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      Her Stand-In Groom

      By

      Jackie Braun is a three-time RITA® finalist, three-time National Readers Choice Award finalist and past winner of the Rising Star Award. She worked as a copy-editor and editorial writer for a daily newspaper before quitting her day job in 2004 to write fiction full time. She lives in Michigan with her family. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website at www. jackiebraun.com

       Is he the man of her dreams?

       Gorgeous Grooms

      Three dreamy and feel-good romances from

      three beloved Mills & Boon authors!

      To Mom and Dad:

      Thanks for passing on your love of reading.

      Chapter One

       THWACK!

      Catherine Canton had made a career of opposing domestic violence, but that didn’t keep her from using a bouquet of white roses to smack her prospective groom upside his philandering blond head.

      Cursing amid a snowstorm of fragrant petals, Derek Danbury stopped his intimate exploration of the wedding planner’s lacy black bra.

      “What the—” he began, before turning around completely. Once he had, his expression shifted from irritated to uh-oh.

      In an instant he was slicking on the charm, as well as the boyish smile Catherine had once found so irresistible. How could she have been so naïve?

      All but shoving the other woman aside, he said, “Sweetheart, I can explain this.”

      If she hadn’t wanted to cry Catherine might have laughed at that absurd proposition. And if the situation hadn’t been so wretchedly pathetic she might even have let him try, for the sheer entertainment value such an exercise would provide. Derek was a master at coming up with perfectly innocent reasons for doing the outrageous. She’d often found his justifications amusing, if exasperating. But this wasn’t the same as showing up late for dinner with her parents or failing to meet her at some charity function.

      No, he’d been helping another woman out of her clothes in the choir loft of a church. The same church where, in less than fifteen minutes, he was supposed to swear before God and their guests to forsake all others.

      Catherine had never been blind to his flirtatious nature, but she had foolishly believed that flirtation was all he’d ever engaged in. Oh, there had been tabloid speculation to the contrary, but, as her mother had preached on more than one occasion, those rancid scandal sheets’ attempts to sell more papers were hardly a valid enough reason for Catherine to question her engagement to one of the country’s most eligible bachelors. This was especially the case, her mother had insisted, since she and Catherine’s father had already plunked down so much of their dwindling fortune to give their daughter a memorable society wedding.

      And so Catherine, ever the dutiful daughter, had brushed aside her nagging concerns as silly pre-wedding jitters. She didn’t doubt for a minute her mother would be ruing the day she’d insisted on hiring a professional wedding planner.

      “I don’t need an explanation,” Catherine said, as the wedding planner buttoned her blouse and wisely slinked away.

      “It’s really not what it looked like,” Derek replied.

      She might have been naïve to believe a notorious playboy like Derek, heir to the venerable Danbury Department Store chain, was ready to settle down, but with the evidence of his infidelity now made so obvious she would not be thought stupid as well.

      Holding up a hand, she said, “Please, don’t insult my intelligence.”

      “Come on, Cath. You have to listen to me.”

      “Listen to you? What can you say to make this somehow less sordid than it actually is? I won’t tolerate lies.”

      “I love you. That’s not a lie.” He reached out, caressed her arms through the white silk of her gown. Mere minutes ago she would have believed him. But how could he love her—truly love her—and do this?

      She pulled away, her breath hitching. “Don’t.”

      “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I made a mistake.”

      “Would you still think so if you hadn’t gotten caught?” Her voice hiked up an octave, pushed there by pain and disbelief. “My God, Derek, you’re in a church. It’s our wedding day. And you were…” She shook her head, the image still revoltingly fresh.

      “Let’s keep our voices down, sweetheart,” he urged, casting a nervous glance toward the railing, no doubt thinking about the multitude of guests already assembled below. “In fact, let’s discuss this later.”

      “Later? When later? After we’re married?” She crossed her arms and tapped the battered bouquet against one hip, her emotions swinging wildly from hurt to anger again. “I don’t think so.”

      Alarm widened his eyes. “You’re overreacting, Cath. Don’t blow this out of proportion.”

      “Oh, that’s rich. You almost had sex in the church with our wedding planner minutes before the ceremony. I don’t see how I could blow this out of proportion. As offenses go, Derek, what you did is gargantuan already.”

      “You know, technically I didn’t do anything.”

      Catherine closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to summon up some of the control for which she was legendary. Ice Princess, some called her, but she was fuming now, a volcano ready to blow. She preferred that. Hurt and embarrassment could come later, and settle over her like suffocating ash. She dropped her hands to her sides. Her fingers fisted around the bouquet handle as if were a Louisville Slugger, and she was seriously thinking about taking another swing at him when someone said, “Excuse me, please.”

      Derek’s cousin Stephen stood not five feet behind them in the choir loft. Despite similar heights and builds, and the fact their birthdays fell just one day apart, she couldn’t imagine two men more different in either appearance or disposition. Derek was fair and always joking. Stephen was dark and brooding.

      He stepped forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “Derek, your mother asked me to come and mention that the guests can hear this conversation. She suggests you move to a more discreet location.”

      Whatever he thought of the situation, none of it was reflected in the deep brown of his eyes.

      Privacy. Catherine longed for it at this moment—that and something far more comfortable than the beaded pumps that were crushing the toes on each foot into a single digit. But both would have to wait until she’d dealt with the situation at hand. Picking up the heavy train of the designer gown her mother had insisted Catherine had to have, she walked to the railing of the balcony.

      “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?”

      “What are you doing?” Derek whispered, rushing up from behind her. He grabbed her arm none too gently, hauling her around. The act so surprised Catherine that she dropped her bouquet over the rail’s edge. Its sterling silver handle struck the tiled aisle below, echoing in the church like a shotgun blast. Guests shifted in their seats to see what was going on, some of them pointing, all of them murmuring.

      Catherine gasped. “You’re hurting me.”

      In