LITMIR.BIZ

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as your best friend I feel honour-bound to point out that you might actually have an opportunity to try on smug for size.’ Libby fluttered her eyelashes over the wicked glint in her eye. ‘If you had the balls to bite into the fabulous feast of studmuffin I’m providing for you at my reception—instead of bitching about him.’

      ‘Wait a minute…’ Sabrina got off the bed as the niggling suspicion that had been lurking at the back of her mind blasted into her frontal lobe. ‘Oh. My. God. You’ve set me up.’ Suddenly, it all became blindingly obvious. ‘That’s why Jamie asked Connor to be his best man. Because you told him to.’

      Libby flicked a turquoise teddy onto the pile of lingerie on the bed, apparently unfazed by Sabrina’s accusation. ‘Stop giving me your responsible look. I did it for your own good. You need to get laid, and I happen to know Connor McCoy is a master in the art of fornication. He’s a thank-you gift. For all the time and trouble you’ve put into making this wedding fabulous.’

      ‘I do not believe this.’ Sabrina sunk back onto the bed. Her stomach rolled into her throat and warred with the heat crawling across her scalp.

      ‘I really don’t see what the big problem is?’ Libby added.

      ‘Didn’t it occur to you that Jamie should have picked his own best man instead of being browbeaten by you into picking Connor? The wedding’s not just some flashy, overblown party. It’s supposed to be symbolic of your life together going forward.’ Or it should be—if the marriage is going to last.

      Wasn’t that how her parents had screwed up their own marriage? By viewing it as a disposable excuse for never-ending parties, high-stakes drama and an endless merry-go-round of flings and counter-flings? Even after she had come along, her parents had resolutely refused to grow up. It had been frightening to live with as a child, and pathetic to watch as an adult.

      Libby frowned, looking completely nonplussed. ‘No browbeating went on. Jamie’s completely in awe of Connor. And what’s wrong with having fun at your own wedding? Seriously, Bree, just because you’re not a party animal…Getting married is the ultimate excuse for one of the best parties of your life.’

      Sabrina sighed. Fine, scratch the mature and responsible approach. She didn’t want to sound like a killjoy—and while Libby might be immature, she wasn’t reckless or selfish, like her parents. Plus, Libby didn’t do deep—it was one of her charms.

      ‘But what about Connor in all this?’ Sabrina began again. ‘He’s not a thank-you gift. He’s a person. Maybe he doesn’t want to be objectified.’ She trailed off, knowing she was probably reaching. The male ego was generally a lot more robust where sex was involved. And when it came to Connor McCoy—and his sexy grin, and distracting biceps—his ego was clearly indestructible.

      ‘Oh, come on, Bree. The guy practically oozes sex appeal. If he minded being objectified he wouldn’t have perfected a look that can trigger spontaneous ovulation at thirty paces,’ Libby said, not buying that argument either.

      ‘Okay, fine,’ Sabrina conceded, not wanting to dwell on spontaneous ovulation and Connor McCoy all in one conversation or the yank in her belly was liable to hit meltdown. ‘But how about the fact that he’s not that thrilled about being Jamie’s best man and he’s not that keen on me either. And now we know why.’ Mortification engulfed her as the reason for Connor’s hostility the night before became blindingly obvious. ‘He must have found out about your little plan to get him to sleep with me. So thanks a bunch for that.’ As if it wasn’t bad enough that Libby thought she was a charity case. Now Connor did, too.

      That’s me totally screwed, then. And not in a good way.

      ‘Bollox,’ Libby scoffed. ‘Connor’s hang-ups about being the best man have nothing to do with you.’

      ‘Oh, yeah?’ Sabrina asked. ‘Well, what do they have to do with, then?’

      Libby huffed and propped her hands on her hips, looking harassed. ‘Probably the simple fact that he hasn’t spoken to his dad or Elizabeth since they kicked him out of their home when he was sixteen.’

      ‘What?’ Sabrina gaped. ‘I never knew he lived with them?’ she continued, not even attempting to hide her curiosity. Or her dismay. She’d known the McCoy family set-up was a complicated one. That Connor was Jamie’s illegitimate half-brother—the product of a fling Jamie’s father had had while at Yale, years before his marriage to Jamie’s mother, Elizabeth. But she’d just assumed that Connor had grown up with his mother. ‘What happened to his mum?’

      ‘Jamie says she died when he was fourteen—he ran away and ended up in Newport, looking for the man who was listed on his birth certificate.’

      ‘But if Daniel and Elizabeth took him in, why did they kick him out again?’

      Libby plopped down on the bed beside Sabrina. ‘Jamie says Connor never talks about it, but apparently the years he lived with his birth mum were really tough. When he turned up in Newport, he wasn’t the kind of kid Elizabeth would trust to do her yard work, let alone want in the house—and I’m sure she let him know it.’

      ‘But it’s not like Connor’s that rough kid anymore,’ Sabrina added, the wave of sympathy surprising her. She knew what it was like to be the odd one out. The outsider, the misfit, the person who resolutely refused to fit in—because that’s exactly what she’d been to her own parents. ‘Isn’t he super successful, now?’

      Libby nodded. ‘Jamie says his nightclub business is worth millions. But that’s not going to cut any ice with a woman like Elizabeth—you know what a snob she is.’

      The wave of sympathy crested.

      What must it have been like for Connor? The illegitimate runaway son of a barmaid being thrust into a world where appearances were everything? And into the home of a woman who despised him? That must have been hard.

      ‘No wonder he feels uncomfortable being the best man, then….’

      So that was why he’d been so hostile about being involved in the wedding? She sent an accusatory glance at Libby—ignoring the foolish little lift in her heart at the thought that his hostility had nothing to do with her. ‘You shouldn’t have put him in that position.’

      Sabrina’s agitation returned. If there was anything she hated more than unnecessary drama it was thoughtlessness.

      ‘Oh, bugger off!’ Libby said jauntily. ‘I’m sure Connor will survive—does he strike you as the type to fold under a little social pressure?’

      Sabrina’s glare faltered at the memory of the sexual confidence in his blue gaze as it dropped to her bum. Okay, there was that.

      ‘And anyway, there’s no point in stressing about it now, because we can’t un-make him the best man.’ Libby’s lips firmed in a determined expression that Sabrina recognised only too well. ‘And now that I’ve gone to all that trouble, and Connor’s going to be forced to withstand the killer glare of his evil stepmother, you could at least make it worth all our whiles.’

      Sabrina stared at her best friend—not sure how to handle the empathy she felt for Connor the boy and the way it was making her feel about Connor the man. And resenting Libby big time for putting her in this position.

      Like this situation needed to get any more complicated.

      ‘You’re unbelievable. You are not seriously trying to guilt me into shagging him? Why is my getting laid so bloody important to you?’

      ‘Because I want you to have fun,’ Libby replied, the sudden passion in her voice unsettling. ‘Because Carl did a number on you that you didn’t deserve.’ She grasped Sabrina’s hands and let out a slow breath, the cheeky grin fluttering back to life. ‘And because you need to get back in the game before your ovaries dry up and you become one of those dotty old dears who has a hundred cats.’

      ‘I’m only twenty-eight! And I’m allergic to cats.’ This had to be Libby’s love-dazed mind talking. She wasn’t that

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