by Wendy Wax
They were standing side by side in the living room examining the fireplace. She’d just described the construction schedule and was leading him toward Max’s room.
“Have you got a printed copy of that schedule for me?” he asked.
“No.”
“I guess you could just e-mail it to me later so I can sign off on it.”
“Um.” She pretended to think. “No.”
“Because?” He looked genuinely baffled.
“Because I’ve just shared it with you as a courtesy. I’m not submitting it to you for approval.” She reached up to knock on Max’s door.
Chase wrapped his hand around her fist before she could make contact. “I know you want to prove yourself,” he said as her hand dropped to her side. “But I assumed there’d be some collaboration.”
“We are collaborating,” she replied. “I’ve just informed you of my plans and my projected schedule. And you’re impressed as hell but for some reason still trying to figure out how to show it.”
They stared at each other and she knew that if she didn’t address this now, he was going to remind her yet again that it was his license and reputation on the line. And she was going to remind him that she’d grown up on the same construction sites he had and that she had an architectural degree. They’d spend the entire summer locked in their own personal version of Groundhog Day.
“Let me clarify my position,” she said. “This show is my chance for vindication on national television. I can’t afford to have anyone thinking that I’m relying on my looks or leaning on you to get through this job. The network would play that up in a heartbeat. I am not going to risk even the appearance of leaning.”
She hated that she had to look up at him, but she maintained eye contact so that she could drive her point home. “I really enjoy being with you, Chase, and I’m really glad you’re here,” she said. She glanced away just to make sure the camera crew hadn’t reappeared. “But there can’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind—including yours—about who’s running this project.”
Avery knew from the set of his shoulders and the way his blue eyes darkened that Chase was irritated. But when she rapped on Max’s door and Max appeared, he shook the old man’s hand warmly and seemed unfazed when Troy and Anthony appeared and began to trail after them.
When the doorbell rang sometime later, he turned his back on the Lifetime crew and pulled her aside. “Don’t hold this against me,” he said. “It was organized with the best of intentions.”
Avery had no idea what he was talking about until she pulled open the front door and found herself face-to-face with Enrico Dante, who’d done so much for them and Bella Flora.
She stiffened, ready to give Chase some shit for tracking down Enrico in Tampa and bringing him here without her permission, but then Enrico pulled her into a bear hug and began to introduce the family he’d brought with him.
“They are fine artisans,” Enrico said as he pointed out the cousins who—thank you, God—lived and worked in north Miami. A large smile bisected his wizened face. “Each of them has his own specialty. And at least some of them are almost as talented as me.”
Tall and sparsely built with a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair, Enrico’s cousin Mario had an old-world charm and the remnants of an Italian accent. “Ha,” he said, cuffing Enrico on the shoulder. “I have been plastering and setting tile in the finest houses on the east coast ever since I came to this country as a child. I will put my skills up against this old man any day.” He nodded to a younger version of himself. “Donatello here, he will go up and take a look at the roof with Enrico. And make sure the old man doesn’t fall off.”
Enrico smiled. “You are, of course, welcome to join us,” Enrico said, reminding Avery of her insistence on climbing up to inspect Bella Flora’s roof when Chase attempted to leave her out. “This one is much flatter than Bella Flora’s angled barrel tile. Even Chase should be able to handle it.”
Chase pretended to stagger back from the blow to his ego and Avery bit back a smile, not quite ready to let him off the hook for interfering.
Mario nodded to his other son, who had removed his hat to reveal a head as bald as Enrico’s. “Salvatore is an artiste with plaster. He will help me make these walls even finer than they once were.” He winked at Avery. “And we will give you the famiglia discount. Enrico is very devoted to you. He tells me you are Peter Morgan’s daughter and that your father taught you well.”
By late afternoon Avery had struck a deal with Mario Dante and was already mentally rearranging her schedule to accommodate the Dantes. After more hugs and many arrivedercis, Enrico and his cousins left.
When they were gone, Avery led Chase up the back stairs to the landing to show him the wall she’d targeted for demolition. Her spine was still straight with irritation when she dropped the pad, across which the Dante’s had scribbled their contact info, on the floor.
“I’m the contractor of record,” he said. “You can’t expect me to do nothing.”
“I know. But I need you to keep it as close to nothing as possible.” She looked away then met his eyes again. “Thank you for organizing Enrico. For asking him to introduce the local branch of his family.” The words were more grudging than she’d intended.
“Boy, that sounded almost painful,” he said.
“You have no idea,” she replied.
“Arguing is just going to slow things down,” he said, taking a step toward her.
“True,” she conceded. “We probably could have finished Bella Flora in half the time if you hadn’t been such a pain in the ass.”
“Ha.” His eyes twinkled with amusement. “It was all that chemistry we didn’t know what to do with.”
“Chemistry, my ass,” she said, though she was feeling more than a little of it now. “You were nasty and resentful from the get-go.”
“I was pissed off at the way the network and that ridiculous husband of yours had turned you into a bimbette,” he said.
“Which is why it needs to be clear that I’m the primary decision maker. It’s way too easy for that whole dismissive perception to take hold.”
“And I may have been a little bit in lust,” he conceded.
They looked at each other. The Lifetime crew had disappeared. Deirdre and Nicole had been gone most of the day. Max had taken Maddie to a gourmet grocery store to pick up some things, and Kyra and Dustin were in their room. At least one of them was probably napping.
Chase reached out. His large hands wrapped around her waist and he pulled her up against the hard expanse of his chest. He bent his head and his warm breath tickled her ear. “Let’s go look at your bedroom again and see what it needs.”
Avery buried her face in his neck and breathed him in. Her pulse skittered in her veins as he pulled her even tighter against him. One, or both of them, groaned.
“But Deirdre could come back any minute. Or Nicole.” Her voice was breathy. She could feel herself trembling. “We share a bathroom. And I don’t think any of the door locks actually work.”
“Then I humbly suggest you move locks to the top of the list. You can even pay me to install them if it will make you feel more in charge. But for now, I’m willing to risk it.” He lifted her off the ground, holding her up against him as he moved. She could feel how ready his body was for hers.
He backed them into the bedroom and managed to close the door behind them without letting go of her or loosening their connection. But when he set her on the bed and pulled her T-shirt up over her head, she gasped.
“No,” she said, unclasping her bra, watching his eyes light up as she shrugged out of it. “Not here. Not on the bed.” She couldn’t imagine making love to Chase on the same bed she shared with Deirdre.
Chase didn’t argue and he didn’t take his eyes off her. They were hot and urgent, like his voice. “Take off your clothes,” he said, unzipping his jeans and stepping out of them. His boxers followed.
Avery’s fingers fumbled with her shorts. When s
he made no progress, he reached down and slid them and her panties off.
“Jesus,” he said, reaching down and lifting her easily. “Hold on.”
Avery wrapped her legs around his waist as he locked his lips to hers and carried her over to the wall. The plaster was cold and hard against her back. Chase’s body was equally hard but it was far from cold. She lost herself in his heat as he held her in position and joined his body to hers.
There was no place to linger afterward. Avery took a quick shower and was toweling off when they heard a door slam downstairs. Dustin’s sharp cry filled the hall.
“I’m looking forward to that hotel room tonight,” Chase said as he watched her pull on a pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt.
“I know what you mean,” Avery said. There’d been an appalling lack of time and privacy during the re-renovation of Bella Flora; lovemaking had consisted of stolen moments in less than ideal circumstances. “I’m looking forward to spending a whole night together. In a bed.” Not to mention waking up together in the morning; something they’d avoided doing at Chase’s place in Tampa for fear of sending the wrong message to his teenage boys. “I think thirty-six is too old for all this makeshift sex.”
“Hey.” His protest was muffled by the T-shirt he pulled over his head. “Makeshift is the mother of invention.”
“True,” Avery said. “And you’ve been very inventive. But I don’t want to get caught.” And she definitely didn’t want Deirdre to know how she felt about Chase; Deirdre had no right to the inner workings of Avery’s mind or heart.
They found Kyra in the kitchen warming a bottle. Dustin’s head lay on her shoulder; his eyes blinked sleepily.
There was the double ding of an incoming text. Avery and Kyra reached for their cell phones at the same time. They burst into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Chase asked.
Kyra’s thumbs flew across her phone’s keyboard; her forearms held Dustin close. “It’s my mother,” she said as she typed. “Some people should not be allowed to text.”
Avery held her screen out so that Chase could see it. Maddie’s text read, Wud yu lyke sim baby black bugs fr dynr?
He barked with laughter.
“Oh my God!” Kyra shook her head. “I just don’t understand her problem.”
“Autocorrect is not your mother’s friend,” Avery agreed. “And she really doesn’t seem to have any control over her thumbs.”
Avery typed back rapidly, struggling to control her laughter. Tempting, she typed on her iPhone. But not very filling.
OMG! Maddie responded a few moments later. Siree!
A few long minutes passed, minutes in which Avery assumed Maddie had typed and manually corrected then double-checked the message that arrived with a final ding and without a single mistake. It read, I meant baby back ribs.
Nicole sat at an outside table at the Delano Hotel waiting for Parker Amherst IV. The crowd that lounged around the pool and in the canvas-draped cabanas were young and hip, with the kinds of bodies that belonged on billboards and in fashion magazines. Although many of the men were even older than Nicole, the women were far younger. Each and every one of them was beautiful and scantily clad.
She sipped a glass of white wine as she waited, uncomfortably aware that her scantily clad days were behind her. Not that she was over the hill exactly, just over this particular place’s hill. She pushed the thought aside and focused on picking Parker Amherst out of the crowd.
She hadn’t had the time for a Google search or credit report, and even if she had, she was beyond screening. At the moment a client of any kind was a gift, one to be treasured and held on to. Amherst would have to be the ugliest man in the universe and a convicted serial killer to be rejected at this point.
The man who approached her table was none of those things. He was tall and sandy-haired, with patrician features and a decent, if not compelling, build. He wore khakis and a pale pink polo shirt and loafers without socks. His eyes were a pale shade of blue and his handshake was just shy of firm.
“Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,” he said.
Nicole held back her sigh. She’d known she should have put him off until the following week. Her eagerness to deposit a retainer and feel back in the game had caused her to err. “I’m glad I was able to make it work,” she said as he took a seat. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself and what kind of woman you’re looking for.”
“Not much to say, I’m afraid,” he said. “I grew up here in Miami. Went into the family business.” He shrugged. “Never really found a woman I could picture spending my life with. But I’m the last of my branch of Amhersts. My father died last year. And, well, I guess the time has come to produce an heir.” He’d struck a casual, almost self-deprecating tone, but his eyes had gone hard at the mention of his father. Nicole was not surprised by this. In her experience the super rich were rarely enamored of the people who’d given birth—and their fortunes—to them. Too often they were raised by staff or family retainers.
Nicole wrote the letters BM on her notepad; her shorthand for “broodmare.” She was not particularly surprised by this either. She’d found mates for clients based on IQ—or desired lack thereof—original hair color and breast size—and every possible measurement in between. The wealthier the individual, the more specific the requirements became. Her clients were used to getting what they wanted and were willing to pay for those specifics.
She kept her face and tone neutral as she asked the questions that would help her home in on suitable candidates. She’d learned long ago not to react to the most unusual of requests, and right now she wouldn’t have blinked an eye if asked to look for a three-armed woman of twenty-two who knew how to whistle “Dixie” while standing on one leg.
Though she would never admit it, there was a tiny part of her that would have agreed to look for free.
Parker Amherst IV looked her in the eye as he described the future mother of his children, a woman of prime childbearing age with long legs, good teeth, and a “significant” bust, which Nicole finally pinned down to a C cup or better. There was an odd lack of animation on Amherst’s face as he asked how long it would take until he could begin to meet candidates and what would happen if none of them met with his approval.
“Once you’ve paid the initial retainer, I’ll start sifting through my current database to pull photos.” She did not add that she was no longer sure how many of the women in her database would still return her call. Or that it had been over a year since anyone had retained her.
She held on to her smile while he mulled this over.
“I’ll give it some thought,” he said finally.
“Great.” She continued to hold on to her smile as she called for and then paid the check, being careful not to gasp at the price of their two drinks and knowing that she’d have to tip heavily in case Amherst was looking. She left cash, as if she had an abundance of it and not because she didn’t have a credit card that would pass inspection.
Nicole was careful not to think about what it would cost to retrieve the Jag from valet parking. Or what this little fishing expedition could end up costing her. It was important to make as strong an impression now as it had been when she’d arrived. The fish was analyzing the bait, but that didn’t mean he was going to bite. Ignoring the noise and laughter around the pool, she kept her eyes on Amherst.
“Here’s my card.” Nicole slid the creamy embossed rectangle toward him. Like the one she’d given away in Palm Beach, it had only her name and her cell-phone number on it. This brought her supply of them down to eighteen.
She stood when Amherst did and offered him her cheek and smiled again when he left, promising to call soon to let her know what he’d decided. Once, she would have known for sure how this would turn out. Hell, once she wouldn’t have cared that much about landing any particular fish. But she couldn’t afford to cut her line or throw any fish back no matter how small or uncertain.
A sudden hush f
ell over the pool area. Heads turned. Free now to consider her surroundings, Nicole followed the collective gazes in time to see Daniel Deranian vault out of the pool and into a sitting position on its edge. She had hoped the closest any of them would come to him was happening across a photo in some publication or on an update of E! or Celebrity Roundup.
Nicole edged back behind a nearby umbrella as he stood gracefully, muscles flexing, his suit riding low on slim hips. Like his face, his golden-brown body was perfectly chiseled. He shook water off his dark curls and flashed a white-toothed smile as he accepted a towel from a pool boy. The assembled crowd, Nicole included, watched him move toward the largest and most secluded cabana, where beefy men dressed in black had been posted at each corner. Inside, a woman lay on one of the chaises. She raised herself up on her elbows and lifted her face to receive Deranian’s kiss. The hush turned to a buzz as Nicole, and presumably everyone else, recognized his equally famous wife, Tonja Kay.
Shit, Nicole thought, trying to disappear completely behind the umbrella, even though everyone’s attention was pinned to the cabana. She didn’t know if Deranian would even remember or recognize her, but she didn’t want to take a chance.
A flash went off and then another. Neither movie star reacted, but their bodyguards did. One dropped the flaps of the cabana then positioned himself, arms folded across his overly large chest, in front of it. The other strode after the offending photographer presumably to escort him off the premises.
Nicole paid a small fortune to retrieve her car. As she drove south toward The Millicent, she wondered whether Daniel Deranian or his wife had any idea that Kyra and his son were living less than ten minutes away. She hoped not. Wherever the golden couple went, the paparazzi would be sure to follow.
Chapter Eleven
“Gee, Mom, the baby black bugs are really great,” Kyra said.
It was early evening and they sat around the dining room table. Racks of the barbecue ribs that Maddie had brought home were piled on a platter in front of them.