Always the Best Man

Where Sara was slender and cool and sophisticated, Zoe was too … everything. Not in the same class—and that didn’t refer to her parents’ wage brackets. Damien wasn’t a snob. No, Zoe was too loud, too uninhibited. Too busting out of her bodice, if his eyes served him right. Was it even legal to have that much cleavage in a bridesmaid’s dress?

For some bizarre reason, just her presence jarred his senses and irritated him. Or was that just the eye-watering perfume? She caught him looking at her and her expression took on a saucy glimmer. She knew she got under his skin. Couldn’t she have left it alone for just one day? And today of all days? He was sure she did … whatever she did … on purpose, just to goad him.

And now Sara was almost at the front and he’d been distracted, which only served to exasperate him further.

Thankfully, at that moment the last of the bridesmaids peeled away, leaving him with a vision of only Sara. He forgot instantly about bulging necklines, saucy glimmers and ginger curls popping out of their grips. In comparison, Sara was like a cool stream on a hot summer’s day. As she approached, she even gave him the smallest and softest of smiles. Sadly, he didn’t manage to return it; that nerve in his cheek had gone into overdrive. For a moment, though, their eyes connected and something flashed between them. Something bittersweet he was sure would haunt him on restless nights for years to come.

Because then Sara’s gaze was on the man standing next to him, and her father placed her hand in Luke’s and stepped away. Now it was Damien’s turn to be forgotten, to be totally pushed out of someone else’s mind by another.

The bride and groom stepped forward, eagerly looking at the minister. All eyes were on Sara and Luke, the happy couple, but all Damien could do was close his lids for a second, let his fingers close around the ring in his pocket.

Luke’s ring. For Sara.

No, if it had been anyone else, he couldn’t have made it through today. He couldn’t have stood there and watched Sara marry anyone but Luke. He equally couldn’t have refused when Luke had asked him to be his best man. Luke would have wanted to know why, and if there was one thing Damien was determined about it was that neither Luke nor Sarah would ever find out about his feelings for her, how they’d grown in strength, side by side with Luke’s, as he’d fallen for his best friend’s girlfriend.

He’d hidden those feelings successfully for the last eighteen months and he wasn’t going to slip up now. No, Luke would never know. Even if it killed Damien to make sure of that.

Today of all days, Damien Stone needed to be the perfect best man.

As the congregation mumbled their way through ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’, almost completely drowned out by the rabidly enthusiastic organist, Sara’s cousin Tilly poked Zoe in the ribs with the stalky end of her bouquet.

Okay, maybe ‘poked in the ribs’ was a bit of an exaggeration. There was a bit too much squish where floristry met torso to accurately describe it as contact with bone. Zoe tried to ignore her, but Tilly leaned forward and whispered behind her lilies.

‘Best man’s hot,’ she said, sneaking a glance across the aisle. ‘Lucky you. As chief bridesmaid, you get first dibs.’

Zoe couldn’t help glancing across at the man in question. How did he do that? Manage to look all grave and heartfelt as he sang, while other people just buried their noses behind their Order of Service and hit a few right notes in the chorus?

‘If you like that sort of thing,’ she mumbled back to Tilly.

If you liked tall, dark and handsome. If you liked long legs and good bone structure and that irritating sense of aloofness. Even now, with his mouth wide open, singing one of the long notes of the hymn, he looked good. Untouchable. And Zoe had never been interested in anything that was too good to be touched, one step removed from life, as if it was something behind glass on display in a museum. Life was for getting your hands dirty, for jumping in one hundred per cent.

‘What?’ hissed Tilly, forgetting to shield her mouth with her bouquet. She earned herself a stern look from the mother of the bride. A woman who managed to scare the pants off the normally irrepressible Zoe St James. If, as the old wives’ tale threatened, Sara was going to age into a gorgon like that, she’d have to find herself a new best friend once she hit forty.

‘Are you blind?’ Tilly added, ignoring her aunt’s stare. Obviously the black sheep of the Mortimer family—which, funnily enough, put her a few notches higher in Zoe’s opinion.

Zoe just rolled her eyes and shook her head ever so slightly. It was still enough motion, however, to send yet another curly tendril tumbling over her face. She was about to blow it out of her way when she caught the Gorgon’s eye, and resorted to delicately tucking it behind her ear while the other woman’s eyes narrowed.

She looked away, and her gaze was drawn inexplicably to the subject of their discussion.

No, not blind. Just not stupid.

She knew he couldn’t stand the sight of her. Oh, he tried to hide it, and he actually did it rather well, but she’d been on the receiving end of similar treatment ever since she’d been old enough to open her mouth to recognise disapproval when she saw it.

Disdain. That was the word.

And that disdainful glimmer in Mr Perfect’s eye when he glanced her way just made her want to deliberately provoke him. And Zoe wasn’t one for resisting an urge whenever it hit. Life was too short. Just once she’d like to see him lose his cool, to see fire in those pale blue eyes instead of ice. In the past she’d got close a few times, but close wasn’t good enough. What Zoe really wanted to see was the whole firework display.

Not today, unfortunately. She wouldn’t do anything to upset Sara, and the poor deluded girl thought Mr Damien Stone was wonderful. Not as wonderful as the lovely Luke, obviously, but Zoe reckoned he came a close second in Sara’s eyes. She turned to Tilly and made a silent gagging motion, to show just what she thought of her fellow bridesmaid’s suggestion.

Whoops! The Gorgon was staring at them openly now, her mouth thinning. And Zoe really didn’t want to see tiny snakes popping up all over her head and burrowing their way up through the stiff and elaborate dove-grey hat. She turned to face the happy couple again, clutched her bouquet and started singing sweetly.

Mr Perfect must’ve caught the sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, because his head turned slightly and he glanced across. Zoe ignored him. Ignored the flicker she saw in those eyes before it was quickly hidden again. She put on her best angelic face and sang loudly, all the while warmed by the imagination that she could hear Damien Stone’s blood hissing faintly as it boiled in his veins.

Oh, how she wanted to see that firework display.

But not tonight, Zoe. Keep a lid on it. Sara and Luke had decided they didn’t want fireworks at the end of the reception, saying that everyone did it now and it seemed a bit of a cliché, so she guessed they wouldn’t welcome a similar display of the interpersonal kind. Damien Stone’s fuse would have to go unlit—for now.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t mess with his head a little, did it?

‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’

Damien stared at his half-finished individual pavlova for a second. He remembered taking a bite, but he didn’t remember pushing it around his plate so much it had disintegrated into Eton Mess. He flexed his shoulder muscles slightly. His morning suit jacket felt as if it were shrinking.

‘What’s wrong with yours?’

He turned to look at the maid of honour sitting next to him at the top table. Ridiculous seating plan. He’d never been sat next to the maid of honour before, not in six other weddings.

‘Nothing,’ she replied sweetly. Too sweetly. ‘It was stupendous … but rather small. That’s why I want yours if you’re not going to do it justice.’

Damien glowered at his plate briefly, as if the ravaged dessert somehow held some of the blame in this situation, and then shoved the plate in her direction, nobly resisting the urge to say anything about overfilled bodices.

‘Knock yourself out.’

‘Thanks.’

She dug in straight away, he noticed. Somehow that irritated him. He focused on a rather ugly pink hat somewhere else in the massive marquee and tried to will the minutes to go faster. Only a short time now and his official duties would be over. Soon he’d be able to slink off and find a good single malt to lubricate his petrified facial muscles. They’d set into a stupefied smile earlier in the day. Right about the time Sara had said, ‘I do.’

Always the best man …

It was starting to sound like a joke to Damien now—and not a very funny one. While he enjoyed helping his friends out in this way, he was beginning to feel like the odd one out. So many of his friends were all settled down and happy now, just as he wanted to be. Damien felt as if he was the unlucky jockey in a horse race, whose starting gate had failed to open while all the other riders were racing away from him. And now his best friend had snapped up the one woman Damien had considered a viable candidate for being Mrs Stone, it was even more disheartening.

‘Mmm. You don’t know what you’re missing,’ Zoe murmured next to him.

Damien braced his aching shoulders to stop them sagging. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what he was losing out on today. How could he not when she was sitting only three places away? He made the mistake of glancing to his right, the opposite direction from the pavlova-devouring machine on his left.

He must have momentarily forgotten the granite smile, because he snagged Sara’s attention for a second. She made the most adorable face, asking him what was wrong by pulling her lips down and creasing her forehead into a little frown.

He shook his head, shrugged one shoulder and resurrected the ghoulish grin he’d been fooling everybody with all day. Blast that Zoe. Her dessert stealing had made him lose focus. Why couldn’t he have been seated next to Sara’s mum? He could have distracted himself from this train wreck of an afternoon by charming her socks off.

Sara noted his changed expression and gave him a soft smile before turning her attention back to her new husband.

Damien wanted to sigh, but his ribs were too tight under his skin to allow his lungs to expand that fully, so he made up for it by huffing out an exasperated little snort through his nose.

‘Calm down, tiger.’ The words were slightly muffled through a layer of whipped cream and raspberry coulis. ‘There’s still a bit left if you’re regretting your generosity.’

He turned to look at Zoe as she nudged the almost empty plate his way. A lump of soggy meringue with a single berry on top was all that remained. Her mouth was pressed together in a knowing little smile and her eyes glittered with unsaid words.

Regretting your generosity to me, they seemed to be saying.