“Do you regret what just happened?”
I hesitate, not sure how to explain the way I’m feeling. Without opening myself up completely, making myself entirely vulnerable to a man who doesn’t feel the same way I do. Want the same thing I want. “Do you?”
“Fuck, no. Nothing tastes better than you coming on my tongue.”
By some miracle I manage to snag a table, and Savannah breezes in a few minutes later. “I swear, I drool all week long, just waiting to get back to this place.”
I nod in agreement, my mouth already full of coconut and chocolate and fresh raspberries. “Me, too.” But all I can think about is Lance. I want to be kissing him, stroking him, showing him just how—
Stop. It.
“You?” Savannah points her spoon at me accusingly. “You’ve been out here the whole summer—don’t tell me you only come here with me.”
A guilty flush rises to my cheeks. “I might have swung by once or twice. But only when I’m out this way, I promise.”
“And how often is that? I would think you’d be camped out at the gorgeous house with your new man—who I’m dying to meet, by the way.”
“He’s not my man.”
“No?” Savannah flips her spoon upside down, sucking on it. Uh oh. She has that look. I brace myself. “Not even three weeks ago, you couldn’t shut up about Lance. You were deliriously happy and having the best sex of your life. But lately, every time I ask about him, you start talking about the hydrangea bush in his garden or some painting you picked out. Stop giving me the runaround. What’s going on?”
I busy myself hunting out the dark chocolate cacao nibs that must have worked their way to the bottom of my cup. “Nothing’s going on. I’m just trying to keep things professional. Focus on the work—”
Savannah slides her hand across the table and wraps her fingers around my forearm. “Even when you were with Richard, and lying to everyone else, you were honest with me. Don’t lock me out.”
Savannah is my best friend, my oldest friend. I can’t keep avoiding her questions. And I don’t want to. I take a deep breath and come clean.
“Lance hired me to be his girlfriend.”
Savannah withdraws her hand and gives me a confused look. “Rewind. You’re charging him to be his girlfriend?”
I almost laugh. “No, I would have been happy to do it for free. It was his idea.” Her eyes widen as I recount Lance’s hissy fit when I told him that I needed to work on weekends. They grow even wider when I share the plan he devised: paying me to be his plus-one so getting set up would no longer be a negative variable in his perfectly ordered life.
“And you agreed to it?”
“Not at first. But then . . .”
Pretend to be my adoring girlfriend, and I’ll pretend to be your very committed boyfriend. And after Labor Day, you’ll have a fat bank account and your time will be your own again.
“But then . . .” Savannah prods.
“Then Lance made it clear he has no intention of seeing me after the season is over.”
“No. He really said that?”
“Pretty much.” My voice trembles. “So, if he’s basically going to throw me away in a couple of months, I might as well take the money and run, right?”
“How on earth did you manage to find a bigger dick than Dick?”
I half-sob, half-laugh, covering my face with my hands. “So much bigger.”
Savannah waits until I pull myself together, or maybe until she can wrap her head around the situation I’ve gotten myself into. “Tell me, what’s the going rate for a girlfriend these days?
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
“Shut. Up.” She pales beneath her bronze tan. “Holy fuckballs, Viv. That money can be a down payment on an apartment, or a trip around the world, or a lifetime supply of stilettos, or . . .”
“Or seed money for a new business.”
“Are you still sl—”
“No!” Heads turn and I lower my voice. “God, of course not.”
For a few minutes Savannah eats her frozen yogurt while I concentrate on ripping my napkin into narrow strips, building a tiny fence between the edge of the table and my paper cup. “You know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
I carefully layer another gossamer-thin strip of paper on top of the others. “It kinda would.”
“He’s not paying you for sex, he’s paying you to be available. You said the sex was amazing, right? Why should you have to give it up just because the guy must have seen Pretty Woman a few too many times?”
I look up, needing to see Savannah’s face to decide whether she’s serious. “Do I have to remind you that Julia Roberts actually was a prostitute in that movie?”
“That’s beside the point,” she says. And yes, she’s completely serious. “You wanted this summer to be about you, not some guy. Isn’t that exactly what you’re getting? A hell of a paycheck and a Hamptons beach house to add to your portfolio. Why give up the great sex? If you can have your cake and eat it too, I say go for it.”
“The problem is, I like him. A lot. I mean, I’m furious at how he handled this, how he made me feel. But if I set all that aside . . .” I sigh, thinking about our lobster roll dinner and holding hands as we walked along the beach, about Lance’s grief over his stepsister and his efforts to put me at ease when he knew I was nervous. “He’s really great, Savvy.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. He’s made his feelings perfectly clear. My usefulness has an expiration date. If I don’t draw a line in the sand, and stay firmly on my side of it, I’ll be a mess when summer’s over.”
Her expression is fierce as she studies me. “How would you be if summer ended now, today? If you never saw Lance again?”
I blink at her, my stomach churning with regret.
“You might as well put your whole heart on the line. From the look on your face, it’s already his.”
I clean up the mess I’ve made and we make our way outside. The salty breeze feels good on overheated skin.
“Hey, can you give me a ride back to Quogue?”
“Sure.” I shove my sunglasses over my eyes and aim the key fob at Lance’s car.
“You’re shitting me, right? A Maserati convertible?” She looks at me in shock, her hoop earrings swaying as she shakes her head. “Girl, tell me what you’re doing because, clearly, I am doing something wrong. A Maserati, damn. I’ve never even dated a man who owns a Mercedes.”
Chapter 33
Vivienne
32 DAYS UNTIL LABOR DAY
Jolie shifts her son on her hip and studies the inspiration board propped up against the wall, the angle of her head and the furrow between her brows signaling her inner conflict. “I like what she’s come up with but . . .”
I’m staring at it too, and just as conflicted, but for a very different reason. The board is from Anne Abbott.
Jolie would have been my client—the project Richard thought was too high-profile for me to lead.