Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling

by Pamela Browning

  When she stepped out of the taxi, she looked around for a sign advertising boats for rent. There was none. The marina office was closed for lunch, so no information would be forthcoming from there. Azure refused to be discouraged, however, and hurried down one of the docks hoping to find someone who would deliver her to the Samoa.

  “Are you out of your mind?” the first man she encountered said. “I don’t want to tangle with Leonardo Santori.”

  The second one barked something similar and disappeared grumpily into his cabin when it looked as if she might try to persuade him differently. Finally, at the end of the dock, she saw an elderly fisherman unloading his meager catch.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said. “Would you mind taking me out to that yacht over there?” She shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight with her hand and waved her briefcase in the direction of the Samoa.

  “Take you to the Samoa? What for?”

  “I need to meet with Mr. Santori.” Quickly she explained who she was.

  “How do I know you’re not one of them young groupie ladies who keeps trying to meet him?”

  “You don’t, but believe me, if I were trying to get to know Leonardo Santori, I would wear something more comfortable in this climate than a gray business suit. Which is part wool, by the way.” She thought that this statement gave her even more credibility; who would wear wool in Miami Beach in the summertime unless on business?

  “I see. Well, this is only a rowboat. I fish over near the buoy almost every day, get me some fresh fish for dinner. Today I caught a nice snapper. Going to fry it.”

  Azure let out a sigh of impatience. “Wonderful, but I need to get to the Samoa. I’ll pay you if you’ll row me.”

  “Nope, nope, I get plain tuckered from rowing out to the buoy and back. Exercise is good for a person, though. Everyone needs exercise.”

  “How about if I pay you to use your boat?”

  “You’d want to row way out there?”

  “I can’t say that I want to, but I need to see Mr. Santori. How about fifty dollars?”

  “Fifty dollars? So you can row my old boat? Are you joking?” He seemed taken aback.

  She snapped a fifty out of her wallet and pressed it into his hand. Before he could recover, she was climbing into the boat and wishing she hadn’t worn such expensive shoes. The water in the bottom of the boat would ruin them.

  The breeze was coming from the direction in which she was rowing, impeding her progress considerably. The fact that her muscles began to ache when she was halfway to the Samoa reminded her that she hadn’t worked out enough lately. By the time she was three-quarters there, they were screaming in protest, and as she approached the yacht, it was all she could do to pull back on the oars. As if that weren’t enough of a problem, blisters were raising on her palms, and the wind had capriciously torn her hair from its knot.

  Once she was within shouting distance, the effort to row all the way out to the Samoa had made her so tired that she couldn’t help slumping over her oars for a moment. A fine sheen of perspiration filmed her face, and her panty hose had sprung a run. She wasn’t going to make a great impression on Santori, but why worry? On the phone he hadn’t sounded like someone who observed the social niceties or cared how people looked.

  She had not anticipated what she would do when she got there. Should she climb aboard? Should she wait until she was noticed? She pushed the loose strands of hair behind her ears and studied the yacht, which was truly huge. It was huger than huge. It was enormous. She could not imagine having so much money that you could travel the world in such a fashion.

  “Yo!” she hollered up to no one in particular, thinking to attract some attention. “Anybody home?”

  A surprised face surmounted by a thatch of kinky blond hair appeared above the railing and stared down at her openmouthed.

  “Who are you?”

  “A. J. O’Connor,” she yelled back. She recognized the gritty voice as that of Leonardo Santori.

  “Uh, wow. Would you mind proving it?”

  She almost broke into hysterical laughter. She had rowed out here carrying a briefcase and dressed for success, and he was questioning who she was? Plus the rocking of the rowboat was beginning to nauseate her, underscoring the unstable state of her stomach.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

  He seemed to think this over. “Okay, okay. Maybe it’s good that you’re here. There’s a ladder off the swim platform,” he said, pointing. “You can climb up.”

  She looked where he was pointing. The ladder on the stern of the yacht appeared sturdy enough, so she maneuvered the rowboat closer. Above her, she saw Santori waiting, and at his side hovered a nervous-looking man in a white coat. A steward, probably, Azure thought, having seen enough movies to know that a yacht required several.

  The rowboat rocked in a wake from a passing motorboat as she nudged it up to the ladder. The Samoa, big as it was, gave nary a lurch. Gritting her teeth, Azure rose in the rowboat, grasping the line in one hand and her briefcase in the other. She’d somehow have to hang onto both as she tethered the line to the ladder.

  She looped the line around one of the rungs and prepared to board. As she was heaving herself upward, the rowboat gave a frantic bobble. Unfortunately the sudden motion sent her briefcase flying, and when she tried to recapture it, she did, too. Right into the drink.

  She submerged along with a spate of bubbles, hoping that she didn’t resurface under the rowboat. Fortunately she did not. Fortunately, when her head broke the surface of the water, she saw her briefcase snagged on a large clump of seaweed. She barely managed to pluck it up before it floated away.

  “Are you all right?”

  “What do you think?” Azure sputtered, struggling to tread water. This might not be the right way to do business, she reflected, but she was determined that Santori would talk to her, like it or not.

  Her outstretched hand closed over a rung of the ladder. Hand over hand, somehow still wearing one high-heeled shoe, she made her way upward, water pouring from her clothes. Santori gave her a hand at the top, but the steward did little more than wring his hands and mumble disjointedly in a foreign language.

  Finally she stood on the teak deck. Water poured off her and ran away in little runnels, pooled in her shoe, and no doubt made her mascara run. If she had any left, that is.

  She eyed Santori warily. “Let’s have that meeting,” she said, wishing now more than ever that she wasn’t chasing the tail end of a hangover.

  “I think you’d better wait right here,” Santori said.

  The steward looked as if he were about to dissolve into hysterics. “But he has left the main salon,” the steward interjected hastily. “I don’t know where he is.”

  Who the mysterious “he” might be, Azure had no idea, but this missing person seemed important to Santori. “I’ll find him,” Santori said, and then, to Azure’s utter amazement, he dodged past her and through a nearby door. The agitated steward followed, uttering what might be curses that she couldn’t understand.

  Azure, standing alone on the deck, wrung water out of her skirt and flicked a bit of seaweed from her jacket pocket. She couldn’t help looking around her with curiosity. Too bad she couldn’t have brought that groupie woman Ginger with her to see the yacht; it was magnificent.

  She peered around the corner. Deck chairs were lined up neatly on the sun deck above, and someone was sitting in one. Because of the angle, she couldn’t tell who it was, but then he spoke.

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  Azure felt her stomach swoop down to her wet feet and back up again, and this stomach discomfort wasn’t due to her lingering hangover. It was because she knew that voice. It was the very same voice that had whispered so silkily in her ear last night, the voice that had called her, “My love.”

  The realization that this was Lee, the guy who had loved her and left her, was stupefying. What was he doing here?

  Cautiously, not know
ing what to expect, she made her way up a narrow teak staircase and sloshed lopsidedly around several deck chairs until he came into full view. She knew she must look a fright with her hair wet and stuck to her head, her expensive suit plastered to her body, and missing one shoe. Her appearance, however, was for once not uppermost in her mind.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, staring down at Lee. He looked wonderful, all tanned and, wonder of wonders, his hair blown smoothly dry. He was wearing a white polo shirt thrown open at the throat and navy-blue shorts. The polo shirt’s embroidered emblem said Samoa. His watch was a Rolex, and he wore deck shoes—expensive ones. No socks.

  Where were his usual sleeveless tee and baggy Hawaiian print shorts? Where were the running shoes with holes in the toes?

  “I have an idea,” Lee said, a twinkle springing into those remarkable gray eyes, “that I belong here more than you do.”

  He belonged here? Since when? Caught off balance, she could only say stupidly, “What?”

  “I live on the Samoa.”

  “But—” Words failed her. She fought for composure. “You’re going to have to help me out here. I came here to see Leonardo Santori.”

  “Looks like you’ve found him,” Lee said. He commenced to look her up and down, adding irrelevantly, “You should have called for the launch.”

  “You’re—? No, it’s not possible. It couldn’t be.” She tossed her sodden briefcase down on one of the deck chairs, and, still dripping copiously, eyed him with trepidation. “Why do I feel that I’m Alice fallen down a rabbit hole or something? This isn’t real.”

  “It is real. I want to tell you all about it.” He sounded worried.

  “About—this?” She waved a hand at their opulent surroundings, at the shiny brass railings, the deck chairs, the table set up nearby and stacked with plates of fruit, roast beef and lobster tails.

  “About me. Sit down, Azure. Please.”

  Her knees, which were feeling distinctly wobbly with the shock of all this, refused to support her any longer. She sat. Lee pulled his chair closer to hers and took her hands in his.

  “I am Leonardo Santori, Azure. Will it make a difference?”

  She snatched her hands away and, furious, said the first thing that came to mind. “I’ll say. You can buy your own lottery tickets from now on.”

  He looked as if he might laugh. “I meant in the way you feel about me.”

  Her anger abated when she looked deep into his eyes. “Why, I don’t know. I’m not sure I believe what you’re saying.”

  The man she had thought was Santori emerged breathlessly from a hatch behind them. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw them. “Oh! I’ve been looking for you, Lee.” He stared at Azure and ran a hand through his wild-looking hair. “I might as well explain that Miguel and I wouldn’t have let her come aboard, but I decided that if you love her, you’d want to see her.”

  “You love me?” Azure said to Lee in shock, not quite believing that she was asking.

  “Yes, and now that I’ve found you, I’m never going to lose you,” Lee said, his eyes never leaving hers.

  “But if you’re Santori, who is he?” Azure asked, staring at Fleck.

  “Azure, meet Fleck. He’s my first new employee at Grassy Creek.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Fleck said. “I think I’d better go. Maybe I’ll stop by the Grassy Creek store and take a look at it.” He went, dragging the flustered Miguel along with him.

  “You already have a Grassy Creek store?” Azure’s mind was spinning with all this new information

  “We painted some of it, remember?”

  “Omigosh.”

  “And it took quite a bribe to buy the silence of Jake Gruber, who was going to report us to the contractor and possibly the police.”

  “Your first Grassy Creek store is going to be in Miami,” Azure said. “Harry Wixler didn’t mention that.”

  “He doesn’t know. I didn’t think it was important to tell him. I asked him for help in starting up my franchise operation because if the Grassy Creek store is as big a success as I intend for it to be, I’ll have outlets all over the country. All over the world, maybe.”

  She pulled her hands away from his. “But why did you pretend to be a beach bum?”

  He laughed and recaptured her hands. “You’re the one who took me for a beach bum, dear. I let you go on thinking that because I never get a simple reaction to the real me when women know I’m Leonardo Santori. I like to call myself Lee Sanders when I first meet people. That way I know they like me for myself, not for my money.”

  “I see,” Azure said, though she didn’t really. She had little experience with billionaires, and none with billionaires who traveled incognito.

  “Stop trying to take your hands away. I’ll need to study them carefully so I’ll know your finger size when I buy the ring.”

  “Ring?” she said. He wanted to buy her a ring? When only a few days ago she’d been doubtful that he could afford a one-dollar lottery ticket?

  “Ring,” he affirmed. “And soon.”

  “Soon?” The man had reduced her to a gibbering idiot.

  “Today, maybe. I want to marry you, Azure.”

  He wanted to marry her. He wanted to marry her?

  She closed her eyes and opened them. Much to her surprise, Lee was still there. She had thought that maybe he would disappear—abracadabra!—and she would wake up back in Paulette’s bed with her hangover as fresh as ever.

  “By the way, do you always put the cap back on the toothpaste? It drives me crazy when people don’t.” Lee regarded her with barely concealed amusement.

  “Always,” Azure assured him. “But you’ll have to start wearing socks with your shoes. I hate it when guys wear shoes with no socks.” She’d blurted this out without thinking.

  “No problem.”

  “Do you want to be in the delivery room when our children are born?”

  He looked taken aback. “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

  “You’d better.”

  Lee became more serious. “So now that we’ve settled most of the important things, will you? Marry me, I mean?”

  “I have to go back to Boston,” she said weakly. “I have a job. I have an apartment.”

  “You’ll go back as Mrs. Lee Santori unless you feel strongly about keeping your own name.”

  “I don’t know. Azure Santori? A. J. Santori? Do you think maybe we could hyphenate?” Over and above all this, she couldn’t imagine Dorrie’s face when she confronted her with a ring and a husband, not to mention a yacht bearing a resemblance to the Taj Mahal.

  “You’ve thought long enough about becoming my wife. What do you say, Azure?”

  “I think so,” she whispered, still astonished at this whole turn of events.

  He drew her to her feet and enfolded her, wet clothes and all, in his arms. “I know so,” he said, comfortably close to her ear. “I’ve known it since the moment I saw you. Now that you’ve said you’ll marry me, how about telling me you love me? I believe it’s common practice, though we’ve put the cart before the horse in our case. And if you have any doubts, know that I adore you, Azure O’Connor. I idolize you. I love you with all my heart.”

  “I love you, too,” she said. “It’s just that I thought I loved a guy with no serious job, no prospects, no money.”

  “I don’t have a serious job, I do have certain prospects, and I’ve got gobs of money,” he said.

  “I’ve kissed a lot of frogs,” she said unbelievingly. “How am I supposed to believe that finally one of them has turned into a prince?”

  He laughed and swung her around. “Believe it, my darling. Now,” he said. “I think it’s time that we got you out of those wet clothes and into something more comfortable.”

  “Like bed?” she said, her hangover miraculously gone, replaced by a feeling of wonder as well as a desire to be held close and loved.

  “You see? We think alike,” he said, and he swept her
into his arms.

  He didn’t set her down again until they were in a large mahogany-paneled stateroom with wide windows overlooking the ocean beyond the bay. “I’ll find you something to wear,” he said, flinging open a closet.

  “Never mind,” she said, demurely divesting herself of damp wool and panty hose. “I won’t be needing clothes for quite some time.”

  He came to her then, all strength and warmth. And he was the Lee she had grown to love, not Leonardo Santori the billionaire, but the man whose affection and sense of fun had won her heart. She touched him, ran her hand over the smooth muscles of his back, down to his strong buttocks and around to his tattoo, making him tremble with desire. He smelled of soap and sunshine and of Lee, and when he whispered her name, she captured it in a deep and hungry kiss.

  And then, ignoring the painful blisters rising on both her palms, she took his hand in hers and led him to the bed.

  Epilogue

  On the Samoa, three months later

  “I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU husband and wife,” said the judge who had been invited to perform the ceremony. “You may kiss your bride, Lee.”

  Lee took Azure in his arms, taking care not to rumple her exquisite white gown. It was made of silk organza, cut on the bias, and showed off her figure to perfection.

  “My bride,” he said. “My love.” And then he kissed her, properly and thoroughly, taking so long to do it that everyone nearly let out a gasp of relief when he had finished.

  Since they were being married in the elegant main salon of the Samoa and since their guests were all family and close friends, they dispensed with the receiving line after the ceremony and mingled informally with their guests. Azure thought she had never had a happier day in her life.

  “I declare,” Goldy said as she peered over the railing of the Samoa toward the ocean. “those tea leaves were right. I am attending a ceremonial occasion over water.”

  “The tea leaves didn’t say anything about me,” Mandi said with a pout. “Me and Fleck.” She reached over and pulled Fleck to her, kissing him on the cheek.