Megan’s back stiffened. “I love you like a sister, Blair, but this is my decision. If you can’t accept it, feel free to leave.”
“It’s a stupid decision, Megan.”
Megan winced but held her ground. “But it’s mine, nevertheless. It’s not like I’m marrying the guy. He’s going to break up with me.”
Josh cleared his throat as he stopped next to Megan, close enough to have heard her last words. “What do you want, Blair? What outcome at this moment would make you happy? Do you want me to tell Megan’s parents that we’ve been lying to them? How will that make Megan look? She’d be worse off than she was before they mistook me for Jay.”
Blair pursed her lips. “You’re the reason she’s in this situation.”
“I’ve never denied it. I’m just trying to get her out of it the best way I know how.”
“If you hurt her . . .”
“Yeah, I know,” Josh said dryly. “You’ll find out about my wicked past to throw it in my face. But good luck with that. I’m a pretty boring guy, so you’ll have a tough time finding anything shiny enough to catch your interest.”
Watching him now, Megan had a hard time believing he was boring, though she was fairly certain he didn’t harbor a past as a hardened criminal or as a member of a motorcycle gang. Blair would probably have to do a lot of digging to discover anything scandalous about Josh McMillan. But then, Megan had never harbored a hidden fantasy about dating a bad boy, and Josh’s chivalry, good looks, and charming personality—everything about him—screamed the opposite of bad boy. Megan was more attracted to him than was safe to acknowledge. But she couldn’t ignore the fact that their relationship had almost reached its expiration date. She couldn’t get attached to him.
And that filled her with more disappointment than she had a right to feel.
Blair pointed a finger at him. “If I find anything, I’ll whip so many lawsuits around you that you’ll regret the day you boarded that plane.”
Josh shrugged, looking unimpressed. “Suit yourself.”
Libby, who had trailed her way to them, too, laughed from behind him. “He made a pun and he’s standing up to you, Blair. Now I really like him.”
Josh gave her a conspiratorial grin before turning back to Megan. “Your mother doesn’t look happy. Maybe we should go play the engaged couple.”
“Yeah.”
He put an arm around her back and smiled down at her, looking very much like the attentive boyfriend. “Then let’s go make your mother happy.”
“That’s an oxymoron,” Blair said.
Josh grabbed Megan’s hand and led her away from Blair, leaning into her ear as they made their way over to her mother and her friends on the deck. “Has Blair always been so . . .”
“Grumpy?”
“I had another word.”
Megan laughed. “She hasn’t always been this way. She used to be happier and more carefree, but she’s gotten much more serious and . . .”
“Dictatorial?”
Megan released a heavy sigh as they climbed the steps. “Honestly, she means well. She changed after what happened with her father. She found out in college that he’d been cheating on her mother for years, and she took it personally. Becoming a lawyer had been her dream since grade school, but she’d planned on going into corporate law until her father filed for divorce and left her mother with hardly anything . . . then died five years later. Now Blair’s a divorce attorney who specializes in representing women who’ve been screwed over in their marriages. She makes sure they don’t get screwed over in their divorces, too.”
He considered her words for a moment before conceding, “It’s an admirable position.”
“She started out with the best of intentions, but it’s made her jaded. She’s changed. And not for the better.”
Seeing their approach, Megan’s mother waved them over to an older couple. “Megan! I want to introduce you and Josh to some dear old friends of ours from the country club.”
Megan decided her mother had to be referring to the couple’s age, since her parents had only joined the country club about five years ago.
“Showtime,” she mumbled to Josh.
He gave her hand a light squeeze of reassurance as they joined the group.
Megan had been worried that they could never pull it off, but she and Josh sailed through the evening. He was a great conversationalist, and her parents’ friends loved him. Megan had heard that the key to creating good conversation was to lavish attention on the other person, taking care not to talk too much about yourself. It turned out that Josh was a master at it, diverting almost all but the most mundane questions about himself. He showed particular interest in her father’s friends, and at first she worried he really was using her to sell his snake oil, but he didn’t make so much as a peep about a timeshare or a pyramid scheme. Instead, he asked how long they’d known her father, what Bart’s hobbies were, and whether they would recommend Bart’s financial planner. Josh smiled as he said he had to plan a future for his soon-to-be wife and their soon-enough children.
Josh smiled at her when he mentioned a future family, as though they shared an intimate secret. Her stomach fluttered, not at the prospect of having children—although she did want them someday—but at the way his gaze lingered on her face. As if he couldn’t wait to get her alone so they could practice making those future babies.
Then she reminded herself that they did share a secret. They were breaking up before the end of the night.
Her mother may not have gotten the professional waitstaff she wanted, but the handful of teens were doing a good job of carrying around trays of food that fit the princess theme. Sugar cookies shaped like pumpkins, genie lamps, mermaids, and . . . dwarves? were carried around on silver trays, along with other finger foods. The underage staff couldn’t take drink orders, but the crowd quickly learned the bar was at the opposite end of the pool.
After Josh and Megan had made the rounds twice and her mother seemed satisfied, Blair and Libby joined them at a bistro table. While Blair was quiet and distrustful, Libby more than made up for her bad mood, asking Josh questions about his family.
“My father died when I was sixteen. My brother was still in college, but he and my mother managed to hold my father’s firm together until he graduated and took over. Our business manager was a huge help.”
Megan reached over and covered Josh’s hand with her own. She couldn’t imagine what her teen years would have been like if she’d lost her father back then. He’d been her lifeline in high school, standing up for her whenever she failed to meet her mother’s expectations of femininity. Her father had always told her she was the most beautiful girl in the world and that her mother’s views had warped over time and shouldn’t be taken personally.
“There are things you don’t know about your mother, pumpkin,” he used to say. “She loves you. This is her way of showing it.”
Megan had always wished she’d find another way.
“Josh,” Libby leaned back in her chair and eyed her other best friend before returning her attention to Josh. “You and Blair have something in common. Her father died when she was in law school.”