The Worst Best Man

Written by Lucy Score in 2024, The Worst Best Man focuses on Aiden Kilbourn, New York City’s hottest billionaire bachelor. Aiden finds his dislike of long-term relationships challenged when he acts as the best man at a wedding and encounters the working-class Frankie Baranski, the witty and confident maid of honor. As the two engage in a wide variety of escapades and fall in love, they must both grow to learn how to be supportive partners to one another.

Score’s first novel, Undercover Love, had modest success, but she eventually became a “BookTok” sensation, and her subsequent novels continued to gain traction until her novel Things We Never Got Over became the first of her titles to make the New York Times Best Seller list. To date, she has sold millions of novels worldwide, and her works have been translated into 29 languages.

This guide refers to the 2018 e-book edition by That’s What She Said Publishing.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss an instance of sexual harassment.

Plot Summary

Working-class Franchesca “Frankie” Baranski is in a bridal party consisting of New York City’s wealthiest residents. The gathering also includes the best man, Aiden Kilbourn, who is a handsome, aloof chief operating officer (COO) of a multi-million-dollar company and is commonly known as Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor. For the sake of the bride, her best friend Pruitt “Pru” Stockton, Frankie endures the other guests’ snobbishness until she overhears Aiden say that she dances like a pole dancer. She tells him off and refuses to accept an apology until she realizes that he is suffering from a migraine. Still fuming, she gets him medicine and provides him with a quiet place to sit before returning to the party.

When Frankie lands in Barbados, where the wedding will take place, she encounters Aiden and verbally spars with him. Aiden is amused and attracted to Frankie and is certain that his attraction is reciprocated. Later, as the only two sober people in the wedding party, Frankie and Aiden try to maneuver everyone through dinner and end up touching each other under the table. Later, when Frankie witnesses the kidnapping of Chip, the groom, she and Aiden try and fail to follow the kidnapper’s vehicle. Aiden gets a call that makes Frankie realize that the kidnappers are using Chip to get to Aiden. A teenager named Antonio recognizes Frankie’s description of Chip’s abductor, Papi, and drives her and Aiden to Papi’s favorite rum spots. Frankie learns that Chip was taken to a resort where there is intense security because of a high-profile wedding. Antonio knows a secret way in, so they don their wedding clothes to blend in. Frankie rips her dress as she climbs over the wall. As Frankie and Aiden argue and stumble through the jungle, they start to kiss. They’re interrupted by a guard and go to the reception desk, where Frankie creates a distraction so that they can look at the computer. Aiden recognizes a company name but refuses to go to the room, saying he needs to plan.

The next day, Frankie is not happy with Aiden’s seeming lack of action and calls Antonio, who takes her to the resort. She falls over the wall and stumbles into a group of maids, who help disguise her as one of them. When Frankie knocks at the door of room 314, a man she doesn’t recognize lets her in and leaves. She finds Chip and wakes him up, but she hits her head on the safe in the closet and begins to bleed. When the kidnapper comes back, Frankie breaks his nose with the alarm clock on the bedstand and threatens Aiden, who is right behind him. Chip and Aiden greet each other warmly and explain that Aiden didn’t try to kidnap him. In reality, Aiden’s half-brother, Elliot, had Chip kidnapped in order to force Aiden to vote for a specific company board president. Frankie won’t listen to their explanation. She makes Chip run, and the maids help her escape. As Antonio drives them away, Frankie sees Aiden calmly following them in a black SUV. At the hotel, she refuses to listen to Aiden, who presents her with a new bridesmaid dress and helps clean the blood off her face.

They race to the ceremony. The wedding goes well, and Aiden can’t keep his eyes off Frankie. He is honest about his desire for her. Although she initially resists his interest, they eventually have sex on the beach, and Frankie cries as she experiences the powerful connection between them. Afterward, Frankie flees the island, ready to go back to normal life, but Aiden goes to her apartment and insists that their relationship is not over. Frankie’s brother Gio walks in, and as they all spend an evening together, Aiden is surprised by how comfortable the siblings are with each other. He and Frankie discover that they are both interested in business and agree to try a short-term relationship.

At her job helping small businesses, Frankie gets a present of a Burberry coat from Aiden. He goes to Sunday lunch with her family. May, Frankie’s mother, argues with Frankie and asserts that her relationship with Aiden wouldn’t be an equal partnership; May is unaware that everyone can hear them. Aiden is flattered when Frankie defends him. He and her brothers make a date for a basketball game. Aiden drinks too much with the other men and falls asleep snuggling with Frankie at her house. He later has fun with her brothers at the Knicks game.

Aiden’s father, Ferris, tells Aiden that he is divorcing his current wife (Aiden’s stepmother) for a new girlfriend and that he also wants to turn the company over to Aiden. He wants Aiden to prepare his half-brother, Elliot, for a similar responsibility and tells him that Frankie isn’t a good romantic choice. Meanwhile, Pru gives Frankie a lecture about taking from Aiden and not giving back. Frankie realizes that Pru is right and goes to Aiden’s work to apologize. She says that she’ll start giving him more, starting with oral sex under his desk. They agree to extend their temporary agreement into a real relationship.

Frankie accepts Aiden’s generosity and lets him buy her a beautiful red dress. He kisses her in front of photographers, and they have sex in his limo before dinner with Pru and Chip. Before dinner is finished, photos of their kiss have been posted to gossip blogs, and Frankie wonders if she can survive in his world. He buys her a beautiful dress and earrings for an upcoming gala, and she meets his family. His father and stepmother are snobbish, but Aiden’s mother, Cecily, is welcoming. Ferris tries to tell Frankie that she is not a good fit for Aiden, but she responds by criticizing Ferris’s demeanor around his son. Elliot threatens to tell Frankie that Aiden was responsible for Pru and Chip’s breakup in college, something that destroyed Pru’s health and happiness. Aiden doesn’t know what to do and goes to Frankie’s with a terrible headache. She enjoys taking care of him and is worried that she is falling in love with him.

While working her next catering gig, Frankie is horrified to realize that she is serving people from Aiden’s social circle. Aiden’s mother is kind, but his stepmother is rude and condescending. When a man sexually solicits and harasses Frankie, she hits him with her serving tray and tells him that Aiden is a far better man. The encounter immediately becomes big news, and Frankie is fired. Aiden finds her crying at a bar. When she shows him a video of the incident, he is upset by the incident but pleased that Frankie was loyal to him. He gets his public relations firm and lawyers on the job and makes her feel better. Frankie’s brother Marco tells her that the Baranski family’s deli is doing excellent business because of the scandal. Pru takes Frankie out to lunch, where they see one of the bridesmaids, Margeaux, and Elliot together. Later, while attending a benefit thrown by his mother, Aiden realizes that he loves Frankie.

Aiden’s father, Ferris, confronts Frankie and Aiden and warns Aiden that he is spending too much of his energy on a messy girlfriend. Frankie stands her ground, and Aiden later tells her that this is the first time anyone has defended him from his father. Later, when he leaves his building, Aiden runs into a crying Margeaux and gives her a ride home, but Margeaux uses the opportunity to kiss Aiden’s cheek in a public setting, resulting in a flurry of online gossip. Elliot ambushes Frankie and shows her the latest gossip photos of Aiden with Margeaux. He also tells her that years ago, Aiden precipitated the temporary breakup between Chip and Pru that caused Pru considerable emotional anguish. When examining the gossip photos, Frankie can see that they have been altered. However, she does confront Aiden about Chip and Pru. He expresses his love, but she continues to resist because she believes that they do not have an equal partnership. She leaves him but is devastated by her decision. Her brothers, Marco and Gio, console her and then visit Aiden’s office and advise him to stop chasing her so that she can figure out that she was the faulty partner in the relationship.

Pru tells Frankie that she has forgiven Aiden for his part in her temporary breakup with Chip in the past; she admits that he was probably right to believe that she and Chip were not ready for marriage at that time. She points out that Frankie has been looking for an excuse to leave Aiden. Frankie says that it’s too late to make up with Aiden, but Pru disagrees. Frankie gathers incriminating evidence against Elliot and convinces him to leave the company and Aiden alone. She goes to Aiden’s office and offers him a business plan for a neighborhood in Brooklyn and then asks him to marry her, apologizing for not being a good partner. He accepts, and they have sex on his desk.

Their friends and family meet them in Barbados for their wedding. Frankie and Aiden make love and think that they will never get enough of each other.