Lincoln smiled back, but it wasn’t the usual deliberate grin he’d been practicing for so many years now that it had become second nature.

This smile was real, because she was right. They were alike, he and Daisy.

And they were going to get along, because in only a couple of minutes, under the guise of casual quips, they’d just exchanged more truths with a perfect stranger than they had with anyone else in years.

Lincoln couldn’t explain how he knew it, but he and Daisy Sinclair got each other. Their respective walls had been acknowledged, a silent agreement passed that neither would try to scale the other’s.

Here, in the unlikely place of his best friend’s wedding, Lincoln had found someone else who understood that the best way to cope with hidden secrets and quiet pain was to simply pretend.

And yet, beneath the relief that Daisy was perhaps the woman who’d never ask for more than Lincoln could give, there was something else…

An unsettling and unfamiliar realization that for the first time in a long time, Lincoln wanted something more than to protect his own secrets.

He wanted to know hers.

Chapter 2

Truth be told, Daisy Sinclair was relieved her sister had warned her about just how good-looking Lincoln Mathis was. It had prompted Daisy to Google him, and seeing his picture had almost prepared her for the jolt of seeing him in person last night.

Almost, but not quite.

Because simply put, Lincoln Mathis was the best-looking guy she’d seen…ever.

The kind of guy who belonged on movie posters and underwear ads.

She watched him now from her quiet corner of the room as she sipped her champagne. He hadn’t been joking when he said he was going for laughs in his speech. The wedding guests were positively eating out of his hand.

Of course, with the way the man looked in a tux, he could have stood up there and said not a word, or screamed obscenities, and everyone would still be half in love with him.

Lincoln’s dark brown hair fell in boyish waves over his forehead, but the broad shoulders and strong jawline were all man. His blue eyes were as playful as they were secretive. He was quick to laugh, even quicker to smile, and as far as she could see, never without the perfect one-liner.

All of the groomsmen wore pale pink bow ties to match the bridesmaids’ cocktail dresses, and somehow Lincoln Mathis managed to make the feminine color look sexy as hell.

Daisy thought Emma had been joking when she’d said pink was the best man’s idea. Now she wasn’t so sure. Lincoln seemed to thrive on being unexpected.

She took a deep breath, slowly letting herself relax after the nerves of her speech. Daisy had never minded public speaking, knew she could handle a crowd every bit as adeptly as Lincoln was handling it now, but tonight’s “performance” had been different.

This was her twin, and though perhaps only she and Emma had known it, Daisy’s speech was a good-bye of sorts. For their entire childhood, they’d belonged only to each other. Now Emma would belong to another.

Still, Daisy had spoken from the heart when she’d described the delight of watching a college-aged Emma and Cassidy fall in love all those years ago. She’d meant it when she said she’d felt the agony of their separation right along with Emma. (Daisy had skimmed over that bit, obviously.) And she’d meant it when she’d said that their finding each other again was the stuff of fairytales.

But the part of Daisy’s speech that might have been just a touch embellished? Her gushing about the magic of matrimony.

Daisy knew that the Big White Wedding didn’t always lead to Happily Ever After. Or even Contentedly Ever After.

Sometimes a wedding was nothing but the first step on the descent to a very personal hell.

Daisy was happy for Emma and Cassidy. She was. Watching them exchange vows, she thought her heart would burst in happiness.

But it had hurt too. Because she remembered all too well what that felt like. Remembered the joy and the hope, and the confidence that the man who said I do would love you forever.

Ha.

Daisy had no doubt that Cassidy would love Emma forever. Alex Cassidy was a good man—a great one—who’d give his life for Emma.

But Daisy hadn’t been nearly so lucky.

She took a sip of champagne and, hearing someone at a nearby table sniffle, snapped to attention, returning her focus to the best man.

“…It’s not every day you get to bear witness to one of life’s great love stories,” Lincoln was saying as he lifted a glass. “But I consider myself blessed every day, not because I know Cassidy, not because I know Emma, but because I know these two as they are together. They bring out the best in each other. The best in all of us. To Emma and Cassidy.”

Daisy lifted her glass along with the rest of the room, even as her eyes narrowed on Lincoln. They’d had a deal. She had tears, he had laughs. And then he’d gone for both.

That son of a bitch.

Hell, even Cassidy looked like he was swallowing a lump in his throat as he went to man-hug his friend.

Lincoln caught Daisy’s eye over Cassidy’s shoulder and winked.

She let out a little laugh as she sipped her champagne. The bastard.

“He’s hot, right?”

Daisy turned and found the girlfriend of one of Cassidy and Lincoln’s coworkers standing beside her. She quickly flipped through her mental Rolodex trying to remember all the names she learned last night. Mandy? Macy? No, Mollie.

Mollie was dating the Jackson Burke. Daisy wasn’t ashamed to admit being a little starstruck about being in the same room as the multi-Super-Bowl-winning quarterback. An injury had ended his career, and he’d rebounded by joining the Oxford team as a fitness editor.