The Worst Best Man

by Lucy Score

  The screaming had yet to quiet down, so Aiden poked his head over the desk. “Option one, we crack the password ourselves. Option two, we make Hilde give us the password.” He was weighing the pros and cons when Frankie’s fingers flew over the keys.

  “Ha. Got it.”

  “You just cracked the password?” Aiden asked. Did the woman have no limits?

  She snorted. “Don’t have to crack it when they tape it to the monitor for me. Okay, I’m in. Who are we looking for? No one’s registered as Kidnapper or Wedding Ruiner.”

  Aiden skirted behind the desk, hopeful that the koi pond distraction would hold. “Just scroll through the reservations,” he ordered, scanning the monitor.

  “You think you’re going to magically recognize the name of the kidnapper?” Frankie asked.

  “Shut up. There,” he pointed at the screen. “Room 314. Three nights. Who’s it registered to?”

  “No name. Just a business. El-Kil Corporation,” Frankie read out loud.

  Fuck. Aiden felt the sucker punch to his gut. He should have known.

  “Oh, look! It’s gotta be them. Two hours ago they ordered a tuna salad sandwich with crushed up chips on it. Chip’s favorite! At least we know they’re feeding him. That’s good, right?”

  “Good. Yeah.” Aiden murmured.

  “Oh, shit.” Frankie exited out of the program and grabbed him. He heard the click of heels on the marble. They only made it as far as the marble column next to the desk. When Hilde and the fish pond woman appeared with a small entourage.

  “Let me call housekeeping and get you some fresh towels and a robe,” Hilde offered a soaked and shrieking celebutante.

  “A fish swam down my dress. Do you think a robe is going to make me feel better after I was attacked by sushi?” the woman howled.

  Hilde’s eyes narrowed when she spotted Frankie and Aiden standing next to the desk. Aiden thought about kissing Frankie again since it had worked so well the first time, but Frankie was faster.

  She slapped him across the face so hard his head snapped backwards on his neck.

  “You know it bothers me when you slip your sister the tongue. I don’t care how many years you spent in boarding school in Europe. That still doesn’t make it right!” Frankie’s voice echoed off the marble drawing every eye in the lobby.

  “A. She’s my half-sister,” Aiden said, jumping on the crazy train that Frankie was engineering “And B. I can’t help it if I come from an affectionate family!”

  “Oh, puh-lease!” Frankie’s scoff nearly knocked her off her feet. “Affectionate? Your grandmother grabbed my ass at Thanksgiving.”

  “She wanted to see how the butt lift I paid for turned out.” He nodded toward the exit.

  “Excuse me. I earned this butt lift!”

  They kept up the argument for posterity’s sake, storming away from the front desk. As they passed, Aiden heard one of the audience whispering.

  “What can you expect from a reality TV star and a male prostitute?”

  News traveled fast.

  He hauled Frankie outside. She started laughing the second their feet hit the resort’s grand circular drive. “You’re insane,” he told her.

  “Oh, please. I saw that look on your face. You were thinking about kissing the hell out of me back there. And it wouldn’t have worked the second time around.”

  “Why not?” he asked, rubbing a hand over the cheek she’d so efficiently slapped.

  “I don’t make the same mistake twice, Kilbourn. And you’re a big, fat mistake. Now, come on. I think room 314 is that way.” Aiden watched in fascination as Frankie pulled a map of the resort out of her cleavage.

  “Where did you get that?” Aiden snatched the map from her.

  “At the desk.”

  “We’re not going after Chip.”

  “Excuse me? We know where he is, and all of the sudden, you want to call it a night?”

  “What do you want to do? Knock on the door and demand that they give him back?”

  “It’s a start! I’m not leaving my friend here.”

  Aiden gripped her upper arm and started pulling her toward the cab desk. “We have the upper hand here. What we need is a plan. I have to go figure out who has him, and if I can do that, I’ll know why they took him.” The lie was easy. He already knew the who and the why, but he wasn’t about to add Frankie into the mix. He wasn’t sure who she’d murder first.

  “I’m not leaving Chip here with some kidnapping asshole! Let’s call security or the cops!”

  “We’re not calling anyone,” he said, tightening his grip on her arm.

  “Why in the hell not? We know where he is!”

  “We don’t know who took him or why. We know that he’s here and they’re feeding him. And that means he’s safe. For now.”

  “For now?” She tried to wrestle her arm free. “Did you just track down his abductor because you were curious where they took him? And now, curiosity appeased, you want to go back to the resort for some margaritas and see how this plays out?”

  Aiden rounded on her. “Look. Believe me when I say your loyalty is admirable. But we need to regroup. I need a plan. If we go in there half-cocked, it could be disastrous.”

  When her gaze slid to his crotch, Aiden rolled his eyes. “Stop looking at my cock. We’re leaving.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  He walked her to her room as if she were a prisoner. They’d spent the entire ride in silence as Frankie stewed and Aiden plotted. She understood that there was a time and a place for planning and manipulation, but when a friend was in danger? That seemed like the ideal time to kick in a door and start making noise.

  With barely controlled rage, Frankie swiped her keycard. She intended to storm into the room and slam the door in Aiden’s face, but he was faster. He caught her by the arm and forced her to look at him. “I appreciate all your help tonight. But I’ve got this handled now.”

  “Excuse me, Lone Ranger?”

  “Franchesca, I need you to trust me to fix this. I promise you, I’ll get Chip back before the wedding.”

  She opened her mouth ready to verbally punch him in the face, but as usual, he was quicker. He brought his mouth down on hers for a fast, hard kiss. Just when she was deciding between dragging him into her room or kicking him in the balls, Aiden pulled back. “You were amazing tonight.”

  He ran a finger down the tip of her nose and walked off.

  “What in the fuck was that?” Frankie asked the empty room as she shut the door and added the chain just in case Mr. Kilbourn decided to try his luck again.

  She looked down at her dress and groaned. There was a tear in the waist and one in the skirt. Those damn berries had smeared their bloody red massacre over the right breast and hip. She looked like a murdered starlet in Monique Lhuillier.

  Pru was going to kill her.

  Frantically, she dialed the front desk and begged for a super emergency cleaning. The figure they named made her wince. It meant at least another month of catering gigs. But at this point, she had no choice. It was either pay the exorbitant fee and hope for the best, or walk down the aisle and get stabbed by the bride.

  If there was a wedding. If Aiden didn’t come through, there would be no groom for Pru to marry, she thought bitterly as she changed into sleep shorts and a tank.

  Frankie handed over the dress to the bell hop that knocked and then texted Pru.

  Frankie: You up?

  Pru’s response was practically instantaneous.

  Pru: OMG, get over here!

  Frankie padded down the hall to Pru and Chip’s room. Before she could raise her knuckles to knock, Pru opened the door and dragged her inside. Frankie blinked. Her best friend was wearing a silk pajama set… and her veil.

  Clearly the rum and beer hadn’t worn off yet.

  “I know. I know. I look like a crazy person,” Pru announced leading the way back into a marble on marble on marble bathroom the
size of a football stadium. “But I started thinking. We’re in paradise. It’s hot. Do I really want to wear my hair down tomorrow? Have a seat,” she said, pointing toward the ledge of the soaker tub.

  “And do you?” Frankie asked, feeling like the worst human being in the world. Her best friend’s fiancé had been kidnapped in front of her face and not only did she know where to find him, she had walked away without trying to rescue him. She was scum. The chewing gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe. The kind of person who faked diseases just to set up phony crowd-funding campaigns. She, Franchesca Marie Baranski, was a bad, bad person.

  She sat on the lip of the tub.

  Pru was discussing the merits of a sexy chignon when she abruptly cut herself off. Her blue eyes going wide in the mirror. “Here I am yammering on and on about my hair and you’ve just come back from a tryst with Aiden! What kind of a friend am I?”

  “The best. You’re the best kind of a friend, Pru,” Frankie lamented. “You’re a wonderful person, and you deserve all the happiness in the world.” She had to tell her. If she were in Pru’s shoes, she’d want to know.

  “What’s wrong?” Pru demanded, whirling away from the mirror. “You look like you’re gonna cry.”

  Frankie let herself slide backwards into the tub. “Before we talk about Aiden, we should talk about Chip.” How in the hell was she going to explain to her best friend that she didn’t call the cops, didn’t kick the door in and drag Chip home? That she was the worst friend in the world.

  Pru got a soft, faraway look in her eyes. “I can’t believe I finally get to marry him, Frankie. I just… I love him so much. He’s funny and sweet and kind and smart, and he looks like a Ken doll. But when I look at him, I can see us fifty years from now. Chasing grandkids, hosting parties, summering in the Hamptons with our huge family.”

  Pru clasped her hands together and sighed. “He’s everything I’ve been dreaming about since I was five. I have my dream dress, my best friend, and I get to marry the man of my dreams in paradise.” Her eyes glistened with tears.

  “Don’t cry, Pru,” Frankie pleaded. At least not before she’d told her the shitty part about having an MIA fiancé.

  “I can’t help it.” Pru dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I’m just so happy. And that’s what I want for you, Frankie. I want you to find someone who makes you feel like you’re flying. Someone who makes you look forward to the next fifty years.”

  “I can’t focus on the next fifty minutes let alone years,” Frankie teased.

  Pru crossed the bathroom. It took about ten minutes given the expanse of marble between them. She perched on the edge of the tub and toyed with her veil. “I think Aiden will be that for you,” Pru confessed.

  Frankie smacked her head off the back of the tub. “Ow! What?”

  “I know you two got off to a rough start—”

  “The man called me a stripper!”

  “After the engagement party, he asked Chip a thousand questions about you.”

  “Maybe he wanted to find out where I dance and if I give BJs for an extra fifty,” Frankie shot back.

  “He picked you up from the airport. I saw the way he was looking at you during dinner. Like he wanted to eat you instead of what was on his plate. And then he whisks you away? Don’t think for one second that just because I’m getting married tomorrow that I don’t want every single detail of what you two have been doing for the last five hours.”

  Frankie rubbed the bump on the back of her head. “Let’s get back to this getting married thing tomorrow for a second. How upset would you be if something happened and you couldn’t?”

  “Couldn’t what? Get married tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. What if something… came up?”

  “Franchesca Baranski, a mother-fucking hurricane could blow over this island leveling every building on it tomorrow, and I would still be marrying Chip.”

  Ah, hell.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Listen. You’ll understand this once you and Aiden really start getting to know each other,” Pru said, patting her arm. “Chip and I lost each other after college, and I was devastated because I knew he was the one. I never stopped believing that. Not once in all those years. And we found our way back to each other. We’ve paid our dues. That separation was heart-breaking for me, for him too. So we are going to have a magical day tomorrow because we deserve it. I deserve it,” her voice cracked.

  Frankie grabbed her friend’s hand. “Of course, you deserve it. I know that Chip is all you’ve ever wanted, and you’ll have him. You’ll have your perfect guy on your perfect day. I promise.”

  Pru nodded, her veil rippling. “I should text him! Text him and tell him how much I love him and can’t wait for tomorrow! Oooh! Or I could call him!”

  “Uhhh—”

  But Pru was already scampering back to the vanity for her phone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Frankie: Pru thinks we made out for five hours tonight. Also, she’s texting and calling Chip to tell him how excited she is about tomorrow. In about thirty seconds, she’s going to start to panic.

  Aiden: I’ve got it covered.

  Frankie wanted to reach through her phone and strangle him. Or at the very least punch him in his smug “I’ve got it covered” face. She was just debating whether or not to bite the bullet and tell Pru everything when Pru’s phone signaled a text.

  “Is it Chip?” Frankie asked, aghast. Was Aiden really that good?

  “No. It’s Aiden,” Pru said, beaming at her phone. “He said that Chip is sound asleep in his suite, and he didn’t want me to worry that Chip wasn’t returning my texts.”

  Pru hugged her phone to her chest, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of happiness. “I’m getting married tomorrow.”

  Hell yes, she was. Frankie vowed that she would do whatever it took to get Pru down the aisle to the man of her dreams.

  “Enough about me. Tell me about Aiden! Is he really an orgasm master?”

  --------

  Pru’s wedding day dawned bright, beautiful, and hot. With no groom in sight.

  The evening ceremony called for hours spent at the spa with the rest of the bridesmonsters. Frankie had tossed and turned the rest of the night away in Pru’s room seeing Chip’s abduction over and over again in her head.

  Aiden hadn’t bothered checking in, and with this seaweed wrap sucking the fat out of her, she couldn’t just get up and go find him. All she knew was he had better be mounting a rescue with tanks, ninjas, and mercenaries. Whatever it took to get Chip Randolph back to the resort and in a tux before six.

  Cressida sauntered by in a short, silk robe and mud mask. “Here. Have zis,” she said, wielding a bottle of Cristal. “You look tense.”

  Frankie looked at her arms pinned to her side with green slime. “Got a straw?”

  Cressida shrugged. “Open your mouth. I will pour.”

  Frankie laid back and did as she was told. Cressida poured with precision, and Frankie swallowed the bubbles like a first-string sorority pledge.

  “Did you take care of what you needed to take care of last night?” Cressida asked without moving her lips, careful not to crack her mask.

  “It’s being managed,” Frankie said evasively. She wasn’t about to trust any of the bridesmaids with a brown bag lunch with her name on it let alone sensitive information that would ruin Pru’s wedding day.

  “Ze bride is getting anxious. She has not heard from ze groom since last night,” Cressida announced, nodding her blonde head in Pru’s direction.

  She had her feet in a spa tub and was staring at her phone in her lap as if willing it to ring.

  Frankie prayed that Aiden was handling it. “What’s Chip doing today?” Frankie asked Pru, already dreading the answer.

  “Apparently he’s fishing with Aiden this morning.” Pru bit her lip.

  “That sounds like fun,” Frankie prodded.

  “Yeah, I’m just g
etting a little… nervous.”

  “Butterflies,” Margeaux announced knowledgeably. “I was that way the first time. The second time around you won’t feel a thing.”

  “Nice, Marge,” Frankie snorted.

  Margeaux scoffed. “Please. Like anyone believes this marriage will last. Hey, watch the cuticles,” she screeched at the woman doing her manicure.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Frankie pleaded with Pru, inch-worming her way into a seated position. The seaweed ripped down her back, and she could breathe again.

  “I just haven’t heard from him since the fish fry last night. What if…” Pru didn’t finish the sentence, and Frankie was the only one in the room who knew the truth was even worse than all the scenarios that Pru was running through.

  “If they’re fishing offshore they probably left early, and there’s no cell reception,” Frankie said, shrugging back into her robe.

  Pru chewed on her lip. “True. But if I haven’t heard from him by lunch, I’m going to send my dad to check on him.”

  Wouldn’t that go over well? R.L. Stockton storming around the resort looking for the future son-in-law that he hated. One whiff of trouble with Chip and R.L. would have Pru on a private plane flying back home while his team of attorneys worked out the best way to sue the shit out of Chip and his parents.

  “Trust Aiden,” Frankie insisted. “He won’t let you down.” And if he did, Frankie would be first in line to kick him in the balls.

  “There’s my baby girl!” Addison Stockton stormed into the treatment room in her matching robe and slippers. “She’s going to be the most beautiful bride,” she announced to the room, fluttering her hands like hummingbird wings.

  “Someone enjoyed their laser hair removal appointment,” Taffany said, cracking her gum.

  At noon, the spa served up a vegan spread for the party. Chip’s mother, Myrtle, took one look at the hummus topped cucumber rolls and ordered a burger, rare, with extra fries. Can’t take the Texas appetites out of a cattle ranch baron’s daughter.