The Best Man for the Job

ONE


Ten minutes after the vicar had pronounced her brother and his fiancée man and wife and the register had been signed, Celia Forrester stood on the steps of the altar of the pretty Shropshire church and braced herself for the moment she’d been dreading all day.

In terms of things she’d rather not do, on a scale of one to ten, going to the gym hovered at the two mark. Pulling an all-nighter at work ranked around a four. Dinner à deux with her father, an eight.

Having to take Marcus Black’s arm and walk down the aisle beside him, however, hit a ten.

Up until about a couple of hours ago she’d thought she’d escaped. As Dan’s best friend—and consequently, best man—Marcus had been expected some time yesterday afternoon, but to the consternation of everyone apart from her he hadn’t shown up. Her brother had muttered something about a missed flight and a possible arrival in time for the reception but, in all honesty, Celia had been too relieved to pay much attention.

All she’d been able to think was that she had a stay of execution and that, with any luck, by the time Marcus got there—if he got there at all—she’d have indulged in the gallon of champagne she needed to handle the horribly edgy and deeply uncomfortable effect he had on her, should she be unable to implement her customary plan A and avoid him.

She’d had no problem with following Lily—the other bridesmaid and Zoe’s sister—and her brand-new fiancé, Kit, down the aisle alone. She was good at doing things alone, and she’d been more than happy about the delay in having to talk to too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good, serial womaniser and general thorn in her side Marcus Black. Quite apart from the unsettling way he made her feel, he loathed her as much as she loathed him and no doubt he would be expressing it at the first available opportunity, namely the church, so who could blame her for savouring any delay to the moment?

But then a couple of hours ago, when the three of them had been sitting in the spare room of Zoe’s parents’ farmhouse with rollers in their hair and tacky nails, news had reached them that Marcus had made it after all, and just like that the Get-Out-of-Jail-Free-card feeling she’d been holding onto had blown up in her face.

The degree of shock and disappointment that had rocked through her had surprised her. Then her skin had started prickling, a rush of heat had swept through her and she’d instantly felt as though she were sitting on knives.

She’d managed to hide it, of course, because firstly she was used to hiding the way he made her feel, and secondly today was a happy one that was all about Dan and Zoe and not in the slightest bit about the trouble she had with Marcus, but it had been hard. Even harder when she and Lily had entered the church behind Zoe and she’d seen him standing next to Dan at the altar, looking tall, dark and smoulderingly gorgeous in his morning suit.

But she’d done it, and she’d continue to do so because fifty pairs of eyes were trained on the proceedings and so right now she didn’t have the option of giving him a cool nod and then blanking him. She was simply going to have to suck it up and accompany him down the aisle.

In approximately thirty seconds.

The organist began belting out Widor’s Toccata and as Dan and Zoe turned and stepped away from the altar, their smiles wide and unstoppable, Celia pulled her shoulders back and plastered a smile of her own to her face.

She wouldn’t let him get to her, she told herself, adopting the unusual strategy of channelling serenity and inner calm. She wouldn’t think about the struggle she’d had throughout the ceremony resisting the constant temptation to keep looking in his direction, especially when she could feel his eyes on her. Nor would she dwell on the way that, despite her deep disapproval of him and his clear loathing of her whenever they met, he somehow managed to turn her into someone she didn’t recognise, addling her brain, making a mockery of her intellect and rendering her body all soft and warm and fluttery.

No, she’d simply rise above the inconvenient and highly irritating attraction and get on with the job. She could ignore the heat of him, the mouth-watering scent of him and the invisible thread of attraction that seemed to constantly pull her towards him. She could bury the desire to drag him off somewhere quiet, press herself against him and let chemistry do its thing. Of course she could. She had done so for years, ever since the night, in fact, he’d tried to get her into bed. For a bet.

Besides, it was, what, thirty metres between the altar and the heavy oak door, so all she had to do was keep a smile on her face and her mouth shut and not let him get to her. After that, during the inevitable photo session and then the reception, which was to be mercifully short, she’d do what she always tried to do and avoid him. Simple.

Taking a deep breath and steeling herself, she glanced up at him to find him looking down at her with those wickedly glinting blue eyes that had seduced legions of women over the years.


‘Shall we?’ he said, a faint smile playing at the mouth that had given her an annoying number of sleepless nights over the years, as he held out his arm.

‘Why not?’ she said coolly, taking it.

See? This was fine. She barely noticed the hard muscles of his forearm beneath her fingers. And so what if his elbow was now pressed up against her breast and the feel of him, the heat of him, would be making her heart beat hard and fast and her body tingle if she let it? All that was relevant right now were the five stone steps she had to negotiate in heels three inches higher than she normally wore, and she needed to concentrate.

‘Ready?’ he asked, his deep, lazy voice tightening her stomach muscles and making her cling onto his arm a little tighter for a second. Just in case she stumbled, of course.

‘Couldn’t be readier.’

Reassuring herself that in five minutes or so this would all be over and she’d be free of him, Celia glanced down and lifted the longer back of her dress so it didn’t catch on a heel.

‘Those shoes look lethal,’ he murmured as they descended the first step.

‘They are.’

‘And spiky.’

‘That too.’

‘Appropriate.’

And just like that, despite all that serenity and inner calm she’d been striving for, her intention to keep her mouth shut evaporated. ‘Good of you to make it, by the way,’ she said a touch acidly.

‘I nearly didn’t.’

‘So what held you up?’ she asked, once she’d safely navigated the remaining steps and could relax her grip on Marcus’ arm. ‘Unable to prise yourself away from an overly clingy lover? Or a pair of them perhaps? Surely it couldn’t have been a trio?’

She felt him tense and wondered fleetingly if her barb had stung. Then decided it couldn’t have because for one thing his many and varied bedroom exploits were no secret, and for another they’d traded mild insults like this for years and it had never seemed to bother him before. Nevertheless she kind of wished it had because it would be satisfying to know she got to him the way he got to her.

‘You know something?’ he said, shooting her a slow stomach-melting smile. ‘I rustled up that ash cloud especially because I knew it would wind you up.’

‘My word, you literally do have a God complex,’ she said, annoyed beyond measure that he of all people should still be the only man ever to melt any of her internal organs. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘Lucky you’re always there to smack me down.’

‘It’s my sole purpose in life.’

‘Really?’ he murmured. ‘I thought your sole purpose in life was work.’

‘I excel at multitasking.’

‘Of course you do. Heaven forbid you should fail at anything.’

‘I try not to.’

They began proceeding down the aisle at a pace that would have had a snail overtaking them. In crackling silence, until Marcus said conversationally, ‘You know, I’m rather amazed you’re here.’

Celia kept her smile firmly in place. ‘Oh? Why?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought that you’d have been able to drag yourself away from your desk.’

‘It’s my brother’s wedding.’

‘Nice to know there are some things that take priority. I kept expecting your phone to go off during the service.’

She bristled and her jaw began to ache with the effort of maintaining the smile. So she worked hard. Big deal. ‘I’m not a complete workaholic.’ Well, not to such an extent she’d forgo something as important as this.

‘No?’

‘No,’ she said firmly, choosing to ignore the fact that she had spent much of the morning on her phone, dealing with calls to and from the office and a string of emails that couldn’t wait.

‘I read about that pharmaceutical merger of yours going through. Congratulations.’

Despite the indignation Celia couldn’t help feeling a stab of pride because the six months she’d spent pushing that deal through had been the toughest of her working life so far, yet she and her team had done it, and now the partnership she’d been working towards for what felt like for ever was that tiny bit closer.

‘Thank you,’ she said demurely, ignoring the way his body kept brushing against hers and sent thrills scurrying through her. ‘And I heard you’d sold your business.’ For millions, according to the gossip magazine she’d picked up and flicked through at the hairdresser’s a fortnight ago, which had been light on detail about the sale and heavy on speculation about what one of London’s most eligible bachelors was going to do with all his money and free time.

‘I did.’

‘So what are your plans now?’

‘Do you really want to know?’

Not really, because she’d willingly bet her lovely two-bedroomed minimalist flat in Clerkenwell that she knew what he’d be doing for the foreseeable future. What he did best, but even better. ‘I’m guessing it’ll involve partying till dawn with scantily clad women.’

‘Am I really that much of a cliché?’

‘You tell me.’

‘And spoil the fun you have baiting me?’

‘You think I find it fun?’

He raised an eyebrow as he glanced down at her. ‘Don’t you?’

Celia thought about it for a second and decided that, as she didn’t know exactly what to attribute the thrill she always got from winding him up to, ‘fun’ would do. ‘OK, perhaps,’ she conceded. ‘Just a little. But no more than you do.’

‘Well, I’m all for equality.’

‘Yes, so the tabloids say,’ she said witheringly as the interview with one of his conquests that she’d read in that magazine popped into her head. Apparently he was intense, smouldering and passionately demanding in the bedroom, and sought the same from whoever he was sharing it with. Which was something she could really have done without knowing because now she did it was alarmingly hard to put from her mind.

‘You know, Celia, darling, you have such low expectations of me I find I can’t help wanting to live down to them.’

Before she could work out what he meant by that he turned away and directed that devastating smile of his at a couple of women at the end of a pew on Dan’s side, and as she watched them blush she mentally rolled her eyes. How very typical. That was Marcus all over. Lover of women. Literally. Lots of women.

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.

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.


Dan arched an eyebrow. ‘Too many women, too little time?’

‘You said it.’

‘If you really believe that then you’re going to end up like my father, heading for sixty and still chasing anything in a skirt.’

‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

Dan laughed and clapped him on the back. ‘One day, my friend, one day,’ he said, then set off for Zoe, leaving Marcus standing there frowning at Celia and thinking, Chemistry, tension and denial? What a load of crap.