Best Man, Worst Man

by Stacy Gail

  Damn tease, he thought, well aware he wasn’t being fair, but who gave a crap about being fair when the mere thought of her made his lower regions throb with need? With her dignified elegance and luscious body built for a man’s worshipping hands, Claire Pomeroy hit everything on his personal checklist of what made a woman irresistible. Except for the whole matrimony thing. In this day and age, how could such a smart and savvy woman believe in the fairy tale of marriage?

  She was a romantic, Ryder decided, staring at his cuffs without seeing them. For all her organizational skills, Claire Pomeroy was a dreamy-eyed, hearts-and-flowers romantic who believed in forever. Maybe that sappy way of thinking came with being a wedding planner—she had to believe in the fairy tale in order to make her clients’ dreams come true.

  But that’s all it was. A dream.

  “Let me guess. You don’t like the French cuffs.”

  Ryder looked up at his friend. “What?”

  Matt nodded at Ryder’s cuffs and leaned against the dressing room wall. “You’re staring at those cuffs like they’ve done you wrong, dude. I’m not a fan, myself, but I think I can hack it for a day.”

  “Oh.” Ryder glanced back at the cuffs and nearly snorted. No doubt his friend would fall over if he knew his thoughts were pinpointed on the sexy little wedding planner. “No, I was just thinking I had to rent a tux very much like this one the second time my father got married. Now that was a wedding,” he added, throwing a grin Matt’s way. “Everything was done up in black and white, including all the guests’ attire. They had a full band at the reception, professional tango dancers flown in from Brazil, a champagne fountain and ice sculptures everywhere you looked. My dad later said if he had known the bills to that particular shindig would outlast the actual marriage, he would have eloped.”

  Matt snorted and turned to once again check out his reflection in the mirror. “If Rachel’s parents weren’t helping out with the bills, we’d be eloping too.” He looked up as the formalwear shop’s clerk came in with more tuxedos. “Whoa, how many does Claire want us to try on?”

  “Just three more,” the clerk said, hanging up the suits. “Her personal choice is the one you have on now, which I strongly recommend you go with, sir. Ms. Pomeroy has a sixth sense about this sort of thing, so it’s best to just go along with her wishes.”

  “You know Claire Pomeroy well, then?” Ryder found himself asking, though he wasn’t sure why.

  The clerk’s eyes widened impressively. “Everyone in the business knows Claire Pomeroy. I’ve got two more fittings today who are her clientele, one with a Cinco de Mayo theme, and the other with a Hogwarts theme, of all things. I can only imagine what she’ll come up with next.”

  It was hard to believe there were so many people willing to throw their lives away on a gamble, Ryder almost said, and had to bite his tongue while the clerk headed back out to the showroom. Now wasn’t the time to club Matt over the head with the obvious.

  Now was the time for Matt to realize all on his own that marriage was a mistake.

  “Geez, I don’t believe it. This is a morning suit, isn’t it? I have no frigging clue what to do with an ascot.”

  Ryder looked up at the suit Matt was examining. “I would strongly advise against them. They held up my father’s third wedding for nearly an hour. By the time the bride was walking down the aisle she was in tears and my dad was cursing a blue streak. He swore it was a bad omen.”

  “I kinda like the one I’m wearing, anyway.” Matt stared at his reflection with a distracted frown. “Can’t go wrong with a basic jacket and vest, instead of that ridiculous cummerbund thing. What the hell is a cummerbund anyway?”

  “I always thought it was a fat guy’s way of covering up a spare tire without wearing a truss. And if you want basic, you should do what my mother and her third husband did—have a beach wedding and have everyone dress in bathing suits and shorts. That had to be my favorite wedding attire. But this isn’t bad,” he added casually when Matt slid a glance his way. “In fact, I might even buy this one instead of just rent it. You never know who’s going to get married again—my mom, dad. You. It’d probably be cheaper just to get this and wear it again for the next ceremony.”

  “I’m not going to get married again, Ryder,” Matt said, a hard edge to his tone while he fiddled with his bow tie. “Rachel’s the one for me.”

  “Trust me, pal—that’s what they all say. And that’s terrific you feel that way right now,” he added when Matt’s expression turned thunderous. “I’m happy for you, really. But you might want to think about buying that tux anyway, just in case things don’t work out and you want to, er…use it again. My dad finally figured out that was the best way to go when he jumped into marriage number four. Too bad he never figured out a man should just be happy with the status quo, rather than pushing it all the way to the limit. Crazy bastard.”

  As they grabbed up the morning suits and headed off to their changing rooms, Ryder glanced at Matt’s expression and smiled to himself.

  His work here was done.

  The front showroom of As You Wish Weddings was usually a serene oasis of nuptial bliss, with strategically placed portrait-sized black-and-white photos of happy couples in their wedding regalia, little flower girls with blossoms in their hair and proud parents wiping tears away. The hardwood floors glowed with warmth, the buff-colored walls were treated with an antiquing patina overlay, and creamy satin window treatments puddled tastefully on the floors around sun-drenched transom windows.

  Elegant serenity had always been Claire’s goal in her professional life. If a client had walked in at that moment, however, elegant serenity was the last thing they would have found.

  “Mari.” Claire stood over a box, one of nearly a dozen that had been delivered and were now in haphazard piles all over the front showroom. “I have a question.”

  “Mmm?” Claire’s assistant and professional lady in waiting, Mari Cruz, lifted her platinum-streaked brunette head from the study of the loose-leaf notebook she held. “Do I have an answer?”

  “I hope so.” Claire frowned at the contents in the box. “When you think of spring, what sort of flowers come to mind?”

  “Well, for Texas it has to be bluebonnets of course, they’re everywhere this time of year, along with buttercups, daisies, Indian paintbrush and freesia. If we’re talking weddings, it has to be tulips, roses, orchids and lilies, all in pale pastel colors, or white.”

  “Great answer.” Claire nodded, still frowning. “And the Pelly-Guthrie wedding is spring-themed, correct?”

  Mari closed the notebook, looking apprehensive. Clearly she knew her boss well. “Ye-es…”

  “The colors Rachel Pelly chose for her wedding are white and green, and the flowers are calla lilies, green hydrangea and white roses. And, in keeping with the white and green theme, we were going to create floral streamers out of magnolias to line the aisle, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So…could you please tell me why we have just received a delivery of fifteen hundred marigolds?”

  “Crap.” In a heartbeat, Mari bounded over to look at the box’s bright orange-gold contents before whipping open the notebook. “I’m sure I ordered magnolias, not marigolds. I mean, there’s such a huge difference between them… Ah, see? Here’s a copy of the order sheet—magnolias, not marigolds.”

  Grateful, Claire patted her assistant on the shoulder, a calming gesture for them both while she frowned at the order form. “Okay, let’s see if we can make some lemonade out of this lemon. I’ll see if the Chapman-Hernandez clients would like to have marigolds as an accent flower for their wedding and reception, since that particular color goes great with their Cinco de Mayo theme, and we’ll offer it at a cut rate. If they don’t want it, contact the warehouse and switch out the order. If our clients do want the marigolds, contact the warehouse anyway, because we need those white and green magnolias for the Pelly-Guthrie wedding—” Claire’s phone cut her off, and with one last
grateful glance at Mari, she unhooked the smartphone at her waist and glanced at the I.D. “Hi, Rachel. What can I do for you?”

  “The wedding’s off,” Rachel sobbed baldly, and with those three words Claire’s heart sank all the way to her toes. “Have the invitations gone out? Please tell me the invitations haven’t gone out yet. I don’t want to call three hundred people and tell them Matt doesn’t love me enough to marry me…”

  “Calm down, Rachel.” With all her skills kicking into high gear, Claire stepped away from the chaos of the flowers. “The invitations are right here on the counter, all right? Tell me what happened. Did you and Matt fight?”

  “No. I just don’t understand.” The helpless devastation in Rachel’s tone was so jagged it broke Claire’s heart. “We were fine this morning, better than fine. At breakfast, we were practicing our first dance together and laughing at how I don’t know my left from my right. Maybe it’s because I stepped on his foot…?”

  “I doubt that was it.” With suspicion lurking like a dark shadow in her mind, Claire moved to the laptop lying on the counter and clicked on the Pelly-Guthrie calendar. “Aha.”

  “Aha? Aha, what?”

  “The fittings.” When she realized she was talking out loud, Claire clammed up. It wouldn’t do to make the shattered bride-to-be even more upset than she already was. “All right, Rachel, one way or another we’re going to finalize this situation. I need you and Matt to meet me for dinner down at The Little Steakhouse on the River Walk at six. If Matt hassles you about it, tell him you both have to be there to finalize my bill, because there is an extra fee in our contract for ceremony cancellation.”

  Rachel whimpered. “S-six tonight?”

  “That’s right.”

  Rachel began crying again. “We’ll be there.”

  When Claire hung up, Mari looked at her with an expression full of compassion. “I’m guessing I should cancel the magnolias?”

  “Not yet.” Jaw set, Claire dialed the restaurant for reservations. “No one is canceling a thing, not if I have anything to say about it.”

  Thankfully Claire was kept so busy for the remainder of the afternoon she could hardly spare a thought for Matt and Rachel or, for that matter, the number-one suspect for the source of the problem. But she simmered. Her temper prowled through every word and movement, straining at the edges like a dangerous animal kept on a short leash. By the time six o’clock rolled around, she was so wound up she barely saw the restaurant’s carefully rustic interior with its exposed wooden beams and bare limestone walls. Nor did she take any pleasure in the riverside table draped in the spring colors of white and pastel yellow, or in the towering, century-old live oak that was the majestic canopy for the restaurant’s outdoor dining area. Instead of seeing candles glowing at each linen-covered table, she saw the arrogant smile of Matt’s so-called best man, and all she wanted to do was wring his neck.

  But thoughts of justifiable homicide would have to wait. For now, she had a relationship to save.

  “Hey, Claire.” Rachel appeared by the table, a somber-looking Matt in tow. As Claire rose to hug her client, she noted the other woman’s swollen eyes, blotchy complexion and miserable expression. Her temper inched up another notch, but she produced a calm smile and gestured them into their seats.

  “Thank you both for meeting with me on such short notice,” Claire began, noting that Matt looked nearly as wrecked as Rachel. In her lap, her hands curled in fury. “When the two of you signed our contract, I never imagined you would be candidates for the ceremony-cancellation fee, simply because I’ve never seen two people who fit together better than you. I don’t know what happened today,” she went on while the image of Ryder flashed through her mind, “but I do know that somehow you have found yourselves at a life-altering crossroads. Matt, do you still love Rachel, or do you want to move on?”

  “No! I love her! I love you, Rachel,” he said with the air of a man who had repeated himself until he was blue in the face. “I don’t want us to be over, you have to believe me!”

  Tears dripped from Rachel’s already swollen and painfully red eyes. “Then…why? Why don’t you love me enough to marry me?”

  “It’s not that, baby. I’ll never love anyone as much as I love you. We’re just…going so fast…”

  Rachel shook her head, lost. “We’ve known each other for years, we’ve been together as a couple for a year, you proposed months ago. Why is it suddenly too fast now? What’s happened?”

  Ryder the human tornado is what happened, Claire wanted to say, and had to bite her tongue to keep it still.

  “Rachel, this is perfectly normal, so try not to take it as a sign that Matt doesn’t love you,” Claire said, when what she really wanted to do was knock Matt into the river for being so easily led. What the hell was he, a sheep? “Marriage is one of the biggest steps a person takes in their adult life, and you have to approach it with the sober maturity of an adult. Maybe Matt doesn’t feel like he’s there yet. As the wedding date is now only a few weeks away, he might not feel like he’s the settling-down type after all. Maybe he wants to hold onto the singles’ scene a bit longer—”

  “No! God, no.” With a look of pure horror, Matt shook his head. “Look, I’m just…a little confused right now, okay?”

  “I’m confused too, with so much craziness going on,” Rachel whispered, the picture of woe. “The one thing I’m not confused about is my love for you, Matt. But…if you don’t feel the same way, maybe it’s best to find that out now and go our separate ways—”

  “No!” Like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline, Matt grabbed her hands and held on tight. “We belong together, Rachel, don’t even think about walking away now!”

  “That’s my cue to leave you two to talk things out.” Solemn faced, Claire rose from her chair. “Please order whatever you want. The management here owes me a few favors, so the bill’s already been taken care of. Take as long as you need, and as you do, I’d like you to do something for me—try and envision what your life will be like without each other to hold on to when times are tough, to laugh and cry with, to be weak with and be strong for. Envision yourselves alone, because that is what you’ll be without each other.” Without waiting for a reply, Claire walked across the dining patio and into the restaurant…

  And spotted Ryder Price watching the scene from the restaurant bar.

  Chapter Four

  “I’d like to say this is a surprise, but I’ve never been good at lying,” Claire said by way of greeting as she settled onto a padded, low-backed barstool. Ryder let his gaze slide over her, mainly because he hadn’t been able to do anything else since he arrived. As usual she was an elegantly put-together package in a slim black skirt, white satin blouse, her usual nosebleed-inducing high heels and a double strand of pearls at her neck. She was all things feminine and all things irresistible…except for her expression. Beneath the calm smiles and elegant mannerisms, the flash in those melted-chocolate eyes wanted blood.

  He wondered how Matt had managed not to cringe away from it.

  “I don’t suppose you’d believe my being here is merely a coincidence,” he offered, fiddling with the pilsner glass set before him. And only then did it occur to him that it had been one hell of a long time since a woman made him nervous enough to fiddle with anything.

  “I sincerely hope I don’t look that gullible.” With a wave of a manicured hand, Claire sent the bartender on his way. “I knew you would be someplace close by.”

  “Oh?”

  “Of course. Since you’ve already done your damnedest to break Rachel and Matt up, you wanted to see how the final shattering of their relationship would play out. I’m curious—is Rachel’s devastation and Matt’s painful confusion all that you’d hoped it would be? It certainly is spectacular to watch while idly sipping a beer, isn’t it?”

  “I never wanted them to break up.” With his brows snapping together, Ryder jerked his gaze back to the window, where Matt and Rachel could easily be seen
. “Why the hell would they break up?”

  “You really don’t know women, do you?”

  Ryder couldn’t help the snort that escaped him. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I meant a woman’s heart. Now that Matt is trying to call off the wedding, Rachel believes he no longer loves her.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Matt’s crazy about Rachel.”

  “Feel free to tell Rachel that. But you’ll have to wait until she’s finished crying—she should be done about a year from now.”

  Discomfort snaked through Ryder, hard enough to make him look once again at Rachel. Strangely, her tears no longer seemed like the frustration of having the brass ring taken from her. Now she just looked broken.

  “You don’t have to have marriage to be happy together,” Ryder said to justify himself, then wondered when it had become necessary to justify himself to anyone. “It is possible to have a relationship without marriage.”

  “That’s your outlook, and you’re welcome to it,” Claire said, looking at him as if he were something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe. “If you want to still be playing that swinging, Hugh Hefner role when you’re seventy, be my guest. Nobody cares how you live, obviously. But I do care about Matt and Rachel, so when you throw roadblocks in the way of two people who are deeply in love just so they can get bloody on them, I draw the line.”

  Ryder gritted his teeth while that nameless restlessness inside him growled to life once more. “I have people who care about me.” It didn’t matter that he couldn’t think of anyone in particular.

  “This isn’t about you, it’s about Matt and Rachel. The only reason their relationship is suffering now, as far as I can see, is because you didn’t want to lose the convenience of an unmarried wingman.”

  “I didn’t do this for me, I’m trying to save Matt from being crushed by an illusion,” Ryder snapped, feeling pummeled by her every word. Worse yet, there was something way down deep inside that told him he deserved it. “Marriage is nothing but a sham, a promise no one can keep. No matter how much two people might think they’re in love, there is no love in the world so strong and enduring that it can last a lifetime.”