The Red Bikini (14 page)

Giselle tried to conceal her smirk. Where, oh where might she put her Oscar?

“Do you like art?” Tamara went on, turning toward a three-dimensional stone piece that sat as the centerpiece in the small room they’d entered. It was a riot of blues and greens made of copper and iron. “Mr. Makua is really into art. That’s why he loves to come to Laguna.”

“He and I talked about the Impressionists upstairs.”

“Oh, he must’ve loved that. You should see his place in Hawaii. Whenever he comes here, he wants to see all of our exhibits. And you’re a pastry chef, I heard?”

“I make cookies.” Giselle tried to swallow.

“Terrific—you’ll have to tell me about starting a business sometime. So how did you and Fin meet?”

Giselle tried to remember the story she and Fin had concocted. She told it the way it really happened, with Rabbit introducing them, but shorting at the fact that Fin asked her on the first “date” to play Donna Reed. Instead, she said he’d asked her to an art exhibit. She mentioned that they brought Coco, then waved her hand as if that were a whole other story. “Enough of us—tell me about you and Mr. Fox. How did you two meet?”

Tamara paused, as if hanging on to something from Giselle’s story and finding a problem with it, but then she dismissed it, seemingly happy to talk about her husband. “Oh, everyone just calls him ‘Fox’—first and last, one and the same. We met at a farmers’ market. We were both there to buy sunflowers.” She took Giselle’s arm again and resumed their stroll toward one of the long windows that looked out over Laguna. The evening lights stretched out for miles until they suddenly stopped, falling off into the black abyss of the ocean.

As Tamara glanced through the paned balcony doors where her husband and Fin gathered with a growing group, the adoration in her eyes was unmistakable. But it slowly melted into a strange sadness.

“He works too much now, though,” she said. “The surf industry has turned into a crazy business.”

Giselle encouraged Tamara to tell her more, but Tamara changed the subject and asked about Coco. Tamara and Fox had a little girl in kindergarten also, named Toni, so they discussed art programs in schools, and then talked about the new modified schedules that were starting in California.

“Giselle.” Fin’s voice came over her shoulder.

His hand went straight to her lower back. She wasn’t sure whether it was the touch, or his voice, or the wine, or his breath on her ear, but she knew her hyperawareness must have been transparent because she met Tamara’s amused eyes, staring at her over the rim of her wineglass.

“There’s a slight detail,” Fin murmured. His eyes begged her for something, then mingled with apology. “It seems Mr. Makua wants us to attend a dinner with him tomorrow night.” She couldn’t tell whether he was imperceptibly shaking his head, or begging her to say yes.

“That’s . . . fine.”

“It’s mandatory.” Fox slapped Fin’s back jovially. “You must be Giselle.” Fox held out his hand. He looked slightly older than Tamara—maybe forty—and had a head of short-trimmed, prematurely silver hair. He was impossibly handsome, with a lean face and chiseled chin. He reminded Giselle of a presidential candidate. “It’s great to meet you. Fin’s told me a lot about you.”

Fin frowned at him, and Giselle felt a flush up through her cheeks. Clearly that was a lie.

“This dinner tomorrow is just for fun—no business,” Fox said. “But it’s good for business.” He looked pointedly at Fin. “Mr. Makua wants you to try Canyon Terrace and wants you two to see the art. Tamara and I will see you there. Let’s meet at the wine garden at six. Tamara, we need to say hi to Munton.” He nodded at Giselle and steered Tamara away, but not before she could wave to Giselle and call, “See you,” over her shoulder.

Fin turned to face Giselle across the empty space Fox and Tamara’s personalities had vacated. He muttered a curse word under his breath, followed by a quick apology.

“It’s okay,” Giselle said. “I don’t want to ruin anything for your deal, but I’m not sure I can go tomorrow night. I have a . . . Well, Lia is setting me up. On a blind date.”

Fin frowned. “Lia set you up with someone?”

Giselle nodded.

“Who?”

“Um . . . I keep forgetting his name. . . . Dan? Mansomething?”

“Dan Manfield?”

“I think that’s what she said.”

“Dan the Man?”

“I guess so. . . . That’s who Rabbit thought it was. . . .”

But Fin was already staring out past the guests, a look of incredulousness on his face.

A tuxedoed man stepped out to the entrance to a set of double doors where dinner was being held, ringing a bell in the orange lobby light, while guests began funneling into the room in a swirl of haloed gowns and tuxedoed legs.

Fin watched them vacantly. “Dan the Man?” He frowned at her again.

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah,” he said, but then shook his head. He took her elbow and steered her toward the stairs. “I should get you home.”

He directed her through the set of doors on the opposite side of the lobby, cradling her elbow as if he were directing an elderly aunt.

A lump rose in Giselle’s throat at how quickly he seemed to want to get rid of her now. She was probably too matronly for words. Maybe he was used to young and exuberant bikini models, thrilled to be near a famous surfer. Maybe they did things like sneak him out here among these patios, finding hidden railings and pressing him against them to kiss him, pushing their hands through his tousled hair. Maybe they touched his crotch while he was driving, leaning in and smiling suggestively. Maybe they took their underwear off and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

Giselle glanced at the outdoor rail as they shuffled past. It seemed pretty cold and metallic.

She inspected the front of her dress, trying to remember what underwear she was wearing, wondering whether she could manage to get it off. But she remembered it was a very plain, dull white—cotton, nonetheless—it wouldn’t look very sexy sticking out of his pocket. Plus she’d never in a million years get it off gracefully like his bikini models probably could.

The temperature had dropped about ten degrees when they stepped out, and Giselle completed the image of the elderly aunt by tugging her sweater over her shoulders. She didn’t care anymore. Fin pressed her toward the parking lot, and she did her best to keep up, her lungs filling with salt air and despair.

When they got near the car, he beeped it open, but then stopped, his hand on her door handle. He stared at it as if he weren’t sure what he wanted to do next. Their breaths were coming short and harsh. A few crickets were making an early-evening trill.

“Giselle—” He studied his shoes then, as if deciding whether he wanted to say what was on his mind.

Then he ran his hand down his face.

“Never mind,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

F
in punched through six or seven songs in the car, then leaned back to something loud and cutting. He knew Giselle wouldn’t like this song, but he needed to get rid of her now. She was just reminding him of what a jerk he was. And obviously Lia thought so, too.

Dan the Man?

What was Lia thinking?

Clearly she wasn’t thinking of
him
.

But he knew that, right? Why would Lia set her perfect, beautiful sister up with a loser like him when she could instead set her up with . . .
Dan the Man
?

Dan Manfield was the local real-estate-agent-turned-investor mogul. Everyone in Sandy Cove knew him—he had his mug plastered all over the place. He was about two hundred years old, but rich . . . steady . . . smart . . .
stable
. . . .

Damn. Fin pulled his driver’s-side visor down as low as it could go against the assaulting setting sun. Those were the things Giselle said she’d wanted in a husband, weren’t they? And why was he upset about this?

He jabbed his way to a Van Halen song and sat back into the seat.

“Are you mad at me?” she whispered.

He frowned. “Of course not.”
I want to take you home and fuck you
. But he bit his Neanderthal tongue and looked away.

He needed to get out of this mess now. She had served her purpose—just as he’d served a purpose for her—and now they needed to get out of each other’s way. He wanted her—suddenly desperately—but he knew he shouldn’t. Lia wanted her with someone like Dan. And how could Fin ever be any more than a lay anyway? And he was leaving for South Africa in three days, and she was going back to Indiana. Certainly Giselle deserved more than that, especially right after being jilted.

“I can go with you tomorrow night if it’ll help,” she said quietly.

“No.” He took a deep breath and loosened his bow tie. He needed to stop acting like an ass. But he
really
had to get rid of her. Every second in her company was giving him another chance to be the jerk he didn’t want to be.

He also needed to stop thinking about her going out with Dan. The jealousy that was engulfing his ears right now was a strange and loathsome new feeling for him.

But first he needed to feed her. He hadn’t thought this part through. What kind of asshole invites a woman to do him a favor, plies her with booze, then takes her home with no dinner? Trouble was, he didn’t know where to bring her. Sitting across from Giselle at a table for two—where he could stare at her cupid-bow lips and the way her breasts rose when she sighed—might be the end of his good manners tonight. He tried to think of a place nearby where they could fill up and not sit too close together. . . .

“What did you want to say back there—in the parking lot?” she asked.

He glanced at her. The
parking lot
? Oh. He shook his head. He hadn’t known, really. He’d been about to apologize, he supposed. Or maybe tell her how much he appreciated her being so great with Mr. M. Or maybe lean her against the car and kiss her again until neither of them could think. He wasn’t sure which way it was going to go.

“It seems you have trouble expressing yourself,” she said. “Sometimes it’s best to just blurt out what’s on your mind. That’s what I always tell Coco.”

He slid her a sidelong glance. “You don’t want me to blurt out what’s on my mind, Giselle.”

He needed to shut this conversation down. An apology took on a vague form in his mind, like a vapor trying to materialize. He’d had fun with her these two days, and she’d helped him. She was sweet, and good-hearted—she certainly didn’t deserve to be shuffled out of an event like that. He loosened his tie to tug it out of his collar and tried to formulate how he was going to say this.

“It’s because I’m too old, right?” she said softly.

He set the tie in his cup holder and frowned.
“What?”

“You don’t want to bring me tomorrow night because I’m too old and matronly.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I mean, I’m a decade older than you, and—”

“You are
not
.”

“I am.”

“You are not. How old are you?”

“Some fiancé you turned out to be.”

He smiled, despite himself. “Yeah, I suppose I should ask some of these things beforehand, like your last name and general decade of birth. But really, how old are you? You’re not forty.”

“You’re not thirty.”

“I’m twenty-nine . . .
almost
.”

“I’m thirty-five . . .
already
.”

He shook his head. “Well, math was never my thing, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t add up to a decade.”

“It’s close enough.”

“It’s not close at all.”

She turned away, toward her window, allowing the now-setting sun to illuminate the side of her face in goldenrod as they sped down the freeway.

“It’s six years,” he said gently. “How is this making sense to you?”

“It just matters.”

Thirty-five? Didn’t bother him in the least. And obviously other parts of his body didn’t care, either. But this discussion, as amusing as it was, was getting him nowhere. He was not going to seduce her. And bringing her tomorrow night would just test his limits.

But the expression of “failure” on her face was starting to kill him. It reminded him of her devastated eyes when they were sitting at the church and she was glancing at the hot number next to her ex.

“I should take you somewhere to eat,” he offered.

She blinked back surprise, maybe at the turn the conversation just took. “That’s not necessary. I have fish sticks at home in the freezer.”

“I’m not dropping you off to have frozen fish sticks, Giselle.”

“This isn’t a real date, Fin. It’s fine.”

A wave of anger, or guilt, or some such thing rose from his collar. The tiny tuxedo button was stubborn, but he managed it loose. He hit his blinker and merged furiously. Logic forced him to acknowledge that he wasn’t angry at Giselle—he knew that—but he couldn’t quite corral all the other things he was angry at. He was angry at himself, for making Giselle feel even the remotest sense of the insecurity that her ex had made her feel. He was angry at Fox, for wanting him to play to the public just to prove he wasn’t an asshole. He was angry at Lia, for not wanting to set him up with Giselle. And even angrier at himself that Lia was right—he wasn’t capable of dating Giselle. Dating was what normal people did—people who didn’t have careers that took them around the world for forty weeks of the year. It was what you did when you wanted to get to know someone better, in hopes that you might carve out a possible future with this person where you both resided on the same continent. His version of “dating” had deteriorated into flat-out sex. Ten years of one-night stands with groupies in other countries and women like Catalina and Veronica, who waited for him for the few weeks he’d be in the U.S. for the year, but never pretended to have feelings for him.

He sped off the freeway, cutting off a bright red Mercedes, whose driver promptly leaned on the horn, and headed toward Sandy Cove Pier, where he could hopefully get her some food, get this night over with, and walk her home. He didn’t quite know how to deal with all the anger, resentment, sadness, sexual frustration, jealousy, loneliness, and embarrassment. It felt like every emotion he’d been tamping down over the last year—or, who was he kidding, over the last ten years—was simmering under the surface of his skin.

All tracing back to Giselle.

Who he wanted to be with, and get rid of, at the same time . . .

Damn.