“It is pretty damn charming, isn’t it?” Dax said, making a turn onto a path marked Fourth Street.
“How did you find this place?”
“To get a place here, you have to put yourself on a list the city keeps. When a property comes up, they go to the top name on the list.”
“Wait? What?” She stopped walking. “How did I not know about this?” As vice president, Amy was the real estate guru for Winter Enterprises. She usually oversaw large-scale commercial deals, though. It was completely different work from selling houses. Still, she prided herself on knowing everything about the Toronto housing market. She was a hobbyist, but a serious one. There was nothing more satisfying than poring over the Multiple Listing Service with her Sunday morning coffee. And she spent a significant proportion of her free time advising friends who were buying or selling, so much so that she sometimes joked that she should call herself a consultant and take a portion of the commission they paid their agents.
“A chink in your armor, oh Mistress of Real Estate!” Dax teased as he tugged arm her to get her moving again. “It gets even more interesting, because residents don’t own the land. We just lease it from the city for ninety-nine years.”
“What?” She didn’t care that she was shrieking. She loved this stuff. “Is it possible that today will turn out not to be the worst day of my life after all?” Look at her, making a joke on her jilting day. “There’s nothing like a little real estate oddity to perk a girl up when she’s left at the altar.” She pointed a finger at him. “I will be asking you more about this. But first I want to know specifically how you came to live here if there’s this weird list thing you have to get on.”
“I came out to Centre Island on a field trip when I was a kid—there’s an amusement park there. Some friends and I sneaked away from the group and found ourselves here. When I got home, I did some research—”
“You did some research. How old were you?”
“Eleven. And I put myself on the list that week.”
“Did they know you were eleven?”
He shrugged. “It took nineteen years. Nowadays, I think it’s more like twenty-five or thirty.”
“Oh my God, this is so fascinating.”
“Jeez, if I’d known that real estate would cheer you up so profoundly, we would have skipped the bar and hit some open houses.”
She clapped her hands, taking everything in. “No, this is better!”
He stopped in front of an adorable bright blue cottage surrounded by a slightly overgrown perennial garden. “This is me.” He gestured down the gravel path leading to a tiny front porch. “Welcome home, Strawberry Girl.”
Chapter Four
“Oh, this place is to die for,” Amy said, gazing around as she walked up the path. “I bet this works really well with the ladies.”
Unlocking the door and gesturing for her to precede him inside, Dax just shrugged. Didn’t bother telling her that he hardly ever brought women to this house. He had a perfectly adequate—quite luxurious, actually—condo on the other side. When you were on the island, there was literally no escape. Short of hustling a guest out the door in time for the last ferry at ten fifteen, there was no way for a night in not to turn into a sleepover. And he didn’t like having his hand forced. He’d been there once before, with Allison, and he wasn’t doing it again. Besides, all his real stuff was here, and he didn’t want people pawing through his stuff.
Like Amy was doing right now, in fact, in her annoying Amy-esque way. She had dropped her little handbag on the sofa and was trailing a hand along the mantel, looking at a framed photo he had there. “Your family?”
“Yep.” He came to stand beside her and pointed. “Mom, dad, sister.”
She rested her finger next to his, where it pointed to his sister. “Older or younger?”
“Five years older. Just turned forty.”
Dax waited for the inevitable expression of disbelief or protest that the two couldn’t possibly be related. Kat had their mother’s Chinese features while he, though he had dark coloring, had inherited their British father’s lighter skin and green eyes. When he and his sister were out, even in multicultural Toronto, no one ever believed they were siblings.
“You and she have the same smile,” Amy said.
Well, that was a new one.
“Not that you ever smile.” She moved across the room to examine some paintings hanging on the far wall. He tried not to pay attention to how her hips swayed as she padded barefoot across the room. “Do you have any nieces or nephews?”