For Dad, who likes sailing much better

      than he likes reading romance. x

      CHAPTER ONE

      IF DAMIEN STONE had been a woman, he’d have become a bit of a standing joke by now. Three times a bridesmaid was unlucky, apparently. Double that number would have knelled the bells of matrimonial doom. Clucking aunts would have reminded him of that at every opportunity, told him to get a move on before he was left on the shelf.

      But no one had ever made the mistake of thinking Damien was a girl, and he hadn’t been a bridesmaid once, thankfully. Nobody seemed to mind he’d been a best man so many times. If anything, other men clapped him on the back and congratulated him for such an accomplishment. No, Damien didn’t think there was anything unlucky about it.

      It meant his friends respected him, thought him a stalwart ally. It took a certain kind of person to stand beside a friend at the front of a church, as that man prepared to utter the most life-altering words of his existence. Someone who was reliable, who knew how to get things done. Someone with a little dignity. He supposed he should be flattered.

      But more than that, he was thankful—because he was going to need to draw on all of that experience if he was going to survive this day.

      Six times now he’d worn a buttonhole as he stood beside a good friend. Six times he’d stood at the front of a pretty stone church in the hush just before the bride made her entrance. But never before had his palms been so sweaty or his heart run around inside his ribcage like a wind-up toy gone mad.

      However, never before had the woman of his dreams been standing at the doors of the church, about to make her way down the aisle towards him.

      He turned and looked at Luke, his best friend, and Luke gave him a fortifying smile and clapped him on the back. Damien swallowed. He was glad it was Luke standing here beside him. He didn’t think he could have made it through the day if it had been anyone else.

      He tried to smile, but a nerve in his cheek made his lip twitch. Humour flashed in Luke’s eyes and Damien thought his friend was about to make one of his usual wry remarks, but just at that moment there was a ripple of movement behind them. Row upon row of heads turned towards the back of the church, like some nuptial Mexican wave, and the organ began to play.

      He couldn’t look back at first, had to prepare himself for what he was about to see. This was it. No turning back after this. The future would be set in stone.

      It was only when Luke nudged him in the ribs that he sucked in a stealthy breath through his nostrils then looked over his shoulder.

      She was perfect.

      He didn’t really look at the dress. Just her.

      But then Sara Mortimer always had been pretty wonderful in his eyes. He’d thought so from the day he’d seen her across the room at a crowded bar, laughing with Luke, and had felt as if he’d been hit by a truck. Side on.

      After today the rest of the world would be left in no doubt about her perfection, either. The white satin dress was pure class, and her soft blonde hair had been caught up in a twist of some kind behind her head. She wore a veil and a simple tiara and held a bunch of lilies, tied together with a thick white ribbon.

      Sara was poised and elegant, intelligent, kind. He couldn’t find one fault with her—apart from her taste in men, maybe.

      He let go of the breath he’d been holding and grabbed another while he had the chance.

      It seemed to take ages for the bridesmaids to waft past in a cloud of dull gold. Well, most of them wafted. The maid of honour had too much of a wiggle in her step to do anything as graceful as waft.

      It wasn’t just Sara’s taste in men that let her down, then. Damien had never really understood why Sara was friends with Zoe. Another one of the bride’s glowing qualities to add to his list, he supposed.

      Where Sara was slender and cool and sophisticated, Zoe was too … everything. Not in the same class—and that didn’t refer to her parents’ wage brackets. Damien wasn’t a snob. No, Zoe was too loud, too uninhibited. Too busting out of her bodice, if his eyes served him right. Was it even legal to have that much cleavage in a bridesmaid’s dress?

      For some bizarre reason, just her presence jarred his senses and irritated him. Or was that just the eye-watering perfume? She caught him looking at her and her expression took on a saucy glimmer. She knew she got under his skin. Couldn’t she have left it alone for just one day? And today of all days? He was sure she did … whatever she did … on purpose, just to goad him.

      And now Sara was almost at the front and he’d been distracted, which only served to exasperate him further.

      Thankfully,