The Best Man (Alpha Men 2)

Yes, she did. There really was no point in denying that fact.

“I’m not cut out for marriage, Lia.”

“Why not?”

Daff thought about it and shook her head in bewilderment. “Reasons.” And yet she couldn’t think of a single reason right at that moment.

“Do you think he’ll treat you badly?” She didn’t even bother answering that stupid question. Spencer was quite incapable of harming even a fly.

“Do you think he won’t support your decisions?”

Daff thought about his gentle, nonjudgmental encouragement when she’d quit her job and shook her head helplessly.

“Okay. Let me ask you this . . . do you want to be with other men?”

The thought was so repulsive that Daff was quite unable to hide her reaction from Lia.

“Is he boring? A bad conversationalist? I mean, I know he’s quiet, but you guys always seem to have something to talk about.”

“He’s not boring,” Daff defended with a glare. “Look, I just don’t like labels, Lia. Why do we have to give what we have a name?”

“Okay, so you’d be fine with nobody knowing the true nature of your relationship and chicks always hitting on him because you didn’t put a ring on that?”

“That’s such archaic thinking,” Daff protested, while at the same time feeling nauseated at the thought of Spencer with some other woman. A woman who wouldn’t understand him. Who wouldn’t appreciate his occasional lapses into silence. And who definitely wouldn’t know that there were about fifty possible interpretations for one mild “hmm.”

“How long would you expect this tenuous sexual thing without labels to last? A few months? A couple of years? How do you introduce him to people? As your friend with benefits? Your casual lover?”

“I don’t know, okay? I just don’t think marriage is the right fit for me!”

“Why not?”

“Because I—” Don’t deserve it!

I don’t deserve . . . him.

Daff stopped herself before she completed the sentence. Horrified to hear the silent words screaming loudly in her mind. Why would she think that? Why would she feel so inadequate?

She thought about Spencer’s words to her: Never let anyone make you feel like you’re less. Because you’re not. You’re everything.

And Daff finally recognized that she was her own worst enemy. She was the one who thought she was less. Who thought she didn’t deserve good things and happiness. She had allowed complete assholes to grind her self-worth to dust, and once they were out of her life, she’d taken over the job herself. And Spencer, unfailingly kind and loving Spencer, who had made her feel cherished and important, had been the one she’d inadvertently been punishing for everyone else’s sins.

She gulped down a sob, and Lia put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close.

“You’re okay, Sissy. You’ll be fine.”

Daff nodded and plastered another smile on her face, trying to keep the cheerful façade in place for Daisy’s sake. But she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be fine again.

The hen party was a smashing success, and by the time they hooked up with the guys, everybody was well and truly sauced. Daisy was just loud and drunk enough to be hilarious. She launched herself at Mason when she saw him, for all the world like someone who hadn’t seen her man in months. Mason wasn’t much better; he wouldn’t stop snogging her.

The guys were all wearing “Mason’s Stag Bros” T-shirts, and Mason himself was topless. Someone had crudely painted “Daisy’s Man” on his back and “This belongs to Daisy” on his truly magnificent chest, with an arrow pointing down to his crotch. He had lipstick kisses all over his neck and shoulders, which would have been dodgy if not for the fact that all the guys had lipstick smeared over their mouths and halfway down their chins.

Clearly they’d been up to some crazy shit. Daff knew that Mason had invited their dad along, but she was kind of relieved that the older man had politely declined the invitation. He’d said he’d be fine staying home to play a few rousing games of Scrabble with Charlie and their mother. She didn’t think the party would have been quite as crazy if their father had been present.

Her eyes scanned the crowd until she spotted Spencer’s huge shoulders on the other end of the dance floor. He had a drink in each hand and was about to make his way back to the party when a couple of nearly naked skanks rubbed themselves up against him. One of them ran her hand up his chest, and Daff felt her brows slam together. When the other woman curled her hand around his bicep, she clenched her teeth and heard herself growling.

One of the little slags put her hand on his cheek, and he tilted his head enough for her to go up onto her toes and say something directly into his ear.