Ben nodded sympathetically. "I know. It sucks. I feel the same way--not about my family, but about the business. The site was my idea and I write a lot of it, on top of overseeing the marketing stuff, and I can't bring myself to delegate. I get kind of burnt out sometimes."
"Me too."
"But it'll get better. You just need to take a second to breathe." Ben took a deep breath and exhaled. "Just let it in, then push it out."
Jacqui followed his lead. For a few minutes, the room was quiet except for the sound of their breathing exercises. "You're right--it does help."
"Anytime you ever need to talk, you can come to me, you know," he said shyly.
"You're so sweet," Jacqui said, impulsively putting her arms
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around him. She put her face in the warm cotton of his shirt and felt his heart beat through the fabric. It was just nice to be next to someone. Ben was such a great guy--he really understood her feelings. He held her for a while and then cleared his throat. He looked at her hesitantly, as if he'd just realized she was clinging to him.
"This is nice," Jacqui whispered.
"Sorry," Ben said. "I . . ." He meant to apologize for holding her for so long, but soon, there was no need for any apology as Jacqui had brought her face close to his and he decided to kiss her instead, removing his glasses before doing so.
Jacqui closed her eyes and put a warm hand on his hot cheek, rubbing his stubble. His lips were soft and warm, and he smelled like strawberries and heather. Strong and sensitive -- -just what the doctor ordered, Jacqui thought.
They jumped apart when someone knocked on the door.
"Yo, Defever! Jacqui in there? Someone said they saw her comin' up," Duffy's deep voice called. "You hidin' her?"
Jacqui and Ben exchanged guilty looks. "Yeah, she's in here," Ben said reluctantly.
Duffy stormed in, his eyebrows wagging. "What've you two been up to?" he asked suspiciously.
"I was just, uh--showing Jacqui my telescope. Venus is rising," Ben lied, motioning to the telescope planted by the window.
Jacqui nodded. Venus? Was that some kind of pun? The
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goddess of love? Ben winked at her and she winked back, but Duffy was already pulling her up from the bed.
"C'mon, the party's downstairs," Duffy urged.
"All right!" Jacqui agreed. Feeling so much better after talking to Ben, she was ready for some of Duffy's wild antics.
Duffy galloped down the stairs, but instead of bringing her to the hubbub of the party, he led her past the ballroom, through the back patio, and to a golf cart parked behind the main house.
"Hop on," he urged, sliding into the driver's seat. "Where are we going?" she asked, a little amused.
"You'll see." He grinned, revving up the engine.
"All right, be that way," she teased. They zipped across the Reynolds estate, the golf cart bouncing over the grass.
He turned to her and offered her a thermos from his jacket. "Drink?"
Jacqui sipped from it. Rum-spiked punch. She snuggled happily against him on the cart. He reminded her of a frisky, overeager puppy, and Jacqui had a soft spot for friendly creatures.
"How fast can this thing go?"
In answer, Duffy floored the gas pedal, and Jacqui squealed as they zoomed by the tennis courts and the guest bungalows over to the private beach on the property.
"Wanna drive?" he asked over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach.
"What? No!" But it was too late. Duffy had taken his hands off the wheel, and Jacqui screamed as she tried to steer the cart.
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"You're crazy!" she yelled, but she was having too much fun to be upset, and they bounced along until Duffy finally put on the brakes. They stopped so abruptly Jacqui was thrown into his arms, and they tumbled out of the cart, falling onto the sand, entangled in each other. They were both laughing as they rolled on the shore.
"You almost got us killed!" she cried, pretending to be furious.
"Oh, c'mon! You loved it!" he teased.
The moon was full, and the beach was deserted. Their only companions were a bunch of seagulls flying low over the water or walking slowly on the sand.
"It's so peaceful out here," she said, still lying on top of him.
"Yeah, I don't like crowds much myself." He smiled, looking up at her. Her hair was windblown and her cheeks were red from the cold.
"You are such a liar! You guys are always having parties," she reminded him, but she was charmed nonetheless. She punched him on the shoulder.
"Ow!" he yelped. "You ..." And before she knew it, he was tickling her, and she was laughing so hard she got the hiccups.
"Oops," she said, feeling embarrassed.
"Just hold your nose. Here, I'll do it for you," he said, pinching her nose with his thumb and index finger.
"I can breed," she gasped, still giggling. She pulled his hand away, and then he was holding it tightly in his.
"If you say so," he said, leaning over to give her a kiss, and
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she met his lips with her open mouth, tasting the mix of salt and sweet liquor in his kiss. As he kissed her, his hand smoothed her hair ever so gently.
A loud honking interrupted them, and they pulled away just in time to see another golf cart pull up next to their overturned one. Grant was sitting in the front seat, and he looked genuinely pained to see his friend alone with Jacqui.
"Jac, you're missing the Killers. And you, my friend, have got a phone call," Grant told Duffy pointedly. "Your girlfriend's on the line."
"So, you've got a girlfriend?" Jacqui said to Duffy, her arms crossed. She got up to sit next to Grant and let him drive her back to the party.
"Ex-girlfriend. We broke up six months ago!" Duffy pleaded. He looked so crushed that Jacqui immediately forgave him. But the golf cart sped back to the house anyway.
She danced with Grant in the middle of the mosh pit, the two of them mangling the lyrics to "Mr. Brightside." He made sure she was relatively unharmed within the circle of slam dancers, but a beefy kid broke through, knocking right into them, and Jacqui stumbled to the ground. She lost Grant in the pushing, milling crowd, and for a moment she was worried she was going to be trampled.
But a strong hand pulled her up to her feet, and she was relieved to find Grant's tall form standing protectively above her
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once more. He cleared a path through the dance floor to the kitchen. "C'mon, let me get you some ice for that cut," he said. "Sorry about that. I'll have that kid beaten behind the shed," he said in his laconic southern manner. He was Rhett Butler in a Death Cab for Cutie T-shirt.
"I'm all right, really," Jacqui said, touched by his concern.
Grant pulled out a medical-grade ice pack from the fridge, twisted it to release the chemical reaction that created the ice, and held it against Jacqui's forehead gently.
She put a hand over his, pressing it closer to the wound. He was such a gentleman. A ministering angel. They stood like that for a long time without speaking, and part of Jacqui wanted to never stop bleeding. Grant pulled his hand away and assessed the cut on her forehead. "I think you're okay now."
Jacqui nodded, a bit speechless. Grant was so handsome, with his striking eyebrows and gray eyes. The sideburns gave him a rockabilly edge that she found immensely appealing. He was just so sexy--there was an animal magnetism to him that she couldn't resist. The heat of the dance floor had made her blood run quickly, and she looked at him hopefully.
That was all he needed, and without warning, he pinned her against the sink, looked deep into her eyes, and kissed her urgently. There were a few people milling about in the kitchen who soon fled when they noticed what was going on. Jacqui kissed him furiously back, embracing him tightly.
She pulled him closer to her, and when his warm hands
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slipped up the back of her shirt and down her jeans, she wanted nothing more than to feel his body next to hers.
"They're all in love with you, you know," Mara warned Jacqui when they bumped into each other at the party after Jacqui had stumbled out of the kitchen alone, trying to get her bearings. She and Grant had quickly separated when Duffy walked in, complaining to Grant that the bars were short of mixers.
"They're just having fun," Jacqui demurred, stirring her drink.
"Are you having fun?" Mara asked pointedly. She was covering the party for her column, had already leveled her steady gaze on the trio, and had described them in print as the kind of fellows from my high school who would sit in the back of the class throwing spitballs and clapping erasers but who secretly earned straight As. Smart boys can play dumb too.
Jacqui blushed, thinking of kissing Ben in his room, Duffy by the beach, and Grant in the kitchen. The truth was that when they kissed, she forgot about all the Perrys' divorce as well as the fact that she had kissed one of each guy's best friends a few minutes before. Oh, well, she was just having fun, right?
Later, when Jacqui returned to the main party, she received knowing secret smiles from all three boys.
"This is such a great party," Jacqui said, watching members of the Killers push each other into the pool.
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"This is just the beginning, my friend. In the fall, we're having this huge party at the Rainbow Room to launch a couple of new sites we've developed. You've got to be there," Duffy said, handing her a marijuana pipe. "You're in New York, right?"
"What's wrong?" Ben asked, noticing her face fall.
"I might not be," Jacqui confessed, exhaling and coughing.
"Why not?" Grant asked, accepting the pipe and taking a huge hit of his own.
"My bosses are getting a divorce," she blurted. She hadn't been able to tell Mara about it because of Ryan, but she felt safe telling the guys. It wasn't as if they could do anything about it anyway. "And if they get a divorce, I have to leave New York and go back to Sao Paulo in September."
All three guys looked like they had just been told their stock had dropped three hundred points.
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a team of horses can't drag ryan away from the waves
"YOU'RE LEAVING?" MARA ASKED, TRYING NOT TO SOUND TOO
disappointed.
Ryan shrugged. He looked around the crowded VIP tent at the Bridgehampton Polo Club, frowning. He'd agreed to accompany her to the polo, something he wouldn't have been caught dead at otherwise.
The traditional afternoon event had become a commercial circus. It was little more than a platform for corporate advertising-- one week, a telecom company, the next, a tropical island tourism authority, their logos draped all over the tents. He cringed in distaste as a pinched-faced woman walked through the crowd, draped in several hundred carats' worth of diamonds.
Mara was pleased that he had accompanied her to the event but had become distressed when, after the first chukker, he'd become completely bored with the constant posturing of the crowd. He'd stood in a corner by himself, looking restless and nursing his drink.
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She knew there was nothing Ryan disliked more than having to attend some snobby social event. He liked nightclubs fine but had no particular interest in spending an afternoon watching wealthy old men hit a ball across a field. During the first summer she'd spent in the Hamptons, he'd only attended the polo because he'd heard she would be there. Later, he'd confided that he thought polo was the most pretentious sport: since it cost so much money to play, it was just about showing off.
"You know this isn't my scene. Besides, you're busy," he said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation. "Don't you have to get that guy to give you a sound bite?" he asked, nodding toward the back of the tent, where, bordered by a velvet rope and several menacing bodyguards (the VIP tent?), stood Boris Carter, the arrogant celebrity host everyone was gawking at shamelessly. Boris was the star of such movies as No Guts, No Glory 1, 2, and 3 --a trilogy based on a popular video game.
So far, the actor, famous for his squinty-eyed Texan stare and broken nose, had rebuffed all of Mara's attempts to nail a few quotes. He'd had the temerity to tell Mara that "talking to her was not part of his job." Apparently, the self-important Hollywood star had been paid a princely sum to attend the event but explained to Mara through his bodyguards that his appearance fee did not include having to grant interviews to the press. Mara had been in the middle of arguing with his publicist on the phone from Los Angeles when Ryan tapped her on the shoulder.
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"I think I'm gonna take off. You seem pretty busy, like always."
"I'm not always busy," Mara replied. "You make it sound like all I do is work."
"Well, don't you?" Ryan asked. Mara's Diary column was a huge hit, having quickly turned into a Hamptons must-read. Her outsider-turned-insider tone hit a comic nerve with loyal readers. Her mailbox was stuffed with invites, and her presence was requested at a fabulous bash every night of the week.
Already, her busy schedule had driven a bit of a wedge between them--Ryan was always trying to get Mara to blow off her job so they could spend more time together. "It's not like you're writing for Newsweek," he'd said under his breath the other evening when he'd wanted her to hang out with him and his friends and Mara had chosen to stay at home to bang out an assignment. "It's superficial celeb gossip stuff--you can do it in your sleep."
Mara tried not to feel too insulted. Why couldn't he just chill? Just the week before, they'd been getting along so well. Then they'd hosted a kick-ass Fourth of July bash on the boat. The party had been the first time they had entertained friends together as a couple, and the evening had been perfect. Eliza had brought Jeremy, and Jacqui had brought not one but three dates. All eight of them had had a blast.
"If you can just wait, I'll be done in a few minutes, I swear," she promised, holding up her Black Berry. "I finally got Boris's rep
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to look up his contract to see if it includes interviews. He's going to make Boris talk to me. Right, Lucky?" she asked, looking for backup from the photographer, who was standing next to them.
"Oh, sure." Lucky nodded.
"Wish I could, but the group's doing a paddle-out in a half hour. Why don't you come by afterward?" Ryan asked.
"All right," Mara said, feeling dejected. Ryan had told her about the paddle-out earlier. It was a surfer thing---a big deal with the community, Ryan had explained--surfers liked to commemorate events by gathering together and paddling out on their boards into the ocean as a group activity. This one was for Tinkers twenty-first birthday. Mara couldn't decide if she was more upset that Ryan was leaving the reception or that he was leaving to attend a paddle-out for Tinker.
"Great! See you later." Ryan smiled as he made his way toward the exit.
"Let him go," Lucky said sympathetically. "If you love someone, set them free."
"Lucky, Sting is so over," Mara chided.
But Lucky was right. She couldn't put Ryan on a tight leash. He was his own person and free to do whatever he wanted. If she let him go freely, he would come back to her.
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mara is a righteous betty
MARA HIT THE SEND BUTTON ON THE SCREEN. SHE'D SPENT the last hour polishing her copy on the polo reception. The actor had finally consented to give her a brief interview after his publicist had convinced the party's sponsor to kick in a free trip on the company jet to St. Thomas, a fact that she hadn't left out of her column. Her readers loved that sort of insider dish, and she had managed to pull off writing about the celebrity as both an idol and an object of ridicule--no mean task. She stretched and yawned, then checked her watch. Eleven-thirty in the evening.
Ryan still hadn't returned from the paddle-out. He'd said they would be down at the cove. Maybe she should join him. He'd gotten a ride with his friends, so the car was available.
She took the Ferrari down to the beach. She couldn't see very well in the dark, but as she rounded a sand dune, she came upon a brightly lit bonfire. People were sitting around it, and
she heard the sound of laughter and a guitar being strummed. An Igloo cooler filled with frosty Coronas was planted in the sand.
Mara took off her shoes and walked barefoot on the cold, wet sand as she approached the merry group.
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The surfers were hanging out in front of the bonfire, their boards stuck perpendicular on the sand behind them. Ryan was seated in the middle. He'd put a sweatshirt over his wet suit, and he was strumming a guitar. Next to him was Tinker, in the tiniest bikini imaginable, a black one that looked like it was held up by shoelaces, the straps were so thin. Even though it was goose-bump cold and everyone else was huddled in blankets and wearing sweaters. Mara herself shivered in her cotton yoga pants and terry-cloth sweatshirt.
She walked up to the group and cleared her throat. Ryan looked up. His handsome features broke into a huge grin that melted her heart.
"Mar--you're here!" he said, putting aside his guitar.
She nodded. "I got the story done."
"Hey, guys! You remember Mara, my girlfriend," Ryan said.
"Sure enough." Several of the guys smiled.
Of course they remembered her. She was the one who'd gone totally ballistic when she'd found all of them hanging out on their boat when she had to write a story. She'd practically chased them off the port side. But they smiled at her in a friendly fashion nonetheless.
"Make room, bro," Ryan ordered. The guy next to Ryan moved a foot, but Mara squeezed herself between her boyfriend and the bikini-wearing wannabe home wrecker instead.
"Happy birthday, Tinker," she said.
"Glad you could make it," Tinker said coolly.
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Ryan kept strumming his guitar.
Conversation veered toward the experience of the paddle-out--how amazing it was to be one with the ocean at sunset. "I, like, felt so small, man, like a grain of sand, a drop of water. . . . Mind-blowing, brah," the boy next to Ryan was saying. "Respect."
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