God, I can't believe how weird this feels, I haven't slept in this bunk bed for years, and it used to be Bella in the one up above, but now it's Jade cos Bella and her old man and Archie, her little boy, have moved into their own flat. Jade is up the spout again, silly girl, I don't think she even knows who the dad is this time, or she won't say, but it's not the same bloke as Warren's, her first, that's for sure. I want to tell her to keep her bloody legs crossed in the future or at least use something while she waits for someone who'll put a ring on her finger, rather than just knocking her up and then pissing off and leaving her to get on with it, but I don't think she'll listen to me, she'd more than likely say I'm just being a smug cow because I've got a ring on mine, or I will have tomorrow.

I still find it hard sometimes to believe that this seriously fit bloke, the way he looks and the way he is, who's not a fuckwit and who isn't just taking the piss, wants to be with me and not just in bed. He keeps saying as how he doesn't want me to change but that he wishes I would stop putting myself down all the time, but I'm not. It's just that I know me better than he does and I know all the things I think and feel that I don't share with anyone, not even him, well especially not him, but knowing who I am is not putting myself down, is it?

I'm only here because Mum and Nan insisted, said I couldn't sleep with him the night before our wedding, but I don't see why not. This'll be the first night we've slept apart since Sandbanks and I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep and Charles obviously can't, cos he's already sent me three texts tonight whinging about how much he hates being on his own and how much he misses me and how his mum and dad are driving him nuts and how glad he is that they're only stopping at ours for the one night. Considering how Mum and Nan were so arsey about me being on the shelf, you'd think that they'd have been happier about us getting married, I thought they'd be over the sodding moon, but Mum keeps on that because he's so posh and that it's so rushed that everyone's gonna think it's a forced do, especially as it's in a Registry Office, but I'm not pregnant, or at least I'm pretty sure I'm not. I know I'm not the most reliable about remembering to take my pill, but even that doesn't matter, it wouldn't make any odds because that's not the reason we're getting married. I wish Mum and Nan would just see him as the bloke that I love and the bloke who loves me and not as some sort of sodding posh celebrity who's somehow doing me a favour by marrying me. Dad, of course, couldn't give a toss about any of it, as long as it doesn't cost him any beer money, and it won't because Charles is paying for everything or as he keeps saying, we are paying, so it's all okay as far as Dad's concerned.

Waking up wrapped round him that first morning after we got together, I suddenly thought how happy I was and how happy we were going to be as long as I could stop worrying everything to bloody death and just enjoy it and him. He didn't want to do the book signing in Poole, said he was bored shitless with doing them and would much rather stay in bed and play all day, so I had to bribe him, it was supposed to be my job to get him there after all, mind you the bribe turned out to be just as much fun for me as it was for him. We didn't go straight back to London after Poole, I had my two days off cos I'd worked the weekend and he had nothing booked, so we stayed down there for an extra couple of days and I rang Cherry to tell her all about it and to get her to spread the gossip at work. Once she'd stopped screeching about what a bloody lucky cow I am, and how it wasn't fair, she said she'd already had a sort of idea which way the wind was blowing, but I'm not sure she's telling the truth, she'd never said a dicky bird to me before.

Going in the office on my own on my first day back was really sort of horrible, I was so nervous because I didn't know what people were going to say, or what was going to happen, I honestly thought that they would laugh at the thought of him wanting to be with me and I wasn't sure whether Geoff would be mad or even fire me, but of course that didn't happen. Apart from anything else they wouldn't want to piss Charles off. He's proving to be a great meal ticket; his first book is still top of the Times list, and I still haven't read it, and his second is due for release next week… I'm pleased to say that the advance reviews are magic, because he'd most likely be bloody hurt if anyone said anything shitty and I'd hate that, and the advance orders are huge. He's just started on his third, because he says he's going to have to write at least two a year if he's ever going to make enough money to buy me my house in Sandbanks, but I think that might still be out of our league, just a bit, and anyway I don't give a shit where we live, as long as he's there it'll do me. And we can always go there for holidays.

At the moment we're living in this flat in Hampstead, which he loves and I think is okay, and we can at least park here, which was more than we could in any of the places we looked at in Soho. He said he wanted to make me happy, and we obviously couldn't share my hovel in Brixton cos it was far too small, well my flat wasn't a hovel but even I had to admit that the street and the building were a bit iffy, and he was staying in this serviced studio flat in Wapping on a short rental thingy, but it was very titchy and very, very bleeding expensive. We started looking at places like Dean Street which I loved, but Charles absolutely hated, he kept saying that much as he loves me and wants to make me happy, he weren't going to live anywhere where he'd worry about the kerb crawlers every time I went out or that some bastard would mistake me for a hooker.

Jane said she was a bit confused about all the shit that had gone down with Steve, that she'd thought I was engaged to him, then I wasn't anymore and then I was with Charles, so I sort of lied and blamed Chantal, said she'd exaggerated stuff because she was a jealous cow, which was sort of true, but not totally. I'm sure that Jane remembers that I never put her right when she first mentioned my so-called 'engagement' to Steve, but she's obviously decided that it wouldn't be worth saying nothing about that, so she's let it go. I do love Jane because I think she understands me and there are not many people who do. God, I always thought that I was a shit liar, that everyone could see straight through me but I'm beginning to think I could get quite good at it, become a proper PR girl.

Mitch got together with Cherry to do a press release about us getting married, sometimes I find it hard to remember that Charles is so famous that people outside the family are interested, but I'm not bleeding kidding myself that anyone is interested in me or who I am. One person who was interested in talking to me was bloody Steve. I was really bothered when he called, I hadn't heard from him since before Sandbanks, so I thought he'd called to blag some cash off me or something if he thinks I'm going to be with someone who's got a few bob, but that wasn't it at all. He was actually quite nice, said he'd missed me and had made a real mistake when he'd walked. I did something really dumb and agreed to meet him for a drink, I mean, I knew I shouldn't, I don't even think I wanted to really, but I was still finding things hard to believe, so I sort of expected it all to go down the bog at any minute.

OGOGOGOGOG

I don't know who told him but some bugger must have seen us and opened their big trap, I just hope that it wasn't Cherry or one of my other mates. He wouldn't say who, just that he was really hurt, so that I got all angry which I think was most likely because I felt so guilty. Not that I did anything to be guilty about, I mean it was just a drink in a pub in Soho, I never touched him, not even a kiss, I didn't want to, but I lied to Charles about where I was going and who I was going with. I don't know why I did that, except that I was shit scared and panicking that when he and I weren't anything anymore, I would need to start over and how the hell was I going to do that if all my mates had moved on?

"Why, why him Molly?"

"Because I wanted to, that's why" I could hear my voice, all stroppy and harsh and I didn't mean it, so why the fuck was I being like this? "Why are you making such a bleeding fuss? It was nothing, just a drink, just a drink in a pub with an old mate, nothing else"

"If that's all it was, why did you lie?"

"I dunno, cos maybe that's what I wanted to do, because that's what I do sometimes" I couldn't believe what I was saying, what he was making me say, and that now I was blaming him for what I was saying and for what I'd done. I just wanted to stop, to back down, to say I was sorry and that I didn't mean any of it, that I loved him for fuck's sake. I think that's been my problem, that I'm scared to admit that I've never quite believed in 'us', that I've been waiting for him to get pissed off and find himself another Chantal.

"I thought you loved me, that we love each other, and that's why we're getting married so that we can be together, but if you don't want that, you've got to say, Molls, you can't just carry on and marry me because you said you would"

"I'm sorry"

"What? You don't want to marry me, is that what you're sorry about?"

"No, that's not it, of course I want to marry you, I love you and I'm really, really sorry, so stop being nice to me. I don't know what gets into me, you know better than anyone that I can be a real fuck muppet sometimes. Tell me who told you, who stirred it? I need to know if it was one of my mates, don't I? Mind you I didn't think any of them knew, it wasn't such a big deal that I told anyone"

"Steve did, he rang me"

"Steve? Why the fuck would he do that?"

"Maybe to get me back for calling him pond scum and pushing him over, then nicking his girlfriend"

"You didn't nick me, I never belonged to him. Did you tell him I said he was crap in bed?"

"Hardly, I wasn't going to talk about you being in bed with him, was I? I hate the thought"

"I would have done, it would have served him right, trouble making little sod"

"Yeah I know you would"

"And he still owes me a shed load of money"

"Shall I go and beat it out of him?"

"No, come and give me a hug instead"

OGOGOGOGOG

Tomorrow, which is four months to the day since I met him in the Duck; we're going to Hampstead Registry Office to get married. Bella and Cherry are going to be our witnesses, sort of bridesmaids, sort of, but Jade didn't want to do it. I know that's mainly because of her belly and that she doesn't want to talk about it when people ask her, I just wish I could make things better for her but I can't.

I have tried to get a bit more fit because I know how bloody fit he is, and no, I haven't been to sodding Yoga again, I can't believe that something that made me feel so crap was good for me, although I know it is, and I really admire Cherry because she stuck with it and even I can see that it's helping her. I have tried a bit of running on the Heath, although not with Charles. I did try that once but I don't think an oxygen mask in one hand and a bar of chocolate in the other looks quite right, so I do a little bit of gentle jogging on me own, and that means that I can stop and walk when I get a bit puffed. Anyhow I keep telling Charles that I'm sure I'll get faster and go a bit further when I've had a bit more practice, and that some exercise has got to be better than none, but he laughed at me and told me that I'm supposed to keep on going when I get puffed. The trouble is I hate the sweaty look, not on him mind, that's a whole different ball bag, but on me? no thanks. I'm still eating so-called crap for breakfast as well.

Charles' parents have come up from Bath for the wedding, I've only met them the once before and if they're as bloody disappointed in his choice of bride as I thought they were going to be, they've hid it really well. Mind you they are so proud of him that you'd think he could walk on water and I think we have that in common so maybe that's why they've been so nice to me, welcoming me to their family 'n that. His mum told me all about how horrible and scary it was when he got shot and I've obviously seen his scars so I'm as glad as she is that he isn't in the sodding army anymore.

The first time I really saw his scars, well the one on his stomach mostly, was the first night we was together, after we'd got back from the sand dunes I mean, I didn't notice when we was actually in the dunes, I think I must have been thinking about something else at the time. I wanted to cry when I saw how some bastard had hurt him like that, but I managed not to because I was suddenly a bit worried that he was going to think I was some sort of nut job, always turning on the waterworks.

I know I'm not perfect, even though he keeps telling me that I am, but I do know one thing and that is that I love him, and I know that he loves me and that tomorrow is going to be the happiest day of my life, but when I told him that, he said 'ditto', which saved him from having to think for himself what to say, lazy bugger.

OGOGOGOGOG

Author's notes: Thank you for your lovely reviews and I hope that you all enjoyed this finale. I have given a bit of thought to the suggestions that some of you would like to see the story from Charles' p.o.v., and may play about with that, but I wouldn't want anything to be repetitive, so am not promising anything until I've looked at it.

I have some thoughts about doing "A matter of luck" series 2, so will probably do that next, but I would like to know what you think.