are so many arrangements in place for this week and, even though I really do have them all in hand, Melissa just likes to...well, double check. And sometimes she has some new ideas that she’d like to fit in to the plans. Or changes she’d like to make.’
‘Such as the wedding favours?’ Dan said, nodding at the glossy bag by her feet.
‘Exactly!’ Laurel looked relieved at his understanding. ‘I’m so sorry if I worried you. My mouth tends to run a little faster than my brain sometimes. And there’s just so much to think about this week...’
‘Like your ex-fiancé,’ Dan guessed, leaning back against the seat as he studied her.
An informant who talked too much was exactly what he was looking for—even if he hadn’t really thought about her as such until now. Fate had tossed him a bone on this one.
Laurel’s face fell, her misery clear. Had the woman ever had a thought that wasn’t instantly telegraphed through her expression? Not that he was complaining—anything that made reading women easier was a plus in his book. But after spending years learning to school his responses, to keep his expressions bland and boring, he found it interesting that Laurel gave so much away for free.
In Hollywood, he assumed people were acting all the time. In the case of people who had to deal with the over-expressive actors, directors and so on, they learned to lock down their response, to nod politely and move on without ever showing annoyance, disagreement or even disgust.
Laurel wasn’t acting—he could tell. And she certainly wasn’t locking anything down. Especially not her feelings about her ex-fiancé.
‘Like Benjamin,’ she agreed, wincing. ‘Not that I’m planning on thinking about him much. Or that I’ve been pining away after him ever since...well, since everything happened.’
Yeah, that sounded like a lie. Maybe she hadn’t been pining, but she’d certainly been thinking about him—that much was obvious.
‘What did happen? If you don’t mind me asking.’
Dan shifted in his seat to turn towards her. He was surprised to find himself honestly interested in the answer. Partly because he was sympathetic to her plight—it was never fun to run into an ex, which was one of the reasons he avoided celebrity parties these days unless he could be sure Cassie wouldn’t be there—and partly because he couldn’t understand why Melissa would invite her half-sister’s ex-fiancé to her wedding. Old family friends or not, that was a level of harsh not usually seen in normal people.
Which only made him more concerned for Riley.
Laurel sighed, and there was a world of feeling in the sound as her shoulders slumped.
‘Oh, the usual, I suppose. I thought everything was perfect. We were going to get married, live happily ever after—you know, get the fairy tale ending and everything.’ She looked up and met his gaze, as if checking that he did understand what a fairy tale was.
‘Oh, I understand,’ he said, with feeling. Hadn’t that been what he’d thought would be his by rights when he said ‘I do’ to Cassie? Look how wrong he’d been about that.
‘But then it turned out that he wanted the fairy tale with someone else instead.’ She shrugged, her mouth twisting up into a half-smile. ‘I guess sometimes these things just don’t work out.’
‘You seem surprisingly sanguine about it.’
‘Well, it’s been six months,’ Laurel answered. ‘Melissa says I should be well over it by now. I mean, he obviously is, right?’
Six months? Six months after Cassie had left him Dan had still been drinking his way through most of LA’s less salubrious bars. He probably still would be if his business partner hadn’t hauled him out and pointed out that revenge was sweeter than moping.
Making a huge financial and professional success of Black Ops Stunts wasn’t just a personal win. It was revenge against the ex-wife who’d always said he’d never be worth anything.
‘People get over things in their own way and their own time,’ Dan said, trying to focus on the week in front of him, not the life he’d left behind.
‘The hardest part was telling my family,’ Laurel admitted, looking miserable all over again. ‘I mean, getting engaged to Benjamin was the first thing I’d done right in my father’s eyes since I was about fifteen. Even my stepmother was pleased. Benjamin was—is, I suppose—quite the catch in her book. Rich, well-known, charming...’ She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘I suppose I should have known it was too good to be true.’
‘So, what are you going to do now?’ Dan asked.
Laurel took a deep breath and put on a brave smile that didn’t convince him for a moment.
‘I’ve sworn off men for the time being. I’m going to focus on my business and on myself for a while. And then, when I’m ready, maybe I’ll consider dating again. But this time, I want to be a hundred per cent sure it’s the real thing—the whole fairy tale—before I let myself fall.’
Well, that was rather more information than he’d been looking for. Dan smiled back, awkwardly. ‘Actually, I meant...how do you plan to get through spending a week in the same hotel as him?’
Laurel turned pale. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Of course you don’t want to hear about that! Melissa always says I talk about myself far too much. Anyway... This week... Well, like I said, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m hoping that will keep me so busy I don’t even have to think about him.’
If Melissa had her way Dan suspected Laurel would be plenty busy. And probably only talking about Melissa, too.
‘What you really need is a new boyfriend to flaunt in his face,’ he joked, and Laurel laughed.
‘That would be good,’ she agreed, grinning at him. ‘But even if I hadn’t sworn off men I’ve barely had time to sleep since I started organising this wedding, so I definitely haven’t had time to date.’
That was a shame, Dan decided. Laurel, with her warm brown eyes and curvy figure, should definitely be dating. She shouldn’t be locking herself away, even if it wasn’t for ever. She should be out in the world, making it a brighter place. Less than an hour together and he already knew that Laurel was one of the good ones—and the complete opposite of everything he suspected about her half-sister. Laurel should be smiling up at a guy who treated her right for a change. A guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life making her smile that way. The prince she was waiting for.
Dan knew he was definitely not that guy. Treating women right wasn’t the problem—he had utter respect for any woman who hadn’t previously been married to him. But he didn’t do ‘for ever’ any more. Not after Cassie.
Besides, he knew from experience that ‘for ever’ wasn’t what women wanted from him, anyway. They wanted a stand-in—just like the directors did when they hired him or one of his people. Someone to come in, do good work, take the fall, and be ready to get out of the way when the real star of the show came along.
But maybe, he realised suddenly, that was exactly what Laurel needed this week.
A stand-in.
That, Dan knew, he could absolutely do. And it might
