Second Fiddle

By Meg Chronis

A wedding planner wannabe trying to save her fledgling career at a glam safari wedding. A gorgeous violinist who's not telling the whole truth. And a baboon moonlighting as cupid…what could possibly go wrong?

Intern Sophie James is one weekend and one glamorous African safari wedding away from becoming a permanent member of the Star Weddings team. All she needs to do is not mess up.

But booking a wedding string quartet that turns up minus a first violinist would definitely count as messing up. She could fill in herself; after all, she knows her way around a violin. Except a dream-destroying mistake a long time ago saw her pack away her instrument forever, and the thought of playing again is almost as harrowing as the thought of slinking back to her parents' house after yet another career sunk in a sea of failure.

It's a good thing then that Sophie finds herself in the right place at the right time to rescue the delectable—and heaven-sent—violinist Nate Holt from a baboon that's holding him captive in his game lodge shower. Now she has all the leverage she needs to convince him to fill in at the wedding in the bush.

Which is problem solved. Or so Sophie thinks. Because it turns out that problems, like baboons, are seldom solitary. As Sophie rushes to put out one career-ending fire after another, there's another fire sparking into life between her and Nate. But there's something Nate isn't telling her. Something Sophie really should have noticed, if she hadn't been so wrapped up in her own insecurities.

Once she finds out the truth about him, will she turn and run, letting her painful past continue to dictate her life? Or will she take Nate's hand and confront what happened all those years ago, so she can finally grab hold of a future she didn't even know she wanted?

A low-spice, super-swoony romcom novella set in the exotic bushveld of a South African game reserve, with a wish-he-were-mine book boyfriend and an uplifting, heartwarming happily-ever-after.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meg Chronis Books
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9780639794198

Book preview

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Copyright © 2023 by Meg Chronis

Meg Chronis reserves the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

ISBN (paperback): 978-0-6397-9418-1

ISBN (ebook): 978-0-6397-9419-8

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, dialogue, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, now known or hereafter invented, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

To contact the author, visit www.megchronis.com

Cover designed by Tallulah Lucy (www.tallulahlucy.com)

Contents

A note...

1.Chapter 1

2.Chapter 2

3.Chapter 3

4.Chapter 4

5.Chapter 5

6.Chapter 6

7.Chapter 7

8.Chapter 8

9.Chapter 9

10.Chapter 10

11.Chapter 11

12.Chapter 12

13.Chapter 13

Epilogue

Also by Meg

Excerpt from The Seven Day Switch

About this book

Acknowledgements

About the author

As a South African author, writing a novella set in South Africa, I have used South African/British spelling. —Meg

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one

Sophie James angled her smartphone against the harsh glare of the late afternoon sun and grimaced at the screen. Her sister Hilary looked as if a passing swarm of bees had taken a sudden and aggressive dislike to her eyelids. Sophie’s eyes itched in sympathy. Aren’t there antibiotic eye drops for that?

Hilary clucked her tongue. The doctor did prescribe some, but they’re not magic. It’ll take a few days to clear up.

From her vantage point atop the wide steps outside the game lodge’s reception, Sophie checked the dirt access road that wound away through the thorny bushveld. No sign of approaching vehicles. She looked back at her sister. I still can’t believe you’re dropping me, Hil. And on the most important weekend of her fledgling career in wedding planning.

I’m not dropping you, or the quartet. I’ve organised a replacement. And would you rather I turned up and played like this? Hil leaned in to her phone, bringing a swollen, crusted-shut eye into hideous close focus.

Sophie recoiled, as if the plague might be transmittable over video calls.

I didn’t think so. Vindicated, Hil dabbed a tissue to a suppurating eye. Even if I could see enough to read the music, a first violinist with raging pink eye is not going to look good at your fancy wedding.

Not just fancy. Hugely expensive, what with the lavish tastes of the millionaire Dutch bridegroom. It was also Star Weddings’ most high-profile event yet, thanks to the bride’s uncle being the president of South Africa. As Sophie’s new boss never let any of them forget, it was the wedding guaranteed to make Star Weddings the name on every high-society bride’s lips.

Sophie’s grip tightened on her phone. An absent first violinist will look even worse though. You know how Naledi is about everything having to be perfect. The perfect wedding for your perfect love, written in the stars. What had possessed her to apply for an internship at a company that had ‘perfect’ not once, but twice, in its slogan?

Trust me, Soph, Terence will be there. The quartet won’t be short a first violinist.

You told him the whole wedding party is heading out at five? Sophie glanced at the open safari vehicles lined up in the lodge’s parking lot. Each truck was already loaded with cocktail-drinking wedding guests eager to set off into the open veld to the glamorous pop-up safari camp erected specially for the occasion. Sophie returned her gaze to her sister. And he knows it’s too far out in the bush for us to drive back for latecomers?

Hil’s sigh said she’d have been rolling her eyes too if they hadn’t been so swollen. Would you stop stressing? I’m sure he’s almost there. He’s forever scraping in at the last minute for orchestra rehearsal, arriving just as we’re tuning up.

Sophie tipped her head at her screen. Great, a musician who can’t keep time.

Terence is one of the best. I wouldn’t trust just anyone to fill in for String Theory.

Well, if he isn’t here in the next few minutes, I can pack up my desk come Monday. And for someone who was only twenty-two, Sophie’d had that unpleasant experience far too many times.

You don’t have a desk, Hil said. And there’s no way your boss would fire you if the quartet ends up being a trio.

Wanna bet? Hil didn’t know Naledi Dlamini, wedding planner extraordinaire, like Sophie did. Kim Jong Un, only in prettier heels.

It wasn’t just that Sophie had booked the quartet. She’d vouched for them too. Sworn on her life that String Theory would kick butt, and that if they didn’t, Naledi could kick hers…right out the door. Monday marked the end of her three-month internship, when she’d become a full, albeit bottom-of-the-ladder, junior member of the Star Weddings team and finally able to prove to Dad that she wasn’t an irredeemable failure. But none of that would happen if this Terence guy didn’t pitch.

Sophie cast another look over the umbrella trees and thorn bushes. What if his car’s broken down? Or the cops have pulled him over for speeding and he’s sitting in a police van right now? Or he’s been in an accident and is lying dead in a ditch?

This time, Hil’s sigh was heavy with resignation. Hold on and let me check my texts again.

Sophie chewed her bottom lip while she waited, massaging the tight muscles of her neck under her shoulder-length blonde hair. Her skin was clammy, despite the cool of the shade under the high thatched eaves of the reception building. Welcome to her life. She’d done her best, yet now that the finish line was in sight, it was all going to go wrong again.

Not that any reasonable person could blame her for String Theory’s lead violinist suddenly being struck down by pink eye. But then Naledi wasn’t known for being reasonable. Sophie should never have blurted out that she knew the perfect replacement, after the original wedding quartet, booked a year ago for the glamorous wedding, had pulled out just weeks before the big day. She should’ve just sat quietly in that meeting like a good little intern.

No texts. Hil was back. And I checked my email too. Let me call his room-mate again and see what time he left. I’ll call you—

Hold on. Was that dust on the horizon? Sophie shielded her eyes and peered up the dirt road. In the distance, a telltale cloud of white dust billowed above the thorn trees. Hope put a skip in her pulse and she beamed at Hil. A car’s coming!

I knew he’d make it in time. Hil’s voice had the told-you-so tone of a big sister. Now go, soon-to-be junior wedding planner, and make us all proud with your fabulous wedding in the bush.

More like soon-to-be junior skivvy.

But still a job. Might even turn out to be your new life’s calling.

Could she have two in one lifetime? Ever since Sophie could remember, there’d never been any question about what she was destined to do with her life, until that day five years ago when she’d derailed it all. If this job went the same way, she’d have to endure her father’s disappointment again. The thought made her gut clench. I’d better go, Hil. Don’t want to keep Naledi waiting any longer.

They said their goodbyes and Sophie slipped her phone into her pocket as a dust-filmed black SUV barrelled into the parking area and crunched to a stop at the bottom of the steps. The passenger door swung open and a man in his late twenties climbed out.

For a moment, Sophie forgot all about absent violinists. Tall and lean, the man had the build of a rock climber. Faded jeans rode low on narrow hips, and an olive-green I heart Cape Town T-shirt hugged the defined contours of his chest. He stretched, and the muscles of his arms flexed under tanned skin as he arched.

Sophie’s tongue sneaked out to wet her lips. She should stop staring.

Too late.

As if sensing someone was watching him, the man turned his head and caught her gaze.

He had an open, friendly face, like he’d offer her the window seat if she were to mention it was her first time flying…though she’d never before had the good fortune to be seated next to anyone that attractive.

As his gaze skimmed down her body, Sophie felt a twinge of regret that she was dressed in the functional all-black slacks and blouse of a Star Weddings employee, instead of a more flattering pair of figure-hugging jeans. Not that she had time for romantic