Présentation de l'éditeur
What happens when your Prince Charming turns out not to be so charming after all? In
To Have and To Hold, bestselling author Jane Green offers a sizzling, highly entertaining look at romantic relationships after we say “I do.”
Alice knows she should be happy. A charming twenty-eight-year-old with a successful catering business, she’s always dreamed of a rose-covered cottage in the English countryside, filled with children and animals and home-cooked meals. Her favorite attire is comfy jeans, her best manicure features garden dirt under the nails. But when her teenage crush—the wealthy, dashing man-about-town Joe Chambers—wants to make her his bride, Alice is more than willing to play Cinderella to Joe’s prince. Never mind that he wants her to change—a diet, ice-blond highlights, stilettos, snooty gallery openings—and that he’s allergic to nature and kids. She tells herself she’s happy to sacrifice for love, and besides, with Joe’s stunning good looks and high-profile career at a top financial firm, every woman in London wants to be in her shoes.
But that’s just the problem. Despite Alice’s efforts to be the perfect wife, Joe soon reveals a penchant for being hopelessly unfaithful. When a notorious indiscretion with a female colleague forces Joe to transfer to New York, Alice’s life turns upside down. As Joe continues to sneak around, and her best friend’s beau offers a tempting glimpse of what real love could be like, Alice must decide how much Cinderella she can take before her deepest desires win out—and if she can summon up the courage to find real happiness on her own.
Delicious, witty, and packed with sparkling sex appeal,
To Have and To Hold is an unputdownable read that will have you rooting out loud for its endearing heroine. A #1 bestseller in Britain, this latest tale from the beloved, utterly winning Jane Green proves that the search for true love doesn’t always end when someone dons a veil, and offers a lively, refreshing take on modern marriage.
Extrait
1
24 December 1996
Alice takes a deep breath as she opens the wardrobe door and pulls out her dress. She lays it carefully on the bed, gathering her shoes, her veil, her stockings and garter, draping them gently next to the dress, amazed that in just a few hours' time she will be wearing all of this. In just a few hours' time she will be Joe's bride.
"Here comes the bride," she sings to herself, taking small, gliding steps down her hallway into the kitchen, smiling despite the butterflies, putting on the kettle to make herself another cup of coffee. She thinks she needs the coffee to stay awake, so badly did she sleep last night, but the adrenalin is already pumping, and she's waiting for Emily--her maid of honour--to arrive, someone with whom she can share the excitement.
Walking back into the bedroom, she stands for a while gazing at the dress. While not exactly what she would have chosen, she can't deny its beauty, how elegant it is, how impossibly stylish.
Alice had always thought she would have a country wedding. She dreamt, even as a little girl, of a small stone church; of walking through a white wooden gate in a soft, feminine puff of a dress, fresh flowers in her hair and a posy of hand-picked wild daisies in her hand. The groom had been unimportant: her fantasy had ended at the church door, but she knows the groom--even in her fantasies--would never have been as handsome, or as successful, as Joe.
At university, when she and Emily sat up late into the night discussing their knights in shining armour, Alice said she thought her ideal man would probably be an artist, or a craftsman, or a gardener. She had laughed as she said it, laughed at the unlikeliness of any lasting relationship, let alone marriage, given that her longest relationship at that time had been three weeks.
And before meeting Joe, her longest relationship had been three months. Not a good record, she had groaned to Emily when they were both plan
