Always the Best Man Read online

  ‘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.

  He shook his head, not trusting his tongue to remain civil.

  ‘Sure?’ she asked, as she began to move her spoon into position to capture the last morsel. ‘I’m sure I could pilfer one for you from somewhere, or sweet-talk one of the waiters…’

  ‘I’m sure you could,’ Damien replied dryly.

  That saucy glint again. Now his suit was three sizes too small instead of two. And all that shrinkage was making him feel hot and jittery.

  ‘Oh, well,’ she said and popped the now full spoon into her mouth, turning it upside down at the last moment so she could suck every square millimetre of the silver clean. She closed her eyes and murmured her appreciation deep down in her throat.

  Damien experienced a quick, hot jolt of something unexpected. Something he didn’t really want to identify. Especially when it was prompted by Zoe St James’s mobile lips sliding along a spoon.

  Thankfully, Sara’s father chose that moment to stand up and clink his dessert fork against his glass. All heads turned towards the top table and Damien instantly sat up straighter and put his game face back on.

  In fact, he was so busy making sure he wasn’t giving off any unwanted non-verbal cues to more than a hundred guests that he didn’t even hear the opening sentences of Colin’s speech. He couldn’t let anything slip. Not a facial twitch, not a glance in the wrong direction. No one must guess that he was anything less than the perfect best man. But all the while the guilt, the frustration, the slow, glowing flicker of rage kept building inside him until he wished he had a giant version of the metal cages that went round champagne corks. If he wasn’t very much mistaken, his head was about to explode from his shoulders, and that wouldn’t do before the toasts were over.

  More words. They floated past like yachts in a stiff breeze. Words he’d heard a hundred times before at occasions like this. Until the end of the speech, that was…

  ‘So…’ Colin Mortimer beamed at his wife and then his daughter ‘…Brenda and I decided we wanted to do something special for our little girl.’ He paused for dramatic effect as his only daughter smiled back up at him. ‘We know you’d planned a simple honeymoon sailing Luke’s pride and joy down the south coast, but we decided we’d like to upgrade you a little…’

  Damien sat up straighter. Uh-oh. Luke had planned the perfect honeymoon for himself and Sara, one Damien would have given his right arm to have. A fortnight on Dream Weaver with no one but Sara? It sounded like heaven. Oh, Luke would smile and thank his new father-in-law if he produced tickets for an all-inclusive break in some slick hotel, but his dream holiday would be ruined.

  Always the one to take charge, to make sure all the details were ironed out and perfect, Damien started composing a speech in his head, one he’d have with Colin afterwards, to try and help Luke back graciously out of this latest development.

  The father of the bride handed Luke a wallet. ‘Two plane tickets to the Virgin Islands—’

  Damien began rehearsing that little speech in earnest.

  ‘—and the use of a luxury yacht for three weeks!’

  There was a collective gasp from the guests and then people started to clap and cheer. Damien was frozen. For some reason he couldn’t move. Hell, he couldn’t even think straight.

  Sara was hugging her father and Luke was pumping his hand enthusiastically.

  No wonder. Luke had dreamed of sailing those turquoise Caribbean waters since he and Damien had both been racing little Laser dinghies together at summer sailing school. However, since Sara had put her foot down about a transatlantic crossing for a honeymoon, Luke had had to settle for West Country cruising instead.

  Why hadn’t Damien thought of doing this for them? He should have done. After all, it was sailing that had bonded him and Luke as friends all those years ago.

  You know why.

  Damien closed his eyes. Yes, he did know. He’d let his guilt at having feelings for his best friend’s woman cloud everything.

  And the jealousy too. Don’t forget the jealousy.

  No. I tried so hard not to let that happen. I don’t want anything but the best for them. At least, I don’t want to want anything but the best for them.

  But he had been jealous. As much as he’d tried to outrun it, he had.

  And it made him lower than pond life. Which was why, when one hundred and fifteen guests rose and joined Colin Mortimer in toasting the happy couple, Damien began to shake. Not on the surface—he was too well-practised at being the textbook best man for that—but deep down in his gut. He was almost surprised the untouched champagne glass in his hand didn’t rattle.

  And then the father of the bride turned to him, a beneficent smile on his face, nodded and sat down.

  Damien rose, his legs propelling him upwards suddenly so he hit his thighs against the table top and made the silverware jiggle.

  His turn now. His turn to spout and toast—and lie. He swallowed, knowing he was about to open his mouth and prove himself the biggest hypocrite in the world.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE whole room went quiet. Zoe felt a familiar and almost irresistible urge to blurt something shocking out, just to inject some life into the dead and faultless silence. Instead she rested one elbow on the table and twisted her head round to hear His Highness say something pompous.

  Only he didn’t say anything. Pompous or otherwise. He just stood there, staring at everyone. The only movement was a Jurassic Park-type mini-tremor in his glass of champagne.

  He opened his mouth. A few wedding guests leaned forward. Damien Stone was famous for his best man speeches. People joked about crashing weddings just to hear them. He closed his lips again.

  The silence began to get awkward. Children began to fidget.

  Damien Stone cleared his throat.

  Zoe seriously considered jumping up and shouting, Knickers!

  But just in the nick of time a noise came from the back of his mouth, so quiet she was probably the only person who heard it. But she saw him tense, push the sound forward until it grew and words followed it.

  ‘I haven’t got anything clever to say.’

  People began to look at each other and smile. They knew this was just the start. It would be clever and funny and touching. It would.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Just that Luke and Sara ar
e truly the perfect couple.’

  Zoe frowned. She’d been all revved up to smirk inwardly at his artfully crafted spiel, but his simple sincerity had stolen all her thunder.

  ‘And I can’t do anything more than say that Luke is the best friend a man could have, and remind him he is the luckiest man in the world to have found Sara, and wish them a lifetime of happiness together.’

  He paused, raised his glass to the bride and groom.

  Zoe held her champagne flute up, but her eyes were on the best man. Had that really been a catch in his voice when he’d said his best friend’s name?

  ‘To Luke and Sara,’ he said simply, and suddenly the whole marquee was on its feet, clapping and cheering and marvelling at how, once again, the best man had outdone himself.

  Damien knocked back his fizz and sat down, exhaling heavily. If Zoe hadn’t known any better she’d have thought he was nervous. But that would have meant he was feeling an emotion other than smug superiority, which was clearly impossible.

  She took a sip of her own drink and sat down beside him. Now, she’d never been one to want to cause Damien Stone’s head to swell any bigger, but for some reason she felt she needed to say something, to tell him how perfect his words had been.

  ‘That was—’

  His head snapped round in surprise—as if he’d totally forgotten she existed and had been occupying the space beside him—and he fixed her with those cold blue eyes.

  His voice was low and hoarse. ‘Just don’t, Zoe. Not right now.’

  ‘But I wasn’t going to—’

  The glare he gave her made her shut her mouth abruptly. And if he hadn’t been concentrating on being just so fierce and condescending, he might have realised what a miraculous feat that had been.

  And then, while all eyes were on the bride and groom, while the happiness seemed to be spilling out of the other guests and pooling around their feet, Damien rose stiffly from his chair and headed out into the twilight.

  Zoe sat back in her gold-sprayed, velvet-seated chair and crossed her arms. Not even good enough to offer the precious Damien Stone a few words of congratulation. She had obviously sunk to a new low in his eyes. But Zoe didn’t let that cold feeling settle deep down inside like it wanted to. She couldn’t. She’d promised herself that never again would a man like that make her feel this way. And if crumbling in defeat wasn’t an option, she had no alternative but to go the other way. So, by his actions, the best man had decreed tonight would be all-out war, and the evening reception would be their battlefield.

  Look out, Damien Stone, because all those snotty comments you’ve ever dished out are coming back to bite you on that finely toned rear end. Tonight, Karma is wearing a bridesmaid’s dress—and she’s in one hell of a mood.

  * * *

  ‘Those ballroom dancing lessons really paid off in the end.’

  Zoe smiled into the face of the man who had just twirled her into his arms. He really was looking particularly handsome today. And so he should.

  ‘I beg to differ, Luke. You’ve trodden on my foot twice already, and we both know why.’

  He gazed above her shoulder, looking every inch the dashing groom. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  At that point Zoe did a little bit of toe-crunching of her own. ‘Really?’ she said innocently. ‘And there was me thinking all those last-minute work emergencies on a Thursday night were merely a ruse so you could cry off and go down the pub with your mates.’

  Luke’s smile spread wider. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Still no idea. You must have the wrong person.’

  The smile wavered momentarily, however, when he misjudged a step and almost sent the pair of them flying. Thankfully, Zoe rescued them with quick thinking and even quicker feet. There was a reason for that, too.

  ‘You owe me,’ she whispered in his ear as she clutched onto his sleeves. ‘You knew Sara wouldn’t want to go to those lessons on her own. You knew she’d drag me along as a substitute.’

  Luke just beamed as if he was on a TV ballroom dancing contest, fixing his eyes beyond her. ‘And just look how well you can waltz now,’ he said. ‘You have me to thank for that.’

  Zoe wanted to punch him. Or tickle him. She wasn’t sure which.

  Luke saved himself by having the decency to look just a little repentant. ‘Okay, I do owe you. And I’ve just had an idea for a very fitting peace offering…’

  He paused while he concentrated on changing direction so they didn’t plough into the four-tiered cake.

  ‘I know that all the wedding craziness has meant that you haven’t had the chance to have a proper holiday this year.’

  He should know that, Zoe thought. She’d moaned long and hard about it often enough.

  ‘Well, Dream Weaver, thanks to the generosity of my new father-in-law, is now going to be sitting idle and unloved at her mooring for the next two weeks. Why don’t you make use of her?’

  Zoe laughed so hard that the couple next to them lost their timing. ‘Don’t be daft, Luke! I don’t know the first thing about sailing.’

  ‘From what I remember, the few times you have made it on board, the highlights were sunbathing on the deck and sipping wine in the cockpit while the stars came out.’

  Well, there was that. It had all been awfully civilised. And she could almost imagine herself using the twenty-year-old yacht as a base for a relaxing holiday. She could explore the surrounding countryside and the nearby village of Lower Hadwell, wander down narrow streets lined with ice cream-coloured houses. She started to dream of long pub lunches and enough time to read the stack of paperbacks that had been gathering dust on her bedside table.

  She must have looked as if she were weakening because Luke added, ‘I can always arrange for my friend Matthew to take you out on a couple of day trips—up and down the river, or round to one of the little beaches near the estuary that can only be reached by boat.’

  Zoe stopped turning and looked Luke straight in the eye. ‘Matthew? The Matthew who has the shaggy blond hair and the cute, tight little rounded—’

  Luke burst out laughing.

  She half-closed her eyelids. ‘I was going to say “nose”.’

  ‘Of course you were. But, yes, that Matthew.’

  Well, that sounded like the perfect recipe for a last-minute, spontaneous holiday. Fit, toned surfer-dudes and throwing things into a suitcase were definitely her thing. She instantly forgave Luke for the further three times he would tread on her feet before the dance was over.

  ‘In that case,’ she said, dipping low as Luke very bravely swung her into a pose, ‘you might just have a deal.’

  * * *

  The music changed to a slow, sweeping tune, but Damien hardly noticed it. He was tired. Bone-deep, soul-weary exhausted. Which was odd, because if anyone should have built up a best man brand of stamina by now, it should have been him.

  He checked his watch. Nine-thirty.

  It couldn’t be long now before Sara and Luke left the grounds of this smart country house hotel to begin a new life together. And once the car had disappeared, even while the tin cans were still clattering down the drive, he planned to slip away.

  He had a room booked at the hotel, but he wasn’t going to use it. He needed to go back to his flat, be by himself, not extend the aftermath of the wedding with nightcaps with the other guests or jolly communal breakfasts the next morning.

  Just before he looked up from his watch he became aware of someone standing in front of him. A quick glance downwards revealed his worst fear—white satin and a pair of matching shoes.

  ‘Come on, you…’ Sara said in that gentle, clear voice of hers. Damien transferred his gaze to his brogues. She was too close. If he looked up now, really let her see into his eyes, she might guess.

  Slim fingers tugged at his jacket sleeve. ‘We can’t have you moping about in the corner on your own. You’ve got your pick of the bridesmaids, you know. Once upon a time that would have excited you.’

  He looked up wit
hout actually looking at her, and shook his head. Why settle for second best?

  ‘Well, you’ll have to make do with me, then. Dance with me, Damien?’

  He pulled air in through his nostrils and pushed it out again through his teeth. He stood up, unable to refuse this bride anything. Besides, she would think it odd if he refused, would probably send Luke to wheedle the secret he could never tell out of him.

  Sara grasped his hand and pulled him towards the dance floor. So much for slipping away.

  When she stopped, turned and waited for him to take her in his arms he almost bolted, but instead he stoically took her hand in his and drew her close. Not too close, however.

  Imagine it’s someone else, he told himself.

  And it seemed to work, because they started to move their feet and he still felt relatively normal. There were no fireworks where they touched, no unexpected jolts or hot flushes. This was good. He had things under control.

  ‘You’ve been fabulous today,’ Sara said as he led her round the dance floor. ‘Perfect.’

  Damien smiled. A smile of duty. ‘It was easy to do this for Luke,’ he said. His words were plain, slightly evasive, but not devoid of truth. It had been easy to decide to support his best friend all the way when Luke had announced—in his own words—that he was going to marry the most wonderful woman in the world. Damien couldn’t have done anything else. It wasn’t in his bones.

  But where the spirit was willing, the flesh had been weak. He hadn’t been able to eradicate the growing feelings for the woman he was now holding in his arms. He’d tried. God, he’d tried.

  Sara attempted to chat as they danced, but her efforts clanged off him and fell to the floor between their feet. He’d always been able to jest and banter with Sara before now, but after the emotional marathon he’d run today he found himself searching frantically for something to say.

  Conversation would be good, Damien! Conversation would distract him from the feel of her waist beneath his fingers, the light touch of her hand on his shoulder, the rose-scented perfume that was flooding his nostrils and drowning his lungs.