A Week With The Best Man

She reminded herself—stridently—that he might look like the boy she’d thought worthy of secret teenaged affections, but those affections had gone up in smoke when she’d discovered he had it in him to stick in the knife. And twist.

Harper grabbed the handles of her last couple of bags and took a discreet step away.

Not discreet enough, apparently, as Cormac’s cheek kicked into a knowing smile before he said, “Could you have brought any more baggage?”

Honey, you have no idea.

“Come on, then,” he said, and with that he crunched over the white gravel and up the huge front steps of the big house.

The impressive Georgian-look manor was the first house built on the bluff over Blue Moon Bay by Weston Chadwick’s father. When the next generation relocated the head office of their world-famous surf brand to the area, making the holiday estate their permanent home, the sleepy town had fast grown into a haven for wealthy families looking for a sea change.

Those who could keep up with the Chadwicks thrived. Those who couldn’t...

“Come!” Cormac called.

Harper’s eyebrows rose sharply, until Cormac’s dog trotted up the stairs and she realised the command had not been for her.

Cormac and dog disappeared inside the double front doors as if they’d done so a thousand times before. Which they likely had.

Rumour had it that Cormac had moved into the Chadwicks’ pool house right after high school. Then he and Grayson had gone on to take law together at Melbourne University before Grayson had taken his place on the board of his family’s behemoth company, while Cormac opened up his own firm, servicing one client: the Chadwick family.

By the look of things, insinuating himself had been a smart move. As Harper made her way up the front steps, she wondered how much of his soul he’d had to give up to do it.

None of which made Harper feel any better about the fact that her little sister was about to marry into that world, that family, for good.

Well, she’d see about that.

Through the impressive two-storey foyer, walls unexpectedly lined with some pretty fabulous modern art, Harper kept eyes front as she followed Cormac up one side of a curling double staircase.

She found him in a large bedroom suite, leaning against a chest of drawers as he played with his dog’s ear.

Her bags had been placed by a padded bench at the end of a plush king-sized bed. Sunshine poured through large windows draped with fine muslin, picking out shabby-chic furnishings and duck-egg-blue trim. A vase of fresh gardenias sent out the most glorious scent.

The room was elegant and cool. It suited her to a T.

Lola, she thought, her chest tightening, knowing Cormac hadn’t been kidding. Her little sister had decorated the room with her in mind.

Harper slowly unwrapped the tie around her waist and hung her coat over the back of a padded chair, leaving her in a neat cream shift with a kick at the hem and her ubiquitous heels.

Cormac cleared his throat. She looked his way to find him watching her, his deep, rich brown eyes still holding the glint of affection he held for his hound.

“So,” she managed, “am I meant to stay in here until Lola arrives, or have you been given further instruction as to what to do with me?”

Something flickered across his eyes, but was gone before she could take its measure. His hands slid into the front pockets of his jeans, framing all he had going on down there. Not that she looked. Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the door. “You hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Harper lied, for she was starved. Sharing a meal was a tactic she often used mid-negotiation to soften up the combatants. And she would not be softened. Not by him.

“Then I guess we could stand here making awkward conversation till someone gets home.”

Harper glanced deliberately at her watch. It was two in the afternoon. On a Monday. “I vote no.”

“Hmm. Big shock.” He took a step towards the door. “If we’re up to our throats in my famous ham and mustard sandwiches there’ll be no need to make small talk. Let me make you something. Let me feed you.”

She wondered how often that line worked. By the gleam in his eye, probably every time. She actually found herself wavering towards his suggestion when a bang, a crash, a flurry of voices preceded the thunder of feet taking the stairs two at a time.

Then a whirlwind of blonde hair, yoga gear and running shoes rushed through the door and launched itself at her.

Harper’s knees hit the back of her bed as she fell, laughing despite herself.

While Lola hung on tight and cried, “You’re here! You’re really here!”

After a quick mental scan to make sure nothing was broken, Harper hugged Lola back. Hard. Drinking in the feel of her little sister, the hitch of her voice, the scent of her skin.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight when she felt the sting of tears. Not now. Not here. Not with an audience. Their story had always been a personal one. The two of them against the world.

“Of course I’m here,” Harper said through the tight clutch at her throat. “Now get off me before I crumple. Or before you bruise yourself. You are getting married this weekend, you know.”

Lola rolled away, landing on her back. “I’m getting married this weekend.”

Harper hauled herself to sitting, fixed her dress and swiped both hands over her hair. “So the rumour goes.”

A noise, movement, something had her looking back towards the door to find Cormac leaning in the doorway. Watching her.

When their eyes met he smiled. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth, but it filled her with butterflies all the same.

She felt her forehead tighten into a scowl.

For she’d been hanging out for this moment, this reunion with her flesh and blood, her heart and soul, her Lola, for so long.

And he—with his history, his link to the Chadwicks and his knowing eyes—was ruining everything.

“Oh, hi, Cormac!” said Lola as she crawled to sit beside Harper on the bed, before leaning on her like a puppy. “I didn’t see you there.”

He tilted his chin and gave her a wink, his stance easing, his eyes softening, his entire countenance lightening.

“Have you two been getting reacquainted, then? Chatting about the good old days?”

“Not sure we had much in the way of ‘old days’, did we, Harper? You were—what, a year or two below me at school?”

“A year below,” she said, her voice admirably even. Then, with a deliberate blink and a turn of her shoulders, she cut him out of the circle.

She took one of Lola’s hands in hers and pulled it to her heart, then pressed her other hand against her little sister’s face. And she drank her in like a woman starved.

The last time she’d flown Lola to holiday with her in Paris, she’d still had apple cheeks. Now they were gone. New smile lines creased the edges of her mouth. Her hair was longer too, more structured, blonder.

And shadows smudged the skin beneath her bright blue eyes.

Late nights? Not enough water? Or some deeper concern?

When their family had fallen apart all those years ago, Harper had done everything in her power to shield Lola from the worst of it. Taking every hit, fixing every problem, hiding every secret, so that Lola might simply go on, having the blessed life she’d have enjoyed otherwise.

Meaning Lola knew nothing about the part the Chadwicks had played in it all.

Here, now, seeing her sister in the flesh, Harper knew—it was time. It was time for Lola to know the truth.

“How you doing, Lolly?” Harper asked, her voice soft, her expression beseeching. “Truly.”

At which point Lola’s bottom lip began to quake and she burst into tears.

CHAPTER TWO

HARPER PACED UP and down the long wall of the Chadwicks’ library. A clock somewhere struck seven, and her eyes flickered to the open doorway as she waited impatiently for her sister to appear.

It had been hours since Lola had burst into tears.

In the several beats it had taken Harper to come to terms with the fact her sister was sobbing in her arms, Grayson Chadwick had filled the doorway of Harper’s room.

With a grunt he’d lumbered inside, climbed up onto her bed and wrapped them both in a bear hug.

At which point Lola had come up laughing, wiping her tears, looking from fiancé to sister with shining blue eyes, claiming she had no idea why she’d broken down. Likely nervous excitement, over-stimulation, and pure joy that Harper was finally here.

Harper hadn’t pushed it. Not then. Not there. It had been clear Lola had not wanted to appear upset in front of Gray, which rang all kinds of fresh alarm bells.

Lola had pushed away from the bed. “You must be exhausted. If you look in the bedside drawer you’ll find I’ve left you a little relaxer.”

“Wow, you guys are close,” Gray had murmured.

Lola had smacked her fiancé, her hand bouncing off his pec. “Not that kind of relaxer, you degenerate. A yoga nidra. I bookmarked links to some awesome guided meditations in my favourite yoga book so she can centre herself before heading down for dinner. If I know my sister, and I do know my sister, she’ll need it to handle your parents. I’ll come find you in the library,” she’d said, pointing a finger at Harper. “Seven p.m. sharp.”

Then they’d piled out of her room, Cormac the last to go.

“A little prolonged relaxation should never be underestimated,” he’d said with a nod towards her bedside drawer, before he’d caught her gaze, delivered a knockout smile, rapped a knuckled fist against the doorway and was gone.

Harper swallowed. And rolled her shoulders.

The moment she had her little sister alone Harper would get to the bottom of Lola’s tears. Would see how much Lola really knew about her future in-laws. And then she would fix everything.

A scrape of shoe against floor had Harper turning to the library door and once again staring down Cormac Wharton.

He’d changed into a charcoal suit, sharp white shirt open at the neck, no tie. He looked slick and relaxed. Debonair and yet with the unshaved scruff on his jaw a little rough around the edges. Forcing her to admit—if only to herself—that, while the boy had been swoon-worthy, the man was a far more dangerous beast.

She said nothing as she waited for his gaze to finish its travels over her.

She’d chosen a fortifying dress in which to meet the Chadwicks; midnight-blue and dramatically detailed, with a full skirt and fitted bodice, the sharp horizontal neckline and long sleeves leaving neck and shoulders bare.

Cormac’s eyes paused at her ankles, her waist, her décolletage, before they swept swiftly back to hers. Her breath snagged in her throat as their gazes clashed.

“Evening, Harper,” he said as he prowled into the room.

She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. And began to pace as well. “No sign of Lola on your way down?”

“I wasn’t upstairs. I only just arrived back.”

She shot him a look. “Quick commute from the pool house?”

“The pool house? I haven’t stayed there in years. How did you even know about the pool house?”

Dammit. Harper feigned interest in the wall of books when her attention was wholly on where he was in the room relative to her. “Lola talks. She keeps me up-to-date with the goings on in Blue Moon Bay.”

“But that was before Lola’s time. You been keeping tabs on me, Harper?”

Double dammit.

“Hardly.”

Cormac stopped prowling to flick a speck of lint off the back of a chair and she came to a halt. When he began pacing once more, so did she. The smile tugging at the corners of his eyes grew into a grin as it became all too obvious they were chasing one another around the couch.

Harper sat on the soft leather lounge and reached down to pick up a book from the coffee table, as if she’d been planning to do so the entire time.

Cormac moved to take the other end of the same chair, lifting an ankle to rest it on a knee, stretching a lazy arm across the back of the seat, his fingers curled mere inches from her bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t have picked you as a fan of bird-watching.”

“Hmm?”

Cormac motioned to the book she was pretending to admire.

She placed it back on the table and gritted her teeth.

“You’re right about Lola,” Cormac said.

Harper couldn’t help herself; she glanced his way, cocking a solitary eyebrow to show her care in anything he had to say was limited.

“She talks,” he said. “She talks a lot about you.”

“And I talk a lot about her.” Or she used to. Harper struggled to remember the last time she’d met someone new, someone she felt comfortable enough to talk about her sister with. “She’s my everything. And has been for a very long time. The fact that we live on opposite sides of the world hasn’t changed that.”

“I’m going to tell you what she says about you too,” said Cormac, “because you looked a little delicate when we left you in your room earlier. Like you could do with a boost.”

Harper opened her mouth to tell him where he could put his boost, but Cormac got there first.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked back at her as he said, “I’ve never met anyone as proud of another person as Lola is of you.”

Harper’s mouth slowly closed.

“She talks so highly of your work, your ambition, how much you’ve sacrificed for her, we’d be forgiven for believing the sun shone out of your very eyes.”

Harper shifted on the seat. Blamed the softness of the cushions.

“She loves telling the story of how you didn’t freak out when she ditched her physio degree with a semester to go, even though you’d paid her way through uni. Goes on and on about how amazing you are. How happy she is that you’re her sister.”

He stopped there, as if waiting to see her reaction. As if he knew exactly how much she’d “freaked out” behind closed doors. And she had—calculating the costs, the overtime she’d put in to pay for it all, worrying how Lola might create a future for herself instead.

Only the relief in Lola’s voice, the joy, as she’d spoken about her decision had brought Harper’s outrage level down from eleven to a solid seven, which was pretty much her baseline.

Cormac’s gaze remained direct and unrelenting.

If she’d managed to keep her frustration and disappointment from Lola, then she’d damn well keep it from him. Her smile was worthy of the Mona Lisa as she said, “It’s true. I am amazing.”

A muscle flickered in Cormac’s cheek. “So it would seem.”

“Yet after what happened upstairs earlier, would you say that my little sister is truly happy?”

His eyes narrowed, and slowly, slowly he leant back in the chair. Then he waved a hand in the air and asked, “What is happiness?”

When Harper realised she didn’t have a ready answer, she said, “I imagine it’s different things to different people.”

“Then for me it’s a hot morning, an empty beach and a long wave.”

Harper cocked an eyebrow.

“There’s a chance,” said Cormac, “it could be the exact same ingredients for Lola, but you’d have to ask her yourself.”

And she would. When she could get her sister all to herself for any length of time. Till then...

“Look, I know you’re in deep with the Chadwick family, so I’m talking to the wrong person about this, but right now you’re all I’ve got. I need to know that Lola’s okay. I need to know that she’s making the right decision.”

Cormac breathed out long and slow. She could all but see him picking her words apart and putting them back together in his mind. Then he said, “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?”

Harper opened her mouth to tell Cormac exactly what she would do, when Cormac looked at something over Harper’s shoulder. His face creased into a smile. With teeth. And eye crinkles. And pleasure. Before he pulled himself to standing.

“Well, if it isn’t the folks of the groom!” Cormac said, holding his arms wide.

Every question fled from Harper’s head as she spun so fast her neck cracked, giving her no time at all to pull herself together before Weston and Dee-Dee Chadwick glided into the room, leaving her unprepared for how overwhelming it was to see them again.

They looked much as she remembered them. More grey in the hair, of course. More weather around the eyes. But still dripping money and success and ease. As if they had not a care in the world.

Harper was too busy noting the deep smile creases branching out from the edges of Weston Chadwick’s bright blue eyes as he took Cormac in a long hug, a hug fit for a son, to see Dee-Dee coming for her.

Cool, ring-clad fingers gripped Harper’s upper arms, pulling Harper to Dee-Dee’s cheek. “Darling Harper. We are all so glad that you’re finally here.”

There was that finally word again. Had they made a pact to use it any chance they had?

Dee-Dee turned Harper this way and that. “Aren’t you an absolute treat? Not much of Lola in you, but enough. In the eyes, perhaps. And, no doubt, the heart.”

Floaty, blonde and elegant, Dee-Dee Chadwick had an unexpectedly kind touch. Warm. Enveloping. Motherly. Not that Harper would know. She hadn’t seen her own mother since she was five.

The urge overcame her to twist away. To gain distance. Only her years spent as a star player in the field of corporate manoeuvring had taught Harper the value in smiling politely. While plotting quietly.

“Thank you for putting me up, Mrs Chadwick. Though I’d have been fine staying in a hotel—”

“Nonsense. We are to be family after all. And no calling me Mrs Chadwick. It’s Dee-Dee.”

“Then thank you, Dee-Dee,” Harper managed, right as Lola traipsed through the wide doorway, mouthing Sorry! as she dragged Gray into the room.

Harper shook her head and mouthed It’s okay.

“Weston, darling,” said Dee-Dee. “Stop talking business, this is a family gathering. Come meet Lola’s sister, Harper. Fresh in from her high-powered job in Dubai.”

“High-powered, you say,” said Weston as he ambled to Dee-Dee’s side, placing a hand in the small of his wife’s back as he looked into Harper’s eyes.

Harper’s breath burned in her lungs. Her back teeth ground together. Every inch of her skin felt as if it were crawling in microscopic bugs. For this man had been the cause of so much pain in her family. Did he remember? Did he care?

“She’s a corporate negotiator,” said Lola, sidling up beside them, her hand still locked tight in the crook of Gray’s elbow.

“For?” Weston asked, attention already beginning to slide away.

Harper knew just how to get it back. “The highest bidder.”

Weston blinked and seemed to see her for the first time. “That so?”

Harper wondered if Weston Chadwick recognised her father in her eyes. In her heart.

“And isn’t she luminous?” Dee-Dee gushed. “Look at her skin.”

“A benefit of not living under the Australian sun all your life,” said Weston, his deeply tanned skin creasing as he smiled.

All Harper could think was that the only reason she’d had to leave this place was in order to chase the highest bidders, was so that she’d make enough money to provide Lola with every opportunity the Chadwicks had been able to gift their son. And the only reason that had become her responsibility was because of him. Her sister’s future father-in-law.

“And that dress,” said Dee-Dee, cheerfully. “So striking. Not that Harper wouldn’t look just as beautiful in a hessian sack.” Dee-Dee looked around for agreement just as Cormac moved into her line of sight. “Cormac, wouldn’t Harper look lovely even in a hessian sack?”

Cormac glanced around the group before his gaze landed on Harper. She still couldn’t get used to it; those familiar deep brown eyes looking right at her.

It was a relief when he broke eye contact to do as Dee-Dee requested and determine whether she would look good in a hessian sack. His eyes dancing over her with speed and ease. Nothing at all untoward to an untrained eye.

Only Harper read body language for a living, noting the rise and fall of his chest, the flaring of his nostrils, the way his throat worked.

Cormac liked what he saw.

Seeing that flare of attraction in the eyes of any other man, she’d have been flattered and moved on. In the eyes of Cormac Wharton it was a threat to life as she knew it.

Harper shook her head just a fraction. Please, no. Don’t go there. Don’t answer. Don’t make this week more complicated than it already is.

Cormac smiled, his voice a rough rumble that skittered down Harper’s arms as he said, “I for one would love to see Harper in a hessian sack.”

Gray’s laughter was like a sonic boom. Though he quickly sank into his gargantuan shoulders when his mother slanted him a Look.

“I am truly disappointed in all of you. Harper is going to think we are a bunch of yokels,” said Dee-Dee, pointing a finger at each man in her midst.

“Not at all,” Harper said, hoping they’d all now move on.

She had no problem being centre of attention, but only when she was prepared, armed with not a single question she did not already know the answer to. And Cormac’s “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?” rang in her head like a promise. Or a portent.

Lola cleared her throat. “Sorry to break up the fun, but after all the wedding stuff I did today I’m famished.” She winked at Harper, who could not have loved her sister more.

“Of course,” said Dee-Dee. “Let’s head into dinner.” She took her husband’s arm as he escorted her from the room.

Then Lola put her hand through Gray’s elbow and allowed herself to be swept out the door as well, like something out of a royal procession.

“Miss Addison?”

Harper turned to find Cormac beside her—eyes front, one arm behind his back, the other crooked her way. As if he’d read her mind.

She laughed before she even felt it coming. Then, with a long outrush of breath, she placed her hand in the proffered elbow.

Though she took the first step, leading him out of the room.

But his legs were longer, and he wasn’t wearing heels, meaning soon he was a smidge in front. So she picked up the pace. He lengthened his strides to match. And soon they found themselves all but jogging.

When Harper’s high heel caught on a knot in a rug and she had to grip on to Cormac’s arm to steady herself, Cormac shot her a look.

Giving in?

Never.

Yet they called a silent truce. For now. Walking at a sensible pace.

And in the silence Harper felt the warmth of him beneath her hand, even through the layers of clothing. Felt his leg as it brushed against her skirt. Felt her pulse quicken when he let go a quick hard breath, as if he too was unduly affected by their proximity.

Not that it mattered. All that mattered was Lola. Making sure she was happy. And that she would continue to be so once Harper left. Meaning she had to get to the bottom of Cormac’s cryptic quip while she had the chance.

She licked her lips. Swallowed. And said, “Cormac?”

He glanced down at her, catching her up in his deep, warm brown eyes. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say.

When an eyebrow cocked and a smile started tugging at his mouth, she had to say something. She went with, “How far away is the dining room?”

“It’s a big house.” Cormac’s cheek twitched, bringing his dimple out to play. Have mercy.

Whatever he saw in her eyes made him breathe deep. Then his gaze travelled down her cheek, her neck, pausing on her dress. His voice dropped a fraction as he said, “You didn’t actually pack a hessian sack, did you?”

Harper shot him a look that would flay the top layer of skin off a less self-assured man. While Cormac only grinned. A quick flash of teeth that had her heart slamming against her ribs, hard enough to make her wince.