The Groomsman: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Billionaires of Club Tempest)

by Sloane Hunter

  I remembered his promise to not sleep with Margot. He claimed he hadn’t known. “I don’t think he’s doing anything on purpose,” I said. “Not anymore. So I’m done following him around.”

  Kylie examined me closely. “Are you okay, Alice?” she asked after a moment.

  “What? Why?”

  She shook her head. “No reason. You’ve just seemed off for a bit.”

  I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Or Mac. Just relax and have fun. And make sure Beck’s doing the same.”

  She nodded and, on command, relaxed back into her chair. To the sky, she said, “I’m eventually gonna want a full report of your Tuzas adventure.”

  I laughed softly. “One day, Kylie. One day.”

  Mac reappeared sometime around four o’clock. I watched him stride across the deck out of the corner of my eye. He passed right by me, peeling off his shirt and revealing that insane body. If he was trying to put on a show, I wasn’t falling for it. We were done.

  But yet I couldn’t quite keep my eyes off him over the course of the next hour. He sat on the edge, thick legs submerged to the knee as he talked and joked with our friends.

  After a bit, Kylie joined Beck in the pool and, shortly after, Jules led Keegan off. He’d high-fived his friends and laughed as they whistled after the couple, but I hadn’t missed the disappointed look on his face as she took him away from the fun.

  I felt conspicuous, sitting apart from the group alone. I couldn’t avoid talking or being around Mac for the rest of the week. At the end of the day, we were all there for Beck and I wasn’t going to split the group by being petty. So I threw aside my reservations and joined Kylie and Beck in the pool.

  The afternoon passed undisturbed by argument, though Mac and I only exchanged the bare minimum of courtesies.

  Beck seemed to be having a good time. I looked for the signs of discontent that Kylie had mentioned, but I wasn’t picking up anything. Beck seemed fine. Normal. Happy. Excited to be with us and with Sam.

  It hurt a little to know that I’d been a source of distress the night before. That was the opposite of my intentions, of course. Beck was my best friend, and she deserved to have the perfect wedding week. I was just trying my hardest to give it to her. One day she’d understand.

  In a similar vein, if Mac was reveling in his freedom from my watchful eye, he didn’t show it. He also was acting normally, talking and laughing and having a good time in the pool. Not that I cared, obviously. But still, I almost decided that he’d learned his lesson from our disastrous episode in Tuzas last night.

  Almost.

  Because if I’d learned anything about Mac, it was that he was frustratingly consistent.

  I didn’t have to wait long for suspicious activity to resume. It started once we left the pool and went into the resort for dinner, a strange shiftiness hidden poorly under social exuberance.

  He got up from the table in the steakhouse three times and on two of those occasions, I caught a glimpse of him outside, talking on the phone.

  Whatever. Could be work stuff. The Knights (excluding Twain) frequently had to check in on their businesses back in New York.

  Then a resort attendant came up to him at the table and whispered something in his ear. And just like that, I felt myself getting pulled back in. Mac was off his leash and immediately planning some new insanity. But what could it be?

  Stop it! I commanded myself. You don’t care. Remember?

  And I didn’t. I refocused on the conversation and forcefully ignored Mac and his antics.

  But later, when I was coming back from the bathroom, I saw him off to the side, speaking into the ear of the same attendant who had come to the table. I narrowed my eyes. He didn’t see me and once he was finished talking, he slipped some cash into the guy’s hand and walked quickly back to the table.

  I couldn’t help myself.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” I called after the attendant, a young man in a red vest. He stopped reluctantly in his path of fleeing the restaurant and turned to me.

  “Yes, miss?” he asked.

  “What was Mac just telling you?” I asked. His eyes darted over my shoulder, the way Mac had walked. He looked nervous.

  “Nothing, miss,” he said lamely.

  “Listen,” I said, looking at his name tag, “Rico. There’s no reason we can’t get along.” I reached into my pocket in the way I’d just seen Mac do and slipped him a five.

  He stared at it, blinked, and put it in his back pocket. I was grateful he didn’t acknowledge the fact that Mac had probably slipped him a hundred.

  “Mr. Walsh wanted the boathouse cleared out around seven o’clock,” he said.

  “Did he say why?”

  He paused and I prayed he was going to answer. I didn’t have another five.

  Rico swallowed and said, “He mentioned something about a lady.”

  Of course he did. “Thanks, Rico,” I said, letting him go.

  For the next hour, all throughout the rest of dinner, I considered what I was going to do with that information. There was no doubt in my mind that Mac was going to try to sleep with Margot Lorne in that boathouse. Which, ew.

  I was surprised the fancy woman would agree to something like that or why Mac wasn’t just taking her to his own room. But I supposed there might be eyes watching their floor and, after the bathroom thing with Mariana, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that Mac had a kink of getting caught.

  Which, again, ew.

  Sometime after dinner, the group found ourselves in the hotel lounge where a band played onstage. It didn’t take long for someone to notice that, sometime in our migration from the restaurant, we’d gotten a little smaller.

  “Where’s Mac?” Sam asked.

  Mason frowned. “I could have sworn he was just here. Must be in the bathroom.”

  I checked the time and felt my eyes narrow. Six forty. Bathroom? Yeah right. He was merrily skipping down to the boathouse to screw Margot.

  But what was I going to do about it? I felt Kylie’s eyes on me and didn’t let the dilemma reach my face.

  I claimed not to care what Mac did, but let’s be real. I did. And for some reason, I’d trusted him when he said he wouldn’t be sleeping with Margot now that he knew she was Lorne’s wife. For some reason I thought after last night, he was going to calm down. But I’d been wrong apparently.

  When it came to Mac I was wrong at every turn. But then, what was new? I should have known at this point that I had zero instinct when it came to guys. For some reason, I thought that Mac would be different.

  The annoyance built into anger until I didn’t think I could stay sitting in the parlor for much longer with this fake, plastic smile pasted to my face. I needed space, to breathe and to get over myself.

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I said and stood, walking quickly from the room before anyone could say anything. Did they think I was going after Mac? Maybe. But I found I didn’t really care. Screw Jules and her bitchy judgments.

  The intention really had been to be alone for a moment. But once I got moving, my feet directed me toward the beach. Once I got outside there was no question of where I was headed. I was going to yell at Mac. I was going to break up his tryst with Margot and probably yell at her too.

  I asked another attendant for directions to the boathouse and began to walk.

  I had to give Mac some credit. The boathouse was a long way away from everything. He obviously really did not want to get caught this time. I followed a twisting path through the gardens, past the pools and attractions, past the nightlife area already getting started, past the golf course and down along the now empty white-sand coast. The sun was starting to set in the distance, still in the sky, but inching its way down. It was really a beautiful night, marred only by this terrible feeling.

  The boathouse was a white-washed building about the size of a bungalow and right against the water. I approached carefully, listening for the telltale signs of ‘getting it
on’.

  I didn’t hear anything at all, not even voices. My watch said that it was after seven, but maybe she was running late.

  There was a garage door and beside it a smaller normal one. I pulled at the handle, finding it unlocked. I opened the door and stopped immediately in my tracks.

  There were no boats in the boat house. Nor were there morons banging. Instead, I found myself in a staredown with two vaguely curious horses who’d stopped, mid-chew, to stare at this strange woman invading their space. They blinked brown eyes lazily and then looked back down at their hay and continued their meal.

  “What the—” I started, stepping into the boathouse. I’d been wrong. Obviously Mac was in a different boathouse. Or maybe Rico was actually pissed about the five dollars and misled me on purpose. But who the hell kept horses here? And, I noticed, completely saddled, bridled, and ready to ride.

  “Surprise,” a deep voice said to my right.

  I whipped around. There stood Mac, leaning against the wall wearing shorts and a black t-shirt, the fabric bulging around his biceps. He’d gotten golden-tanned in the pool today and his complexion had darkened significantly. It combined with his black hair to make his green eyes stand out blindingly on his face.

  My mouth hung open like an idiot’s. I physically snapped it closed and put my hands on my hips. “What’s going on?” I demanded. As handsome as he looked with that devilish grin toying at his mouth, I was still technically angry at him.

  “Well, you were right,” he said. “My words are leaning toward meaningless. So my apology for yesterday is a gift.” He nodded at the horses who continued to eat, ignoring us.

  My heart actually fluttered. (I’d read about that happening and always assumed it would feel somewhat like an incoming heart attack. Which it did, but in a good way?) But I couldn’t give in that easily to sweet words and thoughtful gifts. Had I told him I liked horses? Or had he just assumed because I grew up in Kentucky?

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get these past customs,” I said finally.

  “That isn’t the gift,” Mac said, pushing off the wall and coming to join me in front of the horses.

  I crossed my arms. “What is then?” I asked.

  “The gift is getting to see me on a horse,” he said. His gravity gave way and a blinding smile split his face, one I couldn’t help but match.

  Did this make up for his mistake yesterday? Maybe it shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help but feel that resistance toward him give way. I really did want to see him try to ride.

  “But wait a minute,” I said, suddenly remembering my anger from only moments before. “I thought you were bringing Margot here.” With a twinge of embarrassment, I realized that the ‘woman’ the attendant had been talking about was me. “How were you planning on luring me down here?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, but…” I trailed off, realizing I’d been played.

  “I knew if I acted suspicious enough you’d find your way here eventually,” he said, his grin growing wider.

  I groaned. “So that was on purpose! I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  “You’re getting a little predictable,” he said, leaning toward me so close that I could smell his scent, pine and a smoky, woody smell that reminded me of the forest at night. He pulled away just as I was getting drawn in.

  “Can you blame me?” I asked. The irritation had fled my voice; it came out more like an actual question.

  Mac fixed me in that beautiful, piercing stare. “I’ll have you know that I’m far from the most disastrous person in this wedding party.”

  “Jules and Keegan?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re a close second. I was talking about Twain.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Twain barely counts. He hasn’t been around at all.” I shook my head. “No, you’re the one who’s been causing trouble.” Again, it wasn’t accusatory. It was just a statement of facts, a summary of the week thus far. Mac had been trouble, and I’d been doing my damnedest to keep him out of it.

  “I didn’t know she was married to Lorne,” he repeated. His face was still, serious, the smile gone. “I wouldn’t have promised her anything if I had known.”

  My mouth twisted. “What about the strippers?” I asked.

  “What about them?”

  “You’re telling me that wasn’t some twisted plan to get Sam caught by Beck?”

  Mac sighed and walked to the edge of the water. “It was a stupid plan, but it wasn’t anything so evil as that. I wanted to remind him of the good times we’ve had together as a group. Okay, I’ll admit I was hoping it would end with him calling everything off, but I really didn’t mean for all of you to stumble on us. And it was a bad plan anyway. Sam was chewing my ass out well before any of you showed up.”

  I joined him by the water. “Why do you not want this to happen?” I asked softly. This had to go beyond a creed against marriage. There was a story here, something personal.

  Mac’s face twisted and he didn’t answer. He nodded at the horses, changing the subject. “Should I try to get my ass up?” he asked.

  Not the time, got it. But maybe later. I nodded. “If you think you can,” I said. “Which one is mine?”

  Mac might have been playing into the stereotype of Kentucky and horse girls, but he wasn’t too far off. My family never owned horses, but as a girl growing up in a small town, I was in the minority of my friends. I spent hundreds of hours on my friends’ horses and loved the animals. They were one of the few things I could say I actually missed about country life.

  Mac hauled open the heavy garage door while I led the two horses, one a dapple gray, the other a magnificent white, reluctantly away from their food and onto the beach.

  I easily mounted mine, the white, demonstrating to Mac how to step into the stirrup and swing the other leg over.

  He nodded and tried his best. It was actually quite funny to see — Mac, the tough guy with the whiskey and cigars and brooding eyes, trying to clamber his bulky frame onto a horse.

  “Remember,” I said as he grabbed the saddle horn and heaved himself up, “they can smell fear.”

  He turned to look up at me, squinting his eyes in the sunlight. “Thanks for that,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  To his credit, it only took him one try, though it could have been a hell of a lot smoother. He sat up on the dapple gray’s back, looking down at the ground and grabbing the reigns tightly. He was nervous, but he didn’t show it on his face. It was all in the way he clenched the reigns like a lifeline.

  It was almost hilarious. The big tough guy who’d stared down the gang last night without a tremor in his voice, freaked out by something I’d done since I was five.

  “You’re holding them too tightly,” I called after him as his horse started ahead at a fast clip. “Pull back gently and say ‘whoa’.”

  “Whoa. Whoa!” Mac barked, pulling at the reigns. As luck would have it, he seemed to have gotten the more spirited of the two. Mine was lazily tossing his mane and watching his friend dance up and down the beach.

  “Gentler,” I called, trying not to laugh at the sight. A cowboy, Mac was not. But there was potential. Even though he looked far from comfortable, there was something unbelievably sexy about the man on a horse.

  Finally, Mac was able to get his mount a bit under control. I instructed him on steering, how to sit properly, and how to treat the horse so as to not stress him out.

  “You’re not doing half bad for a city boy,” I said as we walked them down the white beach. To our left, the waves crashed and rolled away, pulling the water out to the ocean where the sun was just starting to dip beyond the horizon.

  “I catch on quick,” he said. “And I have driven horses before. Once.”

  “Driven?” I repeated the odd word choice.

  He nodded. “One of my boys didn’t think I’d boost one of those carriages they carry the tourists around in. They thought wrong.”r />
  “Boost? Wait,” I said, eyes wide. “You’re not saying you stole a horse and carriage?”

  He nodded. “Sure did. Drove it straight across Phoenix Park.”

  “And got away with it?”

  He chuckled. “Nah, I wouldn’t say that. Turns out horses are a hell of a lot harder to steal than cars. Only got hit with a fine and probation though. I was a kid so it could have been a lot worse.”

  I thought about what he said, considered letting it pass, and then let my curiosity get the better of me. “Did you just say you used to steal cars?” I asked.

  He looked at me quickly and sobered. “Ah, yeah, did I just say that?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He sighed and looked down at his horse. “There weren’t a lot of opportunities in Dublin,” he explained. “Not for me anyway. My friends and I got into some shit, but after I moved to the States I stayed on the straight and narrow.”

  “And what about your friends?” I asked. He gave me a look. “Too far? Okay,” I said, not pushing.

  “And what about you?” he asked as we trotted along.

  I laughed. “What about me?”

  “Well,” he said, “I know you apparently date assholes and you work in design and that you went to Kentucky State and you like fruity cocktails and busting my balls, but is that all there is to Alice Rhodes?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I, um…” Huh, this was harder than it seemed. How do you summarize your own life so casually? The moments that made me who I was seemed, by all logic, too personal to share with this man. But for some reason I felt the urge to spill them all, present my secrets to him like an offering, an olive branch extended with the hope of an honest exchange.

  “I grew up in a small town,” I said finally. “Not a farm, but a farming community. Parents divorced when I was young. I wanted to move to New York from the moment I saw that Home Alone sequel.”

  “Must have missed that one.”