Free The House on Sunset Lake by Tasmina Perry Page B

towards a path that led away from the lake, around the side of Casa D’Or and back towards the road.
    She returned to the party without another word, and when she turned back to check which way he had taken, she smiled with satisfaction to see that he had heeded her advice.

Chapter Eight
     
    Connor and Jennifer were not the only ones who had returned to Savannah after college had finished. The city was full of old friends in limbo, and one of them, Jeanne Bosko, was throwing a party in a bar on Broughton Street.
    ‘I thought your birthday was in April,’ shouted Jennifer over the noise of the band. Jeanne had been one of her best friends at Our Sacred Hearts, the private school she had attended in Savannah, although she had not seen her properly for more than a year. Their closeness had dwindled over the time they had been away at different colleges, the familiarity of friendship rubbed away to the point that she knew very little about Jeanne’s life now, although she was fairly sure that the other girl had already had her twenty-first birthday.
    ‘It was,’ said the brunette at her side. She was wearing a fifties prom dress and a big pair of diamanté glasses. Jennifer wasn’t sure whether they were for comic effect or not. ‘Then I got all sentimental and decided to throw a party back home. You know, a celebration for finishing college and all that, but I guess that turned out to be ironic.’
    ‘Why ironic?’
    Jeanne gave her an incredulous look. ‘You don’t think this is so fucking depressing? We are officially the most unemployable graduates in a generation. Here I am, valedictorian of my university, and I’m working at the Seven Eleven. The college careers service did not prepare me for the Big Gulp.’
    Jennifer gave a sympathetic sigh. Jeanne had been the scholarship kid at school, the school secretary’s kid who had won friends right across Sacred Hearts with her humour and smarts. But when her father had died in her final year and her GPA had suffered, she had gone to the community college rather than an Ivy League one.
    ‘I see Connor has a job on Wall Street,’ Jeanne said cynically.
    ‘You know Connor.’
    ‘Was it the Harvard old boys’ network, or did Daddy make a call?’
    ‘Purely on account of his own genius,’ Jennifer giggled. ‘Or at least that’s what he’s been going around telling everyone.’
    Jeanne sipped her beer through a straw and looked up mischievously.
    ‘So you two are still together, huh?’
    Jennifer grinned and nodded, aware that she was a little embarrassed by the idea.
    ‘And are we going to be seeing a big fat rock on that little finger any time soon?’ grinned her friend, nudging her elbow.
    ‘I’m not even twenty-one yet, Jeanne. This is 1994, not 1894.’
    ‘Connor is the sort that wants to get the pesky business of finding a wife out of the way so he can concentrate on conquering the world. Expect a proposal, my friend. And speaking of twenty-firsts, where’s my invitation to yours? Or is it being held at a Hamptons beach house or on a yacht in Saint-Tropez, close friends, family and celebrities only?’
    ‘I don’t know yet. The plan was to be in New York, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I want to stay in Savannah for a while.’
    ‘Does Connor know this? I overheard him telling someone that he’s bought a loft in somewhere called Tribeca. Never heard of it myself, but apparently all the Wall Street douchebags are crazy for it, and he’s going to make a million bucks on it by flipping it in two years’ time.’
    ‘Well I’m glad you know more about my boyfriend’s future plans than I do.’
    ‘So how’s it going to work? Connor’s in New York. You’re staying here . . .’
    Jennifer shrugged. ‘We’ve been at different colleges for three years and it’s worked out.’
    ‘Wellesley is thirty miles from Harvard. That’s not a long-distance relationship; it just makes it slightly inconvenient for impromptu