Skinny Dipping (The Au Pairs 2)

mara had sunglasses on

"WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?" MARA ASKED, GESTURING to Ryan, who was following Eliza out of the club. She had watched the whole thing--and although she couldn't hear anything they'd said, it was pretty clear that Eliza and Ryan had been fighting.

Fighting the way only two people who had gotten naked and trembly together could fight.

Sugar sniggered into her drink. "Don't you know?" She licked the side of her martini glass and smiled at Mara innocently.

Poppy elbowed her sister.

"Eliza and Ryan hooked up in Palm Beach. I've heard they've been hooking up all summer. He's at her house, like, all the time," Sugar told Mara, in a matter-of-fact voice.

Eliza . . . and Ryan? Together? Her best friend! And her boyfriend! Okay, her ex-boyfriend! And fine, her ex-best friend! But . . . Ryan! And Eliza! In Palm Beach! Together! And all summer, too! How could she have not known?

217

How could Eliza not understand the first commandment of friendship: Thou shalt not hook up with your friend's crush, boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend. Or the second commandment: Thou shalt not lie to your best friend. But Eliza had spent all of last summer skulking around the Hamptons, lying to all her old friends about moving to Buffalo and being an au pair. Maybe she'd had been wrong about Eliza all along.

"Sweetie--we thought you knew," Sugar said, with a light hand on Mara's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Poppy asked, looking concerned. She handed Mara a cocktail napkin. "You're not crying, are you?"

Mara shook her head and forced herself to smile. "I'm all right, really."

But really, she wasn't.

218

jacqui is the victim of nokia interruptus

A MOTEL KEY.

That was what Jacqui slipped into Philippe's jeans pocket at Dragonbar when he wasn't looking. "I got us a room," she explained when he found it. "It's in Montauk, not far from the beach."

Screw Anna and her ultimatums. Philippe was worth the risk.

The motel was an old ramshackle fifties-style beach resort, with clean rooms and wall-to-wall carpeting. It wasn't the Bentley, but it wasn't something out of Psycho, either. Jacqui disappeared into the bathroom. They were finally together--alone, in private, and away from the eyes of Anna Perry. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, still not used to seeing her hair so short, and slipped into the Agent Provocateur ensemble she'd bought especially for this occasion.

Philippe was lying in bed, under the covers, already naked when she came out of the bathroom. He grinned when he saw her. "Ah, the Agent Provocateur," he said knowingly.

219

Hmm. Not quite the reaction Jacqui had expected. She believed a real compliment was, "You look beautiful in that dress," not, "Your dress is Chanel," but maybe Philippe was just super fashion-sawy because he was French.

She pulled the blankets aside and slid in beside him.

"Ooof! Your feet are freezing," Philippe complained when she snuggled next to his body.

"Sorry!" she said, rubbing her ankles on the sheets. "The tiles were cold in there."

Philippe calmed down and began to kiss her. She closed her eyes, feeling his hands move across her body, pulling at the delicate bows holding her lingerie together. Philippe suddenly propped himself up on his elbow and looked around the room.

"What?" Jacqui asked.

"My phone," he said, jumping out of bed and running to the corner, where his backpack was buzzing. He kneeled down and unzipped the front pocket, where his phone was lit up and vibrating.

Jacqui fell back into the bed, sighing loudly, but Philippe was already talking into his Nokia. "No, no, I'm not doing anything," he was saying. He hung up and looked at Jacqui. "I'm sorry. . . . I have an, uh, emergency," he said.

Jacqui watched, speechless, as Philippe put his clothes back on. When he ran to the bathroom to wash his face, she lunged for his backpack. Who the hell could be so important that