Saying Yes to the Millionaire

Not that people really thought about raising money for an organisation. They thought about the people. People like Ryan. Wasn’t that why she was here today? Why she’d agreed to this stupid challenge of Lisette’s?

Thinking of stupid challenges and raising money, it was high time she made her way over to the registration table and got a signature to confirm she’d done the bungee jump. Then Lisette could go and collect all that cleavage-induced sponsor money. She smiled to herself. She was really looking forward to seeing Lisette’s face when she handed her the form.

Above the general hum of conversation she heard a voice. ‘Fern?’

It must be Simon. She wasn’t surprised he’d come scurrying over as soon as he could. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and turned round, bracing herself for the squelch.

She was most magnificently disappointed as a fully-fledged zap hit her straight between the eyes.

Josh Adams! It had been real after all. Her mouth opened and closed.

As always, he knew just what to do and gathered her up into the most enormous bear-hug. Tears sprang to her eyes as the overwhelming ache of months spent missing him without properly realising it crashed over her. She buried her face in his shoulder, letting his T-shirt absorb the moisture.

A gentle cough somewhere to their right disturbed them.

Fern pulled out of Josh’s arms, although their eyes were locked on each other and they were both grinning like maniacs. ‘Simon, meet my old friend Josh,’ she said, still staring and still doing the maniac thing.

Josh gave her a wink and tore his gaze away to look at Simon and offered him his hand. Fern turned to look at him too. Yep, there was the squelch she’d been expecting. It didn’t even hit her right between the eyes. It just kind of wafted towards her half-heartedly and landed in a blob at her feet.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Josh said as he released Simon’s hand. ‘Are you Fern’s…?’

Simon, who had been looking uncharacteristically tense round the jaw, brightened and opened his mouth to speak.

‘Friend!’ she blurted out, before he had a chance to mouth the first syllable. ‘Simon is a really good friend of mine. He did most of the organisation for the bungee jump.’

Josh clapped him on the shoulder with the flat of his hand and almost sent Simon flying. ‘Good man. In that case, let’s get over there and sign these forms so the money can start rolling in. After that—’he looked at Fern and her tummy did a triple-flip ‘—I’m taking you out for coffee so we can catch up on the last few months.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Try eighteen.’

He frowned. ‘Has it really been that long?’

She nodded and gave him a rueful smile. How could she forget that Christmas at the Adams’s when he’d come home with the awful Amber? The darn woman had hardly been able to leave him alone. It had been embarrassing to watch her grope him over—and probably under—the table while they’d had Christmas lunch. Not that Josh had seemed to mind. Yes, that had been the year Fern had gone home early with a migraine.

He frowned again. ‘In that case, I’d better buy you a really big coffee.’

‘That’s more like it. One with syrup in and whipped cream on top.’

Josh pulled a face, but she was undeterred. She was feeling rather fuzzy and low blood sugar was as good an explanation as any. Truth was she’d have drunk river water if it would give her a chance to spend a little more time with him before he dashed off to the next far-flung place. They’d been close once. Almost like brother and sister. Almost.

They had the kind of bond that didn’t require constant telephone messages or texts, or even letters—and you could forget Christmas cards. She doubted Josh even had a list—but she’d seen too little of him in the last few years. It would be nice to have a chance to talk to someone who remembered Ryan.

Almost two decades had passed since her brother had died and the friends she’d known at the time were somebody else’s friends now. And there was no point taking a trip down memory lane with her parents. They still found the whole subject far too distressing.

‘Come on, then,’ she said, tugging at his arm. ‘There’s a nice little coffee shop down by the river.’

Josh saluted her, then turned to smile at Simon. ‘Don’t you just love it when she gets all bossy like this?’

Simon opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out. In the end, he just nodded. ‘Bye,’ he croaked as they disappeared off the brown field site and joined the jostling city again.

Fern stood behind Josh in the queue at the coffee shop and tried desperately not to slide into a time warp where she was a shy thirteen-year-old harbouring a desperate crush on the boy next door. Unrequited, of course.

You’re a grown woman now, she told herself. Enough.

But all her stern warnings couldn’t banish the giddy feeling in her tummy when he turned round, winked and handed her a cardboard cup with a plastic lid. ‘There you go. One large mocha with whipped cream.’

The giddiness upgraded itself into proper vertigo and she hadn’t even got the sugar rush from the chocolate yet.

‘Thanks.’

She knew what would happen now. She would drop her coffee, dribble it down her front or tip it all over him. Josh had always had this effect on her—at least since she’d had hormones in sufficient numbers for them to short-circuit her coordination. Since then, the warm, safe feeling she’d always got when he’d been around was counterbalanced with a jittery nervousness.

He’d always teased her for being clumsy, but the truth was she was only ever like it around him. And, after fifteen years of beating her hormones into submission, they had decided to stage one last revolt. Little traitors.

‘Let’s walk,’ he said, nodding towards the door. She readily agreed. Morning coffee was blending into early lunch and the tables were packed tightly. Too many elbows and chair legs to avoid.

Once clear of the café, they crossed the road and ambled along the Thames Embankment. She loved the wide stone paths and solid walls, the outrageously ornate Victorian lampposts set at regular intervals. Bulbous-headed black fish gazed at her from the base of the lamps and wound their tails up the posts.

After walking for a few minutes in silence, they naturally gravitated to a quiet stretch of wall and stopped to lean on the smooth granite, their cups of coffee balanced in front of them. Josh nodded towards the crane poking above the skyline.

‘That was quite a rush, wasn’t it?’

Rush? Never had she felt such pure terror as when she’d been hurtling towards the ground, sure the bungee cord would snap or that her ankles would slide loose.

‘Yes,’ she mumbled, glad she had a good excuse to lie. Josh would never understand.

‘I thought for a moment, when I heard you say no, that you were going to chicken out.’

Fern stopped watching the light play on the water as it lapped against the wall below her. ‘I said no?’

Josh nodded. ‘I think so.’

Fern bit her lip. Darn, darn, darn. All that for nothing! She’d shot herself in the foot before she’d even jumped. She felt like giving herself a hefty slap on the forehead, but that would have required an explanation she wasn’t ready to give. Instead she turned round and leaned her bottom against the cool stone and stared at the traffic racing along Victoria Embankment.

‘Come on, Fern. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Everyone is a little nervous on their first jump. It’s only natural.’

She twisted just her head to look at him. ‘Were you?’

He half-coughed, half-laughed. ‘Well, no…but that doesn’t matter, does it?’

Fern could feel the coffee churning inside her and looked down at her stomach. Yesterday, she’d been so sure this challenge of Lisette’s was going to be a piece of cake and now she’d blown it. Stupid, stupid girl! All she’d had to do was say ‘yes’. Such a tiny word. Not that difficult. Lisette was right; she was far too used to saying the opposite and a moment of subconscious muttering had cost the Leukaemia Research Trust nine hundred pounds.

‘What you said up there doesn’t matter,’ he continued. ‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that…Hey, look at me…’

She looked sideways at him, her head still bowed forward. He raised his eyebrows, waiting. There was no point resisting Josh when he got all determined like this. She turned to face him and looked straight into his melting brown eyes.

‘It’s cancelled out by the fact that you did it anyway. You turned the no into a yes by your actions. And actions are what count.’

She blinked. That sounded a bit like wiggling out on a technicality. Could she just gloss over it? Tell Lisette she hadn’t said no all week?