Emma Ever After: A feel-good romantic comedy with a hilarious modern re-telling of Jane Austen

Emma Woodhouse knows the world loves nothing more than a celebrity romance. And, as a rising star at Mega! Management, she match-makes some of the biggest names in the business. Who cares if it’s all for show? For Emma, fauxmance beats the real thing any day!

But Emma has a huge task ahead. She needs to find fake girlfriends for every member of Breach of the Peace, the world’s hottest new boy band. Rich, talented heart-throbs, they should have their pick of the ladies – but, with band mates Will and Ed determined to undermine her every move, and her best mate Gee voicing disapproval about her chosen profession, Emma’s carefully ordered world begins to fall apart.

Is it possible that Emma doesn’t know best after all?

A new laugh-out-loud retelling of a Jane Austen romance, perfect for fans of Lindsey Kelk and Fiona Collins, from the winner of the 2015 Joan Hessayon New Writers’ Scheme Award. Available to pre-order now!

Also by Brigid Coady

Persuading Austen

Emma Ever After

Brigid Coady

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Brigid Coady 2018

Brigid Coady asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

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

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 978-0-00-827032-2

BRIGID COADY was born in the UK but raised round the world with most of her childhood spent reading.

Brigid works for a communications and digital marketing agency as a producer and storyteller. Much of her writing is done at weekends in various Starbucks around the world.

In the past, she has been the official Writer in Residence on the 06:37 train from London Victoria to Canterbury West.

Brigid is also a voice-over artist, loves country music and has had her own radio show. Brigid’s obsession with One Direction and Kenny Chesney is perfectly healthy, no matter what anyone else says. She lives in London.

For the One Direction fandom and the five boys that brought us together.

Thank you for the music and the muse.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Letter from the Author

Excerpt

Endpages

Chapter One

‘Wipe that smug smile off your face, Emma Woodhouse,’ Gee said, punctuating it with his elbow in Emma’s ribs.

She absently rubbed her side, her eyes not leaving the newly married couple who were posing for photos.

‘They make such a wonderful couple, don’t they,’ she said, as the feeling of a job well done bloomed, making her smile bigger.

‘Yes, they make a lovely couple. And yes, their kids will be genetic masterpieces. Yada yada yada. And they’ll both have to keep working forever to pay for the psychiatric help they’ll need,’ Gee grumbled as he slouched next to her. ‘So, when do we get to the drinks? I need something to numb my pain. You promised me a free bar when you dragged me along to this.’

Emma could feel her smile slip from smug to exasperated. She should’ve known what she was getting into inviting Gee as her plus one to the wedding. Weddings alone were enough to make him snippy and judgemental but when you added in the celebrity factor it made him exponentially worse. Celebrity things always rubbed him up the wrong way and made him cranky.

‘There!’ She tore her gaze away from the picture-perfect scene that she’d helped to create and pointed to the tuxedo-clad waiters who were starting to pour out of the stately home venue carrying silver trays replete with full champagne flutes. They looked like a black and white tsunami, the sun glinting off the crystal as they came down the ‘so-green-it-looked-fake’ lawn.

‘At bloody last,’ Gee stood up straighter, pushed his sunglasses back up his nose and headed to cut off the nearest unsuspecting server.

Emma watched him stride away.

The long lean lines of his back shifting under his tailored suit jacket. His legs eating up the ground easily, the muscles on his thighs bunching and releasing under the material…

No.

She looked away, and held a hand to her cheek.

Damn this weather. She hoped that her make up wouldn’t melt.

She glanced back at Gee – the waiter he grabbed the glasses from was blushing and staring at him as if he were a god. He had that effect on everyone, she needed to give herself a break. She was only human, and although she should be immune to his general hotness after ten years, there was something about him in a suit… It made him look like her perfect man. As if he could be that ideal partner she’d imagined. The one she had subsequently written a full page of bullet points listing his attributes and which she kept in her planning file. But, she thought, looking at him, it was an illusion; he wasn’t that ‘ever after’ man, he was Gee. She wanted calm and ordered, not emotional ups and downs.

Bloody hell, this must be a good wedding if it made her resurrect her Gee crush. The heavy, overwhelming smell of roses causing her brain to short circuit and making her want to believe in the fairy tales she told the general public for her job. No, her Gee crush, which had lasted until midway through their first term at uni, had been dead and gone for almost a decade. Now, he was her best friend and flatmate. Anything else was not part of the plan. She didn’t need the mess of being with someone who believed in living in the moment or someone who had opinions on everything she did. No, everyone had to stay in their assigned roles.

That was the way the world worked.

She took a deep breath to steady herself.

Definitely no mess in her life – she wanted everything tied up in a bow, the t’s crossed and the i’s dotted. A perfectly realised strategy that would roll out with no blips. Just like this wedding.

Emma smiled. She couldn’t help it.

To quote Hannibal Smith, she loved it when a plan came together.

Who would’ve thought that nine months ago, this relationship had been a bullet point on one of her PowerPoint presentations.

Take one semi-famous actor who wanted to raise his profile. Add a singer from a now defunct girl band. Mix together in a PR relationship, a fauxmance. Make sure there are multiple pap walks and public dates. Make sure there is a cute relationship portmanteau name, or a ‘ship’ name, that the media picks up on and that can be hashtagged. Include soppy social media posts written by their PR team, and quite brilliantly if she did say so herself. She’d been especially proud of the little nicknames she’d told them to give each other. And it all added up to both their profiles shooting up exponentially.

The actor had new jobs flooding in and the singer got a solo deal plus some TV presenting.

A-plus, happy clients, happy managers.

But who would’ve thought the fake snuggling would turn to real snuggling? And suddenly there were engagement announcements and weddings to plan.

Damn, she was good at her job.

‘You’re looking smug again. Stop it.’ He said in her ear.

She ignored the slight shiver it always gave her when he did that, and elbowed him in his side.

‘Oi, watch it. You almost made me spill the drinks.’ He stepped back to make sure nothing splashed on either of them.

‘I can’t help it,’ she grabbed the glass from his hand and took a sip. ‘I’m happy.’

‘For a product of divorce, you are remarkably chilled around the smug marrieds,’ he said, using his height to look round them at the wedding guests who were huddling together in pastel coloured groups.

‘My parents had a very happy divorce,’ Emma said, ‘as well you know.’

And it had been happy, she thought. She felt the bubbles tickle her mouth as she sipped the gradually warming champagne. Happy because they had left each other and been able to marry other people.

Her feet twinged from standing too long, so she leant some of her weight on Gee, and he shifted to hold her up without thinking.

Her parents’ divorce and remarriages hadn’t stopped them from still being as flighty as each other. In fact, it had doubled the chaos. She sighed. There had been no one to hold her up then, because she had been the one who had to make sure there were plans and a structure.

She squinted into the distance. Where was the signal to go into dinner? She shifted and felt Gee move with her, a hand hovering just under her elbow.

Why did he have to bring up the ‘Rents. Her whole life had been spent making sure that she greased the wheels of any interactions to ensure no one could argue. Hey presto, you had a happy divorce. It was all in the spin and the story. And underneath she kept it all ticking over with meticulous planning. It was tiring but… she hated mess.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t love her, or weren’t proud of her, because they did and were. And that was what counted, surely? Not whether they’d left her alone in the immigration area at Delhi airport or not.

An hour later, they were crammed into a marquee that was sagging slightly at one side. The late August weather was sultry, no air or breeze moved through the tent, and the light and wispy draperies were limp.

Emma fanned herself with her place card.

‘I’m taking bets on who makes the most inappropriate toast.’ Gee was sprawled back in his chair, sunglasses still firmly on his face, his jacket now hanging off the back of his chair. His legs stretched out into the aisle. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. She refused to look at his tanned arms.

‘Nope,’ she said sitting up straighter as the sound of a fork on a glass rang out, quietening the room. ‘I’m not taking your bets.’

It would’ve been easy money to win though. She had drafted all the speeches and finalised them during the run-through this morning. There were only three speeches; the best man, the father of the bride and then the groom. Not an inappropriate remark in any of them.

As the best man stood up to speak, she leant forward, her lips sounding out the words as he began.

She batted away the linen napkin Gee wadded up and threw at her without taking her eyes off the wedding party.

‘Perfect,’ she said after the father of the bride sat down after his speech and toast. ‘One more to go.’

All but one of the speeches had been beautifully delivered so far, the words full of heartfelt meaning. And the best man kept to the official narrative that the bride and groom had met backstage at a Feckless Rogues gig. Smooth and organic, just like her boss wanted.

She thought back to the couple’s first meeting, where there hadn’t been a Feckless Rogue in sight, unless you counted the cover of NME in reception. And although the conference room at Mega!’s offices was quite comfy, they’d sat at opposite sides of the table and hadn’t looked at each other, he’d been talking to his manager and she’d been checking her phone.

How times change. Emma sighed as she looked at the top table. They were glowing.

Phil, the groom, leaned over and kissed Brooke’s cheek before he stood. ‘Phooke’, was their ship name; she’d tried for ‘Bril’ but for some reason it hadn’t taken. Like Hiddleswift had taken off instead of Taytom or Swiddleston. The public liked what they liked.

But this was the perfectly constructed story, she thought. It ticked all the boxes that any star and their management could want. It was the fantasy wedding and happily ever after that people wanted and it was clickbait for internet sites, the type that generated advertising revenue. The story just needed the photos that Emma would carefully select. The ones that would show the perfect wedding, framing it so no one saw the page boy having a temper tantrum or that the bride’s mother refused to sit with the bride’s father. And with every blemish airbrushed. It would sell all over the world, raising the profile of both Phil and Brooke’s names in the minds of the masses.

And the bonus was that for once it was actually real, with none of the usual subterfuge and spin underneath it all ending in a statement from their teams that they’d split but were still friends. No, this was merely a tweak to make the truth bigger. With this wedding, no one could crack the surface and see something different because this went down deep. They were in love.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ Phil began cutting through the buzz of conversation. ‘Before I move on to thank my beautiful wife, I’d like to thank someone else. She was the reason I was backstage at the Feckless Rogues’ concert in the first place. Emma Woodhouse, my wonderful publicist, if you hadn’t managed to find me those access all areas passes, we wouldn’t be here today. So, thank you, Emma. May you continue to work your magic.’ Phil raised his glass to her and winked.

She laughed and raised her glass back.

Chapter Two

‘Jesus, they aren’t even telling the truth at the wedding? How can they keep track of all the lies?’ Gee said, folding his arms and baring his teeth in the semblance of a grin.

‘It’s all in a spreadsheet, I keep it updated on Google docs,’ she answered, frowning as she listened to make sure that Phil hit all the important points in the speech. They were only white lies, she didn’t understand why Gee always got so wound up about it. Everyone did it – bent the truth or hid it to make them look the best they could. And it wasn’t just famous people, hell, what were filters on Instagram for if not for gilding the truth.

She looked behind her to make sure that the intern was stationed at the rear of the tent and was still filming all of the speeches on her phone. She’d have the other intern ready to capture any video of the dancing later. Then they would leak the videos from some of the guests’ social media accounts to get around the ‘we want to keep this a private event for family and friends’ story they had going. Keeping the illusion, even though the leaks were fully signed off by the happy couple.

‘It was supposed to be a rhetorical question, Ems.’ Gee pushed his glasses to the top of his head as he turned to look at her.

His eyebrows furrowed over hazel eyes.

‘Oh my god, didn’t you used to be Gee Knightley?’ One of the guests at the next table called over loudly.

Everyone in their vicinity turned around to stare.

Here we go again, Emma thought, trying not to smile.

Gee slumped further down in his chair if that was possible, his frown deepening. It was the same perplexed and bad boy look that had looked down from a poster on her wall when she was sixteen. And probably also been on the bedroom wall of the girl currently bouncing in her seat behind them.

‘I’m still Gee Knightley,’ he muttered, before sitting up, smoothing over his face and turning to smile.

‘Hey,’ he said with a small wave.

The girl squeaked, her face crimson and her eyes shining.

Ems rolled her eyes. This happened at least once a day. You would’ve thought that ten years after Gee’s boyband had broken up people would forget.

‘Oh my god, you were always my favourite in Status Single. Are you ever going to reform? I saw that Johnnie was acting now, what do you do? Oh Luke, Luke… you remember Status Single?’ The girl, who was really a woman in her late twenties, poked her companion with her finger.

The bloke looked grumpily impressed and also as if he were worried that Gee was either going to run after his girlfriend or himself and he wasn’t sure which one was better.

‘I’m sorry, but I think we need to listen to the speeches, maybe we can catch up afterwards?’ Gee whispered with a finger to his lips and a wink.

He turned back round, the practised smile falling from his lips.

‘This is all your fault, Woodhouse,’ he griped. ‘We’ll be all over social media in about a minute.’

‘Hush,’ she said. Not that she wasn’t used to it.

If she’d told her sixteen-year-old self that Gee Knightley would walk into her tutorial group her first week in university, she would have screamed and flapped in a fan girl panic. As it was, her eighteen-year-old self had gone bright red and tried to remember how to breathe.

They didn’t actually talk until two weeks later, when Gee had leaned over and asked if she knew what the hell the tutor was talking about.

And by the time they’d been made partners for a group project, Emma could just about forget that he had been Gee Knightley, lead singer and bad boy in Status Single, and the star of her teen fantasies. He’d become merely Gee, the annoying mature English and Business student whose main source of fun was making dry and sarcastic asides about their tutor or poking fun at her very carefully thought out plans for the future.

‘Okay, but we are getting out of here as soon as we can. I refuse to stay for the dancing, because they’ll start playing that song,’ Gee whispered.

‘I’ve got to meet with the team to choose which of the pap shots we want released, we can’t go till that is done,’ she replied.

Emma tried to hide her smile, because she knew that the Status Single song he was referring to was on the playlist.

Sometimes you had to get your little jollies where you could, even when you were working. And Gee’s grumpy face when a whole dancefloor did the dance that went with the song was always priceless.

‘I hate you,’ he said as he reached for his phone which was on the table. ‘And yes, I was right. The back of my head is already trending on Twitter.’

He flashed the screen at her. Yes, there was the back of his head and hers.

‘Damn it, Gee, why didn’t you tell me my hair was coming down at the back?’ Her hand went up to fix it.

‘I thought it looked nice, less corporate, more my Emma,’ he said, putting the phone back on the table and slid his sunglasses back on.

He reached a finger up and tickled the back of her neck interfering with her attempts to repair her hair.

She couldn’t help but laugh even as a tingle went down her spine.

‘You aren’t helping, and you are such a drama queen. You’ve had people taking your photo at least once a day since I’ve known you. And I know you aren’t as grumpy about it as you make out to be.’

‘Fine, Woodhouse, but you need to make it up to me, now my privacy has been violated. You have to deal with taking the rubbish and recycling out for the rest of the week for making me come here. Pinky promise?’

He held his pinky finger out, while he stared ahead as Phil was still proclaiming his love for Brooke.

She brought up her hand and let him wrap his finger round hers. Warmth spread through her. Life was always good when she had Gee next to her. Partner in crime, platonic soulmate.

And even if he was always trying to upset her plans and get her to let loose, he’d never leave her. Sometimes she thought he knew her better than anyone else did. Maybe even herself.

There was rustling and movement as everyone got up for the last toast to the bride.

‘And that is my cue,’ he squeezed her finger and under cover of everyone seating themselves again, he managed to slip out of the tent. How he managed to do it when he was over six foot she didn’t know, it was like he had a force field round him that made people part in front of him.

Emma got her bag together. This might be a wedding, but she was working, which is why she’d brought Gee. He kept any single men who thought they would get lucky at bay and he didn’t get the wrong idea. He also knew how to behave at these sorts of things, even if he grumbled. And, he didn’t need entertaining or babysitting. When she had a plan that was this detailed and finely tuned she couldn’t be distracted.

Not that Emma had time for a relationship, working in the publicity and PR department of Mega! Management took way too much time. But she had a timeline for a relationship and marriage and all that, because you couldn’t leave these things to chance.

She shuddered at the thought of not having a plan. If you didn’t plan, anything could go wrong. So she had her checklist for the right sort of bloke she’d end up with. Not that she was due to meet him or date him for another year or so, according to her timeline.

So yeah, Gee was perfect plus one material.

‘Oh, did Gee Knightley leave?’ The girl stopped Emma as she got up to meet the rest of the team in the room they’d taken over as control centre. Otherwise known as the library.

Emma took a deep breath, poor Gee. No matter where he went he could never really hide.

‘Yeah, sorry he had a call from Johnnie that he had to take.’

The girl’s eyes widened and her hand came up to her mouth.

‘Johnnie? But I thought they… are they dating?’ she whispered.

Emma winked and walked off.