Diann, if I remembered correctly. Her mother had been the housekeeper when I’d first bought the place, but she’d been in an accident, hurt her back, and her eldest daughter had stepped into her place.
“Diann,” I greeted her, walking over to the bar, pouring myself a scotch. “The guest room was lovely. Thank you for the extra touches.”
“Alvy said you were having trouble impressing a woman,” Diann said, eyes dancing at my expense. I imagined the two had been joking behind my back. The playboy who had finally met my match. The one woman who wouldn’t fall for my charms. The one who refused to take me at face-value. The one who would need more than that from me. And I wasn’t sure I could give anyone that.
“She finds herself wholly unimpressed with my personality, my money, and just about everything about me. But she liked the view and the flowers,” I told Diann, sitting down a few stools away from Alvy.
“Why her, then?” Diann asked. “If she doesn’t like you. Or is that the apple peel?”
“Appeal,” I corrected, smiling. Her English was amazing, but she forgot some words. I remember her once calling an octopus a ‘sea spider.’ “I suppose that is part of it.”
“Alvy says she is beautiful.”
“Knock-you-upside-the-head, kick-you-in-the-gut, steal-your-breath beautiful,” I told her, nodding. “Now if I can only get her to see how devilishly handsome I am,” I joked.
“You could try to impress her by being your authentic self,” Alvy suggested, getting a brow raise from me.
“Nobody wants to see that. This me is much more fun,” I declared, getting off my seat, not comfortable with the line of conversation.
“But what if the fun Fenway isn’t what Wasp is after? What if she wants the real you underneath all that?”
That was a valid question.
But the answer seemed simple.
Then she was out of luck.
And then so was I.
But I refused to accept defeat so early in the game.
I was sure I could handle Wasp.
I’d never been more wrong about anything in my life.
And with my fuck-up reputation, that was really saying something.
SEVEN
Wasp
This one of Fenway’s many vacation homes was a five-star-resort without any other pesky guests.
Even though there were other houses on the street, the way the backyard was set up secluded the pool and hot tub area in perfect privacy.
Not that I was shy about wearing a bathing suit in public, but it was nice not to have to deal with gawking in case the owners of the other homes were older, leering men.
I’d been telling the truth when I told Fenway my suit would be torturous. It was a red one-piece that dipped nearly to my navel in front, exposed most of my back, and ninety-eight percent of my ass.
I was not a thong bathing suit sort of person. But this one was a pointed choice. I needed him to want me. So much that it was painful. So much so that he was driven half mad by it. Then I would have him. And I could win.
Unfortunately, the weather chose not to cooperate with the plans.
“Monsoon season,” Diann had told me when for the third day in a row, I stood at the French doors, staring forlornly out at the pool as well as the beach beyond it.
It had been pouring. The kind of downfalls that offered no respite, not even ten minutes to run out and jump in the pool.
Fenway had been an admirable host, given that half of his entertainment options were blocked by the weather.
We went out to eat.
We watched classic movies.
Night one, my favorites.
Night two, his.
While we didn’t overlap any of our favorites, neither of us disagreed with the other’s choices.
Alvy had been a silent, sporadic presence, showing up for meal times, then otherwise disappearing entirely, sometimes going out, others simply locking themselves in their room.
I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life it was to chase after a billionaire playboy who changed his mind at a moment’s notice, needing all his plans to be changed, requiring excuses to be made, hotels to be booked, luggage to be packed. It didn’t seem like Alvy ever got to go home, either. They were an ever-present part of Fenway’s extravagant lifestyle. While it seemed like a great job on surface level, what with all their expenses covered, getting to stay in the most beautiful places in the world, brush shoulders with the rich and famous, I also couldn’t help but wonder if it must have felt very strange for their life not to belong to them.
Maybe that was why we so infrequently saw Alvy now that their presence wasn’t needed. They were trying to get a small bit of privacy, of normalcy while they could.
As beautiful as my room was, I couldn’t fathom staying cooped up in it with the rest of the house to explore.