Slow Dance With The Best Man

Taming Hollywood’s Best Man

Shy Eloise Miller has hidden from attention since her mother’s scandalous affairs destroyed her family. So having to act as maid of honor in a glitzy celebrity wedding is her worst nightmare!

Under the glare of the world’s media, she’s paired with best man Noah Cross. On paper, this commitmentphobic Hollywood heartthrob is everything Eloise avoids. But soon he’s unlocking Eloise’s secret hopes, and tempting her to believe that her dreams of forever might come true...

Wedding of the Year

Saying “I do” in the spotlight!

Eloise Miller’s and Laurel Sommers’s lives have been turned upside down by Melissa Sommers’s celebrity wedding.

With Eloise promoted to maid of honor and Laurel’s wedding-planner skills pushed to their very limits, the last thing these two need are the best man and the groom’s brother intervening...

But as the media descend, the headlines get more scandalous.

Can Eloise and Laurel pull off the wedding of the year without a hitch?

Find out in...

Slow Dance with the Best Man

Don’t miss Laurel and Dan’s story coming soon!

Dear Reader,

For me, the romance of a wedding is perfectly suited to the magic of winter.

When my husband proposed, eleven years ago now, he did so in minus temperatures, up a mountain, between Christmas and New Year. Now, that might not sound romantic, until you realize that he was so determined to ask me to marry him at my favorite castle in the world—Dinas Bran, in Llangollen, near our hometown in North Wales—that he totally disregarded the weather forecast. All he cared about was that I said yes.

Of course I did.

We decided to carry on our wintry theme with a November wedding. It was perfect: from the art deco style, to the winter sunshine and crisp clear skies, to the elbow-length silk gloves I wore. We ate roast lamb and sticky toffee pudding, and it was fabulous.

So when I came to writing this winter-wedding duet, I knew exactly how to channel all that romance into my stories—and I even got to add a Frost Fair for a touch of added winter magic!

I hope you find Eloise and Noah’s story as magical and romantic as I do, and that you’ll be left wanting to know what happens to Laurel and Dan in the companion book, which takes place over the same five days as this one...

Love and confetti,

Sophie x

Slow Dance With The Best Man

Sophie Pembroke

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SOPHIE PEMBROKE has been reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills & Boon romance at university—so getting to write them for a living is a dream come true! Sophie lives in a little Hertfordshire market town in the UK, with her scientist husband and her incredibly imaginative six-year-old daughter. She writes stories about friends, family and falling in love—usually while drinking too much tea and eating homemade cakes. She also keeps a blog at www.sophiepembroke.com.

For Simon, after ten wonderful years of marriage.

Here’s to many more. x

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THREE DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS, Eloise Miller stood on the ancient stone steps of Morwen Hall, her hands clasped over the buttons of her dove-grey wool coat, and waited for her childhood arch nemesis to arrive and all hell to break loose.

‘I wonder if she’ll wear the veil,’ Laurel mused beside her. ‘I mean, she sent me scampering all over the country looking for the absolute perfect lace confection, but I can’t help thinking that Melissa really doesn’t like it when people can’t see her face.’

‘Which explains those awful billboards for her latest film,’ Eloise agreed, thinking of the monstrosities, tall as double decker buses, which featured little more than Melissa’s flawless features, shiny blonde hair and slim, pale shoulders. Oh, and the name of the film, probably. But Eloise would bet money that no one who’d seen the posters could remember what the film was called.

Melissa had the sort of captivating beauty that made everything else fade into insignificance. Except the fact she was a perennial mean girl, of course.

‘Do you think she’s as...demanding on set as she has been over this wedding?’ Laurel asked and, not for the first time, Eloise felt a burst of sympathy for her new friend. As Melissa’s half-sister and wedding planner, Laurel had it far worse than Eloise. Not only did Laurel have to manage a whole five-day wedding celebration extravaganza for the rich and famous but, once this wedding was over, Eloise would never have to see Melissa again. Laurel would.

Mind you, having survived the teenage years, Eloise had been pretty sure that misery at Melissa’s hands was over for her, especially once Melissa set sail for Hollywood and stardom. And once she’d actually found it, against all the odds, Eloise had been certain that she’d never have to get closer to Melissa Sommers than a movie poster ever again.