It’s Patrick Bouchard.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Like his twin sister Olivia, light-to-medium brown hair accents flawless tanned skin and light green eyes. It makes for a striking combination, and with a perfect, porcelain white smile and lean yet muscular build, he’s never short of admirers. Particularly the MILF variety, if the eyes currently on us are any indication.
“Well, if it isn’t our favorite Baby Birdie. I almost didn’t recognize you.” He slings his arm over the back of my chair, and the asshole plants a kiss on my cheek. Every instinct in me screams to claw out his eyes and tongue before scrubbing my face with bleach, but from anyone else’s perspective, it probably looks like he’s being affectionate, greeting an old friend.
That’s the thing about Patrick. He has that quintessential All-American charm that could rival any teen heartthrob. Everybody knows he’s a shameless flirt, but he has a way about him that makes it seem playful rather than smarmy. Unless you’ve seen his uglier side. Now, all I can see is an artfully placed mask of the creep hidden beneath.
Even worse, I see my dad has left the table, his back turned to us as he’s lost in conversation with one of his former football colleagues, and Blythe is all but throwing visual daggers at me, the message implicit.
Don’t you dare make a scene.
Patrick didn’t even directly participate in “the incident,” as Blythe always referred to it, so if I slap him or flat-out run from the restaurant, it will only make me look crazier in the eyes of my father and sister, winning me absolutely zero brownie points.
“Awww, but how could I ever forget that lovely face?” The asshole chucks me under the chin, and, once again, it sounds playful and even admiring, when in reality he’s referring to the glare I’m leveling at him.
When Mrs. Compton asks how we know each other, Patrick is fast on the uptake, declaring that I’m “the one who got away.”The ladies at the table giggle their idiotic heads off, except my sister who’s whispering something to her boyfriend.
Thank God someone’s hand claps down on Patrick’s shoulder, but where I was hoping it would be my brother’s, the voice confirms the exact opposite. “I believe that’s my seat.”
Patrick and I both turned to see it’s none other than Jase, and just as the former begins to announce his arrival with a certain name starting with R-I-V, Blythe raises her voice loud enough to drown out the rest as she declares, “This is Lauren’s brother, Jase.”
And she just keeps talking like that, making sure he doesn’t get the chance to introduce himself properly as he shakes everyone’s hand at the table. Jase looks equal parts annoyed and like he might laugh because, to anyone actually paying attention, it looks weird.
Almostas weird as Jase appearing out of nowhere.
Seriously, he didn’t come through the entrance to the restaurant, and the only other way is from off the terrace. The view looks out onto the golf course, and seeing what he’s wearing, he sure as hell isn’t coming back from there. Jase may be in head-to-toe black and wearing a button-up dress shirt, but he’s still wearing jeans. The country club’s dress code strictly forbids blue jeans, and though wearing black ones isn’t against the rules, it is still frowned upon. But never are you underanycondition supposed to wear denim out on the golf course. Ever.
So what the hell was Jase doing? Slinking along the side of the building for shits and giggles? I look to the terrace door where I suspect he just came through, only to find a certain someone stepping through it.
“Ali.” Wes’s face immediately lights up when he sees me, and he excuses himself from his fellow golfers as the other guys go to find a table.
Unlike the jackass lurking behind me, Wes is properly adorned in golf attire and looks all too relieved to be stepping into the air conditioning.
It takes him a second to process the image in front of him, and he hesitates. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
I knock Patrick’s hand away from under my chin and shove my chair back so that his arm falls off the backrest, finally giving me an excuse to free myself from him as I stand up to greet Wes. “Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just an old classmate, and I’m…how did you put it?” I ask, looking back down at Patrick with a perfect Pan Am smile. “‘The one who got away’?”
I can’t quite read Jase’s expression, but Patrick is obviously annoyed, enough that he feels he has to establish dominance by introducing himself to Wes. He says his last name like it should mean something, and, granted, to most people, it does. His family has the kind of money that would make even the people around here blush.
Wes, however, doesn’t even bat an eye, doing the same, albeit far more casually.
The name Holbrooke still perks up more than a few metaphorical ears, and Blythe’s friend, Candice, asks, “Are you David’s son?”
From what Maggie said last week, I suspect this to be the elusive investment mogul she was referring to.
Wes just gives an easy smile. “No, he’s my uncle. My father is his oldest brother.”
It sounds like a simple enough statement, but the atmosphere in the room shifts so substantially that you would think Wes just declared himself to be the Prince of England.
Hell, maybe he did, because several people at the table have to restate, “Your father isPhillipHolbrooke? As intheWesley Phillip Holbrooke II?”
And now Wes looks a little bashful but masks it with a slight chuckle, trying to laugh it off. “I don’t believe he’s had ‘The’ in his title for many years, but yes.”
I literally have no idea who his father is, but I have a feeling by the way Patrick is glaring that Wes probably has the kind of F.U. money that eclipses even the Bouchard family, by a long shot.
And Patrick isn’t the only one glaring. Blythe’s eyes are on me with something akin to suspicion, and she only manages to wipe away the look when she addresses Wes. “And how exactly do you know our Ali?”
