A Week With The Best Man

“Good,” he said. “For a second there I thought I’d have to track one down too in an effort at maid-of-honour-best-man solidarity.”

“No need,” she said. “For the sack or the solidarity.”

“Is that so?”

“You stand for Gray. I stand for Lola.”

“There was I, thinking that’s the same thing. Why do I get the feeling you don’t?”

Right. That was what she wanted to talk to him about. “Earlier, before the Chadwicks arrived, when I asked if you thought Lola was happy, that she would be okay, what did you mean when you said you couldn’t make any promises?”

Cormac lifted his spare hand to run it up the back of his neck. A sign of frustration, no doubt. With her. But it wasn’t her job to make his life easier. It was her job to protect her sister.

“You’re not going to cause trouble this week.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I’m not a troublemaker, Cormac. I’m a fixer.”

Cormac’s gaze was unreadable.

Voices murmured ahead as they neared the dining room; a long table covered in elegant settings of fine china and huge floral centrepieces was visible through a pair of double doors.

“Who else is coming?”

“Just us.”

“All that view is missing is a pair of armoured servants holding swords,” Harper muttered.

“Night off.”

“Ah.”

Harper’s pace slowed, the thought of having to play nice with the Chadwicks turning her legs to jelly. She may even have tightened her grip on Cormac’s arm.

She felt Cormac’s gaze slide to hers before his voice came to her, low and slow. “Harper.”

“Mmm?”

“Dee-Dee was right. Even without the hessian sack, you look immoderately beautiful tonight.”

Harper’s gaze skittered to his. She hadn’t needed to hear it to know Cormac was thinking it, for so far he’d not felt a need to hide behind propriety. Yet hearing those words from that mouth were the worst kind of bittersweet.

She’d have melted if he’d as much as gifted her a smile when she was sixteen. Now a distraction of this kind was the very last thing she needed.

When she said nothing, he went on. “And by immoderately, I mean unfairly. With relish. As if to dazzle. To create shock and awe. Why do I get the feeling this is your version of playing dirty?”

Because you’re too smart for your own good.

Harper thought she might have found an ally, but she’d thought wrong. Cormac Wharton would have to be watched, and handled, very carefully indeed.

She lifted a hand to fuss with the perfectly straight lapel of Cormac’s jacket. “For a small-town boy, you clean up okay yourself.”

After the briefest of beats, Cormac murmured, “Look at that. We can play nice.”

And he leaned in to her, just a fraction. Enough that she was forced to flatten her hand against his chest. Felt the steady thump of a strong heart through her fingers as they stood, toe to toe. Who would flinch first? Not Harper. Never Harper.

“Hurry up, you two!” Lola called from inside the dining room.

Harper pulled her hand away right as Cormac leant back. The game a draw. Though the skin of her palm tingled as if she’d held it too close to an open fire.

Something flashed across Cormac’s face before he hid it behind a smile. Then, sweeping an arm ahead of him, he said, “After you, my lady.”

Harper couldn’t help herself; she curtsied, earning an ear-to-ear grin that had her blinking to clear her eyes, before they joined the others.

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