A Summer to Remember

chapter Two

After I finished making all my calls and my girlfriends had agreed to meet me at the summer house in Southampton, I quickly got on the road. I owned a 2013 Firenze red Range Rover I rarely drove in the City and since space was at a premium, it cost a mint to park but I didn’t regret it one bit.

The ride to Southampton took me out of the City and through Long Island. I enjoyed the windows down, the wind in my hair and listening to my favorite artists including Rihanna, Scarlet Fever, Pink, Deftones, The Pretty Reckless and many others from my wayward—and current—youth. I was still young since twenty-four was not considered old or older by any stretch of the imagination.

It had never been easy for Jude or I, growing up in the lap of luxury and never knowing who our real friends were and whether they liked us because we were part of the same society crowd or because they truly liked us as people. It didn’t matter that we were surrounded by other teenagers our age that also came from prestigious backgrounds. The fact was everyone was always trying to outdo everyone else and that was no way to live.

When I met my best friends in college, I didn’t discuss money with them at all and because of this, when they found out my parents were loaded, they genuinely didn’t care and that was a great feeling. It was the precise reason why we’d bonded our freshman year at Vassar and never let go.

It didn’t matter we had all decided such different career paths. All that we were concerned about was our friendship was genuine and we made time to get together each and every quarter, regardless where life had taken us.

By the time I arrived in Southampton and my parents’ summer home, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. The house, more like a mansion, was large and pale gray with two stories, six bedrooms and six and half bathrooms. It had private access to the beach but it was shaded by plenty of trees therefore it provided absolute privacy. There was a large, outdoor swimming pool and there was plenty to do inside as well in the oversized game room surrounded by glass where there was a pool table, a sixty-inch television with an X-Box attached, a library of films on both blu-ray and DVD as well as darts board and several antique arcade game machines my father collected as a hobby including Pac-Man and my ultimate favorite, Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The mansion was built purposely to allow a lot of natural light so there was an abundance of windows on both the first and second floor.

The kitchen was massive and the place required constant work which was why there was a small staff available at all times. I had called Monique, the head housekeeper, and asked her to have the place ready ahead of time but when I arrived, the staff were still cleaning and dusting.

“I’m so sorry about this!” Monique greeted in a deep French-accented voice before we exchanged air kisses.

She was a small woman, older but very well kept with her silver-blonde hair, blue eyes and classical Norman features. She also was not responsible for doing any housework hence the reason why her pale blue Chanel suit was still immaculate and her manicured fingernails gleamed in the bright sunshine that streamed through the house.

“No worries. If the pool is clean then I am just going to go outside and sun myself for a bit,” I responded in a gracious voice. “Thank you for doing this at the last minute. My parents told me to check on the place but they had no idea I would be staying for a while.”

“Remember to use sunblock and by the way, Paul is here.”

My heart beat just a little bit faster but I smiled again and replied, “Thanks, Monique.”

Paul Branson was an old family friend not to mention my brother’s best pal. They had known one another since grade school and he was firmly outside of my reach. He had a perfect girlfriend to go along with his own perfection and a family that rivaled my own in the money department.

I decided to keep him waiting as I walked up to the bedroom that had belonged to me since I was a child.

Though my friends would be visiting, there were two bedrooms that were definitely off limits—my parents’ of course and Jude’s; no one ever used those rooms but the people in question and although I had invited my three best friends, they had stayed there before and already had their bedrooms picked out. Usually they doubled up since two of the guest bedrooms had two full-sized beds and a bathroom each but they could actually fight over the three remaining rooms though I had a feeling Talia would end up in the bedroom with the queen-sized bed and bathroom.

Although she’d initially come from humble beginnings, she took to money like a duck took to water, and it was her stepfather’s money that allowed her to pursue a music career that was faltering because all she did was write music and lyrics for artists far more successful than her.

It might have seemed like a raw deal but it wasn’t because when those songs shot up the charts, she was the one who got paid and not the artist. She didn’t have to hold too tight to her stepfather’s money or influential connections but she wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

I took a quick shower before I slipped on my new turquoise bikini which fit me like a second skin. I wasn’t tanned at all yet; in fact, I was downright pale. I slipped my hair into a ponytail before I added a turquoise sheer cover-up and walked down the stairs in a pair of wooden mules with turquoise straps.

Monique glared at me before I removed my plush beach towel off my arm to show her a bottle of John Master’s organic sunscreen, SPF thirty, for my skin. It was the spray-on kind so it was perfect because I could ask Paul for help with my back while I inquired about his life and what was going on with him lately.

Hell, a woman could dream, couldn’t I?

Paul sat next to the pool on the one of the luxurious wooden loungers with the soft cream pillow tops and soaked in the fairly mild Southampton sun. He had a bottle of lager—Beck’s—and sunscreen next to his lounger while he seemed to block the world out.

He truly was a beautiful specimen with his lightly tanned skin and pair of Speedos that would have looked cheesy on anyone else but just made him look delectable and good enough to eat. Both he and my brother had been on the swim team together so he had a gorgeous swimmer’s body with a lean muscular build, strong thighs, an athletic back and firm, strong arms.

Unfortunately, his skin wasn’t the only part him that happened to be golden. His hair was the color of natural honey blond with flaxen highlights from the sun and his eyes were crystal blue with a touch of aquamarine that came out at the most inopportune times. The guy was absolutely perfect and his face which resembled Adonis hadn’t even come into my sight yet, at least not up close and personal.

I sighed softly before I walked over to him, my mules clicking against the asphalt, and laid out on the lounger next to his.

Paul finally turned my way and smiled broadly. “Why, hello, there. I received a phone call from Jude this morning and he told me you were heading up here so I thought I would walk over and at least welcome you.”

He loved to flirt with me but we both knew a relationship could never happen between us because Jude would kill me and then him. Hell, I couldn’t even take him on a test drive if I wanted to keep all my womanly parts. Jude drew the line at very little but Paul was one of the individuals who was firmly off limits to me.

“Hey, how are you?” I inquired feeling quite girly and insecure for the first time in forever.

I didn’t usually act like this and the way I behaved was not in the natural order of my life. Men bowed down to me and I treated them like a never-ending supply of Ken dolls. They bathed in the attention I gave them as well as my beauty, plied me with compliments and I had my fun and left them when I felt like it.

This was my life since Kevin had left me and it was only now I realized he had done me a favor. Without the complications of a relationship, I could have a lot of fun and not feel guilty afterwards.

I was a woman of the new generation who didn’t necessarily act like a man but definitely treated sex the way men did and it was completely liberating. Sex was a great past time and a fun activity but it didn’t necessarily lead to love and I wasn’t expecting it to either. I was twenty-four and my whole life was in front of me. I had plenty of time to settle down and find the right guy. Right at that very moment, all I was interested in was this Friday night coming up in less than a full day.

My best friends would be in Southampton with me and we would join the young and beautiful crowd on the beach and have fun, drink too much and have an absolutely wonderful time. This summer was all about spending time with Talia, Savannah and Autumn. Men were definitely an after thought and that is the way it was always going to be as far as I was concerned.

“I’m doing great to be honest. I just came up for a long weekend. The parents are in Italy so it’s all good.” Paul turned toward me and stared at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “What about you? According to Jude, you’re thinking of spending the whole summer here. Isn’t that a bit unrealistic? I mean with the art gallery and your job?”

“It is and it isn’t,” I responded in an evasive manner. “I haven’t made up my mind yet but I want to spend time with my girlfriends. Perhaps I won’t get the whole summer and just June but I will definitely make the trip on Friday afternoons just to get away from the City. I’ve had it with Manhattan.”

He snickered out loud. “You haven’t been there long enough.”

“It claustrophobic and I am used to trees and the open air. Jude and I have a great loft but I still get anxiety attacks sometimes. I just don’t think it’s for me and now I have screwed it up by building my whole life there.”

Paul said nothing as he watched me spray on the sunscreen and gently rub it into my soft skin. “Do you need help with your back?”

“Yes, please,” I replied in my best helpless voice.

He leaned over and untied the back of my bikini top. I don’t know why but his touch was sensual and warm. I felt myself grow damp between my legs and silently cursed myself. What a freakin’ cliché! A man who I had deep and intense feelings for as long as I could remember touched me and all the sudden I was a pile of goo who couldn’t string two words together? I was a pathetic excuse for the modern woman!

The spray hit my back like a dose of cold water before his warm hands massaged the liquid into my skin. “You have to give the City a chance. I grew up in Connecticut too and when I first moved to Manhattan, I hated it. I cursed Jude for getting me a job at the investment firm and all I wanted was the safe and comforting surroundings I grew up with but…little by little, the City that never sleeps has grown on me.”

I turned towards him though all he could see was my profile. “You’re serious? You actually like New York?”

He sprayed my lower back and slowly massaged the liquid into my skin. “I don’t like it—I love it now. Plus, I think about what if I had never taken the chance then what are the odds I would have met Ashley?”

Not only did I feel wordless but I felt clueless.

F*cking perfect Ashley Cartwright with her perfect name and her perfect WASP background.

Me? Well, my family was the average American family—a regular Heinz 57. My mother was a quarter Creole, a quarter Scottish, a quarter Irish and a quarter Welsh. My father had been adopted by a very wealthy couple who were actually Scandinavian but my father was actually half German, a quarter Finnish and a quarter Norwegian. His father had been an exchange student and thus the reason why his very Midwestern mother from Minnesota had given him up in the first place. She was about to enter graduate school and found out her ex-beau had left her with more than just a surprise goodbye before he’d moved back to Frankfurt.

Paul and Ashley were so different and shared nothing but our society crowd, I wondered how they managed to get together at all.

His background was mostly English on his father’s side with a touch of French Huguenot and Welsh in his family tree. The Branson family had called America their home since well before the American Revolution. Paul’s mother, on the other hand, was a first generation American his father had met in her native Netherlands. Although she was technically Dutch and had grown up there her whole life until she married Paul’s father and moved to the States, her mother was a German who’d relocated from Hamburg, fell in love with a Dutchman and the quiet city of Enschede.

As far as what I knew about Ashley, the bitch could trace her family line back to the Mayflower—on both sides of the family tree. She was a rare breed indeed and it looked like Paul planned to hold on to her with both hands.

“So, where is this gorgeous, beautiful and untouchable Ashley?” I inquired as Paul tied the straps to my bikini and handed me back my sunscreen.

“Listen, I am almost out in terms of my beverage of choice. Can I bring you anything from the kitchen?”

I smiled and realized he was better than me when it came to avoiding questions.

“Belvedere vodka and Perrier please. I’m watching my weight.”

Paul stood and grinned back at me, showing a perfect set of straight, even white teeth. “From where I am standing, you’re perfect the way you are.”

“Thanks for the compliment but I’d like to keep this beach body.”

He looked me up and down with less than casual or friendly intent. “I can see why.”

I rolled my eyes. “You have a girlfriend, remember?”

“Yeah but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m dead,” he mumbled under his breath and strode toward the house.

I lay back and breathed out loud. I could finally relax for a minute or two. If I had remembered what Paul could bring out in me, I would have stayed in my room until he’d decided to leave.

Stupid me. Always a stickler for trouble but I had to admit I loved it and the feeling of danger, like I was playing with fire in the pit of my stomach, drove me further towards a goal that was ultimately unachievable.