Love, Lipstick and Lies (28 page)

Everything was going so smoothly and I was filled with this lovely feeling of excitement and anticipation. I had my outfit and Kieran had bought his. He was going to be in ivory – ivory-coloured trousers and a matching shirt with an unusual collar. We had bought his wedding ring in the Lanes in Brighton. It was a simple platinum band. Because of his work he didn’t want anything too fancy. I, on the other hand, did! A day or so before we were due to fly out I was getting my hair done – of course – and looking at wedding rings online. I texted Kieran the ones that I especially liked, never dreaming that he would buy any of them, but he replied asking which one I liked best of all.

No way!
I texted back.
I don’t expect you to buy any of these, they’re too expensive!

But he insisted I tell him which one I liked, saying that I shouldn’t worry about the cost. And OMG! He only went and bought me the ring I most liked. It’s the most beautiful, elegant ring made up of five diamond-studded platinum bands.

At first the press didn’t know we were seeing each other, but by the end of December the news was out there and all my exes had to trot out their opinions. Who gave a shit what they thought? One of Kieran’s exes sold a story on him too. It was the same old, same old …

* * *

In January 2013 Kieran and I flew out to the Bahamas. It was so exciting flying over together, knowing that when we returned we would be husband and wife. I couldn’t wait! The press thought we were going to the Caribbean to get married and for once I was hopeful that we wouldn’t be plagued by paps. One of the reasons I had wanted to go away was because my last two weddings had been made stressful through too much press attention, especially the blessing with Alex where some of the paps had behaved like animals in their desperation to get shots of me. It had been horrendous. Sandals looked like the perfect choice. I was going to have a stress-free wedding day. I was going to enjoy every moment. There was going to be no drama (for once).

But from the moment we arrived at the resort I started
to have my doubts that this was the right place. As we were shown up to our suite we walked past a lively bar, where guests were singing round a piano, then we passed another area where they put on shows, and the music was pumping out. Next to that was a pub. Peaceful? Idyllic? Hardly. And the place seemed to be full of English people …

Shit, I thought. This isn’t what I wanted! To me it looked like an adult version of a Club 18–30 holiday. It wasn’t at all how I’d imagined the resort would be.

‘Let’s quickly get to our room,’ I suggested to Kieran. I didn’t want to be spotted by anyone.

There was a further disappointment when we saw our suite. We were supposed to have a beachfront one, which suggested to me that we would be able to see the ocean. But we couldn’t. Instead we overlooked one of the pools. When I phoned Reception to point this out, I was told that, yes, we did have what they called a beachfront suite, and if we went out on the balcony and looked to the left we would be able to see the sea.

Okay, I thought, don’t be ungrateful; just enjoy it. Make the best of it. We’re here to get married, that’s what matters. But the fact was the décor wasn’t up to much, it certainly wasn’t like a home from home, and to cap it all, it was freezing! I’d thought it was going to be hot. I couldn’t help feeling that I had let Kieran down by coming here; I’d wanted everything to be perfect for us.

The following day it was cloudy, with no hint of sun. Bollocks! But then I said to Kieran, ‘We’ve got so much
to sort out, it doesn’t matter if the sun’s not shining, at least we won’t feel that we’re missing out.’

We could hear loud music playing outside and when we went out on to our balcony we saw that a load of couples were playing organised games in the pool, with someone on a mic telling them what to do. It
really
was like a Club 18–30 holiday. Again, my heart sank and Kieran and I looked at each other as if to say, WTF! We both wanted to stay as far away as possible from all that kind of thing, and be private.

It got worse when our butler arrived. I explained to her that Kieran and I wanted complete privacy; that we wanted to be able to sunbathe on a beach, on our own. Ideally I wanted to be able to sunbathe topless. I can’t get tan lines because of my work. She seemed surprised by how insistent we were on that point, and said that Sandals was a place where everyone got involved in the various activities.

‘No, that’s not what we want,’ I told her. ‘That’s the last bloody thing we want!’

She said that she would be able to set up sun loungers for us at the far end of the beach where there weren’t so many people. Okay. Maybe that would work. Next on my list of questions was the all-important venue for our wedding. On the website I had seen the various locations the resort offered, and one had been a pretty white gazebo flanked by two statues of angels, with a beautiful view of the aquamarine sea in the background. It looked absolutely beautiful and I had thought that it
would be the perfect place for Kieran and me to hold the ceremony. But since arriving at the resort, I had noticed that the gazebo was bang, slap in the middle of the pool area, and if you looked away from the sea, your view was not of some idyllic scene but the hotel buildings and pool … And, of course, there would be people milling about.

‘Do you have anywhere more private than the gazebo?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, yes, you can get married on the beach, around the same place where I will be setting you up to sunbathe.’

‘But do people come and watch?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied cheerfully, as if that wasn’t a problem at all.

‘But we don’t want anyone watching our wedding. We just want it to be us, and our friends and family. From the pictures on the website we assumed the venues were completely private.’ By now I was really pissed off, and feeling that the website had been misleading with its beautiful photographs which didn’t tell the whole story.

Again she seemed surprised that we would want privacy and seemed to be implying that if we had wanted that then Sandals was not the resort for us …

‘So are you famous or something?’ she asked.

‘No, I just want privacy,’ I replied.

Kieran could sense that we weren’t getting anywhere and he said, ‘Yes, actually, she is well known and we don’t want any English people coming to our wedding.’

Her reply left Kieran and me completely gobsmacked. ‘So are you a porn star?’

I looked at her in astonishment, before saying dryly, ‘Actually, no. That’s one thing I haven’t done.’

She didn’t exactly seem apologetic about her faux-pas and continued to ask me what I did for a living. Was she ever going to give it a rest! Kieran took over and told her that I was a well-known model and TV personality.

‘So what’s your name then?’ she asked.

I felt I had to tell her, even though I never usually tell people what I do when I’m away. Usually I say I’m a hairdresser if people ask. As soon as I told her that I was Katie Price aka Jordan, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, but I have heard of you! I’ve followed your story! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognise you!’

‘Do I look rough then, in real life?’ I asked her, wishing that we hadn’t had any of this conversation. She seemed shocked that I’d chosen to come to Sandals, and I thought, I like to do normal things, but this is what happens when I do, I end up getting stung.

‘Now I can see why you want privacy!’ the woman exclaimed, and went on to say that there was a private island and we could hire that just for our wedding, but of course it would be an extra cost. All of a sudden, now she knew I had money, it seemed to be Kerching!

That really put my back up. ‘Actually, we just want to get married somewhere private, exactly like it suggested we could on your website,’ I told her. ‘So are there many English people here?’ I went on.

‘More Americans,’ she told us.

That, at least, was something … but she hadn’t finished.

‘So would English people recognise you then?’

‘They might. And if I’m sunbathing, I don’t want anyone taking pictures of me with their phones. The paps think that we’re getting married in the Caribbean and I want it to stay that way.’

She assured me that no one would photograph us, that they had security everywhere. ‘We protect all our clients,’ she told us, ‘and we will know if we get people checking in unexpectedly. That just doesn’t happen here.’

But I knew how cunning the paps were and told her that they could easily pose as honeymoon couples. Frankly, I wouldn’t put anything past some of them. But she assured us that no one new was due to check in. All in all, she made us feel secure and we noticed that there were plenty of guards patrolling the resort so we were a little more at ease. Okay, I thought, it is the cheapest holiday I’ve ever had but we wanted to get married quickly and this is the only place we could manage that. It’ll be fine. And anyway, I had something else on my mind …

I had been feeling bloated and sick for the last couple of days, but had put that down to my period being due. Then again, it might not be that. So when Kieran and I went to explore the local town – the weather was too cloudy for sunbathing – I went into a chemist and bought a pregnancy test. Once I had it I was desperate
to find out if I was pregnant or not. We went out for something to eat and I couldn’t resist nipping to the loos to do a test. But it was negative. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed and I know Kieran felt the same when I told him.

‘Ah, well, I must just be a fat bastard at the moment!’ I said, typically trying to downplay my disappointment.

We had a few days before the wedding and wanted to chill out but the weather continued to be cloudy. Where was the sun? So much for getting a tan before our big day. We went out for lunch and dinner a few times but often we’d have room service, because we didn’t want to be spotted by anyone. We treated ourselves to some massages at the spa. We tried to sunbathe whenever the sun showed itself, like typical British holidaymakers, but often we’d be wrapped up in our towels because it was too chilly! And it was too cold to go in the sea.

Our butler set our sunbeds up towards the end of the beach, as she had promised. On the plus side there weren’t too many people about, and those that were, were foreign, so I went ahead and sunbathed topless. But although the beach was private, it was still overlooked by the resort buildings. I really did miss my lovely Maldives beaches where you’re not overlooked by anyone.

Once when we were sunbathing we noticed that they had put out stylish wooden sunbeds with cushions on them. We’d had plastic ones. A helicopter kept circling overhead with a camera on it and we realised that they
must be taking photographs for the new brochure. So out came the quality sunbeds for the shots. But in spite of our disappointment about the resort we were happy and had a laugh together and felt really close.

We were still wondering where to have our ceremony. The wedding planner had been to see us and had mentioned the private island and the extra charge again, which didn’t impress me. She knew who I was, as the butler had told her, and said that she had to let her manager know so that they could keep an eye on us and make sure we weren’t bothered by anyone. Well, I don’t know what happened there, but given that the paps
did
find out exactly where we were staying … someone at the hotel must have said something to someone.

‘What are they up to?’ I asked Kieran, as we were sunbathing one morning and noticed some of the hotel staff pushing a wheelbarrow along the beach. It all became clear as they began arranging scallop shells to form an aisle and we realised they were setting up for a wedding ceremony there. Curious to see what it would be like, we stayed put. They set up a small white gazebo and arranged some chairs nearby. Music was playing, and as we watched the ceremony we thought the location would work for us too. It seemed private, no one apart from us was watching. Even though there were hotel buildings behind, it seemed that we weren’t going to get anywhere better than that. At last, problem solved, we would have our wedding ceremony there. Now we felt really excited!

I was still feeling bloated, though, and decided to do another pregnancy test. It was the day before our wedding. I realised that pregnancy tests are pretty accurate nowadays, but you never knew … maybe that first one didn’t get it right. This time a lovely faint blue line popped up in the square! I left it a minute while I brushed my teeth and then checked again, and by now it was a strong line. I was pregnant! It was fantastic news! I wanted to rush out and tell Kieran. But my cheeky nature got the better of me. When I went back into the bedroom I lay on the bed next to him.

‘Well?’ he asked hopefully.

‘No, I’m not,’ I replied. And the poor guy was gutted and so I quickly said, ‘I am really!’ And of course he didn’t believe me until I showed him the test. We hadn’t been planning to have a baby, but nor had we been careful as we were getting married.

We were both so happy. It felt like the perfect seal to our relationship. I always said that it was fate that I hadn’t become pregnant by Alex or Leo. It took the right man … it took Kieran.

The following evening my friends arrived. I’ve known Jane and Derek from way back. They’re quite a bit older than me as Derek is fifty and Jane is in her late forties, but they’re my best friends. Whenever we go out together I know people are thinking, They won’t be able to stay up late, but trust me, they are total party animals! They stay out all night! Even better, they have two children exactly the same age
as Princess and Junior and we all spend a lot of time together.

And then there was Tanya. She’s an incredible businesswoman, the co-founder and co-owner of Bayliss & Harding toiletries. Again, people would never have us down as friends because she’s older than me, but we have such a laugh together and she’s a lovely woman. Our mums arrived much later when we had all gone to bed as we were so tired. I had to get my beauty sleep for my big day! We planned to tell everyone the baby news after the wedding.