Best Man and the Runaway Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

  ‘It didn’t take long for him to bounce back,’ he said, his distaste for his former friend evident.

  ‘Perhaps the ex-wives will warn her off like they did me.’

  Max moved towards her, his stance protective. ‘Make sure you don’t do the warning. I suggest you stay right out of it.’

  She shuddered. ‘I intend to. I want absolutely nothing to do with that man.’

  ‘But you’re worried Sydney might be too small to contain both you and him.’

  Again he seemed to read her mind. ‘Maybe,’ she admitted. ‘But I have to suffer the consequences of my own actions, don’t I? I was the one who was foolish enough to be taken in by him.’

  ‘But you were also the one who found the courage to leave Alan.’

  ‘I keep telling myself that,’ she said, but couldn’t help a catch in her voice. ‘And I know I have to go home soon.’ She headed towards the small kitchen area. ‘But here I am, offering you a nightcap and all I’m doing is talking. Beer?’

  Nikki carried two local beers and a packet of spicy pretzels into the sitting area, and put them on the coffee table. She sat down on one of the sofas and Max, true to his word, sat on the other facing her. It seemed a vast distance over the low, carved wooden table.

  ‘You look lonely over there,’ he said.

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘It was you who suggested separate sofas.’ She patted the cushion next to her.

  He needed no further urging and came over to sit next to her. When he put his arm around her, she snuggled close with a happy sigh. ‘That’s better,’ he said, as he pulled her closer.

  ‘So much better than being on opposite sides of the coffee table and certainly opposite sides of the wall,’ she said.

  The door to the bedroom was open. The staff had been in to arrange the mosquito net canopy over the traditional carved wooden bed. It was a big, lonely bed and she wondered if she was making a mistake by not taking Max by the hand and leading him in there. ‘So, do you want to watch a movie? The Wi-Fi is good here so there’s a choice.’

  Nikki only offered to be polite. She would so much rather talk to him.

  ‘Why would I want to watch a movie when I can sit here on the sofa with my arm around a beautiful woman?’

  She looked up at him and was struck by the admiration in his eyes. Admiration and something more she couldn’t put a word to but which might have been longing, yearning even. But she had to be careful not to read into it what she wanted to see rather than what was there. She’d been so easily fooled by Alan. For all her jokes about ten years to trust, she didn’t know Max well enough to trust him.

  For all his denial of any wrongdoing in those publicised cases, she couldn’t be sure he was trustworthy in other ways. If she did have an affair with him—no label, no strings, whatever she might choose to call it—if the press found out and her bad choice was once again emblazoned all over the media for the world to know, she didn’t think she could endure it. But she could not admit that to him, to anyone.

  But right here, right now, she wanted him and she wasn’t thinking past that. ‘When you put it that way...’ she said, letting her voice trail away.

  ‘There’s something I didn’t get to ask you over dinner,’ he said.

  ‘Fire away,’ she said.

  ‘You once told me that Alan knew how to play you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. He was a master manipulator.’ And how gullible she’d been to be taken in by him. Would she ever be able to trust her judgement in men again?

  ‘You said something like he made you believe everything you most wanted in life, he wanted as well.’ Max’s gaze connected with hers. ‘So after everything, what is it that you most want from life now, Nikki? I’m really curious to know.’

  * * *

  Max was surprised at how the shutters seemed to come down over Nikki’s face, blanking her expression. She edged away from him on the sofa so she was no longer touching distance.

  ‘If I tell you, will you promise not to run screaming from the room?’ she said. If she was attempting humour, it fell flat.

  ‘I can’t ever see myself running screaming from you under any circumstances,’ he said.

  ‘You might change your mind when you hear what I have to say.’ Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Seriously.’

  ‘I very much doubt it. Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘Okay. The truth is, I still want what I wanted then. And what I most wanted was to be married and starting a family before I was thirty,’ she said.

  He knew he shouldn’t be surprised. She’d alluded to that a few times. But not stated so bluntly.

  ‘No chance of it happening now as I turn thirty in September,’ she continued. ‘But when I met Alan it was feasible.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said cautiously, not sure where she was going with this. ‘And he said he wanted that too?’

  ‘I told him after our first few dates.’ A black mood descended over Max at the thought of Nikki dating another man. He had to shake it off. He had no right to be jealous.

  ‘That was my dating policy,’ she said. ‘There was no point wasting time with a man who didn’t want what I wanted.’

  ‘Like other guys you’d dated?’

  ‘Yes. You might be surprised at the number of commitment-phobic men there are in Sydney. Maybe everywhere in the world, according to my girlfriends. An epidemic of men just wanting to have fun.’

  Max hated the cynical twist to her mouth. And yet, could he not count himself among the commitment-phobes? Not for ever. One day he wanted all that. Just not now.

  ‘But Alan didn’t run screaming?’

  ‘Far from it. He seemed delighted to meet a woman who wanted a family as much as he did. Reminded me of my advancing age. Suggested we get married as soon as we could, while I was still fertile. Of course, he didn’t mention he’d had a vasectomy.’ She twisted her face into a mock comic expression but didn’t manage to disguise the hurt in her voice. Was she completely over her former fiancé?

  ‘We all know what a pack of lies that was,’ she continued. ‘I would have had a family quickly all right—stepmother to his twins. Those poor little kids having a father like him. How I despise him.’ Guess that gave him his answer.

  ‘You didn’t ever meet a man who shared your views?’

  ‘I didn’t actually date enough to find out,’ she said. ‘Between the time I broke up with the long-time boyfriend and the time I met Alan, I was working insane hours establishing my business.’

  ‘What happened with the long-time boyfriend?’ he asked. He hated the thought of lovely Nikki with some other loser who’d wounded her. But he had to know.

  ‘We met in my last year of high school. Lasted all through uni. I actually thought he was “the one”. We were unofficially engaged for years.’ She paused. ‘Are you sure you want to hear all this? It was years ago now.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. He needed to know what made her tick. He’d always made it his business to thoroughly research an opponent to give him any advantage. Not that Nikki was an opponent. Fact was, she fascinated him.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Cracks started to show around when I started the business. He didn’t like the idea I was more successful than he was, I think. I lost count of the number of times we broke up and then got back together and plastered it all over.’

  ‘What happened in the end?’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I was looking at engagement rings while he was cheating on me.’ She said it so matter-of-factly, yet it must have hurt like hell at the time. ‘I discovered she wasn’t the first. He confessed his first infidelity was when I was mourning my mother. Didn’t give him enough attention at the time, I suppose.’ She shrugged but he could still see tension in her shoulders. ‘Worse, he got the last woman pregnant and married her, not me.’

  ‘Your first lucky escape, by the
sound of it,’ he said.

  ‘I can see that now,’ she said.

  ‘And I can see where your ten-year trust again thing comes from,’ he said.

  ‘You get a few more hours’ credit for recognising it,’ she said, in a dismally failed attempt at humour.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, gathering her into his arms again, breathing in her closeness, the scent of the flowers in her hair. ‘Please note that I haven’t run screaming from the room.’

  ‘No need to worry with a no-label fling is there? We’ve both been honest about what we expect from the time we plan to spend together. Both realise it can’t be more than that.’ She kissed him, her mouth sweet and tender on his. ‘Besides, I might have to rethink what I want from life. By the time ten years rolls around and I trust someone enough to consider marriage, I’ll be heading for forty.’

  ‘Women have babies in their forties.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said sounding doubtful. ‘I think my only babies are going to be my businesses.’

  He went to protest but she spoke over him. ‘Look, can we not talk about this stuff any more? Now you know all about my dismal dating past and I don’t particularly want to rehash it. Right now I’d rather look to the future than the past.’

  ‘Meaning?’ he asked.

  ‘Meaning you’ve got Wayan and his boat on a retainer for the rest of your stay. I happen to have the day off tomorrow but I’m happy to be your guide if you’d like that.’

  ‘I’d like that very much,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Good. I thought maybe some more snorkelling and perhaps we could take a kayak out, just the two of us, currents permitting. That can be a lot of fun.’

  Just him and her in a minimum of clothes alone together out on the sea? ‘I can’t wait,’ he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THERE WAS SOMETHING very sexy about secrecy, Nikki thought as next evening she sounded the door chime to Max’s villa. ‘Room service,’ she called in her most official voice, trying not to give the game away by laughing at the surreptitiousness of it all. Anyone passing by would see a staff member. Nothing suspicious.

  The night before, she and Max had discussed how they still needed to be circumspect about being seen together. It was important to both of them to avoid any kind of adverse publicity. Behind the high walls of their villas seemed to be the best option for privacy. Hats and sunglasses when they were out in public. The pretence of her as staff and he as ‘Mr James’ at other times.

  She was wearing the hotel’s traditional style uniform and bearing a large covered tray containing dinner from the restaurant. One of the girls in the kitchen had remarked that it was a lot of mee goreng for one person. In response she’d laughed and said Mr James must be very hungry. After all the exercise she’d done throughout the day she was hungry and was glad he had ordered for big appetites.

  Underneath her modest clothes she was wearing her favourite pink bikini. The previous night she and Max had never got around to swimming in the lap pool. In fact they had drowsed off together on the sofa. She’d awoken, startled, in his arms at the same time he had. Just as he’d done on the day of the wedding, he’d picked her up, then carried her into her room and laid her on her bed under the mosquito net. He’d kissed her and left. She’d drifted back off to sleep feeling, safe, happy and something not at all expected from a no-label fling—cherished.

  Not that she read anything into that. Max was a gentleman—he’d shown that from the beginning in spite of his reputation. He liked her. He desired her. He was honest about his intentions. As far as she could ascertain, he was not pond scum. That was all there was to it.

  She’d woken up alone, happy she’d made the decision not to invite him into her bed before she’d got to know him better. A perfect day had followed, snorkelling in a different spot at Crystal Bay, lunch at a quiet table in an out-of-the-way warung at the mangroves end of the island, followed by taking out a double kayak in the waters around Frangipani Bay and around to the next beach. She couldn’t remember when she’d had more fun. She’d done all those things before. But being with Max had made them magical.

  The door opened. Max stood before her, framed by the doorway, clad only in a sarong slung low on his hips and that winning smile. Nikki was struck speechless, all the breath knocked out of her body.

  The sarong was in a Balinese ikat print in multiple shades of blue and contrasted with his smooth golden tan. Blue eyes, blue sarong and a whole lot of muscular male perfection in between. With a hungry gaze she took in the sight—broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, his hard defined belly, the rippling muscles in his torso, the strong arms that had powered his killer tennis game, and seen them surging through the water in the kayak earlier that day.

  Yes, she’d been with him all day when he’d been only wearing swim shorts. But that was for swimming. This was altogether different. This was...more naked somehow. Was he wearing anything under that sarong?

  ‘What do you think of the sarong?’ he said. ‘I bought it from the hotel store. Kadek advised me on how to tie it.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘You look hot.’

  He frowned. ‘Do I? The idea is that a sarong is cooler than shorts or trousers in this climate.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that kind of hot.’ She could feel her eyes glazing over. If she wasn’t holding the tray she thought she might simply swoon and fall at his feet.

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said. ‘It’s a guy thing in this country but not where we come from. I was concerned I might look ridiculous.’

  ‘Not ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Very...very manly.’ She had to clear her throat again. ‘If they put a photo of you looking like that on a poster for your fans it would sell out.’

  ‘Thank you. But I’d rather keep my new look just between us,’ he said.

  ‘Me too,’ she said. A sudden possessive urge swept over her. She wanted him all to herself.

  If she just undid that one knot at the front, would she see the sarong fall away from him? Perhaps it was as well that her hands were firmly clenched on the tray.

  ‘Let me take that from you,’ he said, taking the meal from her. He inhaled. ‘Smells good.’ He carried it through to the circular dining table in the living area.

  Then he turned to her again, put out his arms. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘And not just because you come bearing food.’

  She laughed and went willingly into his embrace. All she wanted was to be close to him, to be near to him, to be kissed by him. She couldn’t let her thoughts stray further than that.

  She put up her face for his kiss and a few blissful moments followed. How could she ever imagine sharing such a thing with anyone else? Excitement built as the kiss intensified. Take what you can, while you can, she urged herself. Spending all day together had accelerated the ‘getting to know him’ process. Too well. It had been a wrench when she, as guide, had said goodbye to ‘Mr James’ on the beach. In just the few hours since, she’d missed him with an intense sense of loss. Maybe it was time. Maybe tonight.

  ‘Today was one of the best days of my life,’ Max said, his voice deep and husky.

  Nikki’s heart gave a little lurch at his words. Being with him, enjoying the same experiences, laughing with him. His presence nearby had added such a wild joy to the day she’d found herself wishing it would never end. Had he felt the same about her?

  ‘It was for me too,’ she murmured. What if he didn’t mean being with her at all? What if he’d been referring to the water and the weather? She stepped back from him. ‘Yes, it was a perfect day,’ she added hastily. ‘Those beautiful fish, the coral, the lunch and—’

  He reached for her, swivelled her so he could look deep into her face. He traced his finger down her cheek. ‘All that. But it was the company that made the day. Being with you, Nikki. That’s what was so special for me. You.’

 
; An unreasoning hope soared to life in her heart at the expression in his eyes. ‘Thank you. For me too. I mean you. Your company. I... I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a day as much.’ Enjoyed a man as much.

  But she couldn’t let herself think that this was any more than two people thrown together by circumstance with limited time on a beautiful holiday island. She forced her voice to sound steady. ‘You’re a mean hand with a kayak. All that upper body strength. You did all the work. I scarcely had to paddle.’

  ‘We were in perfect rhythm together.’

  ‘Yes, we were,’ she said, feeling a little breathless. Within minutes on the kayak they’d found their rhythm with the double-bladed paddles, in sync with each other, propelling through the sparkling aqua water in perfect harmony. Even when they’d hit one of the notorious unpredictable currents they’d worked effortlessly together to get the kayak out of trouble. Of course her thoughts had wandered to how their rhythm might match under other circumstances. After all, she was a red-blooded female with needs clamouring to be acknowledged.

  ‘I missed you,’ he said, tracing her lips with his thumb.

  ‘It’s only been a couple of hours.’ She couldn’t show how affected she was by his touch, by his words. She didn’t trust this feeling.

  ‘Those couple of hours away from you seemed very long.’ Was this genuine or a practised seduction?

  ‘I missed you too.’ The words blurted out despite her best efforts to hold back. ‘I... I’ve been counting down the minutes until I saw you again.’

  ‘The wait seemed interminable. But I couldn’t very well storm in next door and drag you in here.’

  Why not? she thought. It might make it easier for her if he kissed and caressed her senseless until she thought of nothing but making love with him. But she wouldn’t want to feel overwhelmed by caveman tactics. ‘I... I guess not,’ she said.

  He looked unbearably appealing in that sarong. Sexiest man alive and then some. Because of her reluctance he was waiting for her to make the first move. Her call.