Loe raamatut: «Best Man And The Runaway Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

WHERE WAS THE BRIDE? She should have been at the church a half-hour ago. Max Conway paced back and forth on the pavement in front of the historic sandstone building. As best man at the wedding, he’d been despatched outside to report on the bride’s arrival status. Again, he glanced down at his watch. Traditionally a bride was tardy but this much late was ridiculous. No wonder the groom, standing inside all by himself at the altar, was grim-faced and tapping his foot.

Organ music drifted out through the arched windows of the church. The notes had a trill of desperation as the organist started her wedding repertoire for the third time. Anticipation levels inside would be rising as the congregation waited—and waited.

Max checked the traffic app on his phone to see if there were problems. All roads leading to the church in Sydney’s posh eastern suburbs were clear. The bridesmaids had arrived without any problem. But still no bride. He was about to turn on his heel and go back inside to give the glowering groom an update—a task he didn’t relish—when the bridal car approached. His shoulders sagged with relief. She was here.

Through the tinted window of the luxury limousine he could see a froth of white veil framing a lovely female face. Nikki Lucas. Max recognised her straight away, though he’d only met her for the first time at the rehearsal two nights before. Honey-blonde hair. Soft brown eyes. Tall and slender. A truly beautiful bride. Well worth the wait for the lucky groom.

At the rehearsal she’d greeted Max with a smile so dazzling he’d been momentarily stunned. She’d been warm and welcoming to her fiancé’s best man—a total stranger to her. If she’d realised who he was—who he had once been—she’d been too well-mannered to mention it. The rehearsal had gone smoothly and he’d got the impression Ms Lucas was efficient and organised. Not the kind of woman to be so late for her own wedding.

The wealthy father of the bride sat next to her in the back seat. Why hadn’t he hurried his daughter along? Max found such lack of punctuality unpardonable. What was Ms Lucas’s game? If this were his bride—not that he had any intention of marrying any time soon—he would be furious. The limo slowed to a halt. No doubt he’d be greeted with a flurry of excuses. He would cut her short, bustle her inside and get this tardy bride up the aisle pronto.

He ran to the bride’s door and yanked it open. ‘You’re here,’ he said through gritted teeth, swallowing the where the hell have you been.

He didn’t get so much as a smile in response. In fact the errant bride looked downright hostile. Her face was as pale as the layers of tulle that framed it, her mouth set tight. She swung her long, elegant legs out of the car, shook off the hand he offered her to help, and stood up in a flurry of fluffy white skirts.

She gave no apologies, no explanations, no excuses. Just a tersely spoken command. ‘You have to get me out of here.’

Max stared at her. ‘Get you up the aisle, you mean,’ he said. ‘You’re late. There’s a church full of guests waiting for you. Not to mention your groom.’

‘Him.’ She shook her head so vehemently her long veil whipped around her face. ‘I’m not going to marry that man. I thought I could go through with it but I can’t.’

By now her father had clambered out of the car to join them. The limo took off with a squeal of tyres, the driver muttering he was late for his next job.

‘Think about this, sweetheart,’ said the older man. He handed her the bouquet of white roses that she had left behind her on the car seat. ‘You can’t just walk out on your wedding.’

‘Yes, I can. You can’t talk me out of this, Dad. If you won’t help me, Max here will.’ She spat out his name as if it were a dirty word. ‘It’s the least he can do as best man to the creep who convinced me to marry him under false pretences.’ She glared at Max through narrowed eyes. ‘That is, unless you’re just as much lying pond scum as he is.’

Max wasn’t usually lost for words. But the insult came from nowhere. Where was the smiling charmer from the rehearsal? Behind the perfect make-up the bride was grim-faced and steely eyed. ‘I don’t consider myself to be pond scum,’ Max said through gritted teeth. ‘But my duty as best man is to get you into the church for your wedding.’

‘There isn’t going to be a wedding. Your duty as a decent human being is to help me get away from here. Now.’ Her hands shook with agitation and she kept looking anxiously towards the church.

Max’s first reaction was to back away from the bride. He wasn’t good with crazy. This was something more than pre-wedding nerves. There was no trace of the joyous, vibrant woman he’d met at the rehearsal. But then her lush pink mouth trembled and her eyes clouded with something he couldn’t quite place—fear, anxiety, disappointment? It made him swallow a retort. How well did he actually know the groom? He’d played tennis with him back in high school but had only reconnected with him just weeks before the wedding—had been surprised to be asked to be best man. The groom could well be pond scum these days for all he knew. But he’d made a commitment to be best man. That made him Team Groom.

The father took her arm. ‘Now, Nikki, there’s no need to—’

The bride turned on her father with a swirl of white skirts, glaring back at Max as she did so. ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘I can’t do it.’

She indicated the church with a wave of a perfectly manicured hand. Her large diamond engagement ring flashed in the afternoon summer sunlight. ‘Please tell everyone to party on without me. Don’t let all that food and wine go to waste.’ Her mouth curled. ‘Maybe someone could have the fun of smashing Alan’s lying, scheming face into the wedding cake—all three tiers of it.’

‘Maybe not,’ Max said, trying not to let a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth at the thought of the somewhat supercilious groom facedown in the frosting.

He made his voice calm and reassuring. ‘I know you must be nervous.’

Pre-performance nerves. He knew all about them. There was nothing more nerve-wracking than stepping out onto the centre court at Wimbledon with the world watching him defend his title.

‘Nervous?’ Her cheeks flushed and her eyes glittered. ‘I’m not nervous. I’m mad as hell.’ She brandished the cascade of white roses as if it were a weapon. Max ducked. ‘The wedding is cancelled.’

‘Why?’ At the rehearsal she’d seemed to be floating on a cloud of happiness. For one long, secret moment he had envied her groom his gorgeous, vivacious bride-to-be. Despite his success at the highest rank of his chosen sport, and all the female attention that came with it, at age thirty Max was still single.

‘You want a reason?’ She raised her perfectly shaped brows. ‘How about four reasons? His two ex-wives and two children.’

Max frowned. ‘You knew Alan was divorced.’

‘Divorced once. With no children. He lied.’ Her voice ended on a heart-rending whimper. ‘One of the reasons I fell for him was that he told me he was longing for children. Like...like I was.’ Her face seemed to crumple; all the poise Max had admired melted away to leave only wide-eyed bewilderment.

‘How did you find out?’ he asked.

‘His first ex-wife called to warn me off Alan. Didn’t want to see me get fooled and hurt by him like she had been. He called her a vindictive witch. Then the second ex-wife wife called to tell me about their three-year-old twin sons and how he’d deserted them. Oh, and warned me he was on the verge of bankruptcy now that he’d gone through all her money.’

Max gasped. The dad hissed. Nikki was a successful businesswoman. Being both beautiful and wealthy made her quite the catch—and vulnerable to a fortune hunter.

‘You believed her?’ said Max.

She shook her head. ‘I trusted my fiancé. But I had her investigated. Definitive proof she was telling the truth came just as I waved off my bridesmaids and was about to get into the limo.’ Her breath caught on a hitch, dangerously close to a sob. ‘I can’t marry a liar and a fraud.’

‘Go in there and tell him that,’ said Max.

‘I couldn’t bear the humiliation.’ She looked up at him, her eyes pleading now. ‘You know all about humiliation.’

Max grimaced. Of course he did. Evidence of his disastrous final game where he’d injured his elbow so badly still circulated on the Internet: the thrown racket, his writhing in pain on the grass court surface of Wimbledon. People had even made memes of it.

‘Yes,’ he said through gritted teeth, not appreciating the reminder.

‘Please help me get away. I can’t run down the street to hail a cab dressed like this.’

Tears glistened in her brown eyes, making them luminous. Max had a weakness for female tears. But he was also a man of his word. He was the best man. An honourable position with duties he took seriously. It would take more than tears to recruit him to Team Bride. As she looked up at him, a single teardrop rolled slowly down her cheek. He had to fight an impulse to wipe it gently away with his thumb. She was another man’s bride. She sniffed and her voice quivered as she spoke. ‘You say you’re not pond scum, now prove it to me.’

* * *

Nikki held her breath as she looked up at Max Conway for his answer. She hadn’t expected to find him standing guard outside the church, ready to corral her inside. In fact, she hardly knew the guy. Just was aware he was a celebrity athlete and had a well-publicised love life.

The first she’d known that her groom’s best man was the world’s golden boy of tennis—featured in countless ‘sexiest men alive’ media round-ups—was when she’d met him at the rehearsal. Just another of her former fiancé’s secrets, she thought with a twist of bitterness.

She could read the struggle on Max’s face—with his spiky light brown hair and blue eyes, he was every bit as handsome as his photos. Duty warred an obvious battle with gentlemanly instincts to help a bride in distress. The media did not consider him a gentleman. She didn’t care. All she wanted was his help to get away. The clock was ticking. Her father had reluctantly gone to tell everyone that the bride would be a no-show. If she was going to escape, she’d have to do it now.

‘Are you quite sure you want to do this?’ Max said.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she said, unable to keep the impatience from her voice. At any moment Alan might come raging outside. She shuddered at the thought.

‘There’ll be no going back. It’s Alan who’ll be humiliated.’

‘Huh! Finding out the truth about him from his ex-wives rates high in humiliation. Being foolish enough to have believed his lies even higher.’

She clutched Max by the sleeve of his dark best-man suit. Looked with trepidation across to the Gothic-style arched wooden doors that led to the interior of the church. People were beginning to spill out down the steps. Ahead of the pack was the wedding photographer, brandishing his camera aimed at her. Forget Max. She gathered up her skirts. Got ready to run. Risked a final glance up at him. ‘Are you going to help me or not?’

‘I don’t like liars.’

‘Is that a “yes”?’

In reply he took her by the arm. Through the sheer fabric of her sleeve she could feel the warmth and strength of his grip. ‘My car is around the corner. We’ll have to run.’

She started to run but only got a few steps before she stumbled. The combination of bumpy pavement, long skirts and high, skinny heels wasn’t conducive to a speedy escape.

‘Ditch the shoes,’ he said tersely. She kicked them off. One after the other they flew into the air and landed side down on the pavement. ‘And the flowers.’ The white flowers landed near the white shoes with a flurry of petals, forming a tableau of lost dreams on the grey of the tarmac. She didn’t look back.

They had rounded the corner from the church when she heard the first shout. More outraged bellow than civilised protest. She cringed at the anger in Alan’s voice. Max’s grip on her arm tightened as he hurried her along. ‘We’re not going fast enough,’ he said.

She wished she could tear away her long skirts. ‘I’m moving as fast as I—’

Her protest ended in a gasp as he effortlessly swept her up to cradle her in his arms. ‘Hold on tight,’ he said as he broke into a run—at twice her speed.

Max Conway was a tall, powerfully built man famed for the relentless power of his serve. Instinctively Nikki looped her arms around his neck and pressed herself close against a solid wall of muscle.

‘You...you don’t have to carry me,’ she managed to choke out.

‘I do,’ he said. She noticed he wasn’t the slightest bit out of breath even while running at full stride weighed down by the burden of a bride. ‘That is, if you really want to escape from your groom.’

The edge to his voice made her stiffen in his arms. Did he think this was some kind of attention-seeking ruse? That she would let Alan catch her and lead her triumphantly back to the wedding? She went to retort but realised he didn’t know her any better than she knew him. She would never behave like that. But he wasn’t to know.

It seemed like only seconds before he stopped by a modest sedan parked by the kerb. Wouldn’t a sports celebrity like Max Conway drive something flashier? Unless he wanted to stay under the radar for some reason. In this case, it would serve her well if Alan tried to follow her. Once in the traffic, this car would be anonymous.

Max put her down by the passenger door. The pavement was warm to her stockinged feet. She was in a wedding dress and no shoes. It made her feel vulnerable and aware of her predicament. For the first time she questioned the wisdom of begging a stranger to take her away. But there was something about Max’s assured, take-charge attitude that made her feel she could trust him.

He unlocked the car with a fob on his key ring and held open her door. ‘Jump in,’ he said. ‘And be quick.’

That was easier said than done with a voluminous full skirt to tuck in around her. With fumbling fingers, she’d just managed to fasten her seat belt when the car took off with a jolt and a screech of tyres. ‘We’ve got company,’ Max said by way of explanation.

Nikki glanced behind her to see what he meant. Heading towards the car was a red-faced Alan, followed closely by her sister, resplendent in her bridesmaid’s dress, her sweet face screwed up in anguish. The wedding photographer followed—snapping gleefully away at the runaway bride. Nikki’s heart started to race and she choked on her breath. For the first time, she realised the enormity of what she had done. How it would affect so many people other than herself. She hadn’t even told her beloved sister.

But she’d make it up to them later. Far better to offend a few people than to chain herself in marriage to the wrong man. ‘Step on it,’ she urged Max.

It wasn’t long before they’d reached her older style waterfront apartment in Double Bay. She’d bought it with her first big profits from her business.

Max pulled into the driveway. ‘Have you got keys?’

‘No need. The entry is security coded.’

She expected him to bundle her out into the courtyard and speed off. Instead, he got out of the car to come around and open the passenger door for her. She realised Alan had never done that. Not once. Why had she let herself be so swept off her feet by him?

‘Ouch!’ The gravelled courtyard was not kind to stockinged feet. She started to pick her way across it, wincing as she went.

‘Allow me,’ Max said. Before she could protest she was swept up into his arms again as he carried her across the courtyard to the front door.

‘This is very chivalrous of you,’ she said, flushing.

‘Nothing is chivalrous about the best man running off with the bride,’ he said with a wry twist to his mouth that didn’t quite pass as a smile.

‘But the bride is very grateful,’ she said. ‘More grateful than she can say.’

He continued to hold her as she coded in her password. Then kicked the door open and carried her inside. It was as if he were carrying her over the threshold like a real bride on her wedding night. The thought was way too disconcerting. She struggled to be put down. He immediately set her back on her feet. She fussed with her dress to cover her confusion.

‘What now for you?’ he asked.

‘I intend to barricade myself in my apartment.’

‘And then?’

‘I have a plan.’ She didn’t really. The plan had been to spend the night with her new husband—she shuddered at even the thought of it—in a luxury city hotel then next day set off to a honeymoon in an even more expensive hotel in Dubai. Alan’s choice. ‘But I’m not going to tell you about it. Then you can truthfully tell people you don’t know where I am.’

‘You mean Alan?’

She nodded. ‘I really and truly don’t want him to find me. And I don’t want to make things more awkward for you than I already have.’

‘I get that,’ he said.

‘Just one more thing.’ She tugged the diamond engagement ring—that she had worn with such optimism for the future—off her finger. ‘Can you give this to him, please? I have no further use for it.’

‘Like a best man’s duty in reverse.’

He took the ring from her, his warm fingers brushing against hers as he did so. She snatched her hand back, not welcoming the tingle of awareness that shot through her. She’d been about to wed another man, for heaven’s sake. How could she feel such a flutter of attraction to his best man? Especially a guy who had cheated on his tennis-player girlfriend—a woman as famous as he was—and been involved in a highly publicised paternity dispute.

An awkward silence fell between them. She shifted from one stockinged foot to another, not wanting to meet his gaze. ‘Thank you for helping me,’ she said finally. ‘It was very good of you.’

‘Good doesn’t come into it. I’m not proud of myself for helping you run away. I went against my principles. I’m not convinced it was the right thing for you to do either. I seriously hope you don’t regret it.’

The full impact of what she’d done might not hit her until Max left her alone in her apartment, surrounded by the disarray of her wedding preparations and honeymoon packing. But he didn’t need to sound self-righteous about it. It wasn’t for Max Conway to sit in judgement against her. Grateful though she was for his help.

Anger flooded through her. ‘There’s one more thing you don’t know about your friend Alan. After his twins, he had a vasectomy so he couldn’t have more children. The man who used to toss names for our future kids around with me. Spent hours discussing what colour eyes they might have. Was he ever going to tell me he was shooting blanks? Or let me go through fertility treatment when I didn’t fall pregnant?’

‘I have no words,’ Max said, tight-lipped. No criticism of his friend, of course. Not when the famous tennis player himself had cheated and lied.

‘I’ll never regret walking out on that despicable excuse for a man. But letting my family and friends down? Not doing due diligence on the man before I agreed to marry him? I suspect I’ll always regret my lapse in judgement. I wouldn’t have done a minor business deal without all the facts, yet I was prepared to commit my life to a person I didn’t really know. I wanted that life so much...the husband and kids.’

‘I can only wish you good luck in whatever you end up doing,’ he said. Looking serious suited him and it struck her again how good-looking he was. No wonder the public was so fascinated by him.

‘What I don’t regret is putting my trust in you to help me,’ she said. Max might be pond scum in his personal life and be friend to a cheating, lying fraud. But he had come through for her. That was all that counted.

On impulse she leaned up and kissed him on his smooth, tanned cheek. She was stunned by the sensation that shot through her at the contact, brief as it was. He didn’t kiss her back. Why would he? She’d just run out on his friend. ‘I won’t say I’ll return the favour for you some day because it’s not the kind of favour you want to call on, is it?’

He half smiled at that and turned to leave. She watched him as he strode back to his car, broad-shouldered and athletic. Unless she glimpsed him on television, slamming a tennis ball at his opponent in some top-level tournament, she would never see Max Conway again.