"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'll take a little slice of you if you're serving it," he replied, balancing the plate in one hand and swirling his champagne with the other. His green eyes twinkled with merriment.

He wore a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, a loosened black bow tie, and formfitting black slacks. His sandy hair was perfectly cut, not a strand out of place. A groomsman, she recalled.

"Sir, you're holding up the line." She forced a hard tone and severe expression as she returned to slicing cake and scooping it onto plates. She'd learned at an early age that it was best to keep people at a distance from the very first. And if she had to make them hate her to do so, so be it, because she could not allow herself the slightest inkling of softer emotion, the very thing that led to disappointment, rejection and heartbreak. "Move. Now."

The man didn't walk away as she'd hoped. "I think perhaps I need to—"

"Shaye, darling," her mother called airily. The expensive scent of her perfume wafted from her, blending with the aroma of sugar and spice as she floated to Shaye's side. "I'm so glad you've met your new stepbrother, Preston."

Stepbrother? Not another one. Showed exactly how much contact Shaye had had with her mom these past few years. She hadn't known that groom number six had children. Actually, she hadn't even met her newest daddy until an hour before the wedding.

Shaye glanced at Preston. "I've never played well with others," she said to smooth the edge of her earlier rudeness. But that was it, nothing more.

"So I hear," he said, chuckling.

He was even more handsome when he laughed like that. Looking away, she gathered two plates and passed them to the people behind him. "It was nice meeting you, Preston, but I really need to finish serving the guests."

The band chose that moment to break into a soft, romantic ballad. Preston still didn't take the hint and move away. "I never thought I'd say this, but would you like to dance with me, little sister? After you're finished here, of course."