Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor: Best Man's Conquest / One Night with the Best Man / The Bridesmaid's Best Man. Michelle Celmer

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      It could be bad, Ivy realized fifteen minutes later after Deidre left to see about dinner. Really bad.

      She experienced the same eerie, familiar feeling as she had downstairs when Dillon had entered the room, and she looked up to find him a stone’s throw away, leaning on the edge of his own balcony on the opposite end of the house. His eyes were on her, steady and intense, as if he was biding his time, just waiting for her to notice him there.

      “Howdy!” he called, wiggling his fingers in a casual, friendly, good-ole-boy wave. He looked out across the ocean, his chest expanding beneath his T-shirt as he drew in a long, deep breath. “Hell of a view, isn’t it?”

      Oh, yes it is, she agreed silently, her eyes wandering over his solid frame. And she could feel it coming on, that little shimmy thing her heart did whenever he was near.

      Here it comes…

      No, no, no!

      She lowered her eyes back to her book. Don’t look at him. Don’t encourage him in any way. May be he would take the hint and leave her alone.

      He didn’t.

      “Whatcha’ doin’?”

      “Reading,” she answered, not looking up from the page. May be if she kept her answers short and succinct he would get a clue. He would realize she wanted him to leave her alone. Like he promised he would.

      He didn’t.

      She could still feel his eyes on her, feel him watching. Goose bumps shivered across her skin, and she felt fidgety and uncomfortable.

      Ignore him and he’ll lose interest, she assured herself. Keep reading and he’ll get bored and go away. But she could feel her anxiety level climbing again. Her foot had begun to tap, the way it always did when she was nervous, and she was grinding her teeth.

      She forced herself to relax.

      “Good book?” He used a tone that suggested he was making friendly conversation. May be to break the ice, so the situation would be a bit less awkward.

      He was wasting his time. The only conversation she was interested in having with him was the nonexistent kind. She didn’t want to break the ice, and she had no desire to make things less awkward.

      She just wanted him to go away.

      There was also the distinct possibility that, despite his promise to leave her alone, he was doing this to annoy her.

      Either way, she was beginning to feel like a specimen under a microscope.

      She took several deep, cleansing breaths, tried to concentrate on her book and not on the man staring at her.

      After a few very long, tense moments he said, “Must be a good book.”

      “It is.” Up until a few minutes ago, anyway. Now, as she tried to focus on the small print, the words ran together in a nonsensical jumble. Was a few minutes of peace really too much to ask for?

      Several more minutes passed quietly by, but she knew without looking up that he was still watching her. The question was, why?

      When she couldn’t stand it any longer she looked up and met his gaze. “Was there something you wanted?”

      “No, ma’am,” he said, his eyes never straying from her face. “Just enjoying the scenery.”

      Something in his eyes, in the intense way he stared, suggested that the scenery he was referring to was her. He was beginning to annoy the hell out of her, and she had the sinking feeling that was exactly his intention.

      “Do you think you could possibly enjoy it from somewhere else?” she asked as politely as possible, despite her rapidly mounting irritation.

      “What’s wrong, Ivy?” He leaned forward on his elbows, deeper into her personal space. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

      That was the last thing she wanted him to think. He no longer had any power over her. She was strong and independent. She answered to no one but herself. “No, but I would like to read a few more chapters before dinner. If you don’t mind.”

      “Not at all. You go on ahead and read.”

      “Thank you.” She turned her attention back to her book. He was quiet for several minutes, but in her peripheral vision she could see that he hadn’t moved from his spot. He was still watching her.

      He was definitely doing it to annoy her. There was no other logical explanation.

      “I saw your mom a few weeks ago,” he finally said.

      She sighed and gathered her patience. So much for sitting outside, reading and enjoying the view.

      She very calmly marked her page, shut the book and looked up at him. Ten years ago she would have thought he looked damned good standing there, the sun reflecting bluish-black off his dark hair, eyes slightly squinted against the glare and crinkled in the corners. The distinguished kind of crinkles that men got. The same things that on a woman were just plain old ugly wrinkles.

      Dillon had that special something, a physical appeal that was impossible to ignore. Or resist. In the short term, anyway.

      As she’d quickly discovered, looks aren’t everything. What he needed was the personality to go along with it. One that wasn’t quite so…annoying.

      “You still fold your page over to mark your spot,” he said. “No matter how many bookmarks you bought, you always misplaced them.”

      For a minute she was speechless. How had he remembered such a mundane, trivial detail about her? She honestly didn’t think he’d been paying attention.

      “Anyway,” he continued, “I was in downtown Dallas for a meeting, and I saw your mom through the window of her shop. She looks as though she’s doing well.”

      “She is.” It had taken a while, but her mom had finally gotten her life together.

      “I would have stopped in for a trim, but I was running late.”

      Only a complete fool would go to his former mother-in-law for a haircut. And while Dillon may have been a big pain in the behind, he was not a fool. Complete or otherwise.