The Au Pairs (The Au Pairs 1)

"That's your Luca? Jacqui, you should have told me earlier! That's Luke Van Varick. He's like the biggest player in New York. A total jerk. I've known him for years. He and Karin have been dating since eighth grade, and he's been cheating on her the whole time."

Jacqui nodded and bit her lip. She had known something like this was coming; she just hadn't wanted to believe it. Now she was stuck in some godforsaken place in the States when she could have been in Rio with her friends.

"There was no way you could have known that," Mara consoled.

"He always plays that whole nerdy thing, like he's not interested, but it's all a ploy. He's totally cocky and arrogant. Ugh.

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He's the worst," Eliza said. "You're better off without him. Good riddance!"

"O que quer que, I need another drink," was all Jacqui said.

Eliza and Mara looked at each other helplessly, and then they did the things that came most naturally to them in times of crisis. Mara took a tissue and wiped the mascara from under Jacqui's eyes, and Eliza handed Jacqui two half-drunk flutes of champagne. For now, it was the best they could do.

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jacqui Knows that the best way to get over somebody is to get under someone else

An hour later Jacqui stood under the same tent, nursing her drink. The bartender had put a cheerful umbrella on her mojito, but the sight of the jaunty little paper parasol just made her feel worse. She rested her drink on a nearby table and fished in her purse for a cigarette.

"Excuse me," a guy said, placing an empty glass next to hers.

He'd been heading toward the parking lot before he stopped.

She looked up to see Leo--Luca's sweet friend Leo--standing there with a goofy grin on his face. He was wearing a similar seersucker jacket to the one Luca was also wearing that afternoon, with the sleeves scrunched to the elbows, and baggy blue jeans with the top of his flannel boxer shorts showing. It was very hip- hop Wasp, a big look in East Hampton that summer.

"Good to see you--hey, something wrong?" he asked when he saw the look on her face.

"Nothing," she said. She didn't want anything to do with him,

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especially anything or anyone who reminded her of Luca. "C'mon, you can tell me," he said gently, placing a hand on her bare shoulder.

"Seriously. No e nada. Maybe I'm a little homesick," she said. She realized once she said it that it was true. She missed home. The Hamptons were fun and all, but without Luca it was just another overpriced American city. She missed her grandmother, a stubborn old lady who worked long hours as a manager of a textile factory to keep her only granddaughter in school.

"You want to get dinner somewhere?" Leo asked. "There's a place not too far that has the best fish tacos."

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"I don't know. I should probably get back to work," Jacqui said, scanning the emptying tent for the Perry kids and her roommates.

"C'mon, seriously, it will make you feel so much better. C'mon," Leo said, taking her arm.

By then she was too drunk to argue.

He drove her to a taco stand in Amagansett, where they shared Baja fish tacos underneath a rickety straw roof. Leo was right, the food did make her feel better. She was still numb, angry, and hurt in a way that she didn't even want to think about-- she felt stupid and embarrassed on top of feeling lonely and miserable.

There had been signs, of course. The picture. His weird aversion to hanging out in the Hamptons proper. His constant excuses and absences. She was being played for a fool. Jacqui should have known better than that.

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She looked at Leo across the table as she chewed on the spicy, delicious mahi-mahi taco. He kind of looked like Luca, with that same glossy honey-colored hair. He even smelled like him--like Chanel Egoiste and aftershave. He dressed so much like Luca that Jacqui even made a mental bet that those were Tartan boxers underneath the baggy Fubus. He even talked like Luca. In fact, if she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was still with her Luca.

So when they stumbled out of the restaurant and Leo suggested maybe she might want to, um, hang out a little more, see his, um, guitar collection or something, she didn't say no. And when they got there and his guitar collection consisted of two wimpy Fenders and he tried to kiss her instead, she kissed him back. And when he lifted up her shirt and unzipped his jeans, she didn't protest. In Brazil they had a saying: The best way to get over somebody was to get under someone else.

"So, it's really over between you guys?" Leo asked when it was over and they were lying in his bed watching Jimmy Fallon needle the hapless host on SNL.