The Day We Met (When Jack Met Evie)

When Jack Met Evie

There are three things I'll always remember about the first time I saw Evie Parker, framed in the doorway of the hotel ballroom beside my brother, Drew.

One: she was laughing, and frowning, and rolling her eyes, all at the same time - and that somehow made me happy.

Two: I wanted to touch her crazy blonde hair, so badly my fingers twitched and the prawn on my canapé dropped down the plunging neckline of Beth Milne, Chairman of Arts for Good, who was standing next to me.

Three: when Drew adjusted the collar of Evie's white shirt, simultaneously kissing her just above one of her short, straight eyebrows, I wanted to punch him.

(And okay, maybe I also noticed her boobs - hard not to when a tiny girl has a sizeable set - but that was a distant fourth on the list.)

I'd seen at least a hundred photos of Evie with Drew over the past four years, so it wasn't as though her appearance was a surprise; I just didn't expect the in-person version to be so freakishly cute or I would have cooperated with Drew on my previous visits to Sydney when he'd tried to engineer meetings between us. Although, thinking back, Evie hadn't exactly been gagging to meet me, either.

Well, whatever. Here we were. She was cute. I was curious. The time was nigh.

Drew was peering around the ballroom, keeping a hand on Evie's shoulder as though she might bolt if he loosened his grip. He waved when he saw me, then leaned in closer to Evie to point me out and whisper in her ear - and there I went, wanting to punch him again.

Evie smiled in my general direction as Drew started steering her towards me. I knew I should be smiling back the way I normally smiled at Drew's friends, but instead, I found myself smouldering at her - a heavy, eyelids-at-half-mast sort of look. Since my smoulder generally got me same-night laid, I figured my body was signalling to my one-step-behind-my-dick brain that it wanted to have sex with her. Which was probably not a good thing, given Drew loved her like a sister and might want to punch me if I went there.

While I was pretending to listen to Beth (who'd dug out the errant prawn with a forced laugh) and pondering the ethics of shagging my brother's sister-substitute, I kept track of Evie's progress - which is how I knew the instant something went haywire, halfway across the room. Evie's eyes went wide, the smile fell off her face, and she started reversing, all in one fraught second. Drew stopped her, they talked briefly, Drew looked towards me, but not at me . . . And then he released his hold on Evie's shoulder, looked around the room again, and sent her off in a different direction.

And that was that. As in, what the freaking hell had just happened?

Beth was doing her best to interest me in the event program, but my attention was riveted on Evie, making her way towards . . . towards . . . Aha! Towards Chloe, the third in Drew's musketeer gang - who I'd managed to meet three times over the past few years. A fact that suddenly irked the crap out of me. I mean, surely Evie could have arranged to tag along with Chloe just once! Chloe looked as glamorous, cool and poised as she had every other time I'd seen her, but when Evie reached her, she frowned. There was another furtive conversation, which had Chloe looking in my direction but not at me, this time. Next minute, Chloe was encircling Evie with a protective arm and positioning her so that I couldn't see her.

Huh? Did everyone in the whole damn ballroom want to hustle Evie away from me? It's not like I was standing there with an AK-47 in one hand, a machete in the other, and a set of nunchaku draped around my neck. I was wearing a freaking dinner suit. I'd shaved. I was the guest of bloody honour! And the situation was starting to piss me off.

Excusing myself to the long-suffering Beth, I strode over to accost Drew, who'd stopped to grab a champagne. 'What's going on?' I asked, low and terse.