“I’ll give you the phone number, but don’t say where you got it. And don’t tell the others.” She glanced toward the three women. They were sitting around a concrete picnic table in the shade of a palm tree. “They’re peeved because I went out with the great Santori yesterday. I thought he really liked me, but not all that much, as it turned out.” She gave a little laugh and fished a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “Here’s the phone number. Do you have a pencil so you can write it down?”
Azure produced a pencil from her fanny pack and wrote down the phone number that Ginger offered. “Thanks, Ginger. You’ve been a big help. And good luck with Mario.”
Ginger shoved the bit of paper back into the pocket of her shorts. “Thanks.” She settled her earphones over her ears before Azure set off down the dock.
“Giving up already?” one of the women at the picnic table called when she saw Azure headed toward the street.
“Yes. It hardly seems worth it to wait around here.”
The three women exchanged knowing glances. “Oh, it is. Believe me, it is.”
Well, maybe something was wrong with her, Azure reflected as she jogged back toward the Blue Moon. But she’d rather spend time with a beach bum who liked her instead of a billionaire who didn’t give a hoot. And who had, apparently, no lack of gorgeous women in his life.
PAULETTE HAD NOT TAKEN any messages for her so far this morning, and neither had Goldy. A check of stored messages on her cell phone didn’t produce any, either, but it was still early. Maybe Lee would call later.
Azure certainly didn’t intend to tell Paulette that she and Lee had almost made love on the beach last night. It just slipped out as they were in Paulette’s tiny kitchen drinking iced tea.
“You mean you wanted to?” Paulette said with frank amazement.
Azure, perched on a kitchen stool painted with orange and blue polka dots, stirred her unsweetened tea. While she’d been working out, she had decided to give up sugar, which made for flab. Which made for body anxiety. Which was not good when you were contemplating taking off your clothes in front of somebody for the first time whether or not he had a tattoo on his abdomen to distract you.
“Yes, I wanted to sleep with him. It was—” Azure groped for words. It was not easy to voice your exact feelings on the subject of why you wanted to have sex with a man. She hardly understood it herself.
“Last night was magical,” Azure said, knowing that didn’t cover the half of it. “It was mindbending. Marvelous. Memorable.”
“It was Miami Beach,” Paulette said flatly. “The tropical climate, the rush of the sea to shore, the freedom of being away from it all and on vacation. Sex with a new person seems special at the time, Azure, but you know as well as I do that these vacation flirtations don’t last.”
“Did I say I wanted it to last?”
Paulette shrugged. “From what I can tell, most women crave permanence. In the back of their minds there’s always the possibility that a fling could be the real thing.”
While she was thinking this over, Azure got up and rinsed her glass in the sink. “Not,” she said, “after Charming Paco. That was supposed to be the real thing, and I thought it was a stable relationship. Then—boom!—a naked, wet Tiffany was being royally soaped by my equally naked and wet boyfriend in my bathtub. I ask you, how can I ever think anything is real after that?”
“Well, her boobs were real enough,” Paulette pointed out.
“Right,” Azure said with a sigh. She glanced at her watch. “Now that I’ve got a phone number for the Samoa, I’m going to call that client, despite what Harry said. I’d like to know what’s what.”
Paulette got up and began to load the dishwasher. “Say, aren’t we going shopping today? I wanted to buy a pair of shoes to wear to the seminar.”
“How about later? I’m hoping Lee will call.”
“Did Lee actually tell you to expect a phone call from him?”
“He said, ‘I’ll call you,’ and he has your number as well as my cell phone number. But you know as well as I do how men say they’re going to call and never do.”
“You know why? Karma and I did a survey on that for Rent-a-Yenta. It’s because they didn’t like the sex. They think it’s polite to say they’ll call afterward even when they have no intention of doing so. They have no idea how nerve-racking it is for the woman who waits by a phone that never rings.” Paulette closed the dishwasher door and shoved the box of detergent back under the sink.
“But Lee and I have never had sex.”
“Then he’ll call. Chances on he’ll keep calling until he gets you in the sack. He’ll want to know if you’re good at it.”
“Is that what it’s all about?”
“For a lot of guys it is. Are you good at sex?”
“Paulette!”
Her cousin only grinned. “Just curious.”
“As it happens,” Azure said with dignity, “I am very good at it. At least according to Paco.”
“Who ran off with a pair of 40DDs.” With a final knowing look, Paulette flounced off to her bedroom, where she commenced shuffling papers around on her desk.
Sometimes Azure didn’t like this cousin of hers much at all. Also, she resented Paulette for raising the question of whether or not she was good in bed. Based on Charming Paco’s enthusiastic response and the self-help tests she’d completed in Cosmo, she thought she was fine, even remarkably adept at times. And she enjoyed sex.
But would Lee think she was good at it?
And would her life be ruined if he never even had a chance to find out?
Well, no. We weren’t talking ruined lives here if she never heard from him again. But we were talking a ruined week or so, which was bad enough when that week was in Miami Beach and there was an ocean and a moon and stars urging you on to fulfillment of your heart’s desire. Or at least what passed for your heart’s desire while on vacation.
Memo to self:
1. Do I want Paco to know when I’ll be back in Boston? What to tell Dorrie to tell him?
2. Don’t answer calls from Harry Wixler until talk to client.
3. Buy revealing underwear so will look sexy for Lee. Check into thong panties if butt not too bouncy.
AZURE DRUMMED HER FINGERS on the arm of the lounge chair as she listened to the measured bleep! of the ship-to-shore telephone on the other end of her cell phone. She wished she were at the beach right now. But no. She was trying to reach Harry’s elusive client.
The phone picked up. “Samoa,” said a nonchalant male voice.
“Hello, this is A. J. O’Connor of Wixler Consultants, and I’d like to leave a message for Mr. Santori.”
A long silence, so long that she thought she might have been disconnected. Then, experimentally, “You’ve got Santori.”
She hadn’t expected this. She had expected to talk to an assistant, a steward, a secretary—not to the man himself.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Santori, I’m hoping that we can get together soon to discuss your plans for franchising your Grassy Creek business.”
Another long silence. “Sure, that’s a great idea. Uh, I mean, a good idea. To talk, you know.”
Azure frowned. Somehow all she had heard about Leonardo Santori had led her to believe that he was a man of well-spoken sensibilities. This man sounded ill-at-ease and, moreover, too tentative ever to have been head of a major company like Dot.Musix.
“Perhaps you could suggest a time?”
“What’s good for you?”
Usually clients were more specific, since they knew they were calling the shots. “May I take you to dinner on Friday?”
“Take me to dinner? Well, okay.”
“I’ll be glad to pick you up, if you like, at your landing dock at the marina.”
“Kewl! Is seven o’clock all right?”
“Of course. I’ll see you then.”
“Right-o.”
After they hung up, she sat for a moment shaking her head at her preconceived no
tions. Mr. Santori might be rich, but he sounded extremely unsophisticated. Well, he might not be what she expected, but at least they had an appointment.
When she went back inside the apartment, Azure booted up her laptop and checked her online mailbox for messages. Not surprisingly, there was one from her boss.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Client
A.J., I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for Wixler Consultants to retain Leonardo Santori’s goodwill. If he doesn’t phone you within the next twenty-four hours, I strongly suggest that you call him. STRONGLY, A.J. Harry Wixler
SINCE SHE HAD ALREADY TAKEN action, Azure decided that no response to Harry’s e-mail was necessary, so she shut off her computer and went shopping instead.
PAULETTE WASTED NO TIME in hauling Azure off to the very boutique where the yellow crochet bikini was still part of the window display, and she immediately located a version of it that seemed, to Azure’s eyes, two sizes too small.
“Look at it this way, Azure,” Paulette said impatiently when Azure stood in front of her in the dressing room wearing the swimsuit. “You want to drive Lee crazy. This bikini will do that. You look hot, hot, hot, girl.”
“With the air-conditioning in here going full blast, I feel cold, cold, cold.” Azure twisted this way and that, the better to assess the ample amount of goosebumped skin reflected in the three-way mirror. The swimsuit showed off her breasts to advantage, leaving little to the imagination. The bottom was not much more than a few interwoven threads that covered the essentials but left most of her hips bare. She gave it a futile tug and sighed.
“You have a great figure,” Paulette said, “and besides, this outfit is the perfect look for South Beach. Why, people are walking around in a lot less than that out on the sidewalk.”
It was true. Skimpy boob tubes in Day-Glo shades, miniskirts with portholes of clear plastic so that skin showed underneath, gauzy see-through pantaloons worn with little in the way of underwear—Azure had seen them all.
“And,” said Paulette in her most officious tone, “we’ll take the pareo that goes with the suit. And the—”
“Not the feather boa or the snakeskin boots,” Azure said firmly, stopping Paulette in midsentence.
“Why not?”
“They’re outrageous, and definitely not me.”
“You said the bikini wasn’t you, either,” Paulette reminded her.
“The me I used to know seems to have evaporated in this heat,” Azure said with a sigh. Paulette only laughed.
“You could try a new hairdo,” Paulette suggested offhandedly from outside the dressing room door as Azure was getting dressed.
Azure stopped and looked—really looked—at her hair in the mirror. As usual, it was neatly twisted at her nape, and she thought it looked fine.
“I don’t think I need a new hairstyle,” she said to Paulette as she emerged from the dressing room.
“Try this,” Paulette said, and before Azure could dodge out of her way, Paulette had pulled huge hanks of hair down on either side of Azure’s face and was taking aim at the twist.
“Stop!” Azure yelped. “My hair is okay.”
“So why should it be merely okay when it could be great?” Paulette said in midyank.
“Ow! What are you doing?”
“Finding the casual you,” Paulette said before stepping back and admiring her handiwork.
“There is no casual me.” With her hands full of garments that she’d tried on, Azure was unable to repair the damage to her hairdo. She rolled her eyes at her image in the three-way mirror across the narrow corridor between dressing rooms. The hair that Paulette had pulled out of the twist trailed around her face, wafting in the breeze from the air conditioner vent overhead. The twist itself was cockeyed, the hair that was still in it haphazardly held by the pins. “I look like a bimbo who just got out of bed.”
“Oy! So what’s wrong with that?”
“I have a serious job. I need serious hair.”
“Not when you’re on vacation.”
Azure had to admit that the bedroom look was, well, sensual. Experimentally she drew her lips into a pout.
“There! That’s perfect! You try that when you’re wearing that yellow bikini and Lee will want to jump your bones.”
This outburst brought Azure back to reality. “Paulette, you’re incorrigible. Thanks for your help, and how about if I take you to lunch?”
But Paulette said she had to leave for the seminar late in the afternoon and still hadn’t found the shoes she needed for her outfit, and if Azure didn’t mind, she thought she’d better skip it.
After Paulette had left the shop, Azure, feeling deliciously wicked, hastily bought several pairs of thong panties, jiggling be damned.
“HI,” SAID GOLDY, who was eating a kiwi fruit with a plastic spoon when Azure got back to the Blue Moon. “Anything new?”
Azure pulled the bikini from its bag and arrayed it on the counter for Goldy’s inspection. “What do you think?” She left the panties in the bag, not wanting to appear as wanton as buying them had made her feel.
Goldy grinned. “I think you’re going to give Mr. Lee Sanders an eyeful, that’s what I think.”
“If I even hear from him,” Azure said, wrapping her purchase back up in the tissue paper. “If he’s still interested.”
“You’ll hear from him. I’m sure of it.”
“You phone me upstairs right away if you see Lee’s red Mustang pull into the parking lot, Goldy. Please.”
“I’ll ring you as soon as I see the aura of that red convertible preceding it down the street,” Goldy promised.
As soon as Azure got back to the apartment, she checked her cell phone to see if Lee had called. Again there were no messages. What if she had bought all this new underwear and the bikini for nothing? A yellow crochet number wasn’t exactly something she’d want to wear at the health club pool in Boston, and as for her upcoming week on Cape Cod in August, forget it. Dorrie and their other friends would laugh their heads off if she showed up in a bikini that almost wasn’t there.
Still, crochet bikinis and the like were what people wore here, so she decided to put it on. It exposed a lot of skin, that was for sure. Which made for getting a great suntan, so she settled a beach towel on the chaise longue on the balcony and lay back to soak up some serious rays. Bees were buzzing around the papery thin magenta flowers on the bougainvillea vine that climbed the side of the building, and somewhere someone was gabbling in exuberant Spanish. After a while a jackhammer started up across the street. Azure blotted out the sounds, trying not to think about work or whether she would hear from Lee.
It was an hour or so later when a foam cup weighted by a seashell flew over the balcony railing, startling Azure out of a reverie in which she was pleasantly dwelling on her recent vivid imaginings concerning Lee.
As soon as she saw there was a piece of paper wrapped around the seashell, Azure looked down and saw Lee’s red car parked under the royal poinciana tree below in the parking lot. Goldy hadn’t called to warn her! There was no sign of Lee, however, though she knew that must be who had thrown the cup.
She unwrapped the piece of paper and read it eagerly.
“Azure,” it said. “Meet me downstairs. Believe it or not, I’m going to have my tarot read.” It was signed, Lee.
“Having his tarot read?” she wondered out loud. But what did it matter? He was here, and he wanted to see her.
The pareo that went with her new bikini had a black background arrayed with wild tropical flowers, was not quite opaque and barely came to her knees. It took her a few minutes to wind it in an artistically saronglike way, first tying it experimentally between her breasts, then tugging it down to cover more of her thighs, and finally trying to make up her mind if its transparency was a plus or a minus. She finally decided that it was a plus and tied the corners around her neck, halterlike, before hurrying to the lobby, where s
he found Goldy slapping tarot cards down on the counter as Lee watched with an expression more skeptical than not.
“Hi,” Lee said, and she was gratified that he looked her up and down and then up again in the manner of a man who wanted to see more. It was his Lust Puppy look, and it encouraged her considerably.
“Lee’s getting a good tarot reading, Azure,” Goldy said, looking over the cards.
Before she could reply, there was a clattering on the stairs. “What’s going on, Goldy? I saw a red Mustang in the parking lot and—oh, hello, Lee. And Azure.” Mandi, resplendent in vinyl shorts in an alarming shade of purple, a geometric-print top that was several sizes too small, and midcalf white boots, slinked up to the counter, which was just the right height to allow her to support her unfettered breasts on it only inches from the tarot cards.
“I’m reading cards for Lee,” Goldy said without looking up.
“Hmm, let me see,” said Mandi, craning so she could see the spread. “Isn’t that the Emperor right there?” She pointed to a card whereon a man sat on a throne holding a large scepter.
“Mmm-hmm,” Goldy said. “The Emperor is Lee’s agent. It represents him as he as at present.”
“Oooh,” Mandi said, sounding impressed. “The Emperor is a powerful card, right, Goldy?”
“Yes indeed,” Goldy said. She lay out a couple more cards, covering the Emperor.
“What do you mean by powerful?” Lee asked, looking turned off by the whole thing.
“The Emperor is the ruler of the world, possessing its highest attributes,” Goldy intoned as she intently studied the cards.
Mandi huffed impatiently. “You’re too shy to tell all of it, Goldy, so I will. The Emperor is the ultimate in masculinity and dominates sexually. See that thing he’s holding?”
“The scepter?” Azure supplied in spite of herself.
“It’s a phallic symbol. It’s longer than a normal scepter would be, and the circle on top represents the part of the female that is penetrated by the male. The Emperor makes women ecstatic with his expertise. He—”
“Mandi, for heaven’s sake.” Goldy was blushing. “The important element is the crown that the Emperor wears. It bespeaks mastery over all. The Emperor is a powerful card, Lee. Very powerful.”
Life Is A Beach (Mills & Boon Silhouette): Life Is A Beach / A Real-thing Fling Page 27