The Au Pairs (The Au Pairs 1)

"You having a good time this summer?" Leo asked, propping himself up with his right arm and looking up at her. He didn't have Luke's startling green eyes or fine, Roman nose, but he had a kind face.

"Yes. Is been nice," Jacqui said politely, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Don't mind Van Varick. He can cut up kind of rough sometimes," he said gently.

Jacqui nodded, not really sure what he'd said.

142

"So what's Brazil like?"

Jacqui thought about it. What a question. But soon enough she was telling Leo all about her life back home--her two younger brothers, who still lived at home in Campinas, her life in the big city with her grandmother, who was sending her to the prestigious Santa Anita convent, where the president's daughters were educated, how her family wasn't rich, so she had gotten a job at Daslu to help pay her tuition.

Leo was an avid and interested listener, asking her all the right questions and prodding her for more details. Jacqui found herself feeling so much better just to have someone who was actually interested in what she had to say.

The two of them were laughing at some particularly funny soccer play-by-plays she was recounting when Luke rounded up the hill.

"What's so funny?" he asked suspiciously. "Nothing--nothing," Jacqui said, still chuckling at the David Beckham fumble.

Luke looked pointedly at his friend, who shrugged and turned away. Jacqui knew that look. It said: Easy, man.

Luke crouched next to Jacqui. "Hey, babe, you wanna go for a walk? So we can get a chance to talk without this clown around?" he asked, winking lasciviously.

Jacqui nodded and let Luke help her up.

"Just going to take Jacqui for a moonlight stroll," he said to Leo.

143

Luke led her to a secluded spot near the bushes. "Come down here with me," he said, patting the sand.

"Look at the moon," Jacqui said as she sat down beside him. "Remember how you told me that poem about the stars?" she mused.

"Mmm," Luke said, not having any idea what she was talking about.

"Walt Whitman. You read it to me when we were camping outdoors. 'The Astronomer' ... 'the Astronomer' something?"

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer," Luke said impatiently.

In Sao Paulo, Luke had recited this poem to her when they were looking up at the night sky.

Yeah, Dalton had taught him something, but he wasn't about to repeat that poem--or that moment--with her now. He had other things on his mind, and before she could ask him another question, he was on top of her, slipping a hand up her shirt. She flinched as he stuck his wet tongue in her ear. He smelled like shellfish.

"You know how pot makes me so horny... and you look on fire tonight, babe. God, you don't know what you do to me," he said, slobbering all over her neck and shoulders.

Jacqui blinked up at the fat, white mo

on and the perfectly silent stars. It wasn't romantic and it wasn't making her happy, but somehow, she wanted her Luca all the same.

144

ryan finds out mara is full of surprises

The party was over. Chauncey Raven and her thirty-person entourage were long gone. The only people left at the club were desperate single people who were still hoping to go home lucky, hard-core alcoholics, and a stray cocktail waitress or two. Even the publicists and the gossip columnists had gone to bed. Eliza had taken the Mercedes SUV, though, so Mara was still there, sitting alone in the back room with Ryan.

"I guess we should go," Mara said as the overhead lights blinked on and off.

"You think?" Ryan grinned.