Free The Best Man for the Job by Lucy King Page B

later? he thought, lowering his hand and vaguely wondering if it would be all right to just dump the flowers on the ground as his heart began to thump. Why not whisk her away now as he’d implied earlier he wanted to? She was right there, standing beside him and waving as the car headed down the drive. What could be quicker than sending her up to get her stuff and then dragging her off to his hotel? Or hers. He wasn’t fussy.
    ‘So another couple bites the dust,’ he murmured, deciding as he watched the red brake lights disappear round the corner that etiquette probably took as dim a view of abandoning the bouquet as Celia would of him throwing her over his shoulder and carting her off.
    ‘In a cloud of dust,’ she said, screwing her face up in disgust and now flapping her hand in front of her face to wave it away. ‘Do you mind?’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Your best friend’s just got married,’ she said. ‘Your relationship will change.’
    Contemplating the idea, Marcus figured that Celia was probably right about that, although he wasn’t unduly worried. It wasn’t as if he and Dan saw each other all the time. They met up once, maybe twice a month at the most, and he couldn’t see why that should change. ‘Zoe doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who’d ban her husband from seeing his friends,’ he said.
    ‘No. She’s lovely. And I think they’re going to be very happy.’
    This she said with what he would have thought was a trace of wistfulness if it had been anyone other than Celia, but, because it was Celia, she was probably not considering her own happiness but the way her relationship with her brother would change.
    But then to his faint alarm she sighed deeply, and he shot her a quick glance only to find a kind of dreamy expression on her face that he’d never have expected.
    ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, not sure quite what to make of it.
    ‘Fine,’ she said, giving herself a quick shake and smiling at him brightly—too brightly, perhaps. ‘You?’
    ‘Never felt better.’ Oddly enough, it was true. He might not have slept in the past twenty-four hours but he felt great. Amazing the effect some seriously wild, uninhibited, unexpected sex could have on a man...
    ‘Congratulations, by the way,’ she said, her smile still fixed in place, her eyes oddly unreadable.
    ‘What for?’
    ‘That,’ she said, glancing down at the bunch of flowers he was still, for some unfathomable reason, holding. ‘It means you’re next.’
    Marcus gave a theatrical shudder to mask the less theatrical one he felt deep inside. ‘Hell will freeze over first,’ he muttered.
    ‘Then you really shouldn’t have caught it.’
    ‘I like to win.’ And he had, even though Kit and Lily had put up an excellent good-natured battle. Celia, come to think of it, hadn’t put up any kind of a fight. She’d just stood there looking as if she’d been miles away.
    ‘And what will you do when word gets out? You’ll be swamped.’
    ‘I’ll use you as my shield.’
    She tilted her head and looked at him sceptically. ‘Meaning what exactly?’
    Who knew? All he knew was that as long as they had mileage, and they clearly did what with the electricity that was bouncing back and forth between them, he’d be pursuing it. ‘Meaning go and get your things, Celia, and say your goodbyes.’
    ‘I’m just about to.’
    ‘Good.’
    She took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders back, her smile fading a little. ‘About us leaving together, Marcus...’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘We won’t be.’
    That was fair enough. Her parents were here and he could understand her desire for discretion. He was perfectly happy for them to leave separately and meet up later. ‘Fine,’ he said easily. ‘Where were you planning on staying tonight?’
    ‘At home.’
    He went still at that. Frowned. ‘What?’
    ‘I’m heading home,’ she said, drawing out the syllables as if he were a bit slow on the uptake, which he was because he