No More Waiting, She Chooses Love

Conrad gave me a look, a twinkle of knowing in his eye. "Does he have any idea what he's missing out on?"

He had picked up on Dustin's feelings for me, so this was his way of probing.

I feigned ignorance. "Only he knows what he's missing."

Conrad dropped the subject, and we continued our walk. As we passed a koi pond, he remarked, "He's got quite the collection of koi here. I've heard him say that when he calls out 'Dinner time,' they all line up and swim over." "Really? Dustin's got a special talent for fish whispering, then," I joked.

"Don't believe it? Let's give it a try," Conrad suggested, leading me to the pond's edge. True enough, there were all these koi fish-reds, yellows, whites, and even some with patterns, looking plump and well-fed, clearly well taken care of and quite charming. "Your turn," Conrad encouraged me.

I reached out to touch the water, and the fish scattered in alarm. "How do I try?"

"Just call out 'Dinner time," he instructed with a smile.

"But I've got nothing to feed them with. Wouldn't calling them over without food make me a liar?"

Conrad laughed. "I'll go get some."

find some fish food, I watched the corpulent fish, my interest piqued. I cleared my

voice fell,

fish food, chuckled. "You're too quiet. They can't

teasing, I raised my voice and called out again,

stopped believing what Conrad had said, until

messing with me,"

wasn't. Maybe we're

them right. We'll ask Dustin how to do it later," Conrad said, handing me the fish food. "Just

failed, culinary

IMS

the food, fearless even as I reached out

the villa's entrance hall.

interior was

a stark contrast to Conrad's colder room design. This house was all warm tones, creating use w a

the overall decor down to the smallest teacup, was handpicked by him." "Dustin's