Buffy Summers stood in front of the full length mirror, hands on her hips, surveying the image in front of her. It wasn’t bad enough that her big brother Angel was getting married, but to add insult to injury, she had to be bridesmaid as well.
Angel had met Dru while he was working in London nine months prior. She knew it was serious when his weekly emails stopped being about his work as a lawyer and started focusing on his workmate’s sister, Drusilla. He and Dru had visited the Tower of London, he and Dru had taken a ride on the London Eye, and now he and Dru were getting married.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t like the idea of falling in love -- the idea of wanting to spend the rest of your life with another person, and finding your soul mate. All those concepts she was completely on board with, one hundred percent. It was just now as she stood in the middle of the “I Do” wedding shop that she just didn’t understand why she had to be dressed up as bridesmaid Barbie to do it.
“I am not wearing it, Angel,” she said as she gathered up the masses of tulle and taffeta and made her way back into the changing room.
“Come on Buff, cut me some slack. Not all of us think that the hippie look is the cutting edge of fashion.” Buffy threw the cotton candy pink dress over the door and into Angel’s face.
“Hey! I look good. Not all of us are marrying into money you know. Some of us have to dress on a budget,” she replied as she pulled her vintage Led Zeppelin t-shirt over her head.
“You could, you know.”
“Could what?”
“Marry into money. Dru has a brother,” he said in a mocking tone.
Buffy laughed as she opened the dressing room door.
“I’d sooner wear that dress than marry William Giles.”
“Don’t be like that, you haven’t met him yet.”
“No, but we have emailed several times and let me tell you he seems just a little tightly wound.” She fluffed her hair in the mirror as she spoke.
“He’s just English. They’re all that way. Once you get to know him he really is…”
“Uptight, stuck–in-the–mud, with no sense of fun?” She smirked. “He called me Miss Summers.”
“Well, it is kind of your name,” Angel reasoned.
“No, my name is Buffy. Is that so hard to remember?”
“No, the fact that you are anything but Buffy it is hard to forget,” he laughed.
“I don’t understand why you made him your best man and Dru made me maid of honor. I hardly know Dru,” she pouted.
“The day is about family. Our new family, we wanted you both beside us as we start our family. Dru and I want you and William to be a part of that.” Angel looked down at his watch.
“Damn, I’m running late to pick up Dru. Look, you go ahead to the office to meet William and we will be right behind you.”
Buffy frowned at the suggestion. “Don’t make me go on my own to meet him. It’s going to be awkward enough trying to plan this rehearsal dinner with someone I hardly know. Don’t leave me alone with a total stranger.” Her voice had a distinctive whine to it.
“He’s not a stranger. On Saturday he will be family,” Angel said as he walked out the door and down the street.
~
“Miss Summers is here to see you, Mr. Giles.” His assistant’s voice broke him from the depositions he was currently knee-deep in.
“Who?” He asked.
“Miss Summers, Angel’s sister.”
‘Oh right, the wedding.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had forgotten all about it. The current litigation he was working on was taking up most of his time and thoughts, due in part to Angel taking the next 4 weeks off to partake in said event.
“I’ll be another 5 minutes. Offer her a drink and send her to the boardroom. I will meet her there.” He clicked off the intercom and sat back in his chair.
‘Why couldn’t they elope to Vegas like normal people?’ he thought to himself as he stared at his computer screen. Didn’t Dru and Angel understand that there was a world that existed outside their love affair? He was happy for them, he really was. He even envied them at times.
William was married to his job. It was the legacy his late father had left in his lap with his sudden death five years early. He had wanted to be a lawyer, no question. He had wanted to do a few years helping out in legal aid before he joined his dad’s firm.
Now he had to drop everything because of a wedding. He resented the fact that he had to organize dinners and speeches, and take precious time out of work to do it. Work that – he constantly reminded Dru – helped pay for the blessed day. If he was serious with himself, what he really resented was the fact that they had found each other, and that he hadn’t even the time to look.
He couldn’t even get his assistant to organize it all. No, Angel’s younger sister, Miss Summers, had to be involved according to the betrothed couple. He suspected they had done that to avoid his assistant organizing the whole thing.
He had not yet had the pleasure of meeting Miss Summers, or Buffy as she would prefer to be known. They had, however, exchanged several e-mails over the past couple of weeks. From that ordeal, he had deduced that he was not in for an easy time. Every suggestion he had made was met with resistance. Not something he was used to. Being the head of one of the largest law firms in London, he was not told no often. Someone obviously had not informed her of this as she said no to him as often as she could.
He saved the document he was working on and made his way to the boardroom.
‘Better get this over with’
~
Buffy heard the boardroom door open. Looking over, she laid eyes on possibly the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen: tall and lean, with shocking blond hair, penetrating icy blue eyes, and well defined, sharp cheekbones. He wore suit pants and a button down blue shirt. He looked as though he had just come from the country club. He was studying her closely and she felt herself flush all over. This couldn't be. . . .
"You must be Miss Summers,” he said, his British accent at once hot and familiar.
Yep, it was. It was--
"Hi, William," she drawled, disappointed. He might be hot, but the guy seemed like such a drag in his e-mails.
He smiled tightly and held out a hand.
She took it politely, noticing how limp and unfeeling it was in her hand. The message was clear: he wasn't exactly thrilled to be meeting her, either.
“Good to see you two getting on so well,” Angel said as he and Dru walked into the board room.
Taking her hand back, she smiled wanly at him and turned her attention back to Dru and Angel who were now watching them closely and smirking.
"What?" Buffy asked defensively.
Angel grinned, "Oh, nothing."
~
"Wow, this place is like...wow," Buffy Summers breathed as she entered the Giles' home. No, home wasn't quite right. At least it didn't look like a home. It was more like a mansion that appeared more like a museum. Though, people lived in it, and apparently quite comfortably.
Currently, Dru and William were making sure their rooms were set to “perfection” as William had said. Buffy wouldn’t have been surprised if that meant he placed a gigantic snake in the middle of her bed.
"Don't start gawking," Angel whispered to her, nudging her elbow, "They're . . ."
"Uptight?" Buffy supplied. "Dru might not be, but her brother certainly is."
"Gee, and here I thought you liked William," Angel said sardonically, "You've done nothing but sing him praises."
Buffy rolled her eyes at her brother and slapped him on the arm. "Jackass."
~
She was a bloody infuriating chit if there ever was one, William Giles decided. Miss Summers, who refused to be called anything but Buffy, might very well have been bloody gorgeous, with her golden shampoo-commercial hair and incredible green eyes, but she was also a bloody thorn in his bloody side!
He was convinced that she made it a sport to contradict everything he suggested for the dinner party they were having for her brother and his sister.
First, she didn't like the idea of the dinner party when he'd suggested it a few months back over e-mail. She had wanted a party, a straight up party. He wanted something quiet and reserved and Miss Summers, or Buffy wanted something lively. He was sure that meant 'wild'.
"So, your hair is most definitely bleached," she told him as she helped him put the name tags on the tables for the guests. He'd carefully planned it all out, wanting to make sure that each person in attendance was comfortable with the people he or she knew. Buffy, on the other hand, had thought they should have mixed it up. "Maybe someone at this wedding is destined to meet the love of her life. How can she meet him if he’s sitting with the same group of people he already knows?" She pointed out.
He glowered at her, and then dutifully ignored her.
Then she had a problem with the flowers he picked out. Lilies, she said, were boring. Couldn't he have added a splash of color? Maybe some red roses? Orchids?
Now she was picking on his hair. Or that's the way he was taking it anyway. Standing before a lavishly decorated and set table, he glared at her, "Yes, and?"
She shrugged, "Well, you're not so uptight to bleach your hair-"
"I'm not uptight," he said tightly.
She quirked a brow. "William, if I stuck a piece of coal up your ass, in two weeks I'd have a diamond."
"You're bloody annoying, you know that? You've been nothing but a bleedin' nightmare since we started planning this for them-"
She looked at him, outraged. "Me? Me? Every time I want to do something, you tell me no-"
"Because your ideas are horrendous!" He exclaimed, frustrated.
"Not horrendous, fun! We're having a wedding, but you're making it more like funeral!"
"You want to turn this into a . . . a rager!" He sputtered.
"You could benefit from a rager, pal! When's the last time you cut loose?"
"Apparently not as much as you have, Buffy. Your good times seem to have destroyed a few brain cells."
"Asshole!"
"Bitch!"
"Nerd!"
"Brat!"
"Whoa! What the hell is going on in here?" Angel asked, bursting through the cream and lilac ballroom. Dru followed beside him, hanging onto his arm.
William's anger was still flaring, his blood boiling. It was. . . a rush. He stared at Buffy who was currently taking deep Buddha breaths to calm herself. No! He didn't want her to calm herself, he was ready to go a few more rounds.
That stopped him cold. When did arguing become a pastime? A hobby? Especially with an annoying chit like Buffy Summers?
"Nothing, big brother" Buffy assured Angel, smiling innocently at him. "I'm going to get ready for the party." She looked over at William and her eyes instantly narrowed as she asked, "Can you handle this?"
He nodded dumbly and turned away from them, heading towards the next table and beginning the procedure of placing name tags down all over again.
"Look, I'm sorry I called you a prick earlier," Buffy said to William as she joined him outside. She hadn't felt too guilty about screaming at him until Angel had laid into her about them being family now and that all the yelling had hurt Dru's 'delicate sensibilities'. What the hell were 'sensibilities' anyway and why was Angel using it?
William, she'd noticed, had slunk out halfway through the rehearsal dinner and stood outside on the balcony of the huge ballroom, having a smoke. He looked at her from the corner of his eye, not even bothering to turn his head, which just infuriated her.
"You didn't call me a prick. You called me an asshole and a nerd," he said coolly.
She rolled her eyes, "Yeah, well, sorry for those too."
"Then I apologize for saying how you were the product of hippie parenting."
"That's funny because I swore I said you were the product of Nazi upbringing."
He turned then, and glared at her. She glared back and then smiled, "See you bright and early tomorrow morning."
He scowled at her. Waving, she smiled brilliantly and bounced back to the party.