Christmas Bride's Stand-In Groom
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Sophie Pembroke
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CHAPTER ONE
MILLIE MYLES SAT back in her seat and laughed obligingly at the right moments in the best man’s speech. Giles Fairfax was born to play the best man, really. He had the breeding, the training... Giles was polished, appropriate, wildly handsome in his morning suit, and his speech was going down well—the right proportion of laughs to groans and embarrassed blushes from the groom. Even she had laughed, against her will. He was annoyingly good at this.
Of course he’d always been annoyingly good at lots of things. Or sometimes just annoying. Even though they hadn’t been in the same room since they were about eighteen—not an accident—Millie still had plenty of memories of Giles Fairfax before that, and stories from her best friend Charlie about his successes since, to hold against him.
Because Charlie was also his best friend. Giles and Millie had been competing for Number One Best Friend status since they were about twelve. Childish? Yes. Was Millie still determined to win? Absolutely.
Before Giles came on the scene, it had been just her and Charlie. And since they’d become actual adults she’d managed to arrange things so that it still felt that way, most of the time—even if she knew Charlie and Giles got together often in her absence.
It had been something of a shock to see Giles Fairfax all grown up—no gangling eighteen-year-old youth any longer, but a broad-shouldered, confident and—damn it all—incredibly handsome thirty-year-old man. Before she’d realised who he was, she had to admit to even indulging in an appreciative look or two from behind.
Not that she’d ever do anything about it. Physical attraction was nothing compared to actual compatibility at a soul level. Millie had no interest in playing around with passion—she’d tried that before, and knew all too well where it led. She didn’t want a guy who oozed charisma and charm—at least until he got bored with her in bed. No, next time she got involved with a man it would be a proper, grown-up relationship, based not on mutual desire, but on mutual beliefs and respect.
Was that really so much to ask?
Up at the top table, Giles still held the crowd in the palm of his hand. He told tales of mischievous university days at Oxford, which his audience all related to. Most of the guests had been to one or other of the elite English boarding schools beforehand, and after university gone on to work in the City, or the law, or medicine.
Millie was pretty sure she was the only state-educated florist in the bunch. She’d never felt more out of place in her life, and that was really saying something.
Up at the top table, Giles had paused for a laugh, smiling easily—until he looked over in her direction and, just for a second, caught her gaze. The smile fell away, and there was something else in his expression—something she couldn’t quite read and didn’t want to understand.
She looked down and focussed on the floral display in the centre of the table—one of those she’d spent all the night before reworking, because the bride had changed her mind about what she wanted—again—at the last moment.
She’d known Giles for more than half her life now, and even if they hadn’t spent time together in over a decade her opinion of him hadn’t changed in all those years. He was the quintessential posh boy, from a family with money, land and a title, gliding through life on other people’s efforts and only ever putting on a show instead of being a real person.
It was that last part that made him different from the man she’d come to this wedding with. Their mutual best friend Charlie might have the land and the money, and the family title one day, but he knew what it was to work for it. When times—and renovation costs—had got tough, his family had turned their inherited good fortune into a thriving business that employed a lot of local people and small businesses. Giles’s family, as far as she knew, had just pulled up their drawbridge and enjoyed their good fortune.
Her gaze moved to the bride, icily beautiful at the top table, and she squeezed her date’s hand. Beside her, Charlie had a fixed smile on his face—a ‘society smile’ she called it. Because he sure as hell wasn’t smiling inside. She knew that much.
The love of his life was marrying another man, and she’d never been as furious at anyone as she was at Octavia Sinclair right now. Even her almost two-decades-long annoyance with Giles faded into insignificance next to what Octavia had done to Charlie.
‘You doing okay?’ she murmured to Charlie, as Giles wound up the best man’s speech with a heartfelt ending and received a round of applause that went on for a while.
‘Of course,’ Charlie said, clearly lying. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I’m here with the most beautiful—and wonderful—woman in the room.’
The smile he gave her as he said the last bit was, at least, a real one, but Millie wondered if she should have cut him off from the champagne a little earlier.
‘Seriously, Mills. Thank you for coming with me. Hanging out with you today has made it all a little bit more bearable.’
She leaned in and rested her head against his shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’
It wasn’t strictly true. Attending a high society wedding with the sort of people Charlie had grown up with wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time. But Charlie needed her. So of course she’d said yes when he’d asked her to attend the wedding. Even if Octavia’s nose had wrinkled slightly when she realised that her ex-boyfriend was bringing her florist as his date.
It had meant that she could watch the fruits of her labours today, though. The glorious riot of autumnal colours she’d carefully arranged into an arch that the bride and groom had stood under for the ceremony. The trailing bouquet of honey and golden hues that the bride had discarded somewhere already. The turning leaves and blousy roses in the rustic-but-polished table decorations. It was nice to see her work being enjoyed. Octavia had wanted to wow everyone with the flowers, and Millie was pretty sure she’d pulled that off.
Usually she was gone before the guests arrived, so it made a nice change to see things through to the end.
Charlie reached for the champagne bottle again, and Millie began calculating how hard it would be to actually carry him out to the taxi at midnight. She was glad she’d decided to stick to just one small glass for the toasts. She needed her wits about her today. Besides, she needed to get used to cutting out alcohol.
There were black-tied waiters moving around the room with coffee pots, so she smiled hopefully at the nearest one and he made his way over, filling both their cups. Millie thanked him profusely—she was going to need the caffeine.
Something else you’ll have to give up if you want to get pregnant.
The thought burst, uninvited, into her mind, and she dropped her teaspoon into her saucer with a clatter.
Charlie looked up, concerned. ‘Okay?’
‘Fine!’ She beamed back at him. Today wasn’t about her problems, it was about his. ‘How are you doing?’
Charlie gave a small half-shrug, and an attempt at a smile. ‘It is what it is.’
Oh, how she hated that phrase. The idea of lying down and accepting things. She wanted to change the stuff that made her miserable, or angry, or whatever.
She supposed there really wasn’t very much Charlie could do about Octavia marrying another man, though. Or the fact that Octavia had been a stone-cold bitch since the first day Millie met her—not that Charlie had ever really seen that.
Millie was well aware that her perspective on the world—and especially on Charlie’s rarefied and prosperous world—was from a different angle to his. She hadn’t grown up in the splendour of Howard Hall, or at boarding school, attending society events with the same people with the same world view every season. Her parents didn’t have a wardrobe of black-tie outfits ready for any occasion, or a cook on hand to cater and staff to serve when they hosted.
She’d grown up in the gatehouse at the hall, with a mother who was that cook and a father who’d cared for the gardens and grounds before he died. Charlie had been her first playmate, her childhood best friend since he was four and she was three, and even after he’d been shipped off to boarding school for most of the year. Even after he’d met Giles there, and she’d suddenly had to share best friend status with an aloof and difficult boy she didn’t know.
The point was, Charlie knew her better than anyone, and she knew who he was behind the society smile.
But she’d never really been part of his world the way Giles had. That had given him an advantage in the Best Friend Battle.
She’d watched those Howard Hall parties and grand occasions from behind the bushes, seen Charlie trotted out in a miniature suit to match his father’s to make nice with his parents’ friends and acquaintances. She’d stared with wide eyes as she took in what seemed to be a fairytale world—at least until one of her parents had found her and dragged her home to bed.
She shook the memories away. Here, now, she was an invited guest at the society wedding of the year, on the arm of one of the most eligible bachelors in the country—Charles St Clare Howard, heir to the title Baron Howard, which had links back to the Normans. None of the guests here knew that she was only attending for moral support in the role of childhood best friend. For all they knew she belonged here, and Charlie was wildly, madly in love with her. Maybe he was planning to propose. They could be thinking of starting a family—
Don’t think about it, Mills.
Not today. Today wasn’t a day for thinking about her problems—it was for distracting Charlie from his.
Which would be easier if the bride wasn’t now bearing down on them in her designer wedding gown, feathers ruffling along the train and her icy beauty on full display.
‘There you are,’ she said, as if Millie hadn’t been sitting in her assigned place on the seating plan for the last several hours. ‘I need you to fix my bouquet.’
Millie got to her feet. ‘What happened to it?’
Octavia shrugged delicate shoulders. ‘No idea. But it looks uneven, and it needs to be perfect before I toss it later. Come on!’
Of course Octavia needed her flowers to look perfect before she threw and probably destroyed them for the cameras. Millie cast an apologetic look at Charlie, whom Octavia hadn’t even acknowledged, and then followed her.
It was a reminder that, really, she was only staff. Just in case she’d been getting any ideas above her station.
Giles Fairfax had heard, often from ex-girlfriends, the phrase ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’. But he’d never come across the idea of ‘always the best man, never the groom’.
All the same, that seemed to be his lot in life. Octavia and Layton’s wedding was the third time he’d been best man this year alone. Honestly, he was running out of material.
He suspected he was just a safe pair of hands. In the circles he ran in—or had done growing up, at least—everyone had a large group of friends, but close, best friends were less of a thing. And so, when prospective grooms started falling, one by one, they looked around for who was most likely to keep a wedding day calm, on track, and not humiliate them in his toast.
He did also have a bit of a reputation for organising some spectacular stag dos by now, so that might play into it, too.
It suited Giles well enough. It wasn’t as if he had any intention of ever getting married himself anyway, but seeing so many other people’s weddings up close and in all their bickering glory would have put him off if he did.
Not to mention what the grooms tended to get up to on the stag weekends.
He’d been conflicted about saying yes to this one, though. As much as he liked Layton, his opinion of Octavia was rather less positive. Not least because of the man she’d just left slumped at a table on the outer edges of the room, watching her sashay away in her wedding gown.
Or maybe he was watching the woman beside her...just a little bit. The dark-haired woman in the sage-green dress, helping the bride fix her bouquet. She had curves where Octavia had angles, was dark where the bride was icy blonde, and soft where she was sharp. If he didn’t know the wicked tongue and disapproving stare she’d turn on him, Giles would be doing more than looking.
The moment he’d caught her gaze during his speech he’d felt the undeniable spark of attraction that usually boded very well for his evening. Except it was Millie, so it had confused more than excited him. And, of course, she’d looked instantly away. Clearly her opinion of him hadn’t changed with the passage of time.
He hadn’t seen Millie Myles in over a decade, but he had to admit he didn’t remember that zing of chemistry between them when they were teenagers. More a zing of irritation and annoyance. But now... Now she was utterly gorgeous, and she walked with a confidence in herself she’d definitely never had at eighteen. He could absolutely understand Charlie asking her to this wedding as his date...except for the fact that until now Charlie had never given any indication that he saw Millie Myles as anything but his other childhood best friend.
Not that friendship was a competition, really. Except somehow it always had been for Giles and Millie. They’d battled over being the most important person in the world to Charlie—and somehow, in the process, let him fall into Octavia’s clutches instead.
In all honesty, Giles was glad Charlie had Millie beside him today—especially since Giles himself had too many other duties to keep a close eye on him. Obviously he’d never admit as much to Millie herself, or even to Charlie. That wasn’t how the dynamic between the three of them worked, and he could see no good reason to change it now.
Giles slipped into the now empty seat beside Charlie to check in on his friend, noting the empty bottle of champagne and full coffee cup in front of him.
‘How’s it going?’
It seemed an inadequate question. The real one was something more like, Is your heart torn apart inside you, watching the woman you love marry another? How the hell are you still sitting upright? Why did you even agree to come?
But they didn’t ask those sorts of questions in his circles.
‘Oh, Giles.’ Charlie plastered on a smile that Giles didn’t believe for a moment. ‘It’s been a lovely day. Great speech, by the way. You must be an old hand at this by now.’
‘Just practising for when you ask me to be your best man.’ Giles tilted his head towards where Millie was fussing with Octavia’s bouquet, while the bride watched her like a hawk. ‘Although since you brought Millie as your date to your ex’s wedding, I guess that’s still a way off?’
It occurred to Giles that if Charlie ever looked up and realised that Millie was a beautiful woman, and a thousand times better than Octavia, he’d probably promptly fall in love with her. And that would mean that Millie would definitely win the battle over Charlie they’d been engaged in since they were about twelve.
Maybe he should just let her. ‘She did grow up well, though, I have to admit,’ he said, staring over at Millie again. Probably it was just that long-lasting feud that made something inside him clench at the idea of Millie marrying Charlie.
‘I notice you didn’t bring a date, even though you’re best man.’ It was a clumsy attempt to change the subject on Charlie’s part, but Giles went along with it.
‘I never do—you know that.’
He had no intention of getting married—ever—and he was always worried about any of his casual hook-ups getting ideas if he brought them to something as meaningful as a wedding. There was just something about the atmosphere at these things.
Giles looked back over at Millie. At her gently curving body, the dark hair falling over her shoulders, the slightly irritated look on her face as Octavia bossed her around. Was she getting ideas? Did she want more than friendship from Charlie after all these years?
He wouldn’t put it past her. And if Millie finally wanted to change their relationship, it might just wake Charlie up from his Octavia obsession.
If that happened... Well. Giles would just have to work very hard at being happy for his best friend.
And start working on his next best man’s speech.
He decided to test his theory.
‘So, if you two are just friends, as always, and I don’t have a date—’
‘No.’ Charlie interrupted him before he could even get the thought out.
Yeah, they’re still just friends. Not buying it.
‘Why not?’ Giles raised his eyebrows in innocent query. ‘It’s not like we’re strangers hooking up at a wedding. We’ve known each other for ever, and we’re not the same bickering teenagers we were back then. Although maybe we were just trying to hide a deeper attraction...’
‘Because...she’s not your type,’ Charlie tried.
Looking at the way Millie had grown into her curves, and her confidence, Giles had to disagree.
‘Oh, I think she looks exactly my type.’
Gorgeous and confident and curvy and luscious. He’d only said it to needle Charlie into admitting his feelings—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. If they’d met now, for the first time, Giles knew he would have been interested in getting to know Millie better. For a night, at least. But God, what a night... If she channelled all that passion she’d managed to bring to their teenage fights into his bed, it would be explosively good.
Hell. He really wanted Millie Myles. That was new.
‘Absolutely not.’ Charlie’s voice was, if anything, even firmer this time. ‘Millie is...she’s my oldest friend.’
‘Because I’m your best friend,’ Giles put in, automatically. It was a reflex born of years of feeling he was competing with Millie for that title, he supposed.
‘And I know that she is looking for commitment—for a real happy-ever-after and true love and a family—everything you go out of your way to avoid,’ Charlie finished. ‘So, no. She is not your type.’
Giles shuddered at the very idea. Time to let the fantasy go.
Yes, one night with Millie Myles would be something spectacular, he was sure. But he didn’t mess around with women looking to settle down.
‘Fair enough, then.’ He looked between Charlie and Millie again and smiled. Well, if he couldn’t have her... ‘If only there was someone else here who wants the same things she does...’
Charlie took his meaning at last and rolled his eyes. ‘Go away, now. She’s coming back, and I don’t want you to get tempted and abandon reason.’
Giles laughed and stood up, nodding politely at Millie and Octavia as he headed for the bar, and trying not to notice how attractive the confused little frown line between Millie’s eyebrows was.
Charlie was right—she really wasn’t his type. Which was a shame. But maybe he’d be best man again sooner than he thought, if he was reading the signs right.
