Lahat ng Kabanata ng Rule Number One: My Brother's Best Friend : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Did I know? Or was he about to turn the whole thing into a 'Ha ha,gotcha!' moment? Because, after all, I knew what Drew could be like. I'd known him since I was seven. My brother's best friend, he'd been a fixture of my life for pretty much as long as I could remember. I'd watched him grow up, captain the school football team and date a succession of pretty girls, do his exams and leave school.There'd been those few years when I'd barely seen him of course, when he'd been studying at Manchester University and then working in London at a top law firm, courtesy of his first class honours degree. But then, much to everyone's disbelief, he'd thrown in his job and returned home, securing a much less high-powered position at Hunter Mills in Oxford. When questioned about it, he'd only say that he'd realised life in the fast lane wasn't for him.The fact that I never pushed him for further details was probably one of the reasons our easy friendship had picked up where it left off. And I know

Friday. My birthday. Drew would understand if I bailed on him, I thought with a surge of relief. He knew how important a supplier Marco was. We could cancel the hotel room booking. The idea of us spending a night at thePark had been a spur of the moment thing, after all. It wasn't as though we were really going to go through with the whole sleeping together bit, was it?"Er..." So why was I hesitating?"You have other plans?" Marco sounded disappointed."Actually, yes. Yes, I do." The words seemed to fly out before I could stop them."You can't cancel?"I suddenly wanted to laugh out loud. I hadn't been invited out for months—and now I'd had two offers for the same night. "It's my birthday," I explained quickly, rather wishing I hadn't when I heard Marco's exclamation of surprised pleasure. "A friend of mine is already—" I hesitated again, grasping for words "—taking me out to dinner." It wasn't exactly a lie; room service counted, didn't it?"Okay." Marco seemed undeterred. "Then may

Goodness me." As my mother reached the living room, I could hear that she was trying to inject a little more warmth into her own tone. "What a lot of cards."There were quite a few, I had to admit as my gaze followed hers to the mantelpiece. Thanks to Alice, of course, who'd been dropping hints to all and sundry for weeks. There was even one there from the postman who delivered to the shop."Twenty-five, eh?" I heard Dad say. "Our little girl, all grown up."I winced again, wishing he hadn't felt the need to state the obvious. There was no question all three of us were now thinking exactly the same thing. "Oh, I'm not sure about that," I said breezily. "I don't think I'll ever grow—"Bollocks,no...How could I have given voice to the first thing that came into my head? "So," I squeaked, doing an abrupt one-eighty. "You enjoyed your holiday, then?""Yes, thank you," Mum said as though she hadn't noticed—though I knew she had. "Though it was very warm." She glanced up at my father. "Too

Drew," I began again, even before I reached the top of the stairs, "listen. There's something we need to get straight, okay? About tonight? You see, I think—" I broke off with a gasp as I felt a hand sweep mine away from the handle of my bag.He grinned at me over his shoulder, already jogging back down the stairs with my luggage. "You think far too much. Come on, woman, hurry up."I had little choice but to follow him, collecting my handbag from the table in the hallway before throwing on my jacket. And after taking a quick look around to check I'd turned everything off and that my curling tongs weren't going to set fire to the house, I drew a deep breath, stepped outside and pulled the front door closed behind me.By the time I reached the car, he was already stowing my case in the boot. "Oh my God," I exclaimed, seeing that he was wedging it in beside a much larger, curvier case. "You've brought your guitar? Please God, no. What the hell did I do to deserve that?""Hey." Laughing,

I could hear him laughing again, his fingers landing on my upper arm as he caught up with me. "One more room to see, I think," he said, guiding me towards another door I hadn't seen, this time because the panelling had been decorated to match the surrounding walls. "Et voila..."It was another perfectly colour-coordinated bedroom—with one immediately obvious difference to the room we'd just left. Instead of there being one, super-king-sized bed, there were two single divans. And just as in the main room, there was a sofa, a wardrobe and another wall-mounted flat-screen television. Though unless it was my imagination, the latter seemed somewhat smaller.Drew's gaze met mine. "It's still a very nice room," he said conversationally.I nodded, glancing back at the single beds. "Very nice," I agreed."And I'm sure those mattresses are just as comfortable.""Oh, I'm sure they are." I took care to keep my tone breezy.His grin was impish. "Race you for it?""First person to get back to the o