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The Best Man (Alpha Men Book 2)(8)

By:Natasha Anders


Frustrated, he lifted his arms and linked his fingers behind his head as he glowered blindly at the wind-felled tree. Why did he always let her get to him? Daffodil McGregor had been treating him like a second-class citizen since . . . well, since forever, really, and he was done with her. She was unreasonable and a little unhinged and it would be better if—after this wedding—he stayed as far away from her as humanly possible.

On the upside, at least her obnoxiousness had taken his mind off the fact that his brother was leaving again. The news, while unsurprising, had shaken him more than he cared to admit. After Mason and Daisy left, he’d be alone once more. He had some friends, sure, cultivated relationships with the occasional woman, but he never felt like he was truly a part of something. For a while, when he was dating Tanya, he’d felt like he finally belonged somewhere and with someone. Only to find her sandwiched between two guys in his bed one day. She’d had the nerve to smile when she spotted him in the doorway. Smile and invite him to join them.

He’d tossed them all out on their naked asses and then he’d burned the bed.

He’d loved that fucking bed.

Awesome. Now he was remembering Tanya spit-roasted between two guys. Not pretty, and yet the memory didn’t sting half as much as the recollection of Daffodil McGregor saying he had the personality of a mushroom. A mushroom, for fuck’s sake!

He growled. He actually growled like a wild animal, shocking himself in the process. He threw a longing stare at his ax before wearily making his way to his home gym.

It looked like the punching bag was going to get that workout after all.

The following night, Daff glared at her phone screen in frustration. There they were, in stark black and white. Two words. Sincere and yet completely inadequate.

I’m sorry.

She couldn’t send it to him. She wanted to. She so desperately wanted to send it and then be able to tell Lia in all honesty that she had apologized, but she knew that it was a cop-out and she also knew that Spencer deserved more. It had already taken her more than twenty-four hours to get to this point. She had spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday cleaning and telling herself to get busy apologizing to the man. Yet she still hadn’t plucked up the courage to do anything more than stare at the two simple words on a phone screen.

She hit “Delete” and watched the words disappear from her screen. One tiny letter at a time. She scrolled through her contacts until she found his name, and her thumb hovered over the “Call” button for a very long time. She should go to his store tomorrow, apologize in person. But if she called first, paved the way, so to speak, it might be easier than just going in cold. She could start laying the groundwork now. It would be better if she didn’t have to look at him when she did it.

But it was just as much of a cop-out as a text message. No . . . it was better than a text message. He would be able to hear the sincerity in her voice and know that she meant it.

She hit “Call” before she could talk herself out of it and put the phone on speaker. Somehow, lifting it to her ear and hearing his voice so intimately close felt too personal. Especially when she was in bed, wearing nothing but panties and a tank top.

The phone rang, twice . . . three times . . .

This was a terrible idea. She was about to cancel the call when his voice rang out in the dark silence of her room. He sounded groggy, angry, unutterably sexy . . . and like he was right there in bed with her. The rogue thought made her uncomfortable, and she immediately regretted making this call from her bedroom.

“Daff? It’s twelve thirty. Why are you calling so late? Are you okay? Mason? Daisy?” Okay, she couldn’t lie to herself—she found it sweet as hell that he was immediately concerned for her well-being.

“Daff?” he prompted, irritation and fear mounting in his voice when she didn’t respond straightaway.

“I didn’t know it was so late,” she admitted. It was the truth—she’d been stressing about this matter all evening, and the time got away from her. The silence stretched between them, taut, uncomfortable, and incredibly awkward. Daff wasn’t sure how to break it. She heard the faint rustling of crisp, clean bedsheets as he shifted.

“It couldn’t wait till morning?” he finally asked, and she was relieved that he had spoken and not merely hung up on her.

“I—I had to apologize.” Even though it was something she wanted and needed to do, the words still had the consistency of sawdust in her mouth.

“Had to, huh?” He sounded speculative, and she heard the bedsheets rustling again. Was he sitting up? What was he wearing? Was he bare chested? Had the covers just slid down his chest to pool in his lap? Was he more than bare chested? Did he sleep naked?

The distracting thoughts made her groan, and she pinched the bridge of her nose to get herself back on track.

“I said some pretty nasty things,” she admitted, and he grunted. It sounded like agreement. “I should apologize for them.”

“You should,” he agreed amicably and then felled her with a zinger. “But do you want to?”

Her answer didn’t take much thought. “Yes. I want to.” She was surprised to find that she meant it.

“You mean you don’t think I’m . . . what was it? Bland, boring, and insipid?”

“I mean, I barely know you,” she prevaricated, and that prompted another grunt from him. She couldn’t quite interpret this one. “So I can’t be the best judge of what you actually are.”

“As apologies go, this one is pretty shitty,” he said, stifling a yawn.

“I’m trying, okay?” she snapped. Then immediately regretted the slight lapse in temper.

“If I have the personality of a mushroom, you have the disposition of a wasp—skinny, sometimes good to look at, with a propensity to go on the attack with little to no provocation.”

She gasped, his words immediately getting her back up, but she forced herself to take a deep breath and fought to get her temper under control.

“Okay, you earned that shot. We’re even now.”

“Still waiting for my apology,” he reminded her, and she scowled at her phone screen.

“You could be a bit more gracious about this,” she hissed, and he sighed.

“Daff, it’s nearly one in the morning. Why not get this over with so that we can both get a decent night’s sleep? I don’t know about you, but Monday is my busiest day and if I don’t get enough sleep I won’t be able to function very well at all.”

“Fine,” she snapped through clenched teeth, before swallowing and screwing her eyes shut. “I’m really sorry I said those things about you. It was wrong and I do regret it.”

“Okay.” Her eyes flew open and she stared at her phone—the only source of light in the room—in disbelief.

“‘Okay’? That’s it?” Didn’t he know how much the stupid apology had taken out of her? And that was all he had to say in response to it?

“Yeah. And thank you.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you soon, Daff. Sleep tight.” He hung up before she could say another word, and Daff gritted her teeth before lifting a pillow to her face and screaming in frustration. She immediately picked up her phone, did a quick Google image search, and loaded a new profile picture and name to replace the white-on-gray SC that had formerly been on the screen next to his name. There. Much better.

She flung her phone aside and threw herself down on the bed and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning and fuming. Getting little to no sleep at all.

Daff sat with her chin in her hand—one fingertip absently tracing the rim of her warm coffee mug—and watched even more customers enter SC Sporting Solutions. They’d had a steady stream of customers all morning, and most exited the store with huge shopping bags. Daff sighed and scanned the boutique grimly. The place was neat as a pin, had beautiful couture clothing on display, and had attracted just one customer that morning—a window-shopper who, after one discreet glance at a price tag, had hastened back out.

God, she was so bored.

She looked out again. She had opened slightly after nine this morning, feeling groggy and a little hungover from lack of sleep, and had missed Spencer’s habitually brisk walk past the huge boutique window on his way to work. Daff usually arrived at eight thirty in the morning, a full fifteen minutes before Spencer. She liked to ease into her day—put on the coffee in the tiny back kitchen, start up the soothing ambient music, which she hated with an absolute passion, and then check her e-mails and inventory. As if there were any danger at all of running out of stock. She snorted at the thought. She should be so lucky.

Now she wondered if Spencer was at work already. More than likely. She had never seen him arrive late. Always eight forty-five on the dot. It was Monday, so he would probably be wearing the black sweat suit instead of the gray one. He looked good in both, of course, but she preferred the black one. It made him look sleek and less overwhelmingly brutish. He tended to alternate the colors every day. Monday was black day.

Daff would cut off her own left thumb rather than divulge how familiar she was with Spencer’s wardrobe changes. Her job was boring, she tended to notice things, and since she saw Spencer every day, of course she would start to pick up on silly details like that.