Hey guys, I'm author of Mr. and Mrs. Goode 1 and 2. Here's my new story that I'm working on (For the fans of my first two fanfictions: I'm still working on the sequel and plan on updating soon) Hope you like it!

Chapter 1

Cammie and Guest

Mr. and Mrs. Joe Solomon

request the honor of your presence

at the marriage of their daughter

Belinda Anne Morgan

to

Thomas Cade Johnson

On Saturday, 11th May, at 1:00 P.M.

At

Kew Gardens London

RSVP

The invitation came just in time to ruin my weekend. It wasn't a surprise. When the prodigal daughter is getting married, you don't have to wait for the invitation to find out. If your mother was anything like mine, everyone was told the millisecond after the proposal. Most of Bexhill knew because my mother put an announcement in the local paper. I wouldn't put it past her to have announced it to all of England if she could've figured out how to use anything other than Internet explorer.

The words "and guest" almost appeared in bold.

I got the call later from her—the dreaded "I'm writing up the placement cards and was wondering if I needed to add someone?" Since the engagement, my mother has been nagging me about bringing a date. At the engagement party she politely reminded me,

"You know, dear, your younger sister is getting married before you. Now you know I'm not old-fashioned, but people in this town like to make a big fuss out of things like that. I'm not saying you have to bring a date, but women who show up at weddings alone give off a desperate vibe. And I just wouldn't want you to lose face. Especially since that wretched Josh is going to be there."

Ah yes. My ex-boyfriend Josh—correction ex-fiancé Josh. It was the usual story. We dated through high school and college. When we graduated he proposed. I was excited. My mother was absolutely ecstatic. We were engaged for a couple months when out of the blue he wanted to break it off. He claimed we had become a "comfortable habit." But, since Josh was as good at lying as a five-year-old child, I knew at once something else was behind the sudden break.

Or rather who.

I had met DeeDee at a party thrown by a friend of Josh's a couple weeks prior to the breakup. She had that all-American girl look that made her perfect for beer commercials or stealing your man. When we met, she was sickly sweet, like poisoned honey. It was obvious how into Josh she was.

Later he accused me of being rude to her, which I retorted with some snippy comment about her being all over him. He assured me he had no interest in her. And like a fool, I believed it.

"Mother, it's been two years. I'm over it."

That was mostly the truth. I had no residual feelings for Josh, but that didn't mean I wanted him to see me as anything but happy and better off without him. And of course, I needed to appease my mother, who just couldn't understand why I was still single.

"Dear, if there's anything you need to admit to me, feel free. You know I'll love you no matter what." My mother's subtle way of asking if I was a lesbian. Honestly, she wouldn't care if I brought home a convicted criminal as long as she could say that both of her daughters were married off. "Are you sure you're all right? I know the Josh thing happened a while ago, but if you're still pining for him…"

"Actually, mother, I've got a boyfriend," I said suddenly into the phone. I winced. Those were words I could not take back.

"WHAT?" she screeched. I moved the phone away from my ear. "Honey, why didn't you tell me sooner? What's his name? What does he do?" Her questions continued, while I frantically tried to make up a man. I glanced at my magazine and said the first name I saw.

"His name is Lawrence." Lawrence? Was I dating a guy from the 1950s? "Mother, I have to go. You'll meet him at the wedding," I said, not able to think of a decent lie to follow up my colossal one.

"You can't just drop news like that and hang up. I need details to tell everyone! Where'd you meet him?"

My mind was completely blank.

"At the dentist," was the first thing that came to mind. The dentist? Really, Cammie? That's the best you could come up with?

"The dentist?" my mother repeated, confused. I didn't blame her. I put my face in my hands and decided to finish off the horrible lie.

"Yes, he's my dentist." I could practically hear my mother grinning.

"You do have a thing for those doctor-types don't you? Oh I can't wait to spread the news!"

She was referring to the fact that my ex-fiancé was on track to be a doctor. In fact, he probably only had a year left of medical school. My stomach turned as I remembered the catch I lost to that Bitchface DeeDee.

"Mother, please don't make a deal of it. We've only been dating a short while."

"Why would I ever do that?" she asked innocently. "You know how much I detest gossip."

Just as much as a rich man detests his wealth I'm sure.

"Anyway, dear. He will be coming to the wedding then? Oh this is marvelous. You two will stay with Joe and I, of course. I'll have your old room prepared. I can't wait to meet him. Oh. I must go now. The caterer is on the other line. Goodbye, dear."

I wanted to curl up in misery and perhaps drown myself in vodka. Why did I have to invent a fake boyfriend? What crazy person does that?

Just then my roommate Macey walked through the door of our apartment. Her black hair was styled in a sleek ponytail. Her eye makeup and eyebrows were so on point you would've thought a professional did them. She wore a cream colored skirt with a slit up the back and a silky black top that screamed elegance and expensive. She constantly looked as if she had her life together. A look I wish I could master.

She took one look at my disheveled hair and bleak state and asked,

"What's wrong, Cammie?"

I told her the story, leading up to the worst lie in history of lies to my parents. And I mean worse than the one where I told them a deer rammed our car when really it was me who took it without permission and hit a mailbox. At least that lie didn't involve me having to produce a man from thin air.

"Well, that's quite a predicament," Macey said, as she poured both of us a glass of wine. I'd have preferred something stronger. "Why don't you just ask a friend or colleague to go with you," she suggested.

"And suffer utter humiliation by telling someone I am too desperate to find my own boyfriend? No thank you."

"Why don't you ask Jonas?"

"Ask me what?" Jonas came out of the room with Liz in tow. Both of them wore pink cheeks and happy smiles that said "we just spend the day lounging and doing the dirty."

Liz was my other roommate. She and I had been friends since high school, so she knew my mother's antics pretty well. When I was fifteen, I attended a women's boarding school called Gallagher Academy in Virginia. My mother was headmaster of the school at the time. Then at the beginning of my junior year, a Mr. Joe Solomon wanted to enroll his daughter Belinda in the school, but she was rejected. Belinda's GPA wasn't high enough for admission. However, Solomon wasn't someone to take no for an answer, especially since he was a CEO at a multinational corporation. He inquired about a meeting with my mother. My mother didn't normally make accommodations for rejected students' parents, but considering his offer to donate millions to the school, she agreed to meet.

To make a long story short, sparks flew followed by a couple months of courting. Then a wedding was announced, and Joe was my new stepdad. I loved Joe. He was the only sane person in my family, although from time to time I question his judgment of choosing to be a part of my whacked-out family. And with Joe came Belinda—my stepsister.

The thing about Belinda was: she was everything I wasn't. She was petite and blonde, like a porcelain doll from the Victorian age. She had the face of an angel and wanted to do all that debutant crap my mother got all excited about. She was the daughter my mother never had.

Not to say I didn't get along with Belinda or resent her in any way. I was the older one, so it was my responsibility to make her feel comfortable. And she always needed coddling. She was one of those girls who'd cry at the drop of a hat. And not ugly normal-people crying. Tears would leak from her glossy blue eyes and travel down her perfectly cream skin. Any time she cried, the hearts of everyone around her would break, and they'd all jump at the chance to make her feel better.

After graduating from Gallagher Academy I attended Vassar in New York. Joe and my mother waited until Belinda graduated Gallagher before retiring to England where Joe grew up. Belinda spent a few years partying and wasting her trust fund in the states before heading to England where she settled down with Tom. And you know the rest: there's now a wedding.

"Cammie needs a date to her sisters wedding," Macey said, bringing me back from reminiscing.

"That would work if my mother didn't already know Jonas," I said bitterly, finishing my wine.

Jonas and Liz had been a couple for years. Last Christmas, they came to England with me to keep me company so my family didn't drive me insane. It was a good plan, until my mother's craziness tripled because my best friend had a steady boyfriend and I didn't.

"I'd give you my boyfriend, if I had one," Macey said. She was probably the only woman in New York City who didn't give a damn she was twenty-five and single (maybe not the only one, but she was the only one I knew). She was an up-and-coming lawyer at a pretentious law firm that only dealt with the richest of clients. Most men were intimidated by her success (and her wealth coming from daddy's trust fund) so she stayed happily single. She always said, "All I need is my Visa and MasterCard to keep me happy."

I claimed my job kept me too busy to find a man. This was partly true. After graduating from Vassar, I opened an art gallery on 5th. In fact, that's how I met Macey. Macey's firm represented several of the artists in my gallery. We became instant friends. We ended up living together when I complained to her about living above a noisy club. Since her company pays for her penthouse on the Upper East Side, she insisted I live with her. I asked Macey if Liz could take the spare third room when her dorm in Colombia (she's getting her PhD in astrophysics) flooded because some dumbass undergraduates hit the emergency showers with a Lacrosse ball. And that's how we all ended up living together.

"Why don't you tell your mother he dumped you," Liz said, spooning a mouthful of nutella in her mouth. I ignored the ping of jealousy in my stomach. Liz was actually a stick, despite the fact she eats more than an athletic teenage boy. Meanwhile, when I stray from my low-carb, fat-free diet (which happens all the time), I feel like a beached whale.

"Won't that make me look—"

"Pathetic. Sad. Like your mom will lose all hope of you ever getting married," Macey finished for me.

"Yup, that was the arsenal of adjectives I was going for," I commented dryly.

"Okay. Dump him then," Liz said, through another mouthful of nutella. She dropped some on a student's test she was grading. Liz was working as a professor of physics while getting her PhD. "Shoot!" She tried to wipe it off.

"That won't help the whole wanting to make Josh incredibly jealous," I said. I bit my nail, a terrible habit that my mother constantly nagged about.

"I thought you were over Josh," Jonas called from the couch. He was reading the magazine I discarded earlier.

"I am," I clarified. "But, he's going to be the best man at the wedding. And if I show up alone he's going to think that I haven't found anybody better. Plus, my mom is going to be down my throat the whole time concerned that I'm going to burst into tears every five minutes." A headache was starting to form, and I massaged my temples.

"Um, here's an idea." Jonas handed me the magazine opened up to an ad.

"Jonas, this is an ad for an escort agency!" I said, taking a second glance. Macey and Liz looked over my shoulder.

The magazine had a picture of a man dressed in a tuxe. He wore a cunning smile and bedroom eyes. Under the man a caption read:

Got an important occasion, but you're missing that one vital accessory? You've chosen the perfect dress, the perfect shoes, the perfect jewelry, why not choose the perfect man?

"This is ridiculous. I can't hire a hooker to take me to my sister's wedding!" I exclaimed, pushing the magazine aside. It was still within reach though.

"Escort," Jonas corrected.

"What if the guy is some crazy psycho?" I exclaimed, still trying to find reasons why it was a horrible decision.

Liz was scanning the article. She read, "'All the gentlemen have been vetted and given complete background checks. Each gentleman is held to extreme standards.'"

"This would make me look so desperate," I claimed.

"You are desperate," Macey added.

"Guys, this is ludicrous!"

"Not really," Macey said. I glared at her. She shrugged. "It's basically hiring an actor. The name is just a little different."

They all looked at me expectantly. Jonas pushed the ad closer to me. I glanced at the smiling face—a face that said, "Don't worry. Everything is going to be okay."

"This is so going to blow up in my face," I sighed, as I dialed the number for the agency.

Review please!