairstyle,’ Hannah said with a grin, running a hand through the pink-tipped ends of her spiky haircut. With a Mensa-level IQ, Hannah had no trouble being taken seriously, despite a hairstyle that rivalled the plumage of a bird of paradise.

  ‘You make a good point,’ I conceded, ‘but there’s too much riding on this interview to blow it because I don’t look the part.’

  ‘Isn’t it supposed to be the quality of your writing that gets you the job, rather than your resemblance to a 1950s librarian?’ she teased, reaching for a slice of toast and demolishing it in two enormous bites. For a very small person, Hannah had a huge appetite. I wasn’t sure where the calories she consumed actually went, but very few appeared to linger o
n her petite frame. ‘And I love your writing style,’ she declared loyally.

  I flashed her a grateful smile as I reached hopefully for the coffee pot. I managed to squeeze out a cup and sipped it slowly as I once again ran my eye down the articles bearing my byline that I’d uploaded to my iPad. ‘It’s hard to know which one will impress them the most: the kitten that had to be rescued from the tree or the furore at the WI jam-making contest.’

  ‘The kitten one, obviously,’ Hannah said, pressing a clenched fist to her heart. ‘It has “Pulitzer” written all over it.’

  I snorted, and for a moment it was touch and go as to whether I’d swallow my mouthful of coffee or spray it all over myself and the kitchen.

  ‘It’s going to be seriously dull around here when you move out,’ I said, which sounded more woeful out loud than it had done in my head. I wasn’t trying to make her feel sad or guilty, although I saw both emotions flicker briefly in her violet eyes. After years of renting a succession of grotty flats, Hannah and I had taken the plunge and bought a place together, somehow forgetting to consider what might happen if one of us wanted to move out and the other didn’t.

  I could vividly remember the night she’d come home early from her date with William, who she’d been seeing for the last six months. She’d walked into the lounge with worried eyes and a look of torment on her face, and I’d automatically reached for a bottle of wine, two glasses and a box of tissues, fearing the worst. But I was wrong; William hadn’t broken up with her – just the opposite, in fact.

  ‘He’s asked me to move in with him,’ she said, sounding as though she was being coerced into something illegal.

  ‘Bastard,’ I deadpanned. I was so relieved he wasn’t breaking her heart, it took a few moments for me to realise that it was actually mine that might end up getting hurt here. ‘And you said…?’

  She bit her lip as though trying to stop the smile, but it found a way out anyway; it was right there in her eyes.