It was during the summer of her eighth birthday when  Evonne met her two best friends, Rosa and Rina. The three little darlings were destined to share the same fate— spinsters who would ultimately meet their Casanovas in their very own weird ways.

On this particular day, they were out on the playground of their elementary school, swinging on the monkey bars. Evonne, who had never really had any real friends before, asked this very odd question that had been boggling her mind for a little while.

“Friends. What are they for?” Pretty Rina, with her sunny silver hair and bright sky-blue eyes, chimed in eagerly, “Friends are your teddy bear. He comforts you when you cry. He’s like your cozy pillow or your favorite blankie. He’s warm, like Mummy and Daddy.”

“They’re your Kleenex tissue,” Rosa said, nodding her dark head. “For wiping your runny nose and teary eyes. You get that when you cry. He’s like Mummy and Daddy, all warm and cozy.”

“Is that all?”  Evonne asked in wonder, her dark-brown eyes large. “There’s more! There’s more!” Rosa said, hopping in her spot, eager for her friends to listen to her very wise words, her braided hair bouncing about.

Then she proceeded to dance and clap her hands like a monkey. “Friends are always there with you, always around you, like right now. I’m happy. I’m clapping my hands because I have my friends with me.

 Clap with me, Evonne.” She grinned widely at the half-Kiwi, half- Malaysian girl. “Clap with me, Rina.” She urged them to clap and dance with her. The clueless two happily followed her lead and began clapping their hands and dancing silly dances, like clowns in a circus. “See, friends make each other look like fools, but they still have fun,” Rosa said wisely.

“So will you promise to be my teddy bear, my comfort pillow, my favorite blankie, and Kleenex tissue, then?”  Evonne asked her two friends. “Sure,” Rina said. “You bet on it,” Rosa replied.

“Promise?”  Evonne wanted to make sure they weren’t going to run out on her. After all, she knew no one else wanted to be her friend since she was so different.

 “Promise?” Rina and Rosa said in unison. “Let’s a pinky swear, then,”  Evonne suggested. “Yes, pinky swear,” Rosa said, grinning. Rina nodded in agreement.  Evonne entwined her left pinky with Rosa’s.

 On the right side, she entwined with Rina’s left, while Rina had her right pinky with Rosa’s left. In turn, the three friends formed a circle, an endless unity of friendship. “We promise to be great friends.

We promise to pick each other up when the other falls. We promise to be your teddy bear, your favorite blankie and your Kleenex tissue. We promise to laugh with you when you laugh. We are sisters as well as friends. From now on, we are one.”

 Then they leaned forward until all three foreheads touched. “Friends,” they all said in unison. Then they pulled back and smiled their cheesy, toothy smiles at each other.

CH1

When the door opened, a ***** torso faced Evonne. Not just any old torso, but a hot, muscled, six-pack ***** torso.

 She blinked and blinked, and then she blinked some more. She couldn’t understand why a grown man would be wearing a towel, just a single white, fluffy towel wrapped around his waist, to answer the door.

 He was leaning against the doorframe, one hand supporting his tall, lean, muscular body that,  Evonne noted, any female would want in her bed, including her. Not that she’d bedded any male, of course, since she was still a bloody ******, for Lord’s sake.

As her eyes traveled up to his face, her heart decided to do a disco dance, moving in time to the sound of the very popular music currently playing in the background somewhere inside the man’s house. She felt a little breathless and lightheaded.

Her cheeks flushed the same shade as the bouquet of scarlet roses in her arms. Not that she was florist or a delivery person or anything. No, the florist was one of her best friends, Rina, and the delivery person was too sick with influenza.

 So being the great best friend that she was,  Evonne offered to help. Rina had begged because this was her VIP client. Rina herself was too busy preparing for the many orders for Valentine’s Day, which was tomorrow, so the job was ****** upon her with little room for argument.

And  Evonne herself had succumbed to Rina’s bribery of free roses, which she loved. Now here she was, knocking on the door of 88 Summer Street in Herne parkway, one of the wealthiest suburbs in Auckland.

 At the moment, her eyes were busy blinking rapidly at the half-***** male specimen standing before her.

But my oh my, did she almost forget she was holding on to the bunch of roses because heaven helps her, this man was G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. That slightly wet, dusted-corn hair had a sparkling golden sheen beneath the afternoon sunlight.

The man looked so hot she couldn’t help ogling at him. Putting all the symptoms together, which included pronounced asthma induced breaths, the after-the-marathon heart rate, and the light-as-a-feather feeling inside her head and stomach, Evonne concluded this condition was because she had never seen a ***** man in the flesh in her whole twenty-nine years of life.

 If she had counted the time she had seen her young nephews during their bath time, however, then yes, maybe she had seen the male species displaying their valued male anatomies.

But for the likes of men like this one, so well toned, so well made, and with so much testosterone, then the answer would be a definite no.

 Those arms looked so strong, so muscular, so— “Can I help you?” he asked, drawing her senses back to reality, breaking the spell, and making her blink a few more times before she became aware of the mission she came to accomplish. “Umm.” Suddenly, she realized she’d lost her voice.

Her throat was dry as dust. She tried to speak, but the only sound that came out was, “Umm…” again. Knowing any attempt to speak again would only make her sound like more of a complete idiot, she resorted to using hand gestures.

 Evonne practically shoved the bouquet right in his gorgeous face. That took him by surprise and he moved backward. “So… sorry,” she croaked. There, finally, she’d found her voice. Even though it didn’t sound anything like her natural voice, at least she could pass her message across verbally. “No, that’s fine.

Just a little startled, that’s all.” Gosh, this man has such a nice voice, she couldn’t help thinking. “Darling, what’s taking so long?” A singsong voice traveled from somewhere inside the house. “Come back to bed.”

The hottie turned to smile at whoever it was, then said softly, “Be back soon.” He has such soft eyes,  Evonne thought when he turned to smile at the woman she assumed to be his wife.

They were  Violet blue, like a clear, cloudless summer sky. Dear heaven! Why are all good and hot men taken? They were like car parks.

 All the good and available ones were taken, whereas the available ones were the ones you had to parallel park to get. Damn my parallel parking. His attention suddenly shifted back to Evonne, and what she saw written on his face she did not like.

His once soft and subtle  Violet eyes that had spoken of gentleman breed had now completely vanished. In its place shone a glittering spark, those pupils exuding a strong, wicked gleam, like the devil about to play with his toy.

His once broad and friendly smile had also been completely wiped away. Instead, the corners of those lips quirked up to form a devilish grin.

Danger! Danger! Playboy alert! Evonne’s radar screamed at her when those wicked eyes started undressing her, causing her scarlet cheeks to burn even more. But before she could take a step back to assess her situation, the man caught hold of the bouquet, capturing her hands in the process.

“Hey, let… let go.” She struggled, trying to remove his tight grasp. “Naa Oooohhh.” He shook his head, that devilish grin still plastered on his face, his eyes still sparkling with mischief.

 Evonne tried harder to release his viselike grip, but it was no use. His fingers were like dental clamps, wrapped around her hands so securely one would require pliers to release them.

“I said… ”  Evonne couldn’t finish her sentence, as she almost stumbled backward when the man suddenly released her. “Why—” She was about to give him a piece of her mind when he interrupted her yet again, and she was struck speechless.

“You like what you see?” he asked, posing even more seductively on the threshold of the doorframe, contorting his body as if he were a model out of Vogue magazine.

 “Huh? Excuse me?”  Evonne asked, puzzled. “You came here to give me these roses,” his voice drawled out huskily. “You must like me; otherwise you wouldn’t be here.