Lucy King - The Best Man for the Job

So what was her problem? And more to the point, what was his? What was it about her that got under his skin? Why couldn’t he just ignore her the way he ignored everything he didn’t need to be bothered with? Why, with her, did he always feel the urge to respond and retaliate?

Marcus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as the questions rattled round his head, and thought that he could really do with a glass of champagne if he stood any chance of making it through the reception.

‘Is there any particular reason you’re scowling at my sister?’

At the dry voice of the groom and his best friend, who’d evidently managed to drag himself away from his new wife and had stealthily materialised beside him, Marcus pulled himself together.

‘Nope,’ he said, snapping his gaze away from Celia and switching the scowl for his customary couldn’t-give-a-toss-about-anything smile.

‘Sure?’

He nodded and widened his smile because there was no way on earth he was going to let Dan in on the trouble he had with Celia. ‘Quite sure. Congratulations, by the way.’

Dan grinned. ‘Thanks.’

‘Great ceremony.’

‘The best. And thanks for being my best man.’

‘No problem. I’m glad I made it in time.’ He’d bust a gut over the past couple of days to get here—and whatever Celia thought it had had nothing to do with over-clingy lovers—and he might be knackered, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way because he and Dan had been good friends for nearly twenty years.

‘So am I,’ said Dan, and then he asked, ‘So why the thunderous expression? What’s up?’

Marcus shrugged. ‘Just trying to remember my speech.’

Dan shot him a knowing look that held more than a hint of amusement. ‘Sure you aren’t ruminating about the lack of single women here?’

Oddly enough—when it was generally the first thing he ascertained at any kind of social gathering—searching for likely conquests this afternoon hadn’t crossed his mind. ‘Maybe a bit,’ he said, largely because Dan seemed to be expecting it.

‘Sorry about that, but we wanted to keep the wedding small.’

‘No problem.’

‘Has it been a while, then?’

‘Six months.’

Dan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow. Because of...what was her name again?’

‘Noelle.’ As the memory of his last girlfriend, who’d turned into a complete psycho stalker, flashed into his head he shuddered. ‘And yes.’

Dan grunted in sympathy. ‘I can see how after everything she did you’d be a bit wary, but, come on, six months? That must be a record.’

‘Not one I’ll be boasting about.’

‘No,’ agreed Dan. ‘Why would you?’

‘Quite.’

‘And not one you’ll be breaking today, I should think,’ Dan mused.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Celia’s the only single woman here.’

‘Is she?’

‘And judging by the way you were looking at her just now I’m guessing she’s not a likely target.’

Marcus inwardly recoiled. Celia? A target? As if. He couldn’t stand her. And as she could stand him even less, even if he were insane/deluded/drunk enough to make a pass at her again, which he most certainly was not, in all likelihood he’d get a knee to the groin.

‘Didn’t we just clear that up?’ he muttered, really not wanting to dwell on that particular outcome.

‘Not very satisfactorily.’ Dan rubbed a hand along his jaw and frowned, as if in contemplation. ‘You know, Zoe mentioned she thinks you do it a lot.’

‘Do what?’

‘Scowl at Celia.’

‘Do I?’

Dan nodded. ‘Pretty much every time you come into contact, apparently.’

‘Oh.’

‘So what’s with the two of you? Why the friction? What did she do to you?’

Interesting that Dan thought it would be that way round when everyone else would have automatically assumed he’d be the one to blame. ‘She didn’t do anything to me,’ he said with a casual shrug. Apart from reject him. Resist him. Ignore him. Avoid him. And drive him bonkers by getting to him when he’d never had any trouble not letting her get to him before. ‘We just don’t get along. That’s all. Sorry.’

‘No. Well, she is something of an acquired taste, I’ll grant you.’

One that he’d briefly acquired when he’d been an angry and out-of-control teenager but wouldn’t be acquiring again, so he hmmed non-committally and sought to change the subject. ‘Zoe looks radiant,’ he said, watching the bride smiling and chatting, happiness shimmering all around her like some kind of corona.

‘She does,’ said Dan with the kind of pride in his voice Marcus couldn’t ever imagine feeling, which was just as well because marriage was not for him. ‘She also has a different take on it.’

‘A different take on what?’

‘You and Celia.’

Marcus frowned. So much for changing the subject. And what was Dan doing, making it sound as if he and Celia were a thing when they were anything but? ‘Does she?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’

‘Want to know what she sees between the two of you?’

Not particularly. ‘Knock yourself out.’

‘Chemistry. Tension. Denial.’

Huh? Marcus reeled for a moment, then rallied because Zoe was wrong. Totally wrong. ‘She sees a lot,’ he said, keeping his expression poker.

‘She does.’

‘Too much.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘What makes her such an expert anyway?’

‘She’s made an art out of reading people. She’s generally right.’

‘Not this time.’

Dan shot him a shrewd look. ‘She reckons it’s like that kid analogy,’ he said.

‘What kid analogy?’ asked Marcus, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

‘The one about pulling the pigtails of the girl in class you fancy.’

At the odd spike in his pulse Marcus shifted uncomfortably. ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he said, wondering what the hell the brief leap in his heart rate was all about.

‘If you say so.’

‘Celia deeply disapproves of me, and I—’ He stopped because how could he tell his best friend that he thought his sister was an uptight, judgemental, workaholic pain in the arse? ‘Anyway, wouldn’t it bother you?’ he said instead, although now he thought about it perhaps the question came fifteen years too late.

‘You two together?’

Marcus nodded. ‘Hypothetically speaking, of course. I mean, she’s your sister and I’m not exactly a paragon of virtue.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest,’ said Dan easily. ‘Celia’s perfectly capable of looking after herself and, actually, if I was going to issue a big-brother kind of warning I’d probably be issuing it to her.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s a tough nut to crack.’

‘One of the toughest,’ Marcus agreed, because she was, and not only because she was the only nut he’d wanted but had never managed to crack. Not that he thought about that night much because, after all, it had been years.

‘She’d drive you to drink trying.’

‘Undoubtedly.’

‘And that would be a shame.’

‘Just as well you don’t have to worry about me, then, isn’t it? Although I do think you ought to be worrying about Zoe,’ he added, now just wanting this oddly uncomfortable conversation to be over. ‘She’s been cornered by your mother and a couple of your aunts.’

‘So she has,’ said Dan, that smile on his face widening as his gaze landed on his wife. ‘I’d better rescue her.’

‘Off you go, then.’

Dan must have caught the trace of mockery in his voice because he stopped and shot him a look. ‘One of these days it’s going to happen to you, you know.’

‘What is?’

‘Love and marriage.’

Marcus shook his head and laughed. ‘Not a chance.’ He valued his freedom far too much, and anyway, he’d seen what love could do. The pain it could bring. The tragedy it could result in. He’d been part of the fallout.