Always the Best Man

Praise for Fiona Harper

‘Classic Fiona—funny with fantastic characters.

I was charmed from the first page.’

—www.goodreads.com on

Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

‘It’s the subtle shadings of characterisation

that make the story work, as

well as the sensitive handling of key plot points.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Fiona Harper’s Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses pairs a simple plot with complex characters to marvellous effect. It’s both moving and amusing.’ —RT Book Reviews

About the Author

About Fiona Harper

As a child, FIONA HARPER was constantly teased for either having her nose in a book, or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.

Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland, and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues, because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.

Always the Best Man

Fiona Harper

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Also by Fiona Harper

Dancing with Danger

Swept Off Her Stilettos

Three Weddings and a Baby

Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

Blind-Date Baby

Invitation to the Boss’s Ball

Housekeeper’s Happy-Ever-After

The Bridesmaid’s Secret

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Dad, who likes sailing much better

than he likes reading romance. x

CHAPTER ONE

IF DAMIEN STONE had been a woman, he’d have become a bit of a standing joke by now. Three times a bridesmaid was unlucky, apparently. Double that number would have knelled the bells of matrimonial doom. Clucking aunts would have reminded him of that at every opportunity, told him to get a move on before he was left on the shelf.

But no one had ever made the mistake of thinking Damien was a girl, and he hadn’t been a bridesmaid once, thankfully. Nobody seemed to mind he’d been a best man so many times. If anything, other men clapped him on the back and congratulated him for such an accomplishment. No, Damien didn’t think there was anything unlucky about it.

It meant his friends respected him, thought him a stalwart ally. It took a certain kind of person to stand beside a friend at the front of a church, as that man prepared to utter the most life-altering words of his existence. Someone who was reliable, who knew how to get things done. Someone with a little dignity. He supposed he should be flattered.

But more than that, he was thankful—because he was going to need to draw on all of that experience if he was going to survive this day.

Six times now he’d worn a buttonhole as he stood beside a good friend. Six times he’d stood at the front of a pretty stone church in the hush just before the bride made her entrance. But never before had his palms been so sweaty or his heart run around inside his ribcage like a wind-up toy gone mad.

However, never before had the woman of his dreams been standing at the doors of the church, about to make her way down the aisle towards him.

He turned and looked at Luke, his best friend, and Luke gave him a fortifying smile and clapped him on the back. Damien swallowed. He was glad it was Luke standing here beside him. He didn’t think he could have made it through the day if it had been anyone else.

He tried to smile, but a nerve in his cheek made his lip twitch. Humour flashed in Luke’s eyes and Damien thought his friend was about to make one of his usual wry remarks, but just at that moment there was a ripple of movement behind them. Row upon row of heads turned towards the back of the church, like some nuptial Mexican wave, and the organ began to play.

He couldn’t look back at first, had to prepare himself for what he was about to see. This was it. No turning back after this. The future would be set in stone.

It was only when Luke nudged him in the ribs that he sucked in a stealthy breath through his nostrils then looked over his shoulder.

She was perfect.

He didn’t really look at the dress. Just her.

But then Sara Mortimer always had been pretty wonderful in his eyes. He’d thought so from the day he’d seen her across the room at a crowded bar, laughing with Luke, and had felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. Side on.

After today the rest of the world would be left in no doubt about her perfection, either. The white satin dress was pure class, and her soft blonde hair had been caught up in a twist of some kind behind her head. She wore a veil and a simple tiara and held a bunch of lilies, tied together with a thick white ribbon.

Sara was poised and elegant, intelligent, kind. He couldn’t find one fault with her—apart from her taste in men, maybe.

He let go of the breath he’d been holding and grabbed another while he had the chance.

It seemed to take ages for the bridesmaids to waft past in a cloud of dull gold. Well, most of them wafted. The maid of honour had too much of a wiggle in her step to do anything as graceful as waft.

It wasn’t just Sara’s taste in men that let her down, then. Damien had never really understood why Sara was friends with Zoe. Another one of the bride’s glowing qualities to add to his list, he supposed.

Where Sara was slender and cool and sophisticated, Zoe was too … everything. Not in the same class—and that didn’t refer to her parents’ wage brackets. Damien wasn’t a snob. No, Zoe was too loud, too uninhibited. Too busting out of her bodice, if his eyes served him right. Was it even legal to have that much cleavage in a bridesmaid’s dress?

For some bizarre reason, just her presence jarred his senses and irritated him. Or was that just the eye-watering perfume? She caught him looking at her and her expression took on a saucy glimmer. She knew she got under his skin. Couldn’t she have left it alone for just one day? And today of all days? He was sure she did … whatever she did … on purpose, just to goad him.

And now Sara was almost at the front and he’d been distracted, which only served to exasperate him further.

Thankfully, at that moment the last of the bridesmaids peeled away, leaving him with a vision of only Sara. He forgot instantly about bulging necklines, saucy glimmers and ginger curls popping out of their grips. In comparison, Sara was like a cool stream on a hot summer’s day. As she approached, she even gave him the smallest and softest of smiles. Sadly, he didn’t manage to return it; that nerve in his cheek had gone into overdrive. For a moment, though, their eyes connected and something flashed between them. Something bittersweet he was sure would haunt him on restless nights for years to come.

Because then Sara’s gaze was on the man standing next to him, and her father placed her hand in Luke’s and stepped away. Now it was Damien’s turn to be forgotten, to be totally pushed out of someone else’s mind by another.

The bride and groom stepped forward, eagerly looking at the minister. All eyes were on Sara and Luke, the happy couple, but all Damien could do was close his lids for a second, let his fingers close around the ring in his pocket.

Luke’s ring. For Sara.

No, if it had been anyone else, he couldn’t have made it through today. He couldn’t have stood there and watched Sara marry anyone but Luke. He equally couldn’t have refused when Luke had asked him to be his best man. Luke would have wanted to know why, and if there was one thing Damien was determined about it was that neither Luke nor Sarah would ever find out about his feelings for her, how they’d grown in strength, side by side with Luke’s, as he’d fallen for his best friend’s girlfriend.

He’d hidden those feelings successfully for the last eighteen months and he wasn’t going to slip up now. No, Luke would never know. Even if it killed Damien to make sure of that.

Today of all days, Damien Stone needed to be the perfect best man.

As the congregation mumbled their way through ‘Love Divine, All Loves Excelling’, almost completely drowned out by the rabidly enthusiastic organist, Sara’s cousin Tilly poked Zoe in the ribs with the stalky end of her bouquet.

Okay, maybe ‘poked in the ribs’ was a bit of an exaggeration. There was a bit too much squish where floristry met torso to accurately describe it as contact with bone. Zoe tried to ignore her, but Tilly leaned forward and whispered behind her lilies.

‘Best man’s hot,’ she said, sneaking a glance across the aisle. ‘Lucky you. As chief bridesmaid, you get first dibs.’

Zoe couldn’t help glancing across at the man in question. How did he do that? Manage to look all grave and heartfelt as he sang, while other people just buried their noses behind their Order of Service and hit a few right notes in the chorus?

‘If you like that sort of thing,’ she mumbled back to Tilly.

If you liked tall, dark and handsome. If you liked long legs and good bone structure and that irritating sense of aloofness. Even now, with his mouth wide open, singing one of the long notes of the hymn, he looked good. Untouchable. And Zoe had never been interested in anything that was too good to be touched, one step removed from life, as if it was something behind glass on display in a museum. Life was for getting your hands dirty, for jumping in one hundred per cent.

‘What?’ hissed Tilly, forgetting to shield her mouth with her bouquet. She earned herself a stern look from the mother of the bride. A woman who managed to scare the pants off the normally irrepressible Zoe St James. If, as the old wives’ tale threatened, Sara was going to age into a gorgon like that, she’d have to find herself a new best friend once she hit forty.

‘Are you blind?’ Tilly added, ignoring her aunt’s stare. Obviously the black sheep of the Mortimer family—which, funnily enough, put her a few notches higher in Zoe’s opinion.

Zoe just rolled her eyes and shook her head ever so slightly. It was still enough motion, however, to send yet another curly tendril tumbling over her face. She was about to blow it out of her way when she caught the Gorgon’s eye, and resorted to delicately tucking it behind her ear while the other woman’s eyes narrowed.

She looked away, and her gaze was drawn inexplicably to the subject of their discussion.

No, not blind. Just not stupid.

She knew he couldn’t stand the sight of her. Oh, he tried to hide it, and he actually did it rather well, but she’d been on the receiving end of similar treatment ever since she’d been old enough to open her mouth to recognise disapproval when she saw it.

Disdain. That was the word.

And that disdainful glimmer in Mr Perfect’s eye when he glanced her way just made her want to deliberately provoke him. And Zoe wasn’t one for resisting an urge whenever it hit. Life was too short. Just once she’d like to see him lose his cool, to see fire in those pale blue eyes instead of ice. In the past she’d got close a few times, but close wasn’t good enough. What Zoe really wanted to see was the whole firework display.

Not today, unfortunately. She wouldn’t do anything to upset Sara, and the poor deluded girl thought Mr Damien Stone was wonderful. Not as wonderful as the lovely Luke, obviously, but Zoe reckoned he came a close second in Sara’s eyes. She turned to Tilly and made a silent gagging motion, to show just what she thought of her fellow bridesmaid’s suggestion.

Whoops! The Gorgon was staring at them openly now, her mouth thinning. And Zoe really didn’t want to see tiny snakes popping up all over her head and burrowing their way up through the stiff and elaborate dove-grey hat. She turned to face the happy couple again, clutched her bouquet and started singing sweetly.

Mr Perfect must’ve caught the sudden motion out of the corner of his eye, because his head turned slightly and he glanced across. Zoe ignored him. Ignored the flicker she saw in those eyes before it was quickly hidden again. She put on her best angelic face and sang loudly, all the while warmed by the imagination that she could hear Damien Stone’s blood hissing faintly as it boiled in his veins.

Oh, how she wanted to see that firework display.

But not tonight, Zoe. Keep a lid on it. Sara and Luke had decided they didn’t want fireworks at the end of the reception, saying that everyone did it now and it seemed a bit of a cliché, so she guessed they wouldn’t welcome a similar display of the interpersonal kind. Damien Stone’s fuse would have to go unlit—for now.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t mess with his head a little, did it?

‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’

Damien stared at his half-finished individual pavlova for a second. He remembered taking a bite, but he didn’t remember pushing it around his plate so much it had disintegrated into Eton Mess. He flexed his shoulder muscles slightly. His morning suit jacket felt as if it were shrinking.

‘What’s wrong with yours?’

He turned to look at the maid of honour sitting next to him at the top table. Ridiculous seating plan. He’d never been sat next to the maid of honour before, not in six other weddings.

‘Nothing,’ she replied sweetly. Too sweetly. ‘It was stupendous … but rather small. That’s why I want yours if you’re not going to do it justice.’

Damien glowered at his plate briefly, as if the ravaged dessert somehow held some of the blame in this situation, and then shoved the plate in her direction, nobly resisting the urge to say anything about overfilled bodices.

‘Knock yourself out.’

‘Thanks.’

She dug in straight away, he noticed. Somehow that irritated him. He focused on a rather ugly pink hat somewhere else in the massive marquee and tried to will the minutes to go faster. Only a short time now and his official duties would be over. Soon he’d be able to slink off and find a good single malt to lubricate his petrified facial muscles. They’d set into a stupefied smile earlier in the day. Right about the time Sara had said, ‘I do.’

Always the best man …

It was starting to sound like a joke to Damien now—and not a very funny one. While he enjoyed helping his friends out in this way, he was beginning to feel like the odd one out. So many of his friends were all settled down and happy now, just as he wanted to be. Damien felt as if he was the unlucky jockey in a horse race, whose starting gate had failed to open while all the other riders were racing away from him. And now his best friend had snapped up the one woman Damien had considered a viable candidate for being Mrs Stone, it was even more disheartening.

‘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.