Page 12 of The Worst Best Man

“Ladies, our maid of honor has arrived,” Pruitt announced cheerily to the reclining goddesses.

“Yay,” Margeaux said without looking up from her phone. Her blonde hair was rolled in a chic chignon at the base of her neck. She looked regal, even in a bikini.

Pruitt dragged Frankie toward a pair of sun loungers. She took another sip of the pink frozen tartness. It tasted vaguely of grapefruit and vodka. But it would do.

“Now, sit. And spill,” Pru ordered. “The story, not the drink.”

Frankie handed over the glass with a sigh. She stepped out of her sandals and pulled the cover up over her head.

She felt a heated gaze on her skin and turned to see Aiden standing in the sand looking at her. He flashed her a cocky grin and shucked his shirt. He wasn’t lean like the rest of the groomsmen. He was bigger, more muscled. His chest alone made her mouth water. They stared admiringly at each other.

“Staaaalling,” Pru sang, drawing her attention.

“Ugh. Fine.” She turned her back on the beach, on Aiden. “What do you want to know?”

“How did your ride in from the airport go with Aiden?”

Margeaux dropped her phone and her jaw. Taffany, who had been busy swilling tequila straight from the bottle in a one-piece with less fabric than Frankie’s bikini, sat up.

“You and the very good-looking best man?” Cressida demanded, her accent seeming to shift between Austrian and Russian. Frankie couldn’t stop staring at the woman’s breasts that seemed hell-bent on escaping the scrap of fabric masquerading as a bandeau top.

Self-consciously, Frankie reached up to adjust the ties of her own suit to make sure her girls didn’t escape.

A chorus of “Ooooohs” rose from the volleyball court, and the girls craned their necks to see what had happened. Aiden, still spectacularly shirtless and ripped, was holding a hand over his eye.

“What did I tell you guys?” Pru yelled.

“No bruises!” they parroted back to her.

“No bruises, no cuts, no scrapes, no freak hair accidents. I need your faces perfect for pictures,” the bride reminded them.

“Sorry,” they said as one.

“Aiden was distracted,” Chip added with a wink.

Aiden gave Frankie a long look, and she dropped her hands from where they were fiddling with the strings of her suit.Had he been watching her?

“Can’t you guys just sit and read?” Pru begged.

“No more overhand serves,” Davenport, the peacemaker and resident drunk, offered.

“Ugh. Fine. But keep your attention on the ball, Aiden.” Pru sat back down. “It’s like herding kindergartners at a candy factory. Now, sit down Frankie before Aiden loses an eye checking you out.”

All attention on her, Frankie sank down on the chair and stretched her legs out in front of her. “He picked me up at the airport,” she said. She wasn’t a fan of gossip in general and feeding anything to these hellhounds was a bad, bad idea.

“Why?” Margeaux asked, wrinkling her nose. “Was there a mix up?”

In Margeaux’s beautiful, pristine, gold-dipped world, that was the only plausible reason why Aiden Kilbourn would offer a ride to someone so lowly. Riled now, Frankie gave a lazy one-shoulder shrug as she plucked at the ties of her top. “Nope. He was waiting for me when I got off the plane.”

“He canceled the car I had scheduled to pick her up,” Pru added.

Taffany picked up the tequila again but handed it to Frankie. “Way to go, Francine.”

“Frankie.”

“Whatever.”

“I don’t understand,” Margeaux announced. She took her sunglasses off and arranged herself on her side, a model taking directions from an invisible photographer. “Why would Aiden go out of his way foryou?”