Page 1 of My Big Fat Vampire Wedding

T he whole situation was hopeless.

Pandora wiped the counter for the twentieth time in as many minutes, frustrated that the overnight shift at the coffee shop didn’t give her the rush of customers to distract her from the swirling thoughts stirred up by the impromptu meeting with her family just before her shift had started.

Wasn’t it just like immortal creatures who’d had, oh, a hundred and twenty-four years to outline the exact parameters for inheriting her rightful fortune to wait until three months before her birthday to give her the news?

“You know, darling, this is the way things have always been. I don’t know why you are acting like it is such a surprise,” her mother had said.

The words came out slurred, thanks to unusually large fangs that Pandora suspected were surgically enhanced, though her mother would never admit to such a thing.

“All right,” Pandora’s manager, Lucy, said, interrupting the whirling thoughts that were threatening to work themselves up into an outright cyclone.

“What’s going on?” She reached up to pull her thick sable hair into a clip.

Pandora had long envied that hair, wondering if the thickness and its ability never to frizz even in the relentless autumnal London rain were due to Lucy’s werewolf genes.

Pandora’s own deep-red hair threatened to puff up just from standing over the milk steamer for too many mixed drinks.

“It’s nothing.” Even Pandora heard the defeat in her own voice.

Lucy’s brows rose above her golden-brown eyes. Pandora knew her friend well enough to know that she would never let something go when her curiosity was piqued. A dog with a bone, if you will.

“My parents,” Pandora said.

“Uh-oh. What did they do now? Replace your bed with a coffin again?”

That had been a whole month-long ordeal where her parents had gone on and on about how important trad-itions were, while Pandora had insisted that coffins just weren’t comfortable. Was it her fault she liked to sleep on her side?

“No, they just told me that there’s some fine print on my inheritance.”

“What kind of fine print?” Lucy asked as she straightened the coffee syrups. They were running dangerously low on spiced chai.

“Oh, you know, nothing crazy. Just that I have to be married to receive it.”

“Wait. What? Married? Your birthday is in—”

“Three months. And I’m, you know, single. Hopelessly, miserably single.”

“Well,” Lucy said, smirking. “At least you’ll have eternity to enjoy your upcoming poverty.”

“What is the point of living forever if I am going to be working for minimum wage? Can you picture it? Me, three hundred years old, scavenging around the shops for discount blood.”

“Type O-So-Pathetic.” Lucy laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Pandora grumbled as she smacked Lucy with a tea towel.

“It’s actually hilarious. Don’t they say that love strikes when you least expect it? Given your recent dating record, maybe you’re due to actually find someone.”

“Gee, thanks,” Pandora said with a miserable little laugh.

She had to admit that Lucy was right about her love life. Or complete and utter lack of it, to be more accurate. What could she say? It wasn’t easy to meet people when you were of the nocturnal variety. Unless, of course, she wanted to date a fellow vampire.

She didn’t, for the record. At least not any of the vampires that she’d met so far.

Much to her family’s dismay. They’d spent the last fifty years trying to set her up with everyone, from some slimy vamp who’d claimed to be a direct descendent of Dracula himself – yeah, right – to some random vampire they’d met at a blood bar who’d been old enough to be Pandora’s grandfather.

Was it too much to ask for sparks and butterflies? And not having to try to figure out the schematics of trying to get all glandular with each other in a coffin?

“Just trying to be realistic here,” Lucy said. “You know what? I think I just found the perfect guy.” She gave Pandora ridiculously cheesy eyebrow wiggles and a nod toward the front of the shop.

Pandora turned around, trying not to seem too obvious.

Her gaze slid out of the front windows.

The sun had been set for hours, but the lights lining the street illuminated the steady trickle of rain, soaking the colourful leaves scattered on the pavement.

Droplets slipped down the windows as Pandora finally spotted the man Lucy was talking about.

It took everything in her not to burst out laughing.

Because there, sitting at his usual table near the front of the shop, was one of their regulars. A man with a personality as dry as a sheet of paper and a tendency to noisily blow his nose into a filthy-looking handkerchief every few minutes.

Not to mention that he had a love of blue polka-dots and green-and-red tartan. Often at the same time.

Or the fact that he had not only a crop of white hair on top of his head, but also no small amount growing out of his nose and, somehow, his ears.

“Listen,” Pandora said, turning back to Lucy, pressing her lips together to keep from smiling. “I might be desperate, but I haven’t quite hit rock-bottom yet. If I propose to anyone, it’ll be someone … someone like—”

“Like the guy you’re secretly obsessed with?” Lucy shook her head at Pandora. She’d made her feelings known about Pandora’s crush and adamant refusal to do anything about it. Often.

“Shh!” Pandora’s head whipped around, making sure no one, least of all said guy, was hanging around, listening to them.

“I’m not obsessed with anyone!” she said, even as her mind filled with images of a certain someone who was almost an hour late for his usual trip into the shop.

“I’m just going to have, you know, some standards here. ”

“Yeah, I mean, maybe it’s better if it isn’t the young, handsome, smart guy you’ve been drooling over for the past few months, who doesn’t know you’re a vampire.

The old dude is definitely the better bet.

With any luck, he’ll slip away peacefully in his sleep before you even have to consummate the marriage. ”

“You’re so mean.”

“I like to think I’m practical,” Lucy said.

“A dead husband means you technically got married, like your parents want, so you get your inheritance. But you also are free as a bird to pursue Caramel Macchiato Cutie,” she added, using the nickname Pandora had coined for the customer who’d been coming in every night for months.

Pandora shook her head. “I’m not going to pursue anyone.”

“Even though you’re hopelessly, miserably single?”

“Even though,” Pandora said. “Being unhappily single doesn’t mean I’m not going to be, you know, a little selective.”

“Should probably be more than a little selective.” A third voice joined the conversation, making Lucy’s golden eyes brighten, and a strange shiver moved up Pandora’s spine. She knew that voice.

She’d had many steamy dreams featuring it, his lips near her ear as he whispered words that had her pulse thrumming and butterflies swooping in her belly.

That was Caramel Macchiato Cutie’s voice.

All baritone and rumbly.

Pandora whipped around to find him right on the other side of the counter. They really needed to get some bells on that door or something.

Caramel Macchiato Cutie stood there in all of his rain-soaked glory. He was tall and lean under the dark jeans and emerald-green jumper that made his light green eyes pop all the more.

Pandora would bet good money – that she didn’t have – on there being some delicious muscles under those layers of clothes. Or, at least, that was what her fantasies suggested. Often. In great detail.

He had a sharp jaw, generous lips that were prone to frowning, and a brow that could be called nothing other than “broody”. Looking very much like a dreamy Mr. Darcy had stepped out of the pages of the Jane Austen novel and into a little all-night coffee shop in modern-day London.

In short, the guy was Pandora’s dream man come to life.

And there he was.

Three feet away.

While she talked about her embarrassing little predicament.

“Oh, uh, didn’t realize you were … right there. Hear much?” Pandora asked, stomach twisting in knots, begging him to have just walked up right then.

“Just the part about you being miserably single.”

Those were more words than she’d ever heard him speak. Normally, he gave out one- or two-word answers at best. She’d never got to appreciate just how appealing his voice was. The sound of it shivered down her spine, despite her humiliation. Her fantasies were going to get some updating.

“Oh, fantastic,” Pandora said, feeling a little queasy. And vampires weren’t even supposed to get nauseated.

“This is going great!” Lucy said, beaming, looking close to clapping her hands, like this was one of the beloved romcoms they were both always reading. And not Pandora’s embarrassing real life.

“Your usual?” Pandora managed to squeak to Caramel Macchiato Cutie, desperate to get this awkward inter-action over with.

He gave her a nod before walking over to his table, pulling off his backpack, and unpacking a laptop, several books and a notebook full of colourful tabs.

She had no idea what he was working on, but she loved to watch him deep in thought, the way his brows pinched in concentration as he flipped the pages of a book while his other hand moved frantically over the page.

“Kill me now,” Pandora grumbled under her breath as she reached for a paper cup featuring a seasonal flock of bats. The irony was not lost on her.

“You’re already dead.” Lucy passed Pandora the cara-mel syrup.

“Besides, I changed my mind. You’re not going to marry Charlie,” she said, glancing back over at the sound of the older gentleman blowing noisily into his handkerchief.

Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, inspecting the fabric before shoving it into his pocket.

“No, I’m definitely not,” Pandora said, wrinkling her nose as Charlie ran his, likely snotty, hand over the table, tapping his fingers lazily on the surface.

Lucy smiled. “You’re going to marry Caramel Macchiato Cutie.”

“I am definitely not marrying Caramel Macchiato Cutie,” Pandora said, catching a glance at herself in the windows as she passed, her stormy blue eyes looking a little too sad at that declaration as she actively tried to ignore the way that her words caused a pang in her chest.