Lucy King - The Best Man for the Job

But not her. Never her. Not that she thought about that night fifteen years ago when she’d been so desperate to lose her virginity to him. Much.

‘What’s with the death grip?’

Celia blinked and snapped her train of thought away from the treacherous path it would career down if she let it. ‘Huh?’

‘On the flowers. What did they do? What did they say? Because I know from personal experience that it doesn’t take much.’

Celia glanced down at the beautiful bouquet of pink roses and baby’s breath that matched her dress and saw that her knuckles were indeed white, and she mentally swore at herself for letting him get to her.

She really had to relax because if she didn’t she’d never make it to the door with her nerves intact. This walk down the aisle was taking for ever. What with the way Dan and Zoe kept stopping to talk to people in the pews, they were progressing at about a metre an hour and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could resist the temptation to push past the bride and groom and make a run for it.

‘The flowers haven’t done anything,’ she said, taking a couple of deep calming breaths and surreptitiously rolling her shoulders in an effort to release some of her tension.

‘Am I to take it, then, that you don’t really approve of Dan and Zoe?’

Celia stilled mid-roll and stared at him for a moment, unable to work out where that had come from because Zoe was the best thing that had ever happened to Dan, as she’d told him after supper last night just before giving him a big hug and wishing him luck. ‘Why on earth would you think that?’

‘Because you spent the entire ceremony looking like you wished you were somewhere else.’

Oh. She hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. She’d wanted Marcus to be somewhere else, preferably on another planet, but she’d thought she’d managed to hide that. Clearly she’d been wrong. ‘I’m surprised you noticed.’

‘Oh, I noticed,’ he murmured, his gaze drifting over her and making her skin feel all hot and tingly and tight. ‘You look beautiful, by the way.’

That was the trouble with him, she thought irritably as she stamped out the heat with every ounce of self-control she had. Just when she felt like slapping him, he went and said something charming. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘And you look very handsome,’ she said, because he did and it would be churlish to ignore the fact. More handsome than usual if that were possible.

‘My, my, a compliment,’ he said softly. ‘That’s a first.’

‘Yes, well, don’t get too used to it.’

‘I won’t.’

They advanced another agonisingly slow couple of paces, then stopped, and he said, ‘So you do approve?’

‘Of Dan and Zoe?’

‘Well, I know you don’t approve of me.’

‘I approve wholeheartedly,’ said Celia with a serene smile. ‘Of them.’

‘They’re good for each other.’

She nodded. ‘They are.’

‘And are your parents behaving?’

She narrowed her eyes at her parents, who were accompanying each other down the aisle in stony silence and about as far apart as it was possible to get given the width restriction of the aisle, which was pretty much par for the course. ‘Just about.’

‘And how’s work?’

Insane. ‘Work’s fine.’

‘Then what is there to be so tense about?’

‘Tense?’ she asked, blowing out a slow breath. ‘Who’s tense?’

‘You are. If it isn’t the wedding, it isn’t your parents and it isn’t work, I might be inclined to think it’s me.’

‘Hah. As if.’

Off they set again, and this time, thank heavens, it looked as though the end was in sight because Dan and Zoe had run out of guests to chat to and the great oak door was being opened and Celia could practically taste freedom.

‘Admit it,’ he said softly, his voice so warm and teasing that it did strange things to her stomach, ‘I make you feel tense.’

‘You don’t make me feel anything,’ she said, her pulse drumming with the need to get out of here and away from him.

‘Oh, Celia, you break my heart.’

‘I didn’t know you had one. I thought it was another part of your anatomy entirely that kept you alive.’

‘So cruel.’

‘I dare say you’ll survive.’

‘I dare say I shall.’

And then, thank God, they stepped out into the July sunshine and she felt as if she could suddenly breathe again. She dragged in some air and blinked as her eyes became accustomed to the brightness after an hour in the church, then she took her hand from Marcus’ arm and stepped away.

She didn’t miss the strength of it. Or the heat of him. It was blessed relief that was sweeping through her. Of course it was, because what else could it be when the whole past ten minutes had been a nightmare she never wanted to repeat?

‘Right,’ she said, looking up at him with a bright smile and shading her eyes from the sun. ‘Well. Thank you for that.’

‘Any time.’

‘So I’m going to congratulate the happy couple and mingle.’ And then she was going to find the champagne and down as much of it as she could manage.

‘Good idea.’

‘I guess I’ll see you later.’

‘I guess you will.’

And with the thought that despite the conventional conversational closer hell would probably freeze before either of them sought the other out, Celia gave him a jaunty wave and off she went.

* * *

Marcus watched Celia kiss and hug her brother and new sister-in-law in turn, then laugh at something Dan said, and his eyes narrowed. Ten minutes in her company and already he was wound up like a spring. He wanted to punch something. Wrestle someone. Anything to relieve the tension that she never failed to whip up inside him.

Standing there in the warm summer sunshine while people streamed out of the church, he shoved his hands in his pockets and resisted the urge to grind his teeth because this was supposed to be a happy day and the last thing anyone wanted to see was a grim-faced best man.

But it was hard to relax when all he could think was, how the hell did Celia do it? And why?

Generally he had no trouble getting on with the opposite sex. Generally women fell over themselves for his attention and once they’d got it went out of their way to be charming. But she, well, for some reason she’d had it in for him for years and he’d never really been able to work it out.

On the odd occasion he’d pondered the anomaly, usually after one of their thankfully rare yet surprisingly irritating encounters, he’d figured that it seemed to boil down to the number and frequency of women that flitted in and out of his life, but he didn’t see why that should bother her. The last time he checked it was the twenty-first century, and where he came from men and women could sleep with whomever they liked without censorship.

And so what if he enjoyed the company of women? he thought darkly, watching her peel away to take a phone call. He worked hard and he played hard. He was single and in his prime and he liked sex. He never promised more than he was willing to give and when relationships, flings, one-night stands ended there were never any hard feelings. The women he dated didn’t appear to object, so who could blame him for taking advantage of the opportunities on offer?

Well, Celia could, it seemed, but why did she disapprove of him so much? Why did she care? What he got up to was none of her business. As far as he was aware he’d never hooked up with any of her friends so she couldn’t have a grudge about that. And it certainly wasn’t as if she were jealous. She’d made it very clear she didn’t want to have anything to do with him the night he’d made a pass at her years ago and had been very firmly rebuffed.