May the Best Man Win Read Free

okay?”
    Okay would be stretching it. “He’s waiting for you up front, hon. I guess his shoulder is banged up a smidge”—and his arm is safety-pinned to his jacket to hold it in place—“but it’s nothing that would keep him from marrying you today.” True story.
    Satisfied, Lena smiled at Rachel, Marlene, Lorna, and the rest of the attendants hovering around the mirror, helping one another straighten straps and smooth hair. “Time to line up, ladies. I need one minute with Emily, and we’ll be good to go.”
    The girls filed out the door, and then it was just the two of them.
    â€œToday is because of you, Em,” Lena said, squeezing Emily’s hands. “If you hadn’t been there three years ago…I don’t think I would have been able to leave. I wouldn’t have found Dean. None of this would be happening today.”
    Emily’s heart gave a soft thud as she looked into her friend’s sweet face. She was so happy, so confident: so different from those first months Emily had known her, when there’d barely been any light in her eyes at all. Emily had recognized in Lena the kind of quiet despair that had shaped her own life so significantly.
    â€œNo, Lena. You’d have gotten through it on your own.” She had.
    Lena shook her head. “You were with me through the worst days of my life. And nothing makes me happier than to have you here at my side through the very best one.”
    Blinking past her tears, Emily pulled Lena in for a tight hug. “You deserve this.”
    Lena pulled back and, with an arched brow, replied, “You deserve this too.”
    â€œSomeday, maybe,” Emily said with the smile she wanted Lena to believe. “But today’s all yours. Are you ready?”
    Her friend blinked back her own tears and nodded quickly.
    â€œThen let’s go.”
    Paul was standing at the door, his arm out, waiting to walk his only daughter down the aisle.
    Emily adjusted Lena’s skirt and handed her the bouquet before taking her spot in line ahead of them. The groomsmen who’d been waiting to the side paired up with bridesmaids.
    A text alert vibrated the phone she’d managed to camouflage within her bouquet, in case of any wedding emergencies. Heart pounding, she checked and, seeing the message was from Jase, stifled a groan.
    You got your end done?
    Jackass.
    She texted back what was bound to be the truth.
    Better than you.
    Then, with a tilt of her head, she flashed a winsome smile toward the front of the church, where Jase was waiting to walk up with Dean. He saw. The scowl said it all.
    The music changed, and a hush fell over the church as the processional began.
    Lena’s words echoed through Emily’s mind. You deserve this too.
    She might, but that would mean inviting someone to get closer than she ever let people get. It would mean opening herself up to something she wasn’t so sure she could handle again…whether she deserved it or not.
    * * *
    â€œI said it was an accident ,” Emily hissed beneath the celebratory din of laughter, big-band sound, and clinking crystal.
    Cold blue eyes fixed on hers, hard and flat. Readable only in their blatant accusation.
    Not surprising, considering first, she’d just skewered the butter-soft leather of Jase’s tuxedo shoe with her stiletto, and second, when it came to Jase, who was groaning like she’d just run him over with a tractor, accusation was about the only thing he had to spare for her.
    And after ten years of it, Emily had about reached her limit.
    â€œI heard what you said,” Jase growled through clenched teeth.
    The implication being that he hadn’t missed her omission either. He invariably considered an apology his due, but it absolutely, unequivocally, would not be forthcoming. Because if Jase hadn’t been practically tripping over himself trying to avoid physical contact during this stupid,