A Night with the Society Playboy

Caleb said, ‘Did I mention I just ran into your sister?’

Damien had the good grace to look sheepish. ‘You’ve seen Ava.’

‘Unless you have another sister I didn’t know about. Of course I’ve seen Ava! I know you have just had the biggest wedding this town has ever seen, but it was still pretty likely I’d notice your long-lost sister had made an appearance. It didn’t occur to you to give me some kind of heads up?’

Damien slid Chelsea’s champagne from her grasp, took a gulp, then his nose screwed up as the bubbles tickled his throat. He slid the glass back into her grip and she just kept on talking to her sister without noticing a thing. ‘I don’t know why I did that.’

‘I do. You’re avoiding the topic at hand.’

‘Which was…?’

‘The prodigal daughter has returned.’

‘Right. Well, the truth is I wasn’t sure if she was coming.’

Caleb left a big gaping hole of silent disbelief between them.

‘It’s true,’ Damien said. ‘She wasn’t sure she could get away from school. She’s smack bang in the middle of her doctorate, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ Caleb said. ‘So I heard.’

‘Well, then, what’s the big deal? You had to assume she’d been invited.’

‘Not good enough,’ Caleb said, still finding it hard to simmer down. Especially after that long hot look he and the woman of the hour had shared across the crowded room. He hadn’t imagined it. The electricity between them could have shorted out the dozen Swiss designed watches in between.

‘Fine,’ Damien said. ‘The truth is, after what you told me I didn’t want to get your hopes up. That afternoon at the bar just before I proposed to Chelsea—’

Caleb held up a hand to stop his friend from saying any more. He remembered full well what he’d admitted to Damien in a unseemly fit of empathy brought on by a mix of hay fever medication, a week of late nights covering for his love-struck business partner, and a rearing of the ugly head of some random lone romantic gene life hadn’t yet managed to quash.

He hadn’t thought it wise to tell his best friend that he and the guy’s sister had done the horizontal tango in a canoe in the University of Melbourne boat shed the day before she’d fled the country. But he had admitted that he’d had feelings for her a long, long time ago.

In case Caleb was feeling particularly forgetful Damien added, ‘If not for my screwball parents setting such a bad example of what a real relationship should be like you and I could be related.’

Caleb’s hand moved close enough to Damien’s mouth he had to lean back away from it. ‘Thanks for the recap.’

Damien grinned. ‘Any time. So how did the big reunion go? Did violins play, hearts dance, angels weep?’

‘It was peachy. Not exactly as exciting as root canal, but more fun than test cricket.’

Damien’s eyes narrowed. ‘Like that, is it?’

Caleb smiled; no teeth, no humour.

‘I go on my honeymoon in three days’ time. Between now and then I’m going to need you around and I’m going to want her around. So promise me you’ll play nice.’

Caleb took a stuffed mushroom from a passing waiter and said nothing.

‘It’s taken some kind of convincing to make my new bride believe not all families are as screwed up as hers. I don’t need you two going at each other as you always did and spoiling the illusion for me, all right?’

Instead of dignifying Damien’s comments with a response Caleb stared at a point in the middle of his forehead, turned up the volume of his voice and asked, ‘Are you wearing make-up?’

Damien’s chin dropped and his eyebrows disappeared under his dark fringe. ‘Are you kidding me?’

At her husband’s raised voice Chelsea stopped talking and turned to join their little gathering. Kensey formed the last edge of the circle. And both women turned to look hard at Damien.

Caleb popped the mushroom in his mouth, grinned at his friend and walked away. Out of the marquee and towards the house.

‘Play nice!’ Damien called out from behind him. ‘For my sake, play nice.’

Caleb gave a small wave over his shoulder and made no promises.

Caleb rounded the corner of the Halliburtons’ large foyer and found Ava sitting on the winding staircase, her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, her ankles turned so that the toes of her silver Mary-Janes kissed.

Even though she had an empty stubby of beer dangling from one hand she couldn’t have looked more like a little kid dressed up in her elder’s finery if she’d tried.

When she saw him there she smiled.

‘Hi,’ she said, tilting the beer his way.

‘Hi,’ he said, pulling up short and tucking his hands into his trouser pockets.

Her smile, if anything, widened. And if she was any other woman, he would have thought by the coquettish look in her eyes the bottle in her hand swinging back and forth meant she was contemplating replacing one vice for another.

‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ she said.

‘Ten years and not a word. Now twice in ten minutes. If I didn’t know better, Ms Halliburton, I would think you were following me.’

‘Hey, I was here first.’

‘So you were.’

He smiled. She smiled some more. It was all far too civilised. It couldn’t last.

‘Any particular reason you’ve chosen to snub the festivities?’ he asked.

Her soft mouth slowly grew wider and wider until her face was all about killer cheekbones and eye sparkles, and Caleb decided it best not to say anything remotely nice or amusing in the hopes she’d save that debilitating smile of hers for someone else.

‘I’m hiding,’ she said.

‘From whom?’

‘Family, basically.’

‘Right. So have you caught up with your father yet?’

She bit her lip and looked straight through him for several seconds before blurting out, ‘Aunt Gladys. I’m mainly hiding from Aunt Gladys. She’s cornered me three times already with the aim of setting me up with her nephew Jonah. The fact that Jonah is also my cousin seems to have escaped her.’

‘That’s a tad alarming, even for Aunt Gladys.’