Best Man to wed

Chapter Two

Daenerys woke up abruptly and stared anxiously at the illuminated face of her alarm clock, her heart thumping in dread at the thought she might have overslept.
Five o' clock. She let her breath out in a sigh of relief and switched off the alarm, which she had set for five-thirty, as she swung her legs out of the bed. She hadn't slept well at all, and not just last night, but every night since the wedding, and, if she was honest with herself, for a long time before that too.
Yesterday she had come home to find her mother and aunt Catelyn pouring over the proofs of the wedding photographs.
It had hurt her to see the way both of them had looked slightly uncomfortable at her arrival. It had been exactly the same at the wedding, she acknowledged: people treating her with the well intentioned caution and sympathy which was meant to be compassionate but which had the effect of somehow making her feel just the opposite.  An outsider....a spectre at the feast.
The only person who gad treated her anything like normally had been the other bridesmaid....and Margaery's oldest and closest friend....who Daenerys had quickly learned held a very cynical and wryly funny view of relationships and commitment.
"Love may not last, but believe me, enmity does," Jeyne had told Daenerys during one of their bridesmaid dress fittings. "And I've got the parents to prove it. I swear mine pit more energy and emotion into loathing one another and fighting with one another than they ever did into their marriage, their supposed love."
She had seen how Catelyn had surreptitiously slid out of sight the photographs of the bride and groom in happy loving close-ups as they kissed for the camera and as she'd walked out of the kitchen she had heard her Catelyn telling her mother how much she liked Margaery and how very very much in love with her Robb was.
"I never thought he would fall so deeply in love,"Daenerys heard her adding as she paused on the stairs, not wanting to listen and somehow unable to stop herself. She was a masochist addicted to the source of her pain, she told herself bitterly as the older woman continued.
"Of the two of them Jon had always been the more passionate and intense one. Robb has always had a much sunnier, more resilient nature. I just wish.....How is Daenerys? She...."
Quickly Daenerys moved out of earshot, her body trembling inwardly with s mixture of pain and Indignation.
She knew how Jon would hav reacted if he had been privy to the conversation, how he would have taunted her for allowing herself to become the object of other people's pity..... something he would never allow to happen to him.  Daenerys's mouth twisted into a small bitter smile as she tried to imagine Jon being involved in any situation, any relationship which might cast him in such a role. Impossible.
It's all very well for Catelyn to describe Jon as the more intense of her two sons..... maybe he was, Daenerys allowed, though she thought it more a case of his being intent on having his own way and steam rollering anyone who stood in opposition to him. But more passionate ? And because of the passion, as Catelyn had somehow implied, more vulnerable than his easygoing older brother? No way.
The only intense passion that she had ever seen Jon exhibit was that of anger.......the kind of anger that she had felt when he had given her that unwanted, hateful kiss of contempt.
Daenerys shivered now as she hurried into the bathroom, the chill invading her body....that tiny betraying sensation.... nothing at all to do with the coolness of the early morning air.
In fact as she glanced through the window she could see that the pre-dawn sky was clear and it promised to be a clear warm day.
No reason for the almost electric shock of sensitivity raising goosebumps on her skin lay not outside her body but within it. It's cause was her own fiercely denied and totally shocked awareness of the fact that something within her, had been physically responsive to the practised skill of Jon's kiss.
It wasn't a subject she had any desire to explore.
The conference they were attending was a new one and it promised to be a highly prestigious event. Until Jon had announced that he would be going, taking the place not just of Robb but also if the sales team, Daenerys had been looking forward to it.
The venue was not Dorne l, where she had been in previous occasion, but a newly opened, exclusive spa resort and the brochure that Robb had shown her had made the events read more like an exclusive holiday than a work event.
Not that she would have time to enjoy the facilities of the spa, Daenerys reflected at she stepped out the shower and reached for a towel. Jon, she suspected would see to that. As she reached for her underwear she caught sight of her naked body in the bathroom mirror. She had always been slim, but the weeks leading upto the wedding, she had lost weight and now she acknowledged she was getting close to almost looking thin.
Jon had commented derisively on her lack of feminine curves only the previous Christmas, when they'd had their obligatory dance together at the firm's Christmas party. His hands had spanned her waist completely and he'd taunted her with the fact that her body was more that if a girl than if a woman.
"Just another indication of your reluctance to grow up and accept life as it really is." Had been his sardonic comment.
"I am an adult. I'm twenty four years old." Daenerys had countered angrily.
"On the outside,"Jon had agreed. "But inside you're still an adolescent clinging to a self created fantasy. You don't have an inclination what real life is all about, Daenerys....real emotions....real men."
She had denied his comments ofcourse, but it hadn't made any difference. It hadn't always been like this between them. They hadn't always shared an enmity which seemed to deepen and harden over the years  instead of relaxing and easing.
As a child she had adored Jon. He had then been the one who had rescued her from Robb's teasing, the one who had patiently taught her to ride her first bike, fly her first kite, the one who had mopped up her tears when she had fallen off the bike.
But all that had changed when she was twelve and had fallen in love with Robb. Jon's good humoured, friendly indulgence of her had turned to contemptuous hostility once he had recognised her feelings for Robb, and she had reciprocated with a fury and dislike which had grown over the years instead of abating.
The last thing she wanted to do she admitted to herself as she dressed quickly in her 'working uniform' of cream silk shirt and straight skirt, was to spend the next four days exposed to Jon's contempt and hostility, but it was not in her nature to take the cowardly way out of refusing to go, she took her job too seriously for that.
The actual translation work she did was not enough to keep her busy eight hours a day, five days a week , Daenerys acknowledged, but a look around at the kind of job her peers had been forced to take.....some of them with much better degrees than her own had made her determined to prove her worth to the business, an evening course in computer technology had turned out to be a wise investment if her time, as had her determination to involve herself in the administrative side of the business.
The over night bag that she had packed the night before was downstairs in the hall. Picking up her suit jacket she studied her reflection in the bedroom mirror critically.
Her hair, soft and straight made her look younger than she actually was, she knew but she was loathe to have it cut. Robb had once told her that he thought long hair on a woman was incredibly feminine. Her features didn't lend themselves well to exaggerated makeup and her skin was too pale, she decided critically. Her eyes, her best features were large and almond shaped, and fringed with thick dark lashes which looked ridiculous when loaded down with mascara. The colour of her eyes were a striking purple. Her nose was short and straight, and her mouth in her view, was an odd mismatch, her top lip well shaped and moderately curved, while her bottom lip was wider and fuller, somehow giving her mouth a sensuality which she personally found distressing and which she always tried to play down with a softly coloured Matt lipstick.
So far the early spring weather had been unreasonably fine and warm and her skin began to loose it's winter pallor, but she still had slipped on stockings beneath her skirt. Bare legs no matter how blissfully cool, did not, in her opinion, look properly businesslike.
Downstairs she made herself a cup of coffee and a slice of toast, which she knew she wouldn't eat. Her stomach was already churning nervously. She had never particularly liked flying.
Robb and Jon's father, Ned Stark, had been a keen and amature pilot, who had been killed with a friend when they had flown into a freak electric storm. She remembered how devastated Robb had been at his father's death. They had cried over it together sharing their grief. Jon, on the other hand, had retreated into a grim, white faced silence.....a remote stranger, or so it had seemed to Daenerys, who'd look contemptuously upon her and Robb's shared emotional grief.
She heard Jon's car just as she was swallowing her last mouthful of coffee. Quickly putting down her cup, she hurried out into the hall, pulling on her jacket and picking up her handbag and case as she went to open the door. Like her, Jon was dressed formally in a business suit, not black for once, but a light weight pale grey which somehow emphasized his height and the breadth of his shoulders.
As he took her case from her, Daenerys saw the brief assessing glance he gave her and her chin started to tilt challengingly as she waited for him to make some critical or derogatory comment, but instead, disconcertingly, she suddenly became aware that his original scrutiny had turned into something a little more thorough and startling more male as his eyes lingered on the soft curves of her breasts.
It was the kind of inspection that Daenerys was used to from other men. Acceptably discreet male awareness of her as a woman. But to be subjected to it by Jon.......Jon who had sternly reprimanded his brother when Robb had teasingly commented on her new shape the first day she had self consciously worn the pretty flower sprigged cotton bra that her mother had gravely agreed that her eleven year old barely thirty inch chest demanded.
Seeing Jon focus on that same chest in such a very male and sensual way when for years Daenerys could have sworn that he was totally oblivious to the fact that she had grown from a child to a woman was a very disconcerting experience.
Somehow just managing to resist the temptation to tug the edges of her jacket protectively together, Daenerys gave him an angry glare. How would he like it if she focused on....a certain part of his body in that way.
"Have you got everything?" She heard him ask her. "Tickets, passport, money?"
"Ofcourse" Daenerys responded. Thus was a business trip to Kingslanding, she told herself, and she intended to preserve a businesslike distance between them.
Outside, his jaguar gleamed richly in the early morning sunshine. As he opened the passenger door for her, Daenerys could smell the rich, expensive scent of the cars leather seat. Robb like Jon who was a director and shareholder in the company, drove a car with far less status and the urge to remind Jon of this fact was irresistible as he slid into the driver's seat next to her and started the car.
"Very nice" she commented, smoothing the cream leather with her fingertips. "A perk of the job I presume?"
"No, as a nat if fact it isn't." Jon shocked her by denying as he swung the car into the traffic. "It's time you bought yourself up to date with the current tax laws, Daenerys." He told her sharply. "Even if I wanted to make use of my connection.... with the company to my own financial advantage, the current tax penalties involved in owning an expensive company car would prohibit me from doing so."
Daenerys could feel her face start to burn as she interpreted the message in the first part of his statement. Unlike her, he did not have to benefit from the connection with the company, he was implying.
The traffic was starting to build up as they got closer to the airport and already Daenerys stomach was starting to clench nervously as she anticipated what lay ahead. It was the moment of takeoff she dreaded the most, once that was over it was eaiser for her to relax.
The spot in Kingslanding where the conference was being held was three hours drive from the airport, which meant, Daenerys suspected, that they would be spending the better half of the day travelling. She had bought some work with her to keep her occupied during the flight.....and to ensure she didn't have to talk to Jon.....but she couldn't help wistfully reflecting how different things would have been if her traveling partner would have been Robb....a Robb who was not married to Margaery or anyone else. A Robb who......
Stop it! She warned herself sternly. He is a married man and you have got to stop thinking about him.....stop loving him.....
As she quickly blinked away the weak tears she could feel  threatening her, she heard Jon say sardonically, "Poor Daenerys, still hopelessly in love with a man who doesn't want her. Why do I get the impression it's a role you actively enjoy playing?" He asked her savagely. The harshness in his voice shocking her.
"That's not true!" She denied hotly.
"That's not the impression I get,"Jon told her as he negotiated the maze of slip roads that led to the car park. "Infact I'd say the role of self-pitying lover is one you've embraced with far more enthusiasm than you have for embracing true love."
Daenerys's face burned hotly as he parked the car and opened the door. She wasn't going to dignify his comments by responding to them........or defending herself, she told herself fiercely. Nor was she going to let Jon see how much it had hurt her.
"It's no wonder that Robb prefers to take a real woman to bed"Jon told her cruelly as he opened the door for her and waited for her to get out.
I am a real woman, Daenerys wanted to protest. Just as real as Margaery, just as capable of giving love, of inciting passion and desire. But was she? Was there something inherently feminine and desirable in Margaery that was Missing from her? Was she somehow lacking in that vital ingredient that made a woman loveable and desireable?
Daenerys wondered why was Jon always trying to goad her, to hurt her, to provoke a reaction from her which would enable him to reinforce his condemnation of her as immature and foolish.
What was his purpose in doing this Daenerys really didn't know, had never really questioned. The enmity which had developed between them had grown alongside her love for Robb until she accepted it in the same way that she had accepted her love. But despite the fact that Robb's marriage had now forced her to accept that she now had to find a way of severing herself from the past and finding another focus for her life, if accepting that Robb could never be apart of that life in the wy that she had so much hoped. It seemed since the wedding, Jon's antagonism to her had simply increased.
Why? Was he trying to force her into leaving the company? Was his desire to hurt her, to undermine her....to destroy her....to do with the business, or something more personal?
Jon had locked the car and was waiting impatiently for her to join him.
These next few days were going to be the longest of her life Daenerys reflected.
"You can relax now, we're airborne."
The sound of Jon's voice in her ear made Daenerys open her tightly closed eyes, her pent up breath leaving in a relived sigh from her lungs as she recognised the truth of what he was saying.
Having shudderingly refused the window seat that Jon had offered her, she had fastened her seat belt and willed herself not to give in to her childhood need to have a familiar hand to cling to as the plane had taxied down the runway and started to lift off.
Atleast she had managed not to do that although.... surreptitiously she slowly released the tense fingers, she had not been able to stop herself from curling into the immaculate smoothness of Jon's suit jacket....and not just Jon's suit jacket she noticed uncomfortably, but Jon's very solit muscled arm as well.
His dry "thank you Daenerys" as she tried to remove her hand from his arm without him noticing what she had done made her flush guiltily and avoid looking at him.
Did he never feel afraid? She wondered bitterly. Did nothing ever dent that iron self control of his? Had no-one ever made him ache.....hurt.....yearn for her so much that nothing else...... no-one else mattered?
If anyone had, she had certainly never been aware of it, Daenerys thought, but then she had been too Involved in her own feelings to pay much attention to anyone else.
As always, now that they were actually airborne, her fear left her, her body starting to relax....
She refused the drink that the stewardess offered her and reached for her case and the work she had bought with her. Jon she noticed was already engrossed in some papers which he had removed from his briefcase. Well, atleast while his attention was on them he wouldn't be able to pick on her, she decided with relief.
"Oh Jon, just look at the view," Daenerys breathed, sometime later, unable to keep the awed delight from her voice as she stared through her hire car window at the panorama spread before them.
Transport had been arranged from the airport to the conference center, but Jon gad opted to make his own arrangements and independently hire a car and Daenerys had felt no trepidation traveling with him, since she knew that not only was he a very safe driver but that he was also familiar with the Kingslanding's road.
The thought of spending three hours shutup in a car only with him for company had been a different matter and until they had started to climb into the mountains she had resolutely occupied herself with her own thoughts rather than try to engage him in any kind of conversation. Conversations with Jon , she had decided bitterly, always seemed to lead to the same place...to them arguing.
Pride and her awareness of how unsympathetic and antagonist towards her he was had prevented her from trying to defend herself by telling him that loving Robb had become a burden that she desperately wanted to remove from her life.
Had they had a different relationship, had they been closer, had she felt able to trust him, to turn to him for help, she might have been able to able to admit to him how much she longed to have someone to confide in, someone to whom she could talk to about her feelings and her guilt at her own inability to leave behind a love she knew would only cause her pain. If things had been different.....if he had been different....if he still had been the same Jon he had been when she was a child.... But he wasn't and somewhere, somehow, the friendly love he had once felt for her had gone.
Her determination not to give him any opportunity not to criticise or condemn her while they were alone by keeping silent and aloof from him had disintegrated, though as the road started to wind through the ancient chain of mountains, taking them through small villages and dusty towns in whose Renaissance squares Daenerys could very easily visualise the kings who had once ruled.
She soon feel off to sleep watching the scenery pass by the window on the drive to the hotel.
"Daenerys."
Sleepily Daenerys opened her eyes and eased her aching body into a more comfortable position when she realised the car had come to a halt and that they had reached their destination.
The hotel, as she read in the brochure, had originally been a mediaeval fortress built by a king, set high up in the hills to guard his territories, but reading about it had not prepared her for the raw magnificence of a structure which seemed to be carved out of the rock itself, rising up steeply from the walled courtyard in which they were now parked.
Even though she knew the original fortress was now a shell which had been used to house a far more modern and luxurious center, Daenerys felt awestruck and faintly intimidated by the sheer stark rise of the stone edifice in front of her, which was softened only slightly by its mantle of ivy and roses.
Knowing how luxurious the hotel promised to be and being hit by the heat of the sunshine when she stepped out of the car, unable to remove her gaze from the sheer sweep of rock from which the outer way of the fortress had been cut, Daenerys couldn't quite repress a small shiver.
"Not the kind of place you want to be incarcerated as a prisoner" she heard Jon saying behind her, his comment so exactly mirroring her own thoughts that she turned towards him in suprise as he added drily, "I wouldn't give much for anyone's chance of escaping from here."
"No." Daenerys agreed bleakly. A prisoner would probably have about as much chance of escaping from such a place as she had of escaping Jon over the next few days.
The car park was starting to fill up rapidly with other arrivals. Picking up their cases, Jon touched Daenerys briefly on the shoulder.
"Reception seems to be that way. Let's go and get booked in before it develops into too much of a rush."
Once inside the hotel, she followed Jon towards the reception.
Immaculately groomed girls, in suits as understated as their surroundings were ornate, busied themselves dealing with the rapid influx of guests, and Daenerys was cynically amused to see that Jon who was infact behind three other men trying to claim one girls attention, received the full wattage of her very alluring smile whilst they were totally ignored.
Daenerys had always known that other women found him attractive. She could even remember how in the days before she had fallen in love with Robb, she had actually felt angry and jealous herself if he paid her school friends more attention than he did her. But those days were gone now, even though she registered the accessing look the receptionist gave her as Jon leant over the desk to speak to the girl and handed her their passports she was not affected by it. The receptionist was welcome to him.
She tensed as she suddenly realised what the receptionist was saying to Jon, and hurried towards him demanding angrily, "what does she mean our room?"
The girl was already reaching behind her to give Jon a pass-key. A key, Daenerys noted in disbelief.
"Jon......" She urged. But Jon had already anticipated her and was turning back to the receptionist, telling her in Swift fluent Valarian that there appears to be a mistake and that they required two seperate rooms.
"No," the girl denied shaking her head and picking up their passports and a list she had in front of her. She read out carefully, "Mr and Mrs Snow." And then said first to Daenerys "You Are Mrs. Snow," and then to Jon, "You are Mr Snow."
"I am Daenerys Targaryen" Daenerys said. "And I am not his wife. We are not married.......I   am not............"
When the receptionist continued to gaze blankly at her, she turned angrily to Jon, "You tell her Jon. Explain, make her understand."
How could such a mistake have been made? Daenerys fumed as she stood back while Jon quickly explained to the receptionist the misunderstanding which seemed to have occurred and asked her to change their booking from one double room to two singles.
Robb's secretary had made the original bookings. She was comfortably middle aged and extremely efficient and Daenerys couldn't believe that she could have made such a mistake. The receptionist had summoned the duty manager at Jon's request and Jon was explaining the situation to him and reiterating the fact that they required two seperate rooms.
The duty manager shrugged and shook his head. "That, I'm afraid is not possible," he told Jon. "The hotel is fully booked for the conference, every room already taken...."
"But they must have somewhere......some room..."Daenerys gasped as she heard what he was saying.
"None. There is nowhere." The duty manager repeated firmly.
"Then we'll just have to find somewhere else to stay" Daenerys burst out.
Her face flushed beneath the withering look Jon gave her as he asked her sarcastically, "where exactly did you have in mind? The nearest town is forty miles away."
"Then......then I'll just have to..... have to sleep in the car." Daenerys asserted wildly. "I......."
"For four days?" Jon gave her a derisive look. "Don't be so ridiculous....."
"Jon, you can't let them do this" Daenerys protested as the duty manager turned awt from them to deal with the harrassed looking courier in charge of a party of Japanese who, from what Daenerys could hear from their agitated conversation, had lost not just some luggage en route but one member of their party as well. "Do something."
"Such as?" Jon asked, gesturing to the now packed reception area and the press of people demanding attention from the receptionist.
"You've attended conferences before, you know what they're like,"he pointed out. "The rules is if it can go wrong it will......"
"Maybe. But it's never gone wrong before," Daenerys seethed. "How can they make a mistake like that? There must be something you can do?  Offer to pay them extra....to...."
"Daenerys !" Jon told her, speaking slowly and patiently as though she were a child too young to grasp what he was saying. "There are no empty rooms. Believe me. I just heard one of the receptionist telling another that she's already been forced to give up her staff room and share with someone else on another shift because of overbooking. Believe me it's either this room or nothing."
It was on the tip of Daenerys toungue to tell him if that was the case then there was no way she was staying. But then she remembered how much Jon would relish her giving him the opportunity to prot how unprofessional she really was and she forced the impulsive words back.
Jon taking her acceptance for granted, was already signing the register and taking possession of their pass cards.
"We might as well find our own way," he told Daenerys. "God knows how long we'll have to wait for a porter."
Like her Jon was only carrying a briefcase and an overnight bag. She juy hoped that the hotels laundry services were better organized and more reliable than its booking system, she reflected angrily as she followed Jon towards the nearest lifts.
Their rooms were on the upper floors, the silence as they stepped out of the lift onto the polished marble floor broken only by the hum of the air conditioning.
"This way," Jon instructed her. Their room was halfway down the corridor and Daenerys waited while Jon opened the door and then froze with shock as she got him inside and stared in white faced disbelief at the rooms one single, solitary double bed.
A double bed......
She looked at jon and then back at the bed, announced flatly, "I don't believe this......."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Jon told her smoothly, "but as the company's official translator, wouldn't it normally fall within your field of operations to provide correct foreign translations for those departments that might need them ?"
"You know it would," Daenerys agreed irritably. "But......."
"And I think I'm also right in saying,"Jon continued grimly, "that when this particular booking was made you believed that you would be attending this conference with Robb....."
Daenerys stared at him in shocked disbelief as she realised what he was implying.
"Yes, I did think I was coming here with Robb" she agreed furiously. "But that does not mean that I deliberately altered the booking so that Robb and I would be forced to share a room. I had nothing to do with this booking. It was made by fax whilst I was away on holiday, and if you think for one moment that, no matter what my feelings....for anyone.....I would never stoop to doing something like this..... that I would ever try to force.....or manipulate a man.....any man....but most especially one I.....I cared about....."
She couldn't go on. Her words abruptly suspended by the force of her emotions.
"I can't stay here in this room with you," she protested huskily when she could trust herself to speak again. "I can't......and I...."
"Stop being so hysterical," Jon told her coldly. "You don't have any choice. Neither of us does. This conference is very important. I've spent months making contact with various International companies who'll be attending it...... potential customers, and I don't have time to waste dealing with a hysterical, manipulative idiot......."
"I did not arrange this. It has nothing to do with me." Daenerys protested furiously. "The last thing I want....I would ever want....is to share a be......a room with you...."
"I believe you," Jon told her cuttingly. "But then you didn't think you would be here with me, did you? And I promise you, Daenerys, you're not exactly the ideal choice of a bed mate either. What the hell was that conniving little mind of yours planning? Some kind of emotional blackmail.....? A threat to tell Margaery that Robb had been sleeping with you if he didn't come across and....."
"No!"
Her denial had been as explosive as a blow, Daenerys acknowledged as she stared at Jon in sick disbelief. Did he really think she could.... would stoop to something so underhand as that?
Her mouth twisted bitterly as she made herself look straight into the wintry contempt of his eyes and told him quietly, "I love Robb, and in my book that means putting him first....not wanting to hurt him..... despite what you seem to think, I don't need you to tell me that Robb doesn't feel the same way about me. Do you really think I'd want him on those kind of terms....? That I'd want any man who...." she swallowed, unable to go on.
"What I think is that you've become so obsessed with your so-called love for Robb that you don't know what's reasonable or rational anymore...."
"You're wrong", Daenerys told him, but she could see from the look on his face that he didn't believe her.