What If He’s the One

At lunch they all went to a bustling café-bar near Faneuil Hall. The walls were covered with Boston Red Sox memorabilia. The place was packed. It made Maggie smile to see how the lunching office workers and shoppers made a production out of acting like they hadn’t noticed the famous Wells brothers. Not to mention the striking six-foot models they were with. Before she joined the others at the table Hannah’s assistant had reserved, Maggie ducked into the Ladies. She bolted the cubicle door, took a deep breath and dived into her handbag to dig out a pregnancy test.

“Maggie, is that you in there?”

Oh flip. It was Natalie. She thought about putting on a very deep voice and pretending to be a transvestite to get her to leave, but she liked Natalie and she didn’t want to freak her out.

“Yes,” she squeaked.

“Oh. My. Gosh. I think I’m in love. Don’t tell my fiancé, but Nick Wells is the most delicious thing on this earth.”

Maggie abandoned her mission to establish if she was or wasn’t pregnant and exited the toilet cubicle.

“Didn’t you tell me that Alex was the vampire for you – any day of the week?”

“That was yesterday, before I’d met them. Today …” Natalie sighed dreamily. “It’s Nick.”

Maggie nudged her with her elbow. “Fight you for him.”

“No way.” Natalie slicked on a generous layer of her signature red lipstick. “You can have Alex.” She paused with a minxy grin on her face. “Judging by the way his eyes were following you all morning, I’d say you have a better chance with him. And I don’t mean in your dreams.”

Maggie froze. Unless Natalie had supernatural powers, there was no way she knew what Maggie had been dreaming. Even so her words had an uncanny effect on her resolve to appear unaffected by Alex.

“You leave my dreams out of this,” she joked. “Come on, let’s get some lunch. I’m starving.”

Paralysis set in the moment she walked into the bar. The compelling rumble of Alex’s smooth-as-the-most-exquisite-chocolate voice resonated off the baseball-themed walls. The group was hanging on his every word – and so was everyone else in the café-bar.

“Maggie and I are old, old friends,” he said. “We knew each other in London, right before Nick and I moved to LA.” He stared directly at Maggie, and she stopped, hands hanging weakly at her sides. “Things moved pretty fast back then. I guess we lost touch.”

As his words trailed off Nick cut in. “The last time we saw Maggie she was wearing sparkly stilettos, red silk stockings and a verrrrry cute Santa suit! Alex had to lend her his best sweater so that she could go home on the London Underground without drawing too much attention to herself.”

“And reindeer antlers.” Alex’s cool Jago face brightened into a wide, winning smile. “Don’t forget the reindeer antlers.”

There were guffaws of laughter. All eyes turned on Maggie. The picture Nick and Alex painted didn’t exactly tally with her current blend-into-the-background image. In smart black designer jeans and black ankle boots, with a businessy white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck where she’d hooked her big, black oversized sunglasses into the vee, she aimed to look unremarkable. The laughing triggered a blush the color of a London bus – a glowing contrast to her monochrome look.

Great!

“And to avoid freezing,” she chipped in. “I’d like to point out that it was one of the coldest Decembers on record.”

“It was Christmas Eve, actually.” Alex spoke slowly. The piercing glimmer in his eyes sent shivers up and down her spine. She wished he would stop looking at her like that.

“Hence the Santa ensemble.” She made a face, shrugged, and held her palms out apologetically to the group.

Sitting on a bench seat at the opposite side of the table between the two models, Nick leaned forward and moved the things in front of him about randomly – the salt pot, his sunglasses, a coaster. He seemed to be watching his brother for a reaction. Alex didn’t say anything more. He stopped looking at her and stared off into the distance.

Maggie sat down at the table, picked up a couple of menus and handed one to Natalie, who suddenly closed her gawping mouth, as if for a fraction of a second she’d lost control of her features. Almost faint, not with hunger, but embarrassment at being scrutinized by every woman within earshot, and most of the men, Maggie’s fingers trembled. “So,” she announced, eager to close the subject. “Enough of the boring friends reunited stuff.” She rolled her eyes. One of the models sent her a sympathetic smile across the sea of drinks, menus and cutlery littering the rustic table top. “Should we order? What’s everyone having?”

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