I grimaced—feeling like kangaroo shit on the bottom of a shoe. His father had abandoned him when he was young, as had his mother. He’d never had the opportunities I did growingup.
And while I had viewed the house as a prison, Josh would have seen it as somethingelse.
Simon parked his jeep in front of the house, next to a BMW I didn’t recognize. As we exited the vehicle, Mum stepped from the house with a man wearing a white shirt and dark gray trousers. He looked vaguely familiar…and a lot hotter than I remembered. Where was my father? No doubt still at theoffice.
“Ohmigod, is that…?” Iasked.
Simon grinned the mischievous grin I was more than familiar with. The one he usually wore right before he pushed me into thepool.
On instinct, I glanced behind me. Nope, a pool hadn’t magically appeared there in the last thirtyseconds.
“Yep, that’s Wilfred,” Simonreplied.
“That’s the geeky guy you were talking about?” Josh asked. “He’s not quite what I wasexpecting.”
That made two ofus.
Wilfred’s light brown hair hadn’t changed. Much. It was short with a slight curl, and now he had a light beard. His thick glasses? Replaced by contacts—or he’d had laser surgery. And his body was definitely not what I remembered. His arms were well developed like Josh’s, and even though he had trousers on, it was clear his lower body matched the tophalf.
“Holly,” my mother said, “you remember Wilfred.” It wasn’t a question and the warmth in her tone was manufactured. Possibly inChina.
“Yes, I do,” I said, my tone the polar opposite of hers. And it had nothing to do with his looks. “It’s nice to see you again,Wilfred.”
“You too, Holly. But I now go byDrew.”
“Drew?”
“It’s short for my middle name,Andrew.”
Drew was a much better fit. He looked neither like a Wilfred or aFred.
Although from the way my mother was looking at him, I didn’t think she agreed with me. To her, Drew didn’t have the same impact as Wilfred the Third. Wilfred spoke of tradition—Drew, not somuch.
“This is my fiancé, Josh.” Because as good looking as Drew was, I still wasn’tinterested.
San Francisco was now myhome.
Granted, I wasn’t an American citizen yet, or even a permanent resident. The company I worked for had sponsored my green-card application—which I needed before I could be a U.S. citizen. Now I was just waiting for the U.S. government to approveit.
Andwaiting.
Andwaiting.
Andwaiting.
“Nice to meet you,” Drew said, appearing slightly taken aback by the news of my engagement. Guess no one had filled him in on thatpart.
My mother? How was she takingit?
You know what they say about the eye of the hurricane? Meet theeye.
Drew and Josh shook hands. But other than the initial surprise at my news, Drew seemed genuinely happy to meetJosh.
“How come Holly hasn’t mentioned you before?” dear old Mum askedJosh.
The best part about the fifteen-hour flight here was that it had given Josh and I plenty of time to come up with ourstory.
“Because I didn’t think there was any point to it,” I said. “Not until we knew for sure where things were going between us.” Fortunately, the sky was cloud-free. No lightning bolts would be striking me for that lie. “And then one thing led to another, and Josh proposed to me on our first anniversary together. But I decided to wait until the right moment to announceit.”
