The Story of Us

A Novel

About the Book

For fans of David Nicholls’s One Day and Liane Moriarty’s What Alice Forgot, here’s a page-turning novel about a young woman who is torn between two men, and who must determine where—and with whom—her future lies.
 
Emma is just days from marrying her childhood sweetheart, Richard. But what should be the happiest time of Emma’s life takes a turn for the worse when, on the night of her bachelorette party, tragedy strikes. Thanks to some quick thinking from a stranger, Emma is pulled free from a totaled car before it goes up in flames. But another passenger is not so lucky.
 
The wedding is postponed as family and friends deal with their shock and grief. But soon, secrets come to light that have Emma questioning her relationships—and her engagement. Making matters more complicated is the emotional connection she feels with Jack, the mysterious man who saved her life. It’s a crisis no bridal magazine has ever covered: What do you do when, on the eve of your wedding, you find yourself in love with two men?

Praise for The Story of Us
 
“[Dani] Atkins’s fluid narrative voice moves the story along quickly and enjoyably. . . . This novel will appeal to readers who love the emotional ups and downs of conflicted characters, as written by Liane Moriarty or Jane Green.”Library Journal
 
“Emotionally powerful.”Publishers Weekly
 
The Story of Us has tragedy, betrayal, a love triangle, friendship, secrets, and hard choices. [It’s] the kind of story you read with one hand pressed over your heart.”Fresh Fiction
 
“Raw, compelling . . . Fans of deeply emotional women’s fiction will be intrigued and swept along with Emma on her journey to find acceptance, peace, and lasting love in her life.”—Harlequin Junkie
 
“One of the most heartfelt stories that I have read in years. Beautiful, compelling and thought provoking.”—Wicked Women Book Blog
 
“With its tales of life, friendships, families, love and relationships, [The Story of Us] is a touching book that will make you cry, laugh and be glad that you read it.”—23 Review Street
 
Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
Read more
Close

Praise for The Story of Us

“[Dani] Atkins’s fluid narrative voice moves the story along quickly and enjoyably. . . . This novel will appeal to readers who love the emotional ups and downs of conflicted characters, as written by Liane Moriarty or Jane Green.”Library Journal
 
“Emotionally powerful.”Publishers Weekly
 
The Story of Us has tragedy, betrayal, a love triangle, friendship, secrets, and hard choices. [It’s] the kind of story you read with one hand pressed over your heart.”Fresh Fiction
 
“Raw, compelling . . . Fans of deeply emotional women’s fiction will be intrigued and swept along with Emma on her journey to find acceptance, peace, and lasting love in her life.”—Harlequin Junkie
 
“One of the most heartfelt stories that I have read in years. Beautiful, compelling and thought provoking.”—Wicked Women Book Blog
 
“With its tales of life, friendships, families, love and relationships, [The Story of Us] is a touching book that will make you cry, laugh and be glad that you read it.”—23 Review Street
Read more
Close
Close
Excerpt

The Story of Us

1

The Beginning

Despite the obvious assumption, it was definitely the deer that caused the accident and not the daiquiris, and it most definitely wasn’t due to Caroline’s driving, because she hadn’t touched anything stronger than lemonade all night.

As hen parties go, mine had been a fairly subdued event. Nothing tawdry, no strippers, no L-­plates, no drunken antics that come back to haunt you in the months to follow. At twenty-­seven I felt I was perhaps a little too “elderly” for the nights of raucous partying that had been a signature note to my university days. Not that we hadn’t all had a great time, mind you. A group of ten of us had spent an indulgent girlie day at a luxury spa hotel, and then—­pampered, massaged, and moisturized to within an inch of our lives—­we’d moved on to the hotel bar, which (allegedly) served the best cocktails this side of Manhattan. I’d never been to New York, but if that was what the locals drank, it was certainly worth a visit in the future.

We’d only had one round of drinks when Sheila, my soon-­to-­be mother-­in-­law, got to her feet. “Oh, don’t say you’re leaving already?” I cried in disappointment.

“I have to,” she said with a regretful smile. “Poor Dennis has been on his own all day. I’ve just called a cab, it’ll be here in a few minutes.”

I got to my feet with a smile. “I’ll walk you out,” I said, picking my way over an obstacle course of legs and handbags to exit the table. With my arm linked through hers, we wove through the bar and headed toward the hotel foyer. Our route took us past my close friend Amy, who was sitting on one of the highly polished bar stools, ostensibly ordering more drinks. However, from her body language and low provocative laughter, I suspected she was looking for more than just a round of daiquiris from the good-­looking young barman. With his floppy blond hair and perfect white teeth—­which I could virtually count from the wide grin he was flashing at Amy—­he looked more boy-­band member than bartender. I almost felt sorry for him, the way you’d feel sorry for a marlin just before it’s hauled from the sea. He didn’t know it, but he didn’t stand a chance.

The foyer was eye-­dazzlingly bright after the discreetly lit bar, and my eyes watered a little in adjustment as we walked to the revolving doors to wait for the taxi. “Thank you so much for coming today, Sheila,” I said sincerely. I’d initially been rather surprised when Richard’s mum had accepted my invitation to join us. Of course, she was already like family to me, even before she officially became my in-­law. Our mothers had been friends for years; it was how Richard and I had first met, although as we were only two years old at the time, I really don’t remember it much.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Sheila replied, pulling me toward her in a real motherly bear-­hug of an embrace. I felt the pinprick of impending tears as she softly whispered the thing we’d both been thinking all day: “It’s such a shame that your mum wasn’t here with us.”

I nodded into her shoulder, enveloped in a fragrant cloud of Chanel No. 5, not entirely sure I could trust my voice to reply. She let me step back, squeezing both my hands tightly. “It’s all going to be fine, Emma, you’ll see.”

I watched her walk to the cab and waved as she climbed inside, but as the taxi pulled off the hotel forecourt, the smile on my face slowly slid away. Her words echoed in my mind. Mum should have been with us today, indulging in the lavish spa treatments and then pretending to be shocked at the bawdily named cocktails. My eyes began to water again, and this time it had nothing to do with the lighting.

At that moment the door to the ladies’ restroom opened and my friend Caroline, the third musketeer, emerged and saw me. She crossed the foyer in rapid strides, her face a picture of concern.

“Emma, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I was just saying goodbye to Sheila.”

I gave Caroline an admittedly wobbly smile and then almost lost the feeble hold I had on my composure when her arm went comfortingly around my shoulders. She didn’t need to hear me explain why I was suddenly overcome with emotion. She knew without asking, in the way that only your very best friends who’ve known you forever can.

She steered me gently from the door and back toward the place she had just come from. Every woman’s sanctuary in a crisis: the ladies’ restroom. She paused just once at the entrance to the hotel bar, waiting until Amy glanced our way. Caroline semaphored a message with a vigorous nod of her head and a meaningful glance at me. To the untrained eye it might have looked as though she had some sort of nervous complaint, but to the third member of our trio, it was as clear as if she’d just shouted out a message through a megaphone. Amy jumped lightly down from her stool and left the barman without a backward glance.

They listened with matching faces of sympathy and understanding as I explained why Sheila’s words had affected me. They allowed me just a few tears of self-­pity before springing into action like well-­rehearsed mechanics at a pit stop. Caroline pulled a handful of tissues from the chrome wall dispenser, while Amy rummaged in her bag for mascara and powder to fix the mess I’d made of my makeup.

They waited patiently as I repaired the damage, their teasing banter gradually pulling me back from my moment of darkness. “Feel better now?” asked Amy, giving me a brief hard hug when I handed back her makeup bag. I nodded and turned to face the reflection of the three of us in the wall of mirrors. They both smiled back at me in the glass and wound their arms around my waist. I’d known Caroline since we were at primary school, and Amy almost as long. And although there had been a period of time when we had drifted apart, in the year since I’d moved back to Hallingford we had picked up the dropped stitches of our friendship and sewn it back together, almost seamlessly.

Our bond was a real and tangible thing, a golden and unbreakable cord that tied us to one another every bit as strongly as it had in childhood. I hadn’t known a second’s hesitation when it had come to choosing my two bridesmaids. They’d both been in training for the role for over twenty years. No one had my back better than they did.

“So, shall we go?” urged Amy, clearly anxious to return to the bar.

I just knew Caroline wouldn’t be able to resist.

“You’re in an awful hurry. Wouldn’t have something to do with that hot guy serving the drinks, would it?”

Amy gave an impish smile. “Maybe. I think he goes off duty soon.”

Caroline glanced down at her watch and gave me a small wink. “It figures. He won’t want to be up too late . . . not with it being a school night, and all.”

“No, it’s not. It’s Saturday,” Amy corrected automatically, before the penny dropped and her face twisted in a wry smile. “Ha-ha, very funny.”

***

At just after midnight people decided to call it a night. Some of my guests faced a long journey home, and I’d be seeing everyone again in just two weeks’ time, on the day of my wedding. I felt a familiar shiver run through me at the thought, part nerves, part excitement, part . . . something else. I shivered again as we stepped into the cold March night air of the hotel car park, wrapping my arms around me in an effort to combat the biting wind, slicing with grim determination through the thin material of my sleeveless dress.

Caroline jumped into her car and started the engine, while I overenthusiastically hugged the assortment of female friends who’d shared the day with me. They were an eclectic mix from long-­past school days, university, and work, and although most of them had started the day as strangers they were ending it as deepest friends. Or could that just be the cocktails talking?

When the last of the waiting taxis or good-­natured other-­halves had collected everyone, I ran lightly across to where Caroline’s car was idling as she waited for me. I saw that Amy had already joined her in the vehicle, shotgunning the front passenger seat. She swiveled around to look at me as I opened the rear door and slid gratefully into the car’s warm and cozy interior. “You don’t want to sit here, do you?” she asked with typical guileless charm. I looked down at the very tiny space that was left for my legs in the rear section of the car. I’m no giant, but I had to be at least fifteen centimeters taller than my old friend. “It’s just I might get carsick if I sit in the back,” Amy continued.

“Daiquiri-­sick, more like,” corrected Caroline. Flicking off the car’s interior light and fastening her seat belt, she gave us both a tolerant grin. “There’s a thirty-­pound surcharge if you puke in my car.”

“Drive on,” Amy commanded, and then turned again to stage-­whisper to me, “She’s such a grump when she hasn’t had a drink!”

It was a forty-­five-­minute drive back to the small market town where I’d grown up; the town that I’d happily escaped from to go to university, that I thought I’d never return to after I got my first job in London, and that I’d had no choice but to move back to just twelve months earlier.

The country roads that we traveled to take us back to our hometown were largely deserted, but then it was getting late, so that wasn’t much of a surprise. I still found it so very different from the buzzing traffic that had continually hummed past my small London flat, no matter what time of the day or night it was. For a girl born and raised in the country, I was a real city-­lover.

A fine rain had fallen earlier in the evening, and in the headlights’ beams I could see a glittering reflection on the black tarmac as the roads began to freeze. It was the beginning of March, but it still felt very much like winter. I really hoped the weather was going to warm up before the wedding, or I was going to need thermals under my strapless bridal gown.

In the front seat I could hear Amy and Caroline debating about whether it had been poor judgment on Amy’s part to give the bartender her phone number. No prizes for guessing which one of them thought it was a bad idea. Caroline had been happily settled with her own partner, Nick, for . . . well, forever it seemed, and I knew she sometimes took a dim view of Amy’s more adventurous love life. My own relationship with Richard was much more to Caroline’s liking: childhood sweethearts, separated for years and now happily engaged to be married. Real storybook stuff, she claimed.

“Any man—­no, boy—­who spends the entire night trying to look down the front of your top doesn’t deserve your number,” Caroline declared scathingly.

I snickered, but I had to admit the barman had spent a great deal of time talking to Amy’s chest and not her face.

“I feel sick,” said Amy, in a small shamefaced voice.

“With humiliation?” I asked jokingly.

In reply Amy gave a small heaving sound.

Caroline flicked her eyes from the road to her passenger. Even in the darkened car, on a road with no streetlamps, it was obvious that Caroline’s humorous prediction had come true.

“Jesus, Amy. Hang on, I’ll pull over in one second. The road’s too narrow here.”

“Can’t wait,” Amy gurgled back somewhat unpleasantly.

“There’s a grocery bag on the floor by your feet,” Caroline advised.

About the Author

Dani Atkins
DANI ATKINS lives with her family in a small village in Hertfordshire with two elderly cats and one very excitable border collie. Then and Always is her first novel. More by Dani Atkins
Decorative Carat