A Girl Called Summer

by Lucy Lord

  She sighed again, taking an absent-minded forkful of crisp Romaine lettuce, trying to work out the cause of her niggling dissatisfaction.

  What her life was missing, she suddenly realized, laughing at herself, was a bit of old-fashioned excitement. She had been right the first time: she was just a silly, spoilt bitch. Her natural cheefulness having returned, she started to clear up her plates, before washing up and decanting the leftovers into tupperware pots for her colleagues.

  *

  Summer ambled through the winding streets of the Old Town, down to the elegant nineteenth-century building, in a gracious tree-lined square, that housed the Island Life offices. Wearing a peach cotton spaghetti-strapped playsuit, trimmed with creamy broderie anglaise, her streaky blonde hair held partly back from her face with a simple leather thong, she looked both demure and effortlessly sexy.

  ‘Hola, Jose!’

  ‘Hola, Summer!’

  The ice-cream vendor who sold her a rich chocolate cone broke into a broad grin as she greeted him – a grin that faded into a wistful smile as he watched her walk away, wondering what it could possibly feel like to have such a woman, even if only for one night.

  Summer reached the office before she’d finished her ice cream so she stood on the pavement outside, making easy conversation with the doorman, who watched her with the same mixture of fondness and lust as Jose the ice-cream vendor had. She bade him farewell and made her way inside, then up in the beautiful, creaky art nouveau lift to the second floor.

  The Island Life offices had been modernized a couple of years ago and were now completely open-plan, except for a glass cubicle at the far end from the entrance that housed the editor’s lair. Summer knew that David relished sitting inside, able to keep an eye on what his staff were up to while he hid behind his 24-inch Mac.

  There were moodboards pinned to most of the walls – glossy pictures of beaches, restaurants, yachts, enticing piles of colourful fruit and veg, bohemian wedding dresses – in fact, there was a lot of boho wedding inspiration. The Ibiza wedding market was at all-time saturation point, and you now had to book your venue months, if not years, in advance.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ said Summer as she made her way to the desk she shared with the part-time weddings editor. ‘Having a good day?’

  ‘Hey, Summer,’ they chorused.

  ‘Don’t,’ groaned Valentina, the very posh half-English, half-Spanish editorial assistant, whom David liked to treat as his personal dogsbody. ‘He’s been in a foul mood all day – won’t even let me out for lunch until he gets back from his, and I’m starving. Don’t know why he always has to take it out on me.’

  Summer guessed that David had a chip on his shoulder, a massive inferiority complex about the dark-eyed little beauty who spoke and carried herself with such aristocratic bearing, but she didn’t let on. No point in stirring things up as far as David was concerned. Instead she put an arm around Valentina’s slim shoulder and said, ‘In that case, you’re in luck. I have three portions of spaghetti vongole in here . . .’ She patted her leather satchel, grinning, and Valentina’s face lit up. ‘First come, first served!’ she added to the room at large, making her way to the kitchen. Several of her colleagues leapt to their feet to follow her with unseemly haste.

  ‘Darling, could I ask you a massive favour?’ asked Valentina, through mouthfuls of garlicky vongole.

  ‘Depends what it is,’ smiled Summer.

  ‘I left my iPad in David’s office after the editorial meeting this morning. You couldn’t go and get it for me, could you? I don’t think I could face him biting off my head again today, and he’s never as harsh on you as the rest of us . . .’

  Summer flinched, instantly on guard, but Valentina’s remark appeared to have been innocent, her attention now back on her food. ‘God, this is good. I wish I could cook like you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll get it for you. Do you know where you left it?’

  ‘Probably on his desk.’

  The iPad’s whereabouts was not immediately apparent, so Summer walked around David’s messy desk, shifting papers so she could look underneath. As she did so, she accidentally touched his mouse, causing his screen to light up. A folder full of files appeared on it, all with the prefix NY: NY1, NY2 etc, all the way down to NY63.

  Briefly wondering (but not caring much) what was inside them, Summer jumped out of her skin as David loomed up in front of her.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he hissed.

  ‘Oh, uh, hi, David, I was looking for my iPad . . .’ David’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, here it is!’ Summer saw it, grabbed it and held it close to her side, not wanting to get Valentina into trouble.

  David shut the door behind them, and speaking far more evenly, said, ‘OK. Just get out of here. But don’t think because we share a bed you can walk around like you own the place. Don’t ever touch my stuff again’ – he indicated the rest of the office with a flick of his head – ‘otherwise I might let everyone here know exactly what has been going on between us. You wouldn’t want that, would you, honey? ’

  Summer stared at him mutinously, unable to believe that he was speaking to her this way.

  ‘I told you, get out,’ he snapped.

  *

  Summer had no sooner stepped out of the shower than the doorbell rang. She frowned. David was more than half an hour early. What was he playing at? Still pissed off about the earlier incident in his office, she wrapped a towel around her wet body and walked out of the bathroom into her tiny sitting room, dripping all over the terracotta-tiled floor. Impatiently she buzzed him up.

  In less than a minute David had climbed the three flights to her flat. He had dressed up for the evening in a cream linen suit and was flushed and out of breath.

  ‘You know, it’s just as bad manners being early as it is late,’ said Summer. ‘Look at me – I’m not nearly ready.’

  David’s pupils dilated as he looked at her, taking in the long wet hair dripping down her back, showing off her perfect bone structure, her cool blue eyes. His eyes lingered over the tiny towel that barely covered her glimmering brown body, taking in her beautiful long arms and legs, then he smiled.

  ‘I am, though.’ In one swift move, he’d whipped off the towel and taken one full, pert breast in both hands, bending his head to the rosy nipple, which hardened immediately under his lips. Involuntarily, and hating herself for it, Summer threw back her head and moaned.

  ‘That’s it, baby. You like that, don’t you? Oh yes, you like that.’ His right hand had now strayed down between her legs and found her hot and wet for him already. The more he played with her, the hotter and wetter she became. Looking up into her eyes, David pushed her gently to the floor, never taking his right hand from between her legs.

  He parted her thighs further and gazed at her beautiful body before bending his head and giving her a gentle lick. He was about to increase his tempo when he had another thought.

  Summer watched through glazed eyes as David untied the yellow silk tie around his neck. Leaning over her, he grabbed both her wrists and secured them above her head with the tie, fastening the other end to the foot of her desk. He pulled on the knot until it was tight.

  ‘I can do whatever I want with you now. Do you like that, baby? Do you?’

  He slid two fingers inside her, using his other hand to gently massage her clit until she was panting and writhing underneath him. Suddenly, abruptly, he stopped.

  ‘What are you doing to me, David?’ Summer’s voice was hoarse.

  ‘I want you to beg for it, baby.’

  Now he was kissing her breasts again, still fully clothed himself and in total control of the situation. Reaching up to the desk, he found what he was looking for. The scented candle was the perfect size and shape, and Summer moaned even more as, ever so slowly, he slid it inside her. When he moved his mouth from her breasts to her pussy, her hips rose from the floor, bucking helplessly against him as he slid the smooth candle in and out, in and out.
/>
  ‘Oh God, oh, David, I, oh God . . .’

  He slid the candle out.

  ‘Oh God, David, what? What do you want, Summer? Tell me . . .’

  He looked intently into her eyes.

  ‘Oh please just fuck me. Please, please fuck me.’

  ‘Please just fuck me, David?’ David stressed his own name. ‘Please, David, I want to feel you inside me?’

  ‘Please, David. I want to feel you inside me. Pleeeease . . .’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so before?’ With a wicked grin, David undid his belt, opened his flies, and without even pushing his trousers down, thrust his big cock deep inside her. He was bigger and thicker than the candle, and remorselessly, relentlessly he ground into her, again and again, until he felt her start to contract around it. Keeping his cock buried inside, he reached down to touch her clitoris.

  The orgasm seemed to go on for minutes.

  *

  Summer was furious with herself. She’d allowed him to do it again, even after the way he’d spoken to her in his office earlier. And now, at the super-swanky opening of yet another new beachside restaurant, he kept giving her those annoying half-smiles, furtive glances, as though they shared a particularly amusing secret. Which they did, she supposed. His ankle kept pressing against hers under the table, too.

  David, for his part, couldn’t believe his luck. Summer was looking utterly gorgeous in a short white crochet dress, with her hair tied back in a loose plait. Despite the shortness of the skirt that showed off her beautiful brown legs, the effect was demure – virginal even. As he remembered tying her up, her begging him to fuck her, he felt himself getting hard under the table. That was one to save for the wank bank.

  The opening of Aqua, Ibiza’s latest beautifully designed, beautifully thought-out ‘concept space’ was as glamorous as it was predictable. They’d feasted on canapés of wittily styled salmon roe and supped at blue cocktails, before being seated at the large round table that was reserved for the great and the good of the island. The mainly open-air restaurant was perched on a clifftop around the corner from Cala Jondal, the idyllic sandy white beach that was home to the famous Blue Marlin beach bar. The uninterrupted view down to the clear blue sea below was spectacular enough, but to get to this table, the A-list table, you had to walk down a whitewashed wooden walkway that led out onto a whitewashed platform that had been built onto a jutting promontory, totally open to the elements. The sound of the sea gently lapping the shore twenty metres or so below, the background buzz of cicadas and the odd seagull’s cry complemented the ambient house music coming from speakers hidden in the rocks.

  In the summer months to come, the reservations would be for celebrities – mainly yacht-owners, as it was accessible from the water – but now, at the end of May, all the people around the table were either local media, or silly-rich residents, like Jamie and India Cavendish. It was weird that Jorge Dupont was there too, but that strange, slippery boy seemed to get everywhere.

  Now he was talking to India Cavendish, who was pushing her delectable seafood starter around her plate and glugging back the champagne.

  ‘You must know Bella?’ Jorge was saying. ‘I’m sure Summer told me you do yoga together?’

  ‘Oh, you mean that Bella.’ India yawned slightly. ‘The fat one with the sweet baby?’

  Summer, who had heard this, interjected: ‘Bella’s not fat. She looked great in my bikini the other day.’

  India laughed out loud. As the mirthless ripples spread across her bony body, her husband Jamie said, ‘I think you’ve probably had enough, darling.’

  Summer studied the two of them, coolly. Much as she disliked India, Jamie was even worse. Tall, with slicked-back dark-brown hair and mean little eyes in a blandly handsome face, he exuded arrogance and insincerity from every over-privileged pore in his body. He hadn’t eaten anything, and was now smoking a fat cigar – even before the main course had been served.

  What a bastard, thought Summer.

  He was also leering at her. She was used to this – he’d leered at her ever since she’d been hired to cook lunch at one of the Cavendishes’ private parties, several years previously. That time, he’d tried to snog her, and had sneered when she had pointed out, horrified, that his wife and baby son were outside.

  ‘You have a wife. Don’t be disgusting,’ Summer had said in her pragmatic, Swedish way.

  ‘My wife is now a mother. She’s not fit for anything in bed. But I bet you’re lovely and tight and juicy.’ He had shoved his hand against her then. ‘Aren’t you, Summer?’

  Resisting the temptation to tell him to fuck off, Summer had removed his hand shakily and said, ‘That’s for me to know and you to never find out,’ before walking back outside, bile rising in her throat.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that Bella is fat,’ said Jorge. ‘She looks kind of – what’s the word? Voluptueuse? But the big gossip is that she has some film stars coming to stay.’

  ‘Film stars?’ This seemed to perk India up slightly.

  ‘Uh-huh. And not any old film stars – Hollywood royalty!’

  ‘Jack Meadows and Tamara Gold. And Ben Jones,’ Summer finished for him.

  ‘You knew?’ Jorge looked perplexed. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

  ‘It’s no biggie.’ Summer, who had catered for film stars – if not such illustrious ones – in the past, shrugged. ‘Bella asked me if I’d help with the food at her pool-warming party. Oh, look at you, all star-struck,’ she teased. The rest of the table laughed too, and Jorge felt himself flushing. Only Summer had the ability to make him feel like a silly little boy.

  ‘I’m looking forward to that party,’ said Gabriella. Tonight she was every inch the contessa in a scarlet jewelled kaftan, her rich brown hair piled up in an elegant chignon with no hint of grey to betray her age. Real diamonds sparkled at her earlobes and throat. Most of the time Gabriella conducted her life in yoga pants or scruffy jeans and a ponytail, but when she decided to pull the stops out, she went for it. ‘I remember Ca’n Pedro from the old days – such a beautiful house. Small, of course, but the garden was always exquisite. It will be interesting to see what they have done with it.’

  ‘What is this party, and why haven’t I heard about it?’ demanded India.

  ‘Bella’s going to have a pool-warming party when her Hollywood friends are here,’ said Summer. ‘She’s hoping that their arrival will coincide with the old pool finally being fit for purpose. But I don’t see why you think you should have heard about it – you’re hardly bosom buddies.’

  ‘Well, she should have made it her business to know about it,’ said Jamie, looking at his wife with disdain. ‘Good God, woman, all you have to do is look nice and meet the right people, and you can’t even manage that! We should be invited to that party.’ He could see himself hanging out with Jack Meadows and Ben Jones, three Alpha males together. He wouldn’t mind having a shot at Tamara Gold, too. She looked like a filthy little thing.

  ‘Jamie, you know full well that I am a full-time business woman, on top of being a wife and mother.’ India glared at her husband through large, hurt blue eyes. He threw his head back and guffawed.

  ‘Business woman? That’s a good one. Your “business”’ – he made air quotes – ‘is nothing but a very expensive hobby, funded by me.’ Everybody looked at Jamie with horror. He really was a nasty piece of work. ‘Anyway, darling, how about you make it your “business” to get us invited to that party?’

  ‘I’m sure I can get you invited to the party, if it means that much to you,’ said Summer, feeling sorry for India. Then she thought, Shit, what have I done? Bella didn’t want these horrible people at her party.

  ‘Now that’s a bit more like it.’ Jamie smiled lecherously in her direction. ‘Why can’t you take a leaf out of Summer’s book, darling? Looking particularly luscious tonight, too.’

  India, hurt as ever by Jamie leering over other women, even though she knew she should be used to it by now, straightened her ba
ck and blinked away the tears that were threatening to spring into her eyes.

  Summer ignored Jamie and turned to Gabriella.

  ‘So you know Ca’n Pedro? What’s it like? I haven’t been there yet, but I know they’ve been working very hard trying to get it ready before their guests arrive.’

  ‘When I knew it, it was a hippy commune,’ said Gabriella. ‘Man, the parties they used to have there were wild. Free love and every drug under the sun.’

  ‘You used to go to drug-fuelled orgies?’ asked David, trying to picture the elegant sixty-something contessa forty years younger, being roasted by a couple of long-haired hippies. It was surprisingly easy to envisage.

  ‘We all did, darling,’ said Gabriella. ‘It was Ibiza in the Seventies. What do you imagine we got up to?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think Bella’s pool party will be a drug-fuelled orgy,’ laughed Summer. ‘Though it should be a lot of fun.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ said Jamie. ‘I wouldn’t mind going to a drug-fuelled orgy with Tamara Gold.’

  ‘I think you’ll find Tamara Gold has been clean for years,’ snapped India, pushed almost to the limit of her endurance by her husband’s constant sniping, and the painful implications that other women were so much more attractive to him than she was.

  ‘Did you read that in Heat?’

  ‘Common knowledge. And fuck you.’

  Gabriella raised her eyebrows at David and Summer and continued, ‘Funnily enough, I think I met Bella’s father at one of those parties.’

  ‘Bella’s father?’

  ‘Yes, Justin Brown – the photographer? He lives in Majorca, but he was all over the Balearics in those days. A verrrry naughty man.’ Gabriella smiled. ‘Verrry naughty, but a lot of fun. I made the connection only a few days ago.’

  ‘Have you told Bella?’ asked Summer.

  ‘Well, of course. I told her this morning at yoga. She didn’t seem too surprised.’

  ‘It sounds like this Bella is pretty well connected,’ interrupted Jamie. ‘You have been slack on the social networking front, darling.’