The Worst Best Man(4)

There was a cream-colored settee covered in silk, and Aiden sat. The dull throb was making his stomach roll. “Look. I’m not putting my best foot forward, and for that I apologize.”

“Future reference again? ‘I apologize’ doesn’t come across as sincerely as ‘I’m sorry.’ You got a headache?”

The change in subject had his head spinning. He closed his eyes. Nodded.

“Migraine?” she prodded.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

She mumbled to herself, and he opened his eyes to watch her dig through her clutch. “Here,” she said, offering him two pills. “Prescription.”

“You get them, too?”

“No, but Pru does when she’s stressed. I didn’t want her muddling through her engagement party wanting to puke.”

“That’s very kind and prepared of you.”

“I’m the maid of honor. It’s my job. Now take them like a good little boy.”

He lifted his glass, but she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Don’t be a dumbass. Alcohol makes it worse.” She took the glass from him and stuck her head out of the curtain. He heard her give a little whistle, and in a moment, she was thanking someone by name and handing him a glass of ice water.

“You know the catering staff?” he asked, making conversation while he washed down the tablets.

“I am the catering staff. Second job. It’s my night off.” She said it as if she were daring him to find fault with that. “You want me to call you an Uber?” she offered suddenly.

“I have a car downstairs.”

“Of course you do.”

“Why are you being nice to me?” Aiden rubbed a hand over his temple.

“Maybe I’m doing it to rub your face in the fact that you’re an ass. And maybe I just gave you two birth control pills instead of headache meds just to watch you suffer.”

“Maybe I’d deserve it.”

The curtain twitched, and the server with the blue hair poked her head in. “Here’s the soda,” she whispered. Her eyes widened when she spotted him, and she backed out of the alcove.

“I make her nervous,” Aiden observed when the server left.

“It’s a good thing you’re good-looking and rich because you definitely don’t have the personality thing going for you. Here, drink this. The caffeine will help.”

He drank it down and rested his head against the back of the settee. “Thanks.” She was taking care of him after he suggested that she had experience as a stripper. He was an asshole and wondered when that transformation had become complete.

She took the glass from him. “Stay until it kicks in,” she ordered and turned for the curtain.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the party so I can shake my stripper ass at all those eligible bachelors.”

“I’m sorry I’ll miss it.”

“Shut up, Kilbourn.”





Chapter Three


The plane dropped like a stone onto the runway, and the violently applied brakes had everyone in coach jerking forward and back. Frankie couldn’t see much of the tropical paradise outside the window from her middle seat vantage. She was crammed in between a guy who smelled like he hadn’t showered in four days and a little old man who had fallen asleep at twenty thousand feet and slept on her shoulder for an hour.

She had to pee and could have killed for a roast beef sandwich, but at least the flight was over and she only had to fight her way through customs and immigration now. In an hour—two tops—she’d have her toes in the white powdery sand, a drink in her hand, and that sandwich.

Frankie waited for the elderly narcoleptic to stand and then wriggled out into the aisle behind him to help him with his carry-on.

She lugged her own carry-on with her, thankful that Pru had insisted on flying the bridesmaid dresses down on her father’s plane. The rest of the wedding party had arrived on private planes they’d chartered together.

She waddled down the aisle toward the ever-smiling flight crew and the humid breeze. Frankie stepped out onto the rolling staircase and slid her sunglasses on. Eighty-three degrees with a beautiful, balmy breeze. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Even though her hair had just doubled in volume.

She followed the rest of the passengers onto the tarmac and into the long, low building of Grantley Adams International Airport. The line zig-zagged its way between the ropes. Anxious travelers ready to see paradise thumbed over the screens of their phones. But Frankie was content to people watch. The residency line for immigration was short and brutally efficient as Bajan passport holders were welcomed home. To her right was the expedited line where travelers with Louis Vuitton luggage and oversized sun hats were guided through the process by resort staff dispatched to collect them.

Frankie’s line crawled along at a snail’s pace as harried parents tried to juggle official questions and cranky toddlers and young backpackers zoned out on their phones, needing a prod forward every time the line moved.

One such backpacker caught her eye and gave her a smile. “Hi there,” he said softly, pushing a shock of blond hair off his forehead.

Oh, sweet baby Jesus, he was Australian.

“Hi,” she returned.

“Come here often?”