Cold Feet

Cold Feet
Francois Keyser

She's a wedding planner in love with love. She loves seeing couples get married and commit to each other and longs for her own romantic wedding day someday.

He's a divorce lawyer who doesn't believe in love. He sees couples as opportunities to make money with prenups before their weddings and as potential repeat business when and if they divorce.

Their initial meeting goes from attraction to dislike of one another at a wedding that turns into an unbelievable disaster for her.

When they meet again in the future will they be able to put the past behind them and find love together, or will some opposites never be attracted to each other?

VIOLA

I’m in love with love and I love couples who are in love. They are my bread and butter after all but that’s not why I love them.

There’s something so magical to see a couple choose to go into the future together, to face life’s challenges together, and rise above it all to come out on the other side stronger and more in love than ever before.

I love it so much that I became a wedding planner. Watching couples young and old committing their lives to each other is something that’s just so special. No couple is the same. There’s something different about all of them that makes each one special.

I never get tired of seeing couples stare lovingly into each other’s eyes as they plan, prepare and execute their wedding ceremony pledging their undying love to one another for the rest of their lives.

I haven’t got there yet myself but watching other couples keeps my dream of finding Mr. Right alive. But life doesn’t always see things the way we dream of them turning out. It sure didn’t see it my way when he crossed my path.

RICK

I don’t believe in love.

If it really exists why are there so many broken relationships and people in the world? Not that I care… about the broken relationships I mean. After all, they are my bread and butter. And those events called weddings are my hunting ground. After all, people lay the foundation for the demise of their marriage before they’re even married. Prenups and all sorts of agreements are designed to protect their wealth and their assets and force others to stay with them even when they don’t want to anymore. Weddings give couples the right to punish each other when they don’t want to be together anymore for whatever reason.

So, when anyone tells you that it starts with a wedding they’re wrong. It starts with a lawyer. And if it ends… well, it ends with a lawyer too. Funny that.

Often the people that I work for before their wedding, come knocking on my door a few years down the line. Repeat business. So, love is great and it is for me but just not for me if you get what I mean.

When I met the wedding planner she was incensed at the thought that we might collaborate. Other planners have no issue with it. Why she should have, I don’t get it. Normally I would just walk away but the universe seems to have other plans…

First published by Tektime 2021

Copyright © 2021 by Francois Keyser

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission

from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or

distribute it by any other means without permission.

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.

Francois Keyser asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this

work.

First edition

Cover art by Kseniia Lopyreva

FRANCOIS KEYSER

Cold Feet

VIOLA

The Los Angeles Wedding Exhibition. The largest and most important annual wedding exhibition in Los Angeles. Anyone who is anyone in the industry is there and anyone who wants to be someone in the industry should be there.

It’s the first year I’ve been able to rent a booth. My initial doubts about whether I can justify the cost and whether I’ll recover the investment from a brand awareness and income perspective remain to be seen. So far, it would appear that renting a booth was the right thing to do.

I have had plenty of customers register with me for follow-up appointments and even a few confirmed bookings on the spot. All told, I’m on top of the world.

Then I see her. My role model in the industry. Christine Jackson. She is the number one in the industry. I have admired her from afar for so long. While we are competitors, I hold her in the highest regard. There’s room enough for both of us and then some in the industry. I’ve never met her though but today, at last, I see her in the flesh.

She is as beautiful as the photos I have seen of her. Her long, straight blonde hair is perfect and seems to be magically held in place. Her voice is welcoming and soothing and her emerald green eyes sparkle. She wears a smart suit that accentuates her figure in all the right places. It has the effect of creating a professional image as opposed to a sexy one, depending on who she’s talking to. I’m sure men want to talk to her for the reason that she is so sexy while their wives talk to her because she looks so professional and confident. It’s a no-brainer for a husband and wife to agree on using her for their children’s wedding or for a couple to agree to use her for their wedding even if they have different reasons for being convinced to use her.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to stereotype, and not everyone will fall for the trick but there is a reason why dressing sexy is one of the oldest tricks in the book to getting attention. It works.

Mentally, I take a page out of her book as I study myself surreptitiously in the mirror of the booth opposite mine. I might not be dressed as sexy as Christine but I’m not doing badly at all businesswise. So maybe I don’t need to dress like her and I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.

I’m surprised by a voice behind me.

“Are you Viola?”

I turn around hastily blushing at having been caught studying myself in the mirror. It’s Christine and I blush even more just because it’s her. I recover quickly and nod.

“Yes. I am. You are Christine Jackson.” I offer my hand but she ignores it.

“Everyone knows me,” she smiles.

“You have no idea. I’ve been a fan of yours ever since I started in the industry. You’re my role model.”

“Really?” Christine’s eyes flash as she takes in my remark. “I’m happy to hear that. I had no idea that someone like you was just a follower.”

I’m fawning over Christine like a school girl when her first crush notices her for the first time. Before I can say anything more my assistant, Jessica catches my attention. I look at her and she holds up her mobile phone and indicates that someone wants to talk to me.

“Um… excuse me for a moment,” I say. I cross to Jessica who takes me by the arm and turns away from Christine.