A Summer to Remember(5)
“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.