Bridesmaid with Attitude. Christy McKellen

as though her legs had been taken out from under her. ‘You? As in, you’re the Earl of Berkeley?’

      What were the odds of Lord Snooty being so gorgeous?

      He held out both hands in ironic surprise. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t I look the part?’

      She snorted. ‘Not even close. Where’s your paunch? Where’s your receding hairline? You don’t even have a ruddy nose or an inappropriate leer.’

      ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

      ‘I never said anything about being disappointed.’

      His brow pinched into a scowl and it suddenly occurred to her that she was flirting with the scoundrel who was messing with Lula’s happiness when she should have been ripping him limb from limb.

      ‘Although I am mad at you for ruining my best friend’s wedding,’ she added, perhaps a little too late to make much of an impact.

      Advancing on him now, she raised an accusing finger and pointed it at the centre of his broad chest.

      ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, cancelling her booking a month before the wedding? Do you have any idea how happy she was to secure this place for her reception, especially after all the hoops you made her jump through?’

      He opened his mouth to speak, but she wasn’t finished with him yet.

      ‘Is this about money?’ She ran her gaze over his dishevelled appearance. ‘Has someone offered you more for that date? Because if that’s the case you should be ashamed of yourself. You can’t play with a woman’s hopes and dreams like that; it’s sheer cruelty!’

      He sighed and leant back against the workbench, crossing his arms and making his muscles bulge under his tight-fitting T-shirt. ‘She hasn’t been gazumped.’

      ‘Then why? Why would you do that to her?’

      ‘Unforeseen circumstances.’

      ‘What circumstances could be serious enough to ruin someone’s wedding day over? She chose this place in good faith. You signed a contract.’

      ‘Which gives me the option to cancel a month before the event. She’ll get her money back.’

      She took another step forward, going for coolly menacing, but he didn’t move a millimetre. There wasn’t even a flicker of a reaction on his face.

      Her heart-rate picked up, chasing adrenaline though her body. This close to him she could make out the scent of grease and hard work that radiated from him, and it was doing something crazy to her libido.

      What was it about this mixture of good breeding and rough façade that sent her into such a spiral of lust? Perhaps, having lived and mostly worked in London for so many years, she was too used to being surrounded by metrosexual men—men who would be horrified by the thought of being caught looking so unkempt. There was something oddly refreshing about this guy not appearing to give a fig about his appearance. He’d made no move to tidy himself up at all. He didn’t care what she thought.

      She kind of liked that.

      Focus, Emily.

      ‘All right, Lord Berkeley, it’s not as simple as getting her money back and you know it. She’s already sent out the invitations. People are coming from as far away as Australia. They’ve booked very expensive flights. And she’s already confirmed food with the caterers, booked the cushion-fluffers and the petal-tweakers—the whole crazy shebang. She’s been planning this day for a whole year. You’re going to ruin the best day of her life.’

      ‘She’ll find somewhere else.’

      Something flickered in his eyes and he looked almost regretful for a second, until he drew the angry shutters back down on his expression again.

      Emily huffed out a disbelieving laugh. ‘She can’t arrange another reception venue now; there’s nowhere decent left to host that many people at such short notice.’

      ‘That’s not my problem.’

      She clenched her fists in frustration, feeling her nails dig into her palms. Clearly he was going to be a tough nut to crack.

      Okay, time to change tack and crank up the charisma she was so famous for.

      Reaching out, she laid a palm against the rock-hard wall of his chest, right over where his heart would have been located if he’d had one, and brought out the big guns, giving him her most coquettish look. ‘Is there some other way I can persuade you to change your mind? It would mean the world to her—and me—if you could find a way to let her have her reception here.’

      She watched in surprise as he put his hand over hers, curled his fingers tightly around it and pulled it away from his chest, dropping it the second it was clear of his body. There was no gentle regret in the move; it was a pure and resolute rebuffal.

      The rejection rankled. Men never normally turned her down when she was in full flirt mode. She understood the power she wielded with her face and her body and had utilised it well over the years.

      Narrowing her eyes, she pulled back her shoulders and squared up to him. ‘I don’t get it—what’s really going on here?’

      He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘There’s more to this than sheer bloody-mindedness. It smells all wrong.’

      His expression flashed with contempt. ‘Because I won’t submit to your womanly wiles?’

      Hot indignation bubbled in her stomach, chased by a sting of mortification at being outed so bluntly. ‘Because no one could be so evil as to mess with someone’s wedding day without a really good reason.’

      He snorted and pushed off from the bench, brushing past her to walk over to the other side of the room.

      The brief contact made something pulse and tighten deep in her pelvis.

      ‘It’s out of my hands,’ he said, his back to her, his upper torso tensing as he braced both arms against the window ledge and stared out through the glass. ‘This house belongs to my mother, although she lives in Spain at the moment and is “allowing” me to live here until I inherit.’

      His shoulders seemed to tense even more.

      ‘She came over to England a few days ago, stuck her nose in here while I was away and discovered that I’ve been hiring out the place for wedding receptions without her consent.’ He turned back to face her and she saw a flicker of embarrassment in his expression. ‘She harangued my events manager until she gave up the details, then phoned around and cancelled all future engagements. I lost my phone in a cab while I was away, so I only found out about it when I got back last night.’

      Emily stared at him in disbelief. ‘Why would she do that?’

      He sighed and rubbed a hand over his forehead, leaving streaks of grease over the ridges of his frown. ‘She’s punishing me for not bending to her will. She thinks I should be married by now and providing her with a clutch of adoring grandchildren.’ His voice dripped with scorn. ‘She’s worried she’s falling out of social step with the cronies she spends all her time lunching with.’

      ‘And you’re going to let her get away with it?’

      His gaze snapped to hers and the indignation in his glare made a shiver run down her spine. ‘You think I have any choice in the matter?’

      If he thought he was going to get her to back down by being hostile he could think again. ‘Why didn’t you tell her about holding the wedding receptions here?’ she asked, keeping her voice firm.

      He sighed and swiped a hand through the air in irritation. ‘Because I knew she’d put the kibosh on it. She considers the idea of making money out of the estate crass, and the notion of her son actually working for a living and “associating with riff-raff”—her words—horrifies