One week...

...with the guy she’s desperate to resist!

Returning home isn’t something buttoned-up businesswoman Harper Addison does often. She’s too focused on earning money to support her family. Now she’s back to be her sister’s maid of honor—which means spending a lot of time with the best man and her former teenage crush, Cormac Wharton. The laid-back billionaire sees far too much of the real her—but surely she can resist his charms for just one week...

Australian author ALLY BLAKE loves reading and strong coffee, porch swings and dappled sunshine, beautiful notebooks and soft, dark pencils. Her inquisitive, rumbunctious, spectacular children are her exquisite delight. And she adores writing love stories so much she’d write them even if nobody read them. No wonder, then, having sold over four million copies of her romance novels worldwide, Ally is living her bliss. Find out more about Ally’s books at allyblake.com.

Also by Ally Blake

Millionaire to the Rescue

Falling for the Rebel Heir

Hired: The Boss’s Bride

Dating the Rebel Tycoon

Millionaire Dad’s SOS

Hired by the Mysterious Millionaire

The Royals of Vallemont miniseries

Rescuing the Royal Runaway Bride

Amber and the Rogue Prince

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

A Week with the Best Man

Ally Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09129-9

A WEEK WITH THE BEST MAN

© 2019 Ally Blake

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To the people and places

that make me feel like I’m home.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

CORMAC WHARTON SAT on the curved boot of his classic car, shoes hooked a half-metre apart on the gleaming bumper, elbows resting on knees, as he watched his dog, Novak, sprint off into the small forest to his right; a streak of sleek caramel fur in search of the stick Cormac had thrown. And had been throwing for the past forty-odd minutes while he waited for the visitor to arrive.

The sound of a car belting along Beach Road beyond the high bougainvillea-drenched walls of the Chadwick estate had him sitting up, listening for a slowing engine.

Alas, it was not to be.

So, Cormac waited. And would continue to wait. For he was best man to his best mate, Grayson Chadwick, and this was wedding-related-waiting, so it was his job to help out on such occasions. Not that he wouldn’t have done so under normal circumstances. It came down to friendship. Loyalty. Respect. Balance. Duty. The pillars upon which Cormac believed a person could build a good and honest life.

Harper Addison—Maid of Honour and The Person Cormac Had Been Waiting Forty Long Minutes For—appeared to have other ideas.

With only days to spare until her sister Lola’s big day, Harper had finally deigned to drag herself onto a plane to join them. She hadn’t condescended to actually let anyone know she was even on her way until she’d landed. Then, refusing to wait for someone to pick her up in Melbourne, she’d hired a car instead to meander down the Great Ocean Road to Blue Moon Bay at her leisure.

Lola claimed she didn’t mind not knowing exactly when her sister would arrive. That she understood how busy her sister was. Cormac knew better. He knew all about keeping the family peace.

A crunch of claws heralded Novak’s return as the dog bolted across the bright white gravel driveway, ears flapping, fur gleaming in the summer sun, before coming to a panting halt. Her tongue lolled around the mangled stick as she looked up at him, all liquid eyes filled with adoration and trust. It was a hell of a thing, even from a dog.

“Good girl,” Cormac said, and Novak carefully placed the damp stick into his upturned palm. He gave her silky ear a rub. “Ready?”

Novak’s nose quivered.

“Fetch!” he called as with a flick of the wrist he launched the stick. It whistled winningly as it soared through the air and into the bush beyond. And then Novak was gone, a rocket of joy bounding off into the shrubs.

When Cormac looked back to the driveway it was to see an unfamiliar car pulling through the gates.

“Here we go,” he murmured as with hands flat to the warmed metal he launched himself to the ground. There he twisted at the waist and stretched his arms over his head, before running his slobber-covered hands down the sides of his jeans.

Not a hire car, he saw as it rounded past him. A long black Town Car, the kind that came with a driver and windows so dark he could not see inside. For the hour-and-a-half drive from Melbourne it was a little too much. Even for Blue Moon Bay, which was not short on folk with more money than sense.

So, what did that make Harper Addison?

Cormac tried to call up a mental image of what she’d looked like in high school.

A year or two below him, wasn’t she the one who had hung around the bottom of the D-Block staircase, tin in hand, collecting coins for whatever down-on-their-luck soul had appeared in the news that week? He saw unruly brunette curls, ripped jeans, smart mouth and a frown.

Lola Addison, on the other hand, was a sweetheart; bright, happy-go-lucky, with an easy irreverence. His hazy recollection of Harper felt about as far from Lola as one could get.

The Town Car pulled to a halt at the bottom of the wide stone stairs leading up to the house. A moment later a silver-haired driver in a peaked hat and black suit alighted from the car and shuffled to the back door before opening it with a flourish.

Then, like something out of a classic Hollywood flick, a woman’s shoe—the colour of champagne with a heel like an ice pick—uncurled from inside the car to stab the graveled ground.

The second shoe dropped, followed by a pair of long legs.

The woman attached to the legs came last, a hand tipped with shiny black fingernails curving over the top of the door as she disregarded the outstretched hand of the driver and pulled herself to standing, slammed the door shut and stared up at the Chadwicks’ house.

Not an unruly brunette, Cormac noted as sunlight flowed over sleek, caramel-blonde waves, kicking out sparks of bronze, of gold. And no ripped jeans either, but a long, fitted, expensive-looking coat—far too much for a southern summer’s day—embroidered with the same champagne colour as those killer heels.

Clearly not the bolshie rebel he thought he’d remembered. Unsurprising. For him, those later high-school years were pretty much a blur.

The driver moved in to ask her a question right as a mobile-phone tone sounded loudly in the restive silence. She stayed the driver with a hand as she answered the call with a clear, “Yes?”

Was she for real? Cormac coughed out a laugh. Then ran a hand up the back of his head as he counted down the hours until the wedding. The hours he’d have to make nice with his counterpart in the lead-up. When he could have been working. Surfing. Staring into space. Any of which would be a better use of his time.

Friendship, he reminded himself. Loyalty. Respect. Balance. Duty.

The driver glanced Cormac’s way, his face working as if unsure what his next move ought to be. Cormac lifted his hand in a wave and half jogged towards the car to take the passenger off the poor guy’s hands.

As if she’d heard his footsteps encroaching, the woman turned.

Cormac’s pace slowed as if his batteries had drained, till he came to a complete stop.

For the woman was a fifties femme fatale brought to life. A swathe of shining hair curled over her right eye. Shadows slashed under high cheekbones. Full nude lips sat slightly apart, as if preparing to blow a kiss.

Cormac found himself engulfed in an instant thwack of heat. Like a donkey kick to the gut, it literally knocked the breath right out of him.

Then she flicked her hair from her face with a single, sultry shake of her head, said something into her phone before dropping it into a structured bag hooked over one elbow, and then both of her eyes met his.

A flash of memory hit like a rogue wave, and he knew he’d remembered her right.

He saw himself bounding down the D-Block staircase with Gray, Adele, Tara and the rest of the school gang at his heels. There she was, the unruly brunette, homemade posters covered in pictures of flood or famine tacked to the post behind her, collection tin in hand, eyes locked on his with that same unrelenting intensity.

A wet snout pressed into Cormac’s hand and he flinched.

Eye contact broken, he glanced down. Novak leaned against his shin, his knee, his thigh, looking at him as if he was the greatest thing on earth.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, giving Novak a scratch under the chin, before pulling himself the hell together and striding over to meet the woman he’d been waiting for.

* * *

Cormac Wharton.

Of course, his had to be the first familiar face Harper saw upon arriving back on home soil for the first time in a decade.

Her breath had literally stuttered at the sight of him ambling towards her. It had taken every ounce of cool she had not to choke on it.

Harper glanced back towards the Chadwicks’ gargantuan house, hoping Lola might still come bounding towards her, arms out, hair flying, exuberantly happy to see her. Alas, she understood what Cormac’s presence meant: the Chadwicks had enlisted him to babysit. And nobody in this part of the world said no to the Chadwicks, least of all Cormac Wharton.

Her fault, she supposed, for making her arrival a surprise. But the moment she’d fulfilled her rocky last contract, she’d wanted to get on the plane and fly away as fast as she could.

Pulling herself together, Harper turned her attention back to the man in question. Dark sunglasses covered half his face. A bottle-green Henley T clung to the broadest shoulders she’d ever seen, and his jeans fit in all the right places. His haircut hadn’t changed—all preppy, chestnut spikes. The sleek toffee-coloured dog trotting at his side was new.

He looked good. Then again, Cormac Wharton had always looked good. Dark-eyed, with charm to spare and a smile that lit up a room, he’d claimed the attention of every girl in school. Including, she deeply regretted, her.

“Ma’am?”

Harper turned to find her driver still standing beside the car, awaiting instructions.

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head and offering a quick smile. “Sam, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Sam’s the name. And no apologies necessary. I’m used to passengers coming off long flights. May I help take your luggage inside?”

“No. Thank you. I’m not staying. Not here. This was a quick stop in case my sister was here. Seems she’s not. You were kind to drive me this far, so I’ll point the way to the hotel and then you can head home.”

“Not at all, ma’am. It’s always lovely to find myself in here. Dare say it’s one of the prettiest places on earth.”

The driver’s smile dropped a smidge when a shadow fell over the car. A shadow in the shape of Cormac Wharton.

The back of Harper’s neck prickled as it always had when he’d walked by. She shut down the sense memory, quick smart. Enough water under that bridge to require an ark.

Seeing no use in putting off the inevitable, Harper turned, bracing herself against the impact of the man, up close and personal. He’d taken off his sunglasses, hooking them over the top button on his shirt revealing an array of frightfully appealing smile lines fanning from the edges of his deep brown eyes. Then there was the sun-drenched warmth of his skin. Sooty stubble shading his jaw. And the fact that, at five-foot-nine—plus an extra four inches in heels—she had to look up.

No longer a cute jock with a knee-melting smile, Cormac Wharton was all man. Just like that a warm flutter of attraction puffed at the dust shrouding her ancient crush.

“Cormac Wharton,” she said, “as I live and breathe,” her neutral tone owing to years spent working as a professional negotiator.

“Harper Addison. Good to see you.” His voice was the same, if not a little deeper. Smooth with just a hint of rough that had always brushed against her impressionable teenaged insides like the tickle of a feather.

For a second, she feared he might lean in to kiss her cheek. The thought of him entering her personal space, stubble scuffing her cheek, warm skin whispering against hers, was enough for her to clench all over.

Thankfully he pulled to a stop, rocking forward on his toes before settling a good metre away. His dog stopped, sat, leaned against him. A female, for sure.

“I’d hoped Lola would be here,” Harper said.

Cormac shook his head, his dark gaze not leaving hers.

She waited for an explanation. An excuse. It seemed he was content to let her wait.

“Right, then I’ll head to the hotel.” She turned to Sam, the driver, who moved like lightning, hand reaching out for the handle of the car door before Cormac’s voice said “Stop.”

Sam stopped, eyes darting between them.

Harper’s gaze cut to Cormac.

He said, “Dee-Dee and Weston are expecting you to stay here.”

She shot a glance at the Georgian monstrosity that was the jewel in the immoderate Chadwick Estate. It looked back at her. Or, more specifically, down on her. Dee-Dee and Weston Chadwick might be richer than Croesus, but they couldn’t pay her enough to stay under their roof. Water under the bridge didn’t come close.

“I’ve booked a suite at the Moonlight Inn for the duration,” she said, softening the refusal with a smile. “I’ll be perfectly comfortable there.”

“Your comfort isn’t my concern.”

Harper’s smile slipped. “Then what, exactly, is your concern?”

“Gray’s comfort. Dee-Dee’s and Weston’s. And your sister’s. Lola’s had a room ready for you here for some time now, on the assumption you’d arrive sooner. Not with only days to spare.”

Harper had been in transit for over twenty-four hours. And was still a mite tender after the rare, personal unpleasantness that had tinged the last negotiation job she’d completed in London.

All she wanted was to see her sister. To hug her sister. To see for herself that Lola was as deliriously happy as she said she was. And to do so beyond the long reach of the Chadwicks and their associates.

Tangling with a passive-aggressive Cormac Wharton hadn’t been on her radar. Yet he’d just up and slapped her with the trump card; the only thing that would make her change her mind: sisterly guilt.

Jaw aching with the effort to hold back all the retorts she’d like to fling Cormac’s way, Harper turned to her driver, her voice sweet as pie as she said, “Change of plan, Sam.”

Sam squared his shoulders before flicking Cormac a dark glance. “Are you certain, ma’am? If it’s still your intention to leave, all you have to do is ask.”

She glanced at Cormac right as his mouth twitched. Nothing more than a flicker, really. Yet it did things to his face that no other smile in the history of smiles had the power to do; pulling, like an insistent tug, right behind her belly button.

“Thank you, Sam,” she said, deliberately turning her back on the younger man. “You’re a true gentleman. But if my little sister wants me to stay, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Sam clicked his heels together before heaving her suitcase and accompanying bags to the ground. She feared hauling them up the stairs to the Chadwicks’ front door might do Sam in, so before he could offer she pressed a large tip into his hand and sent him on his way, hoping she’d made the right choice as she watched the car meander slowly up the long gravel drive.

“I think you have a fan there,” said Cormac, his voice having dropped a notch.

Harper tuned to Cormac and held his gaze, despite the butterflies fluttering away inside her belly. “Where is my sister?”

“Catering check. Wedding-dress fitting. Final song choices. None of which could be moved despite how excited she was that you were finally coming home.”

Harper bristled, but managed to hold her tongue.

She was well aware of how many appointments she’d missed. That video-chatting during wedding-dress-hunts wasn’t the same as her being in the room, sipping champagne, while Lola stood in front of a wall of mirrors and twirled. That with their parents long gone from their lives she was all Lola had.

Lola had assured her it was fine. That Gray was such a help. That the Chadwicks were a total dream. That she understood Harper’s calendar was too congested for her to have committed to arriving any earlier.

After all, it was the money Harper made from her meteoric rise in the field of corporate mediation that had allowed Lola to stay on in the wealthy coastal playground of Blue Moon Bay, to finish high school with her friends, to be in a position to meet someone like Grayson Chadwick in the first place.

And yet as Cormac watched her, those deep brown eyes of his unexpectedly direct, the tiny fissure he’d opened in Harper’s defences cracked wider.

If she was to get through the next five minutes, much less the next week, Cormac Wharton needed to know she wasn’t the same bleeding heart she’d been at school.

She could do this. For Harper played chicken for a living. And never flinched.

“You sure know a lot about planning a wedding, Cormac,” she crooned, watching for his reaction.

There! The tic of a muscle in his jaw. Though it was fast swallowed by a deep groove as he offered up a close-mouthed smile. “They don’t call me the best man around here for nothing. And since the maid of honour has been AWOL it’s been my honour to make sure Lola is looked after too.”

Oh, he was good.

But she was better.

She extended a smile of her own and placed a hand on her heart as she said, “Then please accept my thanks for playing cheerleader, leaning post, party planner and girlfriend until I was able to take up the mantle in person.”

Cormac’s mouth kicked into a deeper smile, the kind that came with eye crinkles.

That pesky little flutter flared in her belly. She clutched every muscle she could to suffocate it before it even had a chance to take a breath.

Then something wet and cold snuffled under Harper’s coat and pressed against the back of her knee. With a squeak, she spun on her heel to find Cormac’s beautiful dog standing behind her. Panting softly, tail wagging slowly, it looked at her with liquid brown eyes that reminded her very much of its owner.

She was surprised to find a soft, “Oh,” escape her mouth.

“Harper,” Cormac’s voice rumbled from far too close behind her, “meet Novak. Novak, this is Harper.”

“Novak?”

“After the great and glorious Kim.”

“The actress? From Vertigo?”

A beat, then, “One and the same.”

Spending more of her life in planes and hotels than her high-rise apartment, Harper didn’t see a lot of dogs these days, so wasn’t sure of the protocol. What could she do but wave? “Hello, Novak. Have we been ignoring you?”

Novak’s tail gave a quick wag before she sat on her haunches and—No. Surely not.

“Is she...smiling?” Harper asked. “It looks like she’s smiling. Can dogs even smile?”

She looked over her shoulder to find herself close enough to Cormac to count his lashes. There were millions of the things...long, plentiful as they framed those deep, molten-chocolate eyes.

When she didn’t look away, his eyes shifted slowly between hers, lingering a beat before shifting back. Then he smiled. Turning her thoughts to dandelion fluff.

Then suddenly he was leaning towards her, a waft of sea salt, of summer, tickling her nose. Then he leant down to grab a couple of her bags, hefting the long handles over his shoulders as if they weighed nothing, and the moment passed.

She reminded herself—stridently—that he might look like the boy she’d thought worthy of secret teenaged affections, but those affections had gone up in smoke when she’d discovered he had it in him to stick in the knife. And twist.

Harper grabbed the handles of her last couple of bags and took a discreet step away.

Not discreet enough, apparently, as Cormac’s cheek kicked into a knowing smile before he said, “Could you have brought any more baggage?”

Honey, you have no idea.

“Come on, then,” he said, and with that he crunched over the white gravel and up the huge front steps of the big house.

The impressive Georgian-look manor was the first house built on the bluff over Blue Moon Bay by Weston Chadwick’s father. When the next generation relocated the head office of their world-famous surf brand to the area, making the holiday estate their permanent home, the sleepy town had fast grown into a haven for wealthy families looking for a sea change.

Those who could keep up with the Chadwicks thrived. Those who couldn’t...

“Come!” Cormac called.

Harper’s eyebrows rose sharply, until Cormac’s dog trotted up the stairs and she realised the command had not been for her.

Cormac and dog disappeared inside the double front doors as if they’d done so a thousand times before. Which they likely had.

Rumour had it that Cormac had moved into the Chadwicks’ pool house right after high school. Then he and Grayson had gone on to take law together at Melbourne University before Grayson had taken his place on the board of his family’s behemoth company, while Cormac opened up his own firm, servicing one client: the Chadwick family.

By the look of things, insinuating himself had been a smart move. As Harper made her way up the front steps, she wondered how much of his soul he’d had to give up to do it.

None of which made Harper feel any better about the fact that her little sister was about to marry into that world, that family, for good.

Well, she’d see about that.

Through the impressive two-storey foyer, walls unexpectedly lined with some pretty fabulous modern art, Harper kept eyes front as she followed Cormac up one side of a curling double staircase.

She found him in a large bedroom suite, leaning against a chest of drawers as he played with his dog’s ear.

Her bags had been placed by a padded bench at the end of a plush king-sized bed. Sunshine poured through large windows draped with fine muslin, picking out shabby-chic furnishings and duck-egg-blue trim. A vase of fresh gardenias sent out the most glorious scent.

The room was elegant and cool. It suited her to a T.

Lola, she thought, her chest tightening, knowing Cormac hadn’t been kidding. Her little sister had decorated the room with her in mind.

Harper slowly unwrapped the tie around her waist and hung her coat over the back of a padded chair, leaving her in a neat cream shift with a kick at the hem and her ubiquitous heels.

Cormac cleared his throat. She looked his way to find him watching her, his deep, rich brown eyes still holding the glint of affection he held for his hound.

“So,” she managed, “am I meant to stay in here until Lola arrives, or have you been given further instruction as to what to do with me?”

Something flickered across his eyes, but was gone before she could take its measure. His hands slid into the front pockets of his jeans, framing all he had going on down there. Not that she looked. Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the door. “You hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Harper lied, for she was starved. Sharing a meal was a tactic she often used mid-negotiation to soften up the combatants. And she would not be softened. Not by him.

“Then I guess we could stand here making awkward conversation till someone gets home.”

Harper glanced deliberately at her watch. It was two in the afternoon. On a Monday. “I vote no.”

“Hmm. Big shock.” He took a step towards the door. “If we’re up to our throats in my famous ham and mustard sandwiches there’ll be no need to make small talk. Let me make you something. Let me feed you.”

She wondered how often that line worked. By the gleam in his eye, probably every time. She actually found herself wavering towards his suggestion when a bang, a crash, a flurry of voices preceded the thunder of feet taking the stairs two at a time.

Then a whirlwind of blonde hair, yoga gear and running shoes rushed through the door and launched itself at her.

Harper’s knees hit the back of her bed as she fell, laughing despite herself.

While Lola hung on tight and cried, “You’re here! You’re really here!”

After a quick mental scan to make sure nothing was broken, Harper hugged Lola back. Hard. Drinking in the feel of her little sister, the hitch of her voice, the scent of her skin.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight when she felt the sting of tears. Not now. Not here. Not with an audience. Their story had always been a personal one. The two of them against the world.

“Of course I’m here,” Harper said through the tight clutch at her throat. “Now get off me before I crumple. Or before you bruise yourself. You are getting married this weekend, you know.”

Lola rolled away, landing on her back. “I’m getting married this weekend.”

Harper hauled herself to sitting, fixed her dress and swiped both hands over her hair. “So the rumour goes.”

A noise, movement, something had her looking back towards the door to find Cormac leaning in the doorway. Watching her.

When their eyes met he smiled. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth, but it filled her with butterflies all the same.

She felt her forehead tighten into a scowl.

For she’d been hanging out for this moment, this reunion with her flesh and blood, her heart and soul, her Lola, for so long.

And he—with his history, his link to the Chadwicks and his knowing eyes—was ruining everything.

“Oh, hi, Cormac!” said Lola as she crawled to sit beside Harper on the bed, before leaning on her like a puppy. “I didn’t see you there.”

He tilted his chin and gave her a wink, his stance easing, his eyes softening, his entire countenance lightening.

“Have you two been getting reacquainted, then? Chatting about the good old days?”

“Not sure we had much in the way of ‘old days’, did we, Harper? You were—what, a year or two below me at school?”

“A year below,” she said, her voice admirably even. Then, with a deliberate blink and a turn of her shoulders, she cut him out of the circle.

She took one of Lola’s hands in hers and pulled it to her heart, then pressed her other hand against her little sister’s face. And she drank her in like a woman starved.

The last time she’d flown Lola to holiday with her in Paris, she’d still had apple cheeks. Now they were gone. New smile lines creased the edges of her mouth. Her hair was longer too, more structured, blonder.

And shadows smudged the skin beneath her bright blue eyes.

Late nights? Not enough water? Or some deeper concern?

When their family had fallen apart all those years ago, Harper had done everything in her power to shield Lola from the worst of it. Taking every hit, fixing every problem, hiding every secret, so that Lola might simply go on, having the blessed life she’d have enjoyed otherwise.

Meaning Lola knew nothing about the part the Chadwicks had played in it all.

Here, now, seeing her sister in the flesh, Harper knew—it was time. It was time for Lola to know the truth.

“How you doing, Lolly?” Harper asked, her voice soft, her expression beseeching. “Truly.”

At which point Lola’s bottom lip began to quake and she burst into tears.

CHAPTER TWO

HARPER PACED UP and down the long wall of the Chadwicks’ library. A clock somewhere struck seven, and her eyes flickered to the open doorway as she waited impatiently for her sister to appear.

It had been hours since Lola had burst into tears.

In the several beats it had taken Harper to come to terms with the fact her sister was sobbing in her arms, Grayson Chadwick had filled the doorway of Harper’s room.

With a grunt he’d lumbered inside, climbed up onto her bed and wrapped them both in a bear hug.

At which point Lola had come up laughing, wiping her tears, looking from fiancé to sister with shining blue eyes, claiming she had no idea why she’d broken down. Likely nervous excitement, over-stimulation, and pure joy that Harper was finally here.

Harper hadn’t pushed it. Not then. Not there. It had been clear Lola had not wanted to appear upset in front of Gray, which rang all kinds of fresh alarm bells.

Lola had pushed away from the bed. “You must be exhausted. If you look in the bedside drawer you’ll find I’ve left you a little relaxer.”

“Wow, you guys are close,” Gray had murmured.

Lola had smacked her fiancé, her hand bouncing off his pec. “Not that kind of relaxer, you degenerate. A yoga nidra. I bookmarked links to some awesome guided meditations in my favourite yoga book so she can centre herself before heading down for dinner. If I know my sister, and I do know my sister, she’ll need it to handle your parents. I’ll come find you in the library,” she’d said, pointing a finger at Harper. “Seven p.m. sharp.”

Then they’d piled out of her room, Cormac the last to go.

“A little prolonged relaxation should never be underestimated,” he’d said with a nod towards her bedside drawer, before he’d caught her gaze, delivered a knockout smile, rapped a knuckled fist against the doorway and was gone.

Harper swallowed. And rolled her shoulders.

The moment she had her little sister alone Harper would get to the bottom of Lola’s tears. Would see how much Lola really knew about her future in-laws. And then she would fix everything.

A scrape of shoe against floor had Harper turning to the library door and once again staring down Cormac Wharton.

He’d changed into a charcoal suit, sharp white shirt open at the neck, no tie. He looked slick and relaxed. Debonair and yet with the unshaved scruff on his jaw a little rough around the edges. Forcing her to admit—if only to herself—that, while the boy had been swoon-worthy, the man was a far more dangerous beast.

She said nothing as she waited for his gaze to finish its travels over her.

She’d chosen a fortifying dress in which to meet the Chadwicks; midnight-blue and dramatically detailed, with a full skirt and fitted bodice, the sharp horizontal neckline and long sleeves leaving neck and shoulders bare.

Cormac’s eyes paused at her ankles, her waist, her décolletage, before they swept swiftly back to hers. Her breath snagged in her throat as their gazes clashed.

“Evening, Harper,” he said as he prowled into the room.

She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. And began to pace as well. “No sign of Lola on your way down?”

“I wasn’t upstairs. I only just arrived back.”

She shot him a look. “Quick commute from the pool house?”

“The pool house? I haven’t stayed there in years. How did you even know about the pool house?”

Dammit. Harper feigned interest in the wall of books when her attention was wholly on where he was in the room relative to her. “Lola talks. She keeps me up-to-date with the goings on in Blue Moon Bay.”

“But that was before Lola’s time. You been keeping tabs on me, Harper?”

Double dammit.

“Hardly.”

Cormac stopped prowling to flick a speck of lint off the back of a chair and she came to a halt. When he began pacing once more, so did she. The smile tugging at the corners of his eyes grew into a grin as it became all too obvious they were chasing one another around the couch.

Harper sat on the soft leather lounge and reached down to pick up a book from the coffee table, as if she’d been planning to do so the entire time.

Cormac moved to take the other end of the same chair, lifting an ankle to rest it on a knee, stretching a lazy arm across the back of the seat, his fingers curled mere inches from her bare shoulder. “I wouldn’t have picked you as a fan of bird-watching.”

“Hmm?”

Cormac motioned to the book she was pretending to admire.

She placed it back on the table and gritted her teeth.

“You’re right about Lola,” Cormac said.

Harper couldn’t help herself; she glanced his way, cocking a solitary eyebrow to show her care in anything he had to say was limited.

“She talks,” he said. “She talks a lot about you.”

“And I talk a lot about her.” Or she used to. Harper struggled to remember the last time she’d met someone new, someone she felt comfortable enough to talk about her sister with. “She’s my everything. And has been for a very long time. The fact that we live on opposite sides of the world hasn’t changed that.”

“I’m going to tell you what she says about you too,” said Cormac, “because you looked a little delicate when we left you in your room earlier. Like you could do with a boost.”

Harper opened her mouth to tell him where he could put his boost, but Cormac got there first.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked back at her as he said, “I’ve never met anyone as proud of another person as Lola is of you.”

Harper’s mouth slowly closed.

“She talks so highly of your work, your ambition, how much you’ve sacrificed for her, we’d be forgiven for believing the sun shone out of your very eyes.”

Harper shifted on the seat. Blamed the softness of the cushions.

“She loves telling the story of how you didn’t freak out when she ditched her physio degree with a semester to go, even though you’d paid her way through uni. Goes on and on about how amazing you are. How happy she is that you’re her sister.”

He stopped there, as if waiting to see her reaction. As if he knew exactly how much she’d “freaked out” behind closed doors. And she had—calculating the costs, the overtime she’d put in to pay for it all, worrying how Lola might create a future for herself instead.

Only the relief in Lola’s voice, the joy, as she’d spoken about her decision had brought Harper’s outrage level down from eleven to a solid seven, which was pretty much her baseline.

Cormac’s gaze remained direct and unrelenting.

If she’d managed to keep her frustration and disappointment from Lola, then she’d damn well keep it from him. Her smile was worthy of the Mona Lisa as she said, “It’s true. I am amazing.”

A muscle flickered in Cormac’s cheek. “So it would seem.”

“Yet after what happened upstairs earlier, would you say that my little sister is truly happy?”

His eyes narrowed, and slowly, slowly he leant back in the chair. Then he waved a hand in the air and asked, “What is happiness?”

When Harper realised she didn’t have a ready answer, she said, “I imagine it’s different things to different people.”

“Then for me it’s a hot morning, an empty beach and a long wave.”

Harper cocked an eyebrow.

“There’s a chance,” said Cormac, “it could be the exact same ingredients for Lola, but you’d have to ask her yourself.”

And she would. When she could get her sister all to herself for any length of time. Till then...

“Look, I know you’re in deep with the Chadwick family, so I’m talking to the wrong person about this, but right now you’re all I’ve got. I need to know that Lola’s okay. I need to know that she’s making the right decision.”

Cormac breathed out long and slow. She could all but see him picking her words apart and putting them back together in his mind. Then he said, “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?”

Harper opened her mouth to tell Cormac exactly what she would do, when Cormac looked at something over Harper’s shoulder. His face creased into a smile. With teeth. And eye crinkles. And pleasure. Before he pulled himself to standing.

“Well, if it isn’t the folks of the groom!” Cormac said, holding his arms wide.

Every question fled from Harper’s head as she spun so fast her neck cracked, giving her no time at all to pull herself together before Weston and Dee-Dee Chadwick glided into the room, leaving her unprepared for how overwhelming it was to see them again.

They looked much as she remembered them. More grey in the hair, of course. More weather around the eyes. But still dripping money and success and ease. As if they had not a care in the world.

Harper was too busy noting the deep smile creases branching out from the edges of Weston Chadwick’s bright blue eyes as he took Cormac in a long hug, a hug fit for a son, to see Dee-Dee coming for her.

Cool, ring-clad fingers gripped Harper’s upper arms, pulling Harper to Dee-Dee’s cheek. “Darling Harper. We are all so glad that you’re finally here.”

There was that finally word again. Had they made a pact to use it any chance they had?

Dee-Dee turned Harper this way and that. “Aren’t you an absolute treat? Not much of Lola in you, but enough. In the eyes, perhaps. And, no doubt, the heart.”

Floaty, blonde and elegant, Dee-Dee Chadwick had an unexpectedly kind touch. Warm. Enveloping. Motherly. Not that Harper would know. She hadn’t seen her own mother since she was five.

The urge overcame her to twist away. To gain distance. Only her years spent as a star player in the field of corporate manoeuvring had taught Harper the value in smiling politely. While plotting quietly.

“Thank you for putting me up, Mrs Chadwick. Though I’d have been fine staying in a hotel—”

“Nonsense. We are to be family after all. And no calling me Mrs Chadwick. It’s Dee-Dee.”

“Then thank you, Dee-Dee,” Harper managed, right as Lola traipsed through the wide doorway, mouthing Sorry! as she dragged Gray into the room.

Harper shook her head and mouthed It’s okay.

“Weston, darling,” said Dee-Dee. “Stop talking business, this is a family gathering. Come meet Lola’s sister, Harper. Fresh in from her high-powered job in Dubai.”

“High-powered, you say,” said Weston as he ambled to Dee-Dee’s side, placing a hand in the small of his wife’s back as he looked into Harper’s eyes.

Harper’s breath burned in her lungs. Her back teeth ground together. Every inch of her skin felt as if it were crawling in microscopic bugs. For this man had been the cause of so much pain in her family. Did he remember? Did he care?

“She’s a corporate negotiator,” said Lola, sidling up beside them, her hand still locked tight in the crook of Gray’s elbow.

“For?” Weston asked, attention already beginning to slide away.

Harper knew just how to get it back. “The highest bidder.”

Weston blinked and seemed to see her for the first time. “That so?”

Harper wondered if Weston Chadwick recognised her father in her eyes. In her heart.

“And isn’t she luminous?” Dee-Dee gushed. “Look at her skin.”

“A benefit of not living under the Australian sun all your life,” said Weston, his deeply tanned skin creasing as he smiled.

All Harper could think was that the only reason she’d had to leave this place was in order to chase the highest bidders, was so that she’d make enough money to provide Lola with every opportunity the Chadwicks had been able to gift their son. And the only reason that had become her responsibility was because of him. Her sister’s future father-in-law.

“And that dress,” said Dee-Dee, cheerfully. “So striking. Not that Harper wouldn’t look just as beautiful in a hessian sack.” Dee-Dee looked around for agreement just as Cormac moved into her line of sight. “Cormac, wouldn’t Harper look lovely even in a hessian sack?”

Cormac glanced around the group before his gaze landed on Harper. She still couldn’t get used to it; those familiar deep brown eyes looking right at her.

It was a relief when he broke eye contact to do as Dee-Dee requested and determine whether she would look good in a hessian sack. His eyes dancing over her with speed and ease. Nothing at all untoward to an untrained eye.

Only Harper read body language for a living, noting the rise and fall of his chest, the flaring of his nostrils, the way his throat worked.

Cormac liked what he saw.

Seeing that flare of attraction in the eyes of any other man, she’d have been flattered and moved on. In the eyes of Cormac Wharton it was a threat to life as she knew it.

Harper shook her head just a fraction. Please, no. Don’t go there. Don’t answer. Don’t make this week more complicated than it already is.

Cormac smiled, his voice a rough rumble that skittered down Harper’s arms as he said, “I for one would love to see Harper in a hessian sack.”

Gray’s laughter was like a sonic boom. Though he quickly sank into his gargantuan shoulders when his mother slanted him a Look.

“I am truly disappointed in all of you. Harper is going to think we are a bunch of yokels,” said Dee-Dee, pointing a finger at each man in her midst.

“Not at all,” Harper said, hoping they’d all now move on.

She had no problem being centre of attention, but only when she was prepared, armed with not a single question she did not already know the answer to. And Cormac’s “And if I said I couldn’t make any promises, what exactly would you do about it?” rang in her head like a promise. Or a portent.

Lola cleared her throat. “Sorry to break up the fun, but after all the wedding stuff I did today I’m famished.” She winked at Harper, who could not have loved her sister more.

“Of course,” said Dee-Dee. “Let’s head into dinner.” She took her husband’s arm as he escorted her from the room.

Then Lola put her hand through Gray’s elbow and allowed herself to be swept out the door as well, like something out of a royal procession.

“Miss Addison?”

Harper turned to find Cormac beside her—eyes front, one arm behind his back, the other crooked her way. As if he’d read her mind.

She laughed before she even felt it coming. Then, with a long outrush of breath, she placed her hand in the proffered elbow.

Though she took the first step, leading him out of the room.

But his legs were longer, and he wasn’t wearing heels, meaning soon he was a smidge in front. So she picked up the pace. He lengthened his strides to match. And soon they found themselves all but jogging.

When Harper’s high heel caught on a knot in a rug and she had to grip on to Cormac’s arm to steady herself, Cormac shot her a look.

Giving in?

Never.

Yet they called a silent truce. For now. Walking at a sensible pace.

And in the silence Harper felt the warmth of him beneath her hand, even through the layers of clothing. Felt his leg as it brushed against her skirt. Felt her pulse quicken when he let go a quick hard breath, as if he too was unduly affected by their proximity.

Not that it mattered. All that mattered was Lola. Making sure she was happy. And that she would continue to be so once Harper left. Meaning she had to get to the bottom of Cormac’s cryptic quip while she had the chance.

She licked her lips. Swallowed. And said, “Cormac?”

He glanced down at her, catching her up in his deep, warm brown eyes. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say.

When an eyebrow cocked and a smile started tugging at his mouth, she had to say something. She went with, “How far away is the dining room?”

“It’s a big house.” Cormac’s cheek twitched, bringing his dimple out to play. Have mercy.

Whatever he saw in her eyes made him breathe deep. Then his gaze travelled down her cheek, her neck, pausing on her dress. His voice dropped a fraction as he said, “You didn’t actually pack a hessian sack, did you?”

Harper shot him a look that would flay the top layer of skin off a less self-assured man. While Cormac only grinned. A quick flash of teeth that had her heart slamming against her ribs, hard enough to make her wince.

“Good,” he said. “For a second there I thought I’d have to track one down too in an effort at maid-of-honour-best-man solidarity.”

“No need,” she said. “For the sack or the solidarity.”

“Is that so?”

“You stand for Gray. I stand for Lola.”

“There was I, thinking that’s the same thing. Why do I get the feeling you don’t?”

Right. That was what she wanted to talk to him about. “Earlier, before the Chadwicks arrived, when I asked if you thought Lola was happy, that she would be okay, what did you mean when you said you couldn’t make any promises?”

Cormac lifted his spare hand to run it up the back of his neck. A sign of frustration, no doubt. With her. But it wasn’t her job to make his life easier. It was her job to protect her sister.

“You’re not going to cause trouble this week.” It was a statement, not a question.

“I’m not a troublemaker, Cormac. I’m a fixer.”

Cormac’s gaze was unreadable.

Voices murmured ahead as they neared the dining room; a long table covered in elegant settings of fine china and huge floral centrepieces was visible through a pair of double doors.

“Who else is coming?”

“Just us.”

“All that view is missing is a pair of armoured servants holding swords,” Harper muttered.

“Night off.”

“Ah.”

Harper’s pace slowed, the thought of having to play nice with the Chadwicks turning her legs to jelly. She may even have tightened her grip on Cormac’s arm.

She felt Cormac’s gaze slide to hers before his voice came to her, low and slow. “Harper.”

“Mmm?”

“Dee-Dee was right. Even without the hessian sack, you look immoderately beautiful tonight.”

Harper’s gaze skittered to his. She hadn’t needed to hear it to know Cormac was thinking it, for so far he’d not felt a need to hide behind propriety. Yet hearing those words from that mouth were the worst kind of bittersweet.

She’d have melted if he’d as much as gifted her a smile when she was sixteen. Now a distraction of this kind was the very last thing she needed.

When she said nothing, he went on. “And by immoderately, I mean unfairly. With relish. As if to dazzle. To create shock and awe. Why do I get the feeling this is your version of playing dirty?”

Because you’re too smart for your own good.

Harper thought she might have found an ally, but she’d thought wrong. Cormac Wharton would have to be watched, and handled, very carefully indeed.

She lifted a hand to fuss with the perfectly straight lapel of Cormac’s jacket. “For a small-town boy, you clean up okay yourself.”

After the briefest of beats, Cormac murmured, “Look at that. We can play nice.”

And he leaned in to her, just a fraction. Enough that she was forced to flatten her hand against his chest. Felt the steady thump of a strong heart through her fingers as they stood, toe to toe. Who would flinch first? Not Harper. Never Harper.

“Hurry up, you two!” Lola called from inside the dining room.

Harper pulled her hand away right as Cormac leant back. The game a draw. Though the skin of her palm tingled as if she’d held it too close to an open fire.

Something flashed across Cormac’s face before he hid it behind a smile. Then, sweeping an arm ahead of him, he said, “After you, my lady.”

Harper couldn’t help herself; she curtsied, earning an ear-to-ear grin that had her blinking to clear her eyes, before they joined the others.

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