CHAPTER ONE

THE organ player breaking into the wedding march signalled the bride was ready at last. She was only fifteen minutes late, Reece realised as he glanced at his gold Rolex. Long enough, however, for the groom next to him to get fidgety.

'It's showtime!' Reece said, smiling over at Richard who'd gone ramrod straight at the change of music, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.

'Have you got the rings?' Richard whispered out of the side of his mouth.

Reece patted the right pocket of his black dinner jacket. 'Of course. Relax, Rich,' he said, and reached out to touch him reassuringly on the arm. 'I've done this before.'

'So has he,' Mike muttered under his breath from the other side of Reece.

Reece's head whipped round to throw him a reproachful glare. Mike was a good bloke at heart, but his eternal cynicism over romance and relationships could be exasperating. It was also out of place today. Blind Freddie could see that Richard and Holly were deeply in love. This would be a much better marriage than the one Richard had had with Joanna, who, quite frankly, had not been Mrs Perfect.

Reece would never forget the night she'd made a play for him, something he'd never told Richard, but which had bothered him greatly at the time.

He'd avoided Joanna after that.

When she'd been killed in a car accident a couple of years back, he'd felt very sorry for Richard. But Reece sometimes wondered if it was a case of fate being cruel to be kind.

Whatever, Richard's first marriage was past history. Today was a new day and Reece finally felt optimistic for his best friend's choice for his second wife.

Despite an initial concern that Holly, at twenty-six, was too young and naive for a man of Richard's age and status—Richard was thirty-eight and the CEO of a merchant bank—Reece could now see that Holly was exactly what Richard needed after Joanna. She was a genuinely sweet, caring, loving girl. Very pretty, too.

She was going to make a lovely bride.

Reece's eyes narrowed as he peered down to the back of the church, curious to see what the girls were wearing. But the church doors were open and the late-afternoon light was streaming in. All he could see were silhouettes.

The first bridesmaid eventually came into view, looking elegant in a long, straight red dress and carrying a bouquet of white roses. She was tall, with auburn hair, a nice enough figure and an attractive face.

Reece didn't know her. She was a florist friend of Holly's. In her thirties. And married, Alanna had told him last night.

Reece hoped happily so, given she was being partnered by Mike today.

Reece glanced to his left at Mike, who was looking surprisingly debonair, a far cry from his usual dishevelled self. Amazing what a haircut, a shave and a tuxedo could achieve. Most days, Mike looked as if he'd walked out of a spaghetti western. Acted like that, too. Very tough and gruff.

Strangely, some women seemed to fancy him like that. Lord knew why. Reece thought Mike's clean-cut image today was infinitely more attractive. But what was one woman's trash was another woman's treasure, he supposed.

On Mike's part, he went for any good-looking female who made the chase easy for him and who agreed with his rules, his rules being he would take her out for one reason and one reason only. Sex. There would be no real relationship. No romance. The only promise he gave was not to be a two-timer.

But when it was over—meaning when he got bored—it was over.

Mike was an obsessively compulsive computer genius with a very low boredom threshold. His last girl friend…an exotic dancer…had lasted all of a month.

It still never failed to astonish Reece just how many takers Mike got. And how many of his ex-girlfriends remained friendly with him, afterwards. Damned if it made sense to him.

'Behave yourself with your partner today,' he whispered in Mike's direction. 'She's married.'

'That never seems to stop them,' Mike returned drily. 'But don't worry. I avoid married women like the plague. They're nothing but trouble.'

'Sounds like you've had some experience.'

'Only once. It was a close call, but I managed to escape.'

'Anyone I know?'

'I don't think this is the time to discuss it,' he bit out.

Reece stared at Mike, who gave a slight nod in Richard's direction. Fortunately, Richard wasn't taking any notice of them, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

'Joanna?' Reece whispered.

'Yep.'

'She hit on me, too,' Reece admitted.

THE organ player breaking into the wedding march signalled the bride was ready at last. She was only fifteen minutes late, Reece realised as he glanced at his gold Rolex. Long enough, however, for the groom next to him to get fidgety.

Copyright © 2005 by Miranda Lee