dress Josie usually wore.
Still, the knowledge that Amber would no doubt show up tonight wearing some fabulously expensive designer gown had prompted Josie to throw caution to the winds.
“You’ll be pleased to know that I tried on both dresses,” Josie told her roommate, “and I bought one.”
Lisa squealed with delight. “Fantastic! Which one? The slinky red or the sexy black?”
“The slinky red.” And slinky it was, with its halter neckline and low, low back, making bra-wearing not an option. The black dress had been equally daring, being strapless and skin-tight, but it had been short. The invitation for the reunion had said black tie, which meant formal gowns—and formal generally meant long.
“Atta girl!” Lisa exclaimed. “I was worried you might buy something conservative. Wow, wait till Angus sees you in that tonight. He’s going to flip.”
Josie flinched. She’d lied by omission last Wednesday night, not telling Lisa and Deb a word about dumping Angus. And she certainly hadn’t told them about hiring an escort to take her tonight instead. They’d never let her hear the end of it. She’d let them think she was still going with Angus.
Silly her. Now she’d have to come up with a real lie tomorrow—the three of them were meeting for Sunday brunch in the city. Maybe she could say that Angus admitted to being bisexual when he brought her home after the reunion and that she wouldn’t be dating him anymore.
Yes, that would have to do.
Meanwhile, she didn’t want to discuss the man. Or the reunion tonight. She was getting nervous again, now that her mind had been dragged back out of her perfect fantasy world and into imperfect reality.
“Are you going to sleep with Angus this time, do you think?” Lisa rattled on.
Josie pulled a face. Deception had a way of escalating, despite one’s best efforts to contain it! “I…er…think I’ll just wait and see how I feel.”
“Gosh, I wish I had your control. But you don’t like sex much, do you?”
Josie shouldn’t have been surprised by this remark. If her roommates thought she was a bit of a cold fish where sex was concerned, then she had only herself to blame. But when she’d first met Deb and Lisa, she hadn’t been long divorced from Peter, and was still suffering all sorts of mental torment from his constant accusations about her desires. It seemed better to give her new friends the impression she was a tad on the stuffy side, rather than have them think she was a sex maniac. Still, Josie now knew she wasn’t a sex maniac at all, just a normal redblooded Aussie girl. Maybe it was time she redressed their misconception about her in that area.
“That depends,” she said.
“On what?”
“On who I’m having sex with. With the right man, I’m sure I’d like sex a lot. It’s just that I’ve been involved with some colossal duds when it comes to lovemaking so far.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. Most men don’t measure up to our expectations. Still, maybe you’ll get lucky tonight,” Lisa went on eagerly. “You have one hot date there.”
Josie wondered what had happened to Lisa’s man-hating mood, but decided not to ask. Neither of her roommates ever really went off men for too long. They talked tough and bitter for a while after a breakup, but a good-looking guy only had to look their way and they fell in love all over again.
“I have to go, Lisa. I’ve just run a bath and it’s getting cold. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay. Have fun now.”
Fun! Fun was the last thing Josie anticipated having tonight. She’d be happy just getting through the evening without having everything blow up in her face.
4
CALLUM GAVE A LOW WHISTLE as he pulled his red car up outside the Castlecrag address his brother had given him. Ms. Josie Williams must have well-to-do parents to live here, he decided as he switched off the engine and glanced down the sloping front lawn to the large split-level home with its view of Middle Harbour.
Surely she couldn’t own this home herself. Not at the age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
Callum had deduced Ms. Williams’s age from the fact that tonight’s event was her ten-year class reunion. It was a case of basic math, given most graduates of Australian high schools were seventeen or eighteen. He knew no other details about her except she wanted a fake boyfriend on her arm to take with her to said reunion.
Callum tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and speculated once again over the reasons why a girl would want to hire a fake boyfriend.
The one and only logical reason hardly made him look forward to this evening. She was obviously desperate and dateless, a poor little rich bitch with more money than looks or personality. In other words, a plain Jane and a bore, who had difficulty getting a date, let alone a boyfriend, but who was determined not to go to her class reunion all alone.
Which was where he came in.
When he’d expressed concern to Clay earlier this afternoon over being able to pull this charade off, his brother’s advice was that he should simply treat the girl like a normal date.
“You do date occasionally, don’t you, bro?” Clay had almost taunted.
Callum had growled that of course he did.
“I was beginning to wonder. There you go, then. Just do what you do on one of your regular dates.”
Nice idea in theory, but Callum suspected Ms. Josie Williams would be nothing like any girl he’d ever dated. Callum only asked out confident career women who knew what they wanted, then went out and got it for themselves. Girls with balls, for want of a better word. Invariably beautiful, brainy and bold, they liked male company—and sex—but had no desire to marry at this stage in their lives. If ever.
Callum had had relationships with a series of such women over the past few years, and he’d remained friends with almost all of them after he’d moved on. Only once had he chosen poorly, a New York divorcée who had seemed an assertive independent spirit on the surface, but who was secretly a shattered and needy soul, ripe and ready to create havoc in Callum’s life when the relationship ended.
Having a firsthand experience with that kind of Fatal Attraction scenario had made Callum a once-bitten, twice shy kind of guy, partly because he never wanted to be subjected to that kind of personal harassment again. But mostly because he didn’t want to be responsible for hurting another woman like he’d obviously hurt Meg. He always made it his business these days to find out lots about a female before he asked her out, as well as keeping his eyes wide open during their first date. If there was any hint of emotional vulnerability or instability, then it was a peck on the cheek at the end of the night, and a swift adieu.
Callum suspected Ms. Josie Williams would disqualify herself from being a regular date of his on every level.
No, thinking of her as a regular date wasn’t going to work. He’d have to do what he really wasn’t all that good at.
Act.
Oh,
