Wedding Promises

Neither was he, she realised suddenly. Wasn’t that a little odd? I mean, she knew why her sister wouldn’t want her trailing down the aisle in front of her with a bouquet, but why didn’t Riley want his brother standing up beside him for the ceremony?

Dan’s face had darkened at her words, so she hurried on, not really paying attention to what she was saying. ‘Which is just as well, since there’s so much to focus on! And besides, being behind the scenes means that it should be easier for me to avoid Benjamin—which is an advantage not to be overlooked.’

Oh. She hadn’t meant to mention Benjamin.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

‘Benjamin?’ Dan asked, and Laurel bit back a sigh.

Too much to hope for, clearly.

‘My ex-fiancé,’ she said succinctly, wondering if there was a way to tell this story that didn’t make her sound like a miserable, weak, doormat of a person.

Probably not.

‘He’s attending the wedding?’ Dan sounded surprised. She supposed that normal sisters wouldn’t invite their sibling’s ex-partner to their wedding. But the relationship between her and Melissa had never even pretended to be ‘normal’.

‘With his new fiancée,’ she confirmed.

Because it wasn’t humiliating enough just to have to face the man she’d thought was The One again, after he’d made it abundantly clear she wasn’t his anything, in front of her family, celebrities and the world’s media. She also had to do it with her replacement in attendance.

‘His parents are old friends of my father’s. We practically grew up together. Unlike me and my sister.’ She was only making things worse. ‘So, yeah, he’ll be there—just to maximise the awkward. And I’m not exactly looking forward to it, I’ll admit—especially since I haven’t seen him since... Anyway, it’ll all be fine, and I’ll mostly be organising wedding things anyway, like I said, so...’

There had to be a way out of this conversation that left her just a little dignity, surely? If she kept digging long enough maybe she’d find it—before her pride and self-confidence hitched a ride back to London in a passing cab.

‘The Wedding March’ rang out from the phone in her hand, and Laurel gave a silent prayer of thanks for the interruption—until she saw the name on the screen.

Melissa. Of course.

Sighing, she flashed a brief smile at Dan. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’

He leant back against the leather seats and nodded. ‘Of course.’

Laurel pressed ‘answer’. Time to see how her half-sister intended to make her day a little worse.

* * *

Considering that the hot little brunette who’d gatecrashed his ride to the hotel had done nothing but talk since they met, she was doing surprisingly little talking on her phone call.

‘Yes, but—’ Another sigh. ‘Of course, Melissa. You’re the bride, after all.’

Melissa. The blonde bombshell who’d exploded into his little brother’s world a year ago and taken it over. Dan and Riley had never been exactly what he’d call close—the six-year age-gap meant that they’d done their growing up at different times, and their parents’ blatant favouritism towards their younger son hadn’t made bonding any easier.

But the distance between them didn’t change the fact that Riley was his little brother and Dan loved him regardless. He’d loved him all through his Golden Boy childhood, through their parents cutting Dan off when he’d moved to LA and become a stuntman without their approval, and even through their outstanding hypocrisy when Riley had followed him nine years later.

Their parents were both world-renowned in their fields—cardiac surgery for their mother and orthopaedics for his father. That would have been enough to try and live up to under normal circumstances. But Dan had given up competing with anybody long before his younger brother had moved to Hollywood and become a star.

It wasn’t as if he was doing so shabbily by anyone’s terms—even his own. He owned his own business and his turnover doubled every year. He probably earned nearly as much as his hotshot brother, and even if the public would never know his name, the people who mattered in Hollywood did. He—or rather his company, Black Ops Stunts—was the first port of call for any major studio making an action movie these days. He’d made a success of the career his parents had been sure would kill him or ruin him.

Not that they cared all that much either way.

Dan shifted in his seat as he contemplated the week ahead of him. Five days in a luxury hotel—not so bad. Five days with the rich and obnoxious—less good. Five days dealing with his parents—nightmare.

When the invitation had first fallen onto his doormat he’d honestly considered skipping the whole thing. Formal events weren’t really his style, and he spent enough time with Hollywood actors to know that some of them had surprisingly little respect for the people who saved them from risking their lives doing their own stunts. And from what he’d heard about Melissa Sommers she was definitely one of them.

In fact it was all the industry gossip about Melissa that had persuaded him that he needed to be at Morwen Hall that week. Or rather the conflicting reports.

As far as Dan could tell every director and co-star who had ever worked with Melissa thought she was an angel. Anyone who ranked lower than a named credit in the titles, however, told a rather different story.

He sighed, running through his mind once more the series of off-the-record conversations he’d had recently. It wasn’t an unfamiliar story—he’d met enough stars who played the part of benevolent, caring, charitable celebrity to the hilt when anyone who mattered was looking, then turned into a spoilt brat the moment the cameras switched off. He’d even been married to one of them. The only difference was that this time it was Riley marrying the witch—and he needed to be sure his baby brother knew exactly what he was getting in to.

Riley didn’t do personas, Dan thought. In fact it was a mystery how he’d ever got into acting in the first place. It probably said something that he always got cast to play the nice guy, though. The ‘aw, shucks, good old country boy’ who found true love after ninety minutes, or the clean-cut superhero who could do no wrong.

That certainly fitted with the way their parents saw him, anyway.

But this week Dan was far more concerned with how Melissa saw him. Was it true love? Or was he her ticket to something bigger? Her career was doing well, as far as he could tell, but Riley was a step up. Stars had married for a lot less—and he didn’t want to see his brother heartbroken and alone six months after he said, ‘I do.’

‘Melissa...’

Laurel sighed again, and Dan tuned back in to the phone conversation she was enduring. Seemed as if Melissa didn’t count her half-sister as someone who mattered. Hardly unexpected, given their history, he supposed. Everyone knew that story—inside and outside the industry.

He wondered why Melissa had hired her famously estranged half-sister to organise the celebrity wedding of the year. Was it an attempt at reconciliation? Or a way to make Laurel’s life miserable? Judging by the phone call he was eavesdropping on, it definitely felt like the latter. Or maybe it was all about the way it would play in the media—that sounded like the Melissa he’d heard stories about from Jasmine, his best stunt woman, who’d doubled for Melissa once or twice.

This wedding would be his chance to find out for sure. Ideally before she and Riley walked down the aisle.

At least he had a plan. It was good to have something to focus on. Otherwise he might have found himself distracted—maybe even by the brunette on the phone...

‘I’ll be back at Morwen Hall in less than an hour,’ Laurel said finally, after a long pause during which she’d nodded silently with her eyes closed, despite the fact her sister obviously couldn’t see the gesture. ‘We can talk about it some more then, if you like.’

She opened her mouth to speak again, then shut it, lowering the phone from her ear and flashing him a tight smile.

‘She hung up,’ she explained.

‘Problems?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Laurel, he’d already learned, talked to fill the silence—something that seemed to be absent when she was speaking with her half-sister. If he let her ramble on maybe she’d be able to give him all the information about Melissa he needed to talk his brother out of this wedding. They could all be on their way home by dinner time, and he could get back to business as usual. Perfect.

‘Oh, not really,’ Laurel said lightly, waving a hand as if to brush away his concerns. ‘Just the usual. Last-minute nerves about everything.’

Dan sat up a little straighter. ‘About marrying Riley?’

‘Goodness, no!’

Laurel’s eyes widened to an unbelievable size—dark pools of chocolate-brown that a man could lose himself in, if he believed in that sort of thing.

‘Sorry, that wasn’t what I meant at all! I just meant...there are so many arrangements in place for this week and, even though I really do have them all in hand, Melissa just likes to...well, double check. And sometimes she has some new ideas that she’d like to fit in to the plans. Or changes she’d like to make.’

‘Such as the wedding favours?’ Dan said, nodding at the glossy bag by her feet.

‘Exactly!’ Laurel looked relieved at his understanding. ‘I’m so sorry if I worried you. My mouth tends to run a little faster than my brain sometimes. And there’s just so much to think about this week...’

‘Like your ex-fiancé,’ Dan guessed, leaning back against the seat as he studied her.

An informant who talked too much was exactly what he was looking for—even if he hadn’t really thought about her as such until now. Fate had tossed him a bone on this one.

Laurel’s face fell, her misery clear. Had the woman ever had a thought that wasn’t instantly telegraphed through her expression? Not that he was complaining—anything that made reading women easier was a plus in his book. But after spending years learning to school his responses, to keep his expressions bland and boring, he found it interesting that Laurel gave so much away for free.

In Hollywood, he assumed people were acting all the time. In the case of people who had to deal with the over-expressive actors, directors and so on, they learned to lock down their response, to nod politely and move on without ever showing annoyance, disagreement or even disgust.

Laurel wasn’t acting—he could tell. And she certainly wasn’t locking anything down. Especially not her feelings about her ex-fiancé.

‘Like Benjamin,’ she agreed, wincing. ‘Not that I’m planning on thinking about him much. Or that I’ve been pining away after him ever since...well, since everything happened.’

Yeah, that sounded like a lie. Maybe she hadn’t been pining, but she’d certainly been thinking about him—that much was obvious.

‘What did happen? If you don’t mind me asking.’

Dan shifted in his seat to turn towards her. He was surprised to find himself honestly interested in the answer. Partly because he was sympathetic to her plight—it was never fun to run into an ex, which was one of the reasons he avoided celebrity parties these days unless he could be sure Cassie wouldn’t be there—and partly because he couldn’t understand why Melissa would invite her half-sister’s ex-fiancé to her wedding. Old family friends or not, that was a level of harsh not usually seen in normal people.

Which only made him more concerned for Riley.

Laurel sighed, and there was a world of feeling in the sound as her shoulders slumped.

‘Oh, the usual, I suppose. I thought everything was perfect. We were going to get married, live happily ever after—you know, get the fairy tale ending and everything.’ She looked up and met his gaze, as if checking that he did understand what a fairy tale was.

‘Oh, I understand,’ he said, with feeling. Hadn’t that been what he’d thought would be his by rights when he said ‘I do’ to Cassie? Look how wrong he’d been about that.

‘But then it turned out that he wanted the fairy tale with someone else instead.’ She shrugged, her mouth twisting up into a half-smile. ‘I guess sometimes these things just don’t work out.’

‘You seem surprisingly sanguine about it.’

‘Well, it’s been six months,’ Laurel answered. ‘Melissa says I should be well over it by now. I mean, he obviously is, right?’

Six months? Six months after Cassie had left him Dan had still been drinking his way through most of LA’s less salubrious bars. He probably still would be if his business partner hadn’t hauled him out and pointed out that revenge was sweeter than moping.

Making a huge financial and professional success of Black Ops Stunts wasn’t just a personal win. It was revenge against the ex-wife who’d always said he’d never be worth anything.

‘People get over things in their own way and their own time,’ Dan said, trying to focus on the week in front of him, not the life he’d left behind.

‘The hardest part was telling my family,’ Laurel admitted, looking miserable all over again. ‘I mean, getting engaged to Benjamin was the first thing I’d done right in my father’s eyes since I was about fifteen. Even my stepmother was pleased. Benjamin was—is, I suppose—quite the catch in her book. Rich, well-known, charming...’ She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘I suppose I should have known it was too good to be true.’

‘So, what are you going to do now?’ Dan asked.

Laurel took a deep breath and put on a brave smile that didn’t convince him for a moment.

‘I’ve sworn off men for the time being. I’m going to focus on my business and on myself for a while. And then, when I’m ready, maybe I’ll consider dating again. But this time, I want to be a hundred per cent sure it’s the real thing—the whole fairy tale—before I let myself fall.’

Well, that was rather more information than he’d been looking for. Dan smiled back, awkwardly. ‘Actually, I meant...how do you plan to get through spending a week in the same hotel as him?’

Laurel turned pale. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Of course you don’t want to hear about that! Melissa always says I talk about myself far too much. Anyway... This week... Well, like I said, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m hoping that will keep me so busy I don’t even have to think about him.’

If Melissa had her way Dan suspected Laurel would be plenty busy. And probably only talking about Melissa, too.

‘What you really need is a new boyfriend to flaunt in his face,’ he joked, and Laurel laughed.

‘That would be good,’ she agreed, grinning at him. ‘But even if I hadn’t sworn off men I’ve barely had time to sleep since I started organising this wedding, so I definitely haven’t had time to date.’

That was a shame, Dan decided. Laurel, with her warm brown eyes and curvy figure, should definitely be dating. She shouldn’t be locking herself away, even if it wasn’t for ever. She should be out in the world, making it a brighter place. Less than an hour together and he already knew that Laurel was one of the good ones—and the complete opposite of everything he suspected about her half-sister. Laurel should be smiling up at a guy who treated her right for a change. A guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life making her smile that way. The prince she was waiting for.

Dan knew he was definitely not that guy. Treating women right wasn’t the problem—he had utter respect for any woman who hadn’t previously been married to him. But he didn’t do ‘for ever’ any more. Not after Cassie.

Besides, he knew from experience that ‘for ever’ wasn’t what women wanted from him, anyway. They wanted a stand-in—just like the directors did when they hired him or one of his people. Someone to come in, do good work, take the fall, and be ready to get out of the way when the real star of the show came along.

But maybe, he realised suddenly, that was exactly what Laurel needed this week.

A stand-in.

That, Dan knew, he could absolutely do. And it might just help him out in his mission to save his baby brother from a whole load of heartbreak, too, by getting him closer to the centre of the action.

‘What if he just thought you had a boyfriend?’ Dan asked, and Laurel’s nose wrinkled in confusion.

‘Like, lie to him?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m a terrible liar. He’d never believe me. Besides, if I had a boyfriend why wouldn’t he be at the wedding?’

‘He would be,’ Dan said, and the confusion in Laurel’s eyes grew.

He almost laughed—except that wouldn’t get him any closer to what he wanted: a ringside seat to find out what the bride was really like.

‘I don’t understand,’ Laurel said.

Dan smiled. Of course she didn’t. That was one of the things he was growing to like about her, after their limited acquaintance—her lack of subterfuge.

‘Me. Let me be your pretend boyfriend for the week.’

CHAPTER TWO

LAUREL BLINKED AT HIM. Then she blinked a few more times for good measure.

‘Are you...?’ Pretend. He’d said pretend boyfriend. ‘Are you fake asking me out?’

Dan laughed. ‘If you like.’

‘Why?’

Because he felt sorry for her—that much was clear. How pathetic must she look to elicit the promise of a fake relationship? Really, there was pity dating and then there was this. How low had she sunk? Not this low, that was for sure.

‘Because it feels wrong to let your ex wander around the wedding of the year like he won,’ Dan replied with a shrug. ‘Besides, I’m here on my own—and, to be honest, it would be nice to have a friend at my side when I have to deal with my family, too.’

His words were casual enough, but Laurel couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else under them. Something she was missing. But what?

‘So it’s not just a “Poor, sad Laurel, can’t even get a date to the celebrity wedding of the year” thing?’ she asked, cautiously.

Dan gave her a quick grin. ‘I’m not even sure I know what one of those would look like. No, I just figured...we’re both dateless, we both have to spend the week with some of our less than favourite people, we’re both non-Hollywood stars in the middle of a celebrity extravaganza...why not team up?’

Who were his ‘less than favourite’ people? she wondered. Who was he avoiding, and why?

Suddenly the whole suggestion sounded a little bit dodgy. Especially since...

‘Aren’t you a stuntman?’ Laurel narrowed her eyes. ‘Doesn’t that count as a Hollywood star?’

‘Definitely not,’ Dan said firmly. ‘In fact it probably makes me the exact opposite. Put it this way: if I wasn’t related to the groom by blood there’s not a chance I’d have been invited to this wedding.’

‘Same here,’ Laurel admitted.

One thing they had in common. That, plus the whole far-more-famous-sibling thing they both had going for them. Maybe—just maybe—this was a genuine offer.

Leaning back against the car seat, she considered his proposition. On the one hand, the idea of having someone there to back her up, to be on her side for once...well, that sounded pretty good. Especially when she had to face down Benjamin for the first time since that really awkward morning in the coffee shop, half an hour after she’d walked in on him in bed with her replacement.

‘You understand, don’t you, Laurel? When it’s true love...you just can’t deny that kind of feeling.’

She hadn’t thrown her coffee cup at his head. She still felt vaguely proud of that level of restraint. And just a little bit regretful... Breaking china on his skull would have been a reassuring memory to get her through the weeks that had followed—breaking the news to her family, cancelling the save-the-date card order, dealing with all the pitying looks from friends... And Melissa’s amusement as she’d said, ‘Really, Laurel, couldn’t you even satisfy old Benjy? I thought he’d have done anything to marry into this family.’

Her mouth tightened at the memory, and she fought to dispel it from her brain. Back to the problem at hand. A fake relationship? Really?

As nice as it would be not to have to face this week alone, who was she kidding? She wasn’t the actress in the family. She couldn’t pull this off. Even if Dan played the part to perfection she’d screw it up somehow—and that was only if they got past the initial hurdle. The one that she was almost certain she’d fall at.

They’d have to convince Melissa that they were in love.

Melissa and Laurel might not have spent much time together for half-sisters—they hadn’t grown up in the same house, hadn’t spent holidays together, celebrated Christmas together, fought over toys or any of that other stuff siblings were supposed to do. Laurel hadn’t even known Melissa existed until she was sixteen. But none of that changed the fact that Melissa had known about Laurel’s existence her whole life—and as far as she was concerned that meant she knew everything there was to know about her half-sister.

And Melissa would never believe a guy like Dan would fall for Laurel.

Fair enough—she was right. But it still didn’t make Laurel feel any more kindly towards her sister.

Laurel shook her head. ‘They’ll never fall for it. Trust me—I’m an awful actress. They’ll see right through it.’

‘Why?’ Dan asked, eyebrows raised. ‘Do you only date A-List celebs like your sister?’

Laurel snorted. ‘Hardly. It’s the other way round. Melissa would never believe that you’d fall for me. Besides, when are we supposed to have got together? We’ve never even met before today!’

‘They don’t know that,’ Dan pointed out. ‘It’s not like my family keeps a particularly tight check on my calendar, and Melissa and Riley have been in LA the whole time. I could have been over in London for work some time in the last six months. Obviously we’d been emailing about the wedding arrangements, so I suggested we meet up while I was in town. One thing led to another...’ He shrugged. ‘Easy.’

‘Is that my virtue or the lie?’ Laurel asked drily.

He made it sound so simple, so obvious. Did everyone else live their lives this way? Telling the story that made them look better or stopped them feeling guilty? Her dad certainly had. So had Benjamin. Could she do the same? Did she even want to?

‘The story,’ Dan answered. ‘And as for no one believing it...’

He reached out and took her hand in his, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing across the back of her hand, making the skin there tingle. His gaze met hers and held it, blue eyes bright under his close-cropped hair.

‘Trust me. No one is going to have any trouble at all believing that I want you.’

His words were low and rough, and her eyes widened as she saw the truth of them in his gaze. They might have only just met, but the pull of attraction she’d felt at the first sight of him apparently hadn’t only been one-sided. But attraction...attraction was easy. A relationship—even a fake one—was not.

Laurel had far too much experience of her world being tipped upside down by men—from the day her father had declared that he’d been keeping another family across town for most of her life and was leaving to live with them to the most recent upheaval of finding Benjamin naked on top of Coral.

But maybe that was the advantage of a pretend boyfriend. She got to set the rules in advance and, because she had no expectations of for ever or fidelity, or anything at all beyond a kind of friendship, she couldn’t be let down. Her world would remain resolutely the right way up.

Something that, after a week filled with Melissa’s last-minute mind-changes and the vagaries of celebrities, sounded reassuringly certain. She eyed Dan’s broad shoulders, strong stubbled jaw and wide chest. Solid, safe and secure. He looked like the human embodiment of his company brochure—which she’d studied when she’d been memorising the guest list. Black Ops Stunts promised safety, professionalism and reliability. Just what she needed to help her get through the week ahead.

Maybe—just maybe—this wasn’t a completely crazy idea after all.

‘Basically, it comes down to this,’ Dan said, breaking eye contact at last as he let go of her hand. ‘I have a feeling this is going to be the week from hell for both of us. Wedding of the year or not, I can think of a million places I’d rather be—and I’m sure you can too. But we’re both stuck at Morwen Hall until New Year’s Day, along with our families and all their friends.’