Always the Best Man

Damien looked at the elegant curve of white gold studded with diamonds that was wrapped around Sara’s fourth finger. It suited her perfectly.

She smiled wide and replaced her hand on his shoulder. ‘Zoe really outdid herself this time.’

‘Zoe made that?’

He must have blurted that out in a rather uncharacteristic fashion because Sara burst out laughing and nodded. Damien looked again at the shiny, pale ring against the charcoal of his morning suit jacket, not quite able to get his head round what Sara had just told him.

He knew Sara and her girlfriends went wild for Zoe’s jewellery but, from what he remembered of her pieces, they were chunky, asymmetric things, involving not just stones and settings, but shells or wooden beads or feathers. Sometimes all three. To be honest, he didn’t get it. Must be a girl thing. He had always thought the simple chain and diamond pendant that Sara always wore was much more classy.

He felt a tap on his right shoulder. ‘I think you owe me a dance,’ a deep voice said. He twisted his head to find Luke grinning at his new bride, Zoe in his arms. Sara let her hands slide from Damien’s shoulder and back as Luke moved towards them.

Let go, Damien told himself. It’s time to let go …

It felt as if he had to peel himself from her.

‘Not her,’ Luke said, nodding towards his wife. ‘I meant you, my fine figure of a man.’

They all laughed at the joke, the way Luke held his arms aloft in invitation to Damien, before using them to scoop Sara closer so he could nuzzle into her neck. And off they went like that, joined from forehead to toe.

That left Zoe and Damien without partners and staring at each other.

He knew what the polite thing to do was. Problem was that, right at this moment, he wasn’t feeling particularly polite. He hesitated a fraction of a second too long, though, and one of Zoe’s mobile eyebrows twitched in recognition of his predicament. A wry smile pressed her lips together. Not an expression of humour, but of challenge.

Damien recovered quickly and held out his arms, just as Luke had done a moment earlier, as if that tiny transaction had not just occurred between him and the maid of honour. Pretend it’s all fine. Bury the uncomfortable feeling. That was what normally worked.

Zoe stepped into his hold, but the naughty twinkle in her eye told him her memory would not be so easy to erase. It also told him she would make him pay. Thankfully, the song was almost over.

But, as they started to move, the band segued into another tune, something in a four-four time with a bit of a Latin beat. He could hardly pull away now, thank her politely and head for the fresh night air outside the marquee, could he?

Damien growled inwardly. Now he had a whole song to get through. With a woman who—for no apparent reason—had not only decided she didn’t like him, but had made it her mission in life to wind him up.

What a perfect way to end the evening.

Pompous ass, Zoe thought to herself, grinding her teeth gently as she held her smile in place. She’d show him.

You’d think, on a day like today, when they were both here to support their best friends, he could have let up a little. But, no, Mr Holier-than-thou Stone had to ramp up the superiority factor even further.

Well, thanks to all those ballroom dancing lessons Luke had skipped out on, Zoe knew how to rumba just fine. At least on the dance floor she’d show him who was top dog.

Despite the urge to clench all her muscles ready for a killer right hook, she made herself breathe out, concentrated on relaxing into the rhythm so her hips and waist twisted and flowed. The bridesmaid’s dress was perfect for it. Sara had chosen well. Satin, the colour of old gold, skimmed her hips and flared from her knees in a bias-cut skirt, and it moved sensuously with every step.

They danced in silence, but after a particularly tricky bit of footwork she glanced up at Damien to find him staring down hard at her.

‘I thought the man was supposed to lead,’ he said, his voice expressionless.

Zoe shrugged. ‘This is a rumba. I’m just dancing the steps. Not my problem if it’s beyond you.’

His grip on her hand tightened and he pulled himself up straight, bringing their bodies closer together. Zoe feigned nonchalance.

‘Whoever said it was beyond me?’

Damien continued to stare at her, a slightly devilish smile kinking the side of his mouth, and his feet began to move in a pattern that had become horribly familiar to Zoe over the last couple of months. Rumba steps. Oh, hell. Of course Mr Perfect would be able to do this. Just another superpower to add to his vast collection.

At first they moved mechanically, stiffly, but as the song continued they both seemed to melt into the rhythm. None of those peacock-like, ostentatious moves from a ballroom competition for Damien Stone. His movements were slow, measured, restrained yet fluid—a style born more of the streets of Havana than from Gertrude Glitz’s Ballroom Academy. Zoe adjusted her moves to match, no flinging arms or swinging feet; just the feeling of the teasing, back and forth rhythm snaking up from her core and moving her limbs.

She’d been so lost in the sways and pauses, the feeling that her muscles were turning to marsh-mallow, that it took a few moments to realise their gazes were still locked. His smile had gone now, replaced by a look of concentration that was at once unnerving and—dare she admit it?—sexy.

She swallowed. Her mouth had suddenly gone very, very dry.

They were closer now too, and she wasn’t quite sure how they’d got that way, their torsos a hair’s breadth from touching.

The bridesmaid’s dress, which had been a little on the snug side up top already—thanks to a failed pre-wedding diet—now seemed to compress her ribs, making it hard to do anything but grab oxygen in short bursts.

No, no, no.

She was not going to forget just how up his own … backside … Damien Stone was just because he knew how to rumba, just because the slow swaying, the leashed feeling of power in his movements, made her think about other superpowers he might have.

Men like him were trouble. They said they liked girls like her. They might even believe it when they promised that quirkiness and a unique take on life were enchanting, but sooner or later they changed their minds.

She couldn’t let this lazy rhythm lull her into a stupor and forget all of that. In fact, she needed to do the opposite. Men like Damien Stone needed to be reminded that, actually, they weren’t God’s gift, and that maybe they should climb down from their impossibly high horses now and again and remember that they were just like everyone else: flawed, clueless … human. That was all she was asking for. Surely that wasn’t too much?

He must have a weakness, this man. His own personal brand of kryptonite. She just had to find out what that was—and then use it against him.

CHAPTER THREE

DAMIEN felt the muscles of Zoe’s torso tense quite clearly, even though his fingertips were only lightly resting on her shoulder blade, and it pulled him out of whatever delightful bubble he’d lost himself in. For a moment he’d been totally focused on the dancing, neither regretting the past—of what might have been had he met Sara first—or yearning for a future that would never be his. How odd, that it was with this woman he’d found a sense of calm in this nightmare of a day.

No more, though. The unusual softness that had been in Zoe’s eyes was gone, replaced with the more familiar hard, cheeky, taunting one, and he mentally kicked himself for forgetting he was dancing with an unexploded bomb.

‘I’m impressed,’ she said, but the look in her eyes told him this compliment had a sting in its tail. ‘I didn’t think a man like you would be any good at something like this.’

Ouch. There it was. But gentler and more skilful than he’d expected.

A man like him. What was so wrong with that?

He found he couldn’t let her remark go unchallenged. Dancing had been a good momentary distraction, but now she’d ruined that he’d resort to a bit of one-upmanship with Zoe, if that was what she wanted.

‘A man like what?’ he said through his teeth, still smiling, as he flicked his wrist and spun her out to the side.

She didn’t miss a step, her hips moving like molasses, accentuated by the clinging fabric of her bridesmaid’s dress.

‘Oh, you know …’ Her voice was light and breezy. ‘Uptight. Buttoned-up.’

He ignored the comment, even though he noticed the movements of his torso became less fluid with each step, despite his efforts to the contrary. He bunched his shoulders, one after the other, and let them drop again. ‘I’m not uptight.’

Zoe didn’t answer—not with words—but her smile hitched to one side, giving her an impish air.

Oh, no? the smile said.