Cruel Summer (3 page)

“Let me guess. He wants to be a DJ or a rapper.”

“How’d you know?”

“Because those are the hip-hop dreams of every maid’s child,” Vanity sneered. “You said
you
had to get to Pippa first. Does that mean he’s hot?”

Max laughed. “Hot enough for you? Maybe too hot. I’m no fag, but the dude’s got some serious babe mojo. Once, during a party he was supposed to be working, he nailed two catering waitresses in our pool house. The man was my personal hero for a week. I’ve never scored like that, and I’m freaking Max Biaggi
Jr.
”

“I can’t
wait
to meet him,” Vanity said with faux sincerity. Clearly, it was the last thing she wanted to do. “I need to go. Mimi just got here. I’ll see you at Mynt.” And then she was gone.

Max grinned as he slipped the Sidekick II back onto his belt clip. He had a feeling that if any guy could melt the ice princess that was Vanity St. John, then that guy was Dante Medina. Oh, yeah. It promised to be a
very
interesting senior year.

Pippa Keith lived in a rundown Deco-style studio cottage off Miami Beach, and when Max pulled into the cracked concrete drive, she was standing outside, lit by moonbeams, and hotter than he remembered.

Damn.
The girl was dressed to assassinate male hormones in a black micromini and tight white tank with
SEXPERT
spelled out in big naughty letters. He felt a stiffening in his jeans that had nothing to do with new denim. And a flush on his face that had nothing to do with the heat.

Pippa looked like a Britney clone from the “I’m a Slave 4 U” era. She was all long blonde hair, sweat-slicked body, and honey-brown tan. Plus, her English accent rocked, and her funny British way of saying things was cute as hell.

She slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door. “I didn’t think you’d ever come ’round the house.” Gucci Envy Me cologne perfumed the tiny cabin with hints of peony, jasmine, and pink pepper.

Superman had X-ray vision. Max Biaggi Jr. had sex-ray vision. He gave Pippa Keith a long and hard dose of it, trying to keep his mouth shut. Then he decided to watch the road. Because drooling behind the wheel of a Porsche just wasn’t cool.

“I’m so glad you called,” Pippa said. “I was bored rigid sitting there with my mum watching a soppy DVD.”

He grinned at her turns of phrase. “How’d you sneak out?”

“I told her that I had a dodgy tummy and was going to bed for the night.” She waved a hand, dismissing the low-rent life already a few miles behind. “I feel like getting full-on trashed. Will you buy my drinks tonight? I’m low on cash.”

Max smiled to himself, hearing Vanity’s I-told-you-so voice in his head. He gave Pippa a bold glance. “What’s in it for me?”

“What do you mean?”

Max beamed over a look that said he knew that she knew exactly what he meant.

“I’m not snogging you!” Pippa said, a huge grin on her face as she protested meekly. “I thought we were just mates.”

“It’s after midnight, and we’re on our way to Mynt to get drunk,” Max pointed out.

“I’m not snogging you!” Pippa maintained.

Max played with the sound system until Snoop Dogg and Pharrell exploded from the speakers and vibrated his rib cage. “Mynt charges about fourteen bucks a drink,” he yelled over the music.

“You better look now!” Pippa screamed. And then she hooked her fingers beneath the micromini and lifted her skirt the few inches that mattered.

Max swallowed hard, his eyes glued onto the triangle of white lace against her slim brown thighs.

“And that’s all you’re getting!” Pippa announced triumphantly.

“For now,” Max told her. And then he played NASCAR driver all the way to Mynt, stoked and ready for some Formula One fun.

C
all me Lala,” Adelaida Famosa intoned seductively. “That’s what the children say…Nanny Lala.”

Dante struggled to maintain his trademark cool. Ordinarily, hot girls were no big deal. Treat them that way and you could have your pick. But Lala was gorgeous to a degree that defied all reason. Salma Hayek could be her
ugly
sister. That’s how fine she was.

So this was crazy luck on top of crazy luck. And he owed it all to SafeSplash, an agency that employed instructors to teach at-home swim lessons to rich kids in Miami.

Lala leaned in to clutch Dante’s arm as she dipped her pink-polished toes into the cerulean waters of the sky terrace pool. “Ooh!” she squealed, pressing closer as she giggled and expressed alarm about how cold it was.

Dante experienced a stiffening where it counted. Suddenly, he crouched down to test the temperature himself. The truth was, a blast of something cold could only do him good right now.

Any minute, the man who hired him, Simon St. John, megamillionaire, music mogul, rags-to-riches dream maker, could step into view. And catching the new swim coach making a tent out of his trunks on account of the young and nubile nanny was
not
the first impression that Dante wanted to make. Besides, there was no way St. John would have a live-in that looked like this and not be hitting it on a regular basis. Best to stay clear.

Just as Dante began gliding his left hand through the water, he felt the pinch of Lala’s nails dig into his back, then a firm shove sent him tumbling into the pool. He went down. He came up. He shook his head to free the chlorine from his eyes.

Lala stood there laughing hysterically, her considerable attributes bouncing up and down, coming close to escaping the bikini halter that barely contained them. But in the end, the tiny string held firm. A minor miracle. And one of God’s crueler special effects.

Dante’s mind began to drift. Those sensible thoughts from mere moments ago turned to dirty ones. Feeling cocky—and getting no relief from the cold water—he peeled off his drenched Hollister T-shirt and tossed it onto the deck with a loud
plop.
“Now it’s your turn.” He smiled at her. “Jump in.”

Lala giggled, inching away from the edge. “I can’t swim.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Dante said. “To teach you.”

“Can I hold on to you?”

He grinned. “Absolutely.”

“Maybe you should just start by giving her mouth to mouth,” a female voice said sharply. “Apparently, that’s what she really wants.”

Dante spun around to find Vanity St. John standing on the opposite side of the pool, a beach beauty fantasy in her white bikini and sheer sarong.

“I didn’t think girls like you got up before the crack of noon,” Dante teased.

Even with her eyes eclipsed by huge Chanel sunglasses, Vanity looked anything but amused. She shifted the small stack of celebrity magazines in her hands. “And I didn’t think boys like you could find a job that didn’t require a polyester uniform and a name tag.”

“Burger King was last summer’s gig,” Dante said matter-of-factly. “This one pays better. And you can’t beat the scenery.” He purposefully dropped the line with heavy ambiguity. Was he referring to Vanity, Lala, or both of them?

Vanity beamed a disapproving glare across the pool to the Cuban caregiver. “Lala, here’s a news flash: The twins’ art camp ended about fifteen minutes ago. Do you expect two three-year-olds to just take a cab home?”

Lala murmured some unintelligible Spanish as she went scrambling inside.

Vanity rolled her eyes and made a beeline for an expansive, white terry cloth-covered chaise lounge. She walked with the sprocket-hipped gait of a supermodel navigating the runway of the hottest fashion show on earth—confident, predatory, like a sleek panther juiced up on Red Bull.

Dante found himself mesmerized. So few girls played hard to get with him, and when they did, the instant challenge it conjured up was intoxicating as hell. He swam toward her.

But Vanity didn’t just ignore him. She put on a show about it, theatrically refusing to so much as glance in his direction, pretending to be engrossed in the latest
Us Weekly
that featured yet another Lindsay Lohan scandal on the cover.

He hoisted himself out of the pool and stood up—and up, and up, and up to his full height, posture ramrod straight, abdominals rippling, Quicksilver board shorts dripping. “I never saw you in the club last night.”

She flicked one page to the next without moving her eyes. “Which one? I hit three or four.”

“Black Sand. You let me in. Remember?”

In a pantomime of boredom, she tossed down
Us
and snatched up
In Touch.
“I let in a lot of people. Anyway, I didn’t go inside because that club is so over.”

“You were at the door,” Dante pointed out. “Does that mean you’re over, too?”

Vanity gave a little huff before turning on him hotly. But her annoyance turned to comeuppance as her gaze zeroed in on something over his shoulder. All of a sudden, her lips curled into a grin. “Not as over as you’re about to be.”

“Hey!” an authoritative male voice bellowed accusingly. “Are you the coach from SafeSplash?”

Dante’s heart went
bang
as his mind let loose with a stream of silent, self-reprimanding curses: You stupid, horned-up asshole. You’re about to get fired before you even start. Slowly, dreadfully, he turned around. “Yes, sir.”

“Did I hire you to teach my kids how to swim or to hit on my daughter?” Simon St. John concentrated hard on his BlackBerry, jabbing at the device with nimble thumbs while waiting for an answer. He stood there in what had to be a custom-tailored suit, dove gray for the season, dressed to deal in megabucks. A pack of storm troopers would be less intimidating.

Dante walked over at a fast clip. “To teach your kids, of course, sir. I’m Dante Medina.” He offered his hand.

Simon St. John ignored it. “What’s that?” He gestured to the sopping-wet lump that was Dante’s T-shirt.

“Oh, that’s my shirt, sir. I—”

“Get it out of my sight.”

“Yes, sir. I—”

“We signed up for ten thirty-minute lessons. Can you guarantee that my kids will be swimmers by the end?”

“Yes, sir. That’s my goal.”

“Good. Make sure you achieve it. Now clean up your shit and leave my daughter alone. Lala will be back with the kids shortly.” He started off.

“Excuse me, sir,” Dante called after him respectfully. “May I adjust the pool temperature?”

St. John stopped and pierced Dante with a cold glare. “Why do you want to do that?”

“Our experience has been that the most successful teaching at young ages happens in water of about ninety-one degrees.”

“I swim in the morning and prefer it cooler,” St. John snapped. “Keep it at eighty.” And then he was gone.

“Medina, could you be a bigger dumb ass?” he murmured to himself. Talk about a master plan turning to shit in a heartbeat. The whole point of getting this job in the first place had been to create opportunity. Dante had read about young struggling actors in Hollywood who got breaks in the industry thanks to connections made from teaching the children of producers and agents how to swim.

That’s why he trained with the senior instructors at SafeSplash, took a class in CPR, and nearly went psycho when he realized that the three-year-old twins of Simon St. John were on his summer roster. It was the kind of luck so perfect that Dante considered it a sign from above.

Simon St. John was the CEO of Alcatraz Recordings, a company fast rivaling Def Jam as a leader in hip-hop music, style, and culture. At first, there’d been controversy and suspicion. After all, what did a rich white man know about hiphop? But St. John had an eye for talent and an ear for music, no matter the style. Over the years, the man had taken pop, rock, dance, alternative, country, Latin, and jazz acts to platinum status.

Dante dreamed of making his own music one day. He possessed the rhyme skills, the talent to create killer beats, and the discipline to fill notebooks with lyrics. The truth was, he lived and breathed hip-hop, spending hours analyzing the music of innovators like the Ying Yang Twins, the Game, Eminem, Mike Jones, and Kanye West.

But the key to breaking out was coming up with a new sound. The Houston scene had done it with Screw, a crazy method of slowing records down, chopping them up, and manipulating the beats to repeat favorite words and phrases. Dante felt like he had the edge on a sick new sound that would someday be known as distinctively Miami. All he needed was a believer with the right Rolodex. Someone like Simon St. John.

“Sorry about that,” Vanity said, breaking into Dante’s private reverie. “My dad’s a total dick.” She was front and center now, smelling like Coppertone and fully aware of her power to fatally distract.

“Actually, I’m the dick,” Dante muttered. He leaned down to pick up his T-shirt, pulling it over his head and onto his body, struggling with the wet cotton.

“Don’t worry. He won’t remember anything that happened this morning,” Vanity assured him. “Half the time he doesn’t even realize what he says to people.”

Dante regarded her warily. The girl seemed vaguely depressed, and he wondered how this could be. Here she lived in a tropical oasis, on a private oceanfront at the end of South Beach, away from the neon lights and congestion of Ocean Drive. Okay, maybe her father didn’t have the charm of a morning talk show host, but at least the man was still around. And as for her future, it was damn sure secure. Anything she wanted to be was just a phone call or family favor away. Meanwhile, he was hustling for a break—any break.

“How old are you?” Vanity asked.

“Seventeen,” Dante offered, staring out beyond the terrace and into the infinite ocean.

“Where do you go to school?”

“I’m transferring to MACPA in the fall,” he answered distantly.

Vanity’s lips parted, and a ripple of awareness seemed to skate across her perfectly symmetrical face.

But Dante was done flirting. The last thing on his mind was tapping
this
particular ass. From now on, Vanity St. John was strictly off-limits. “No offense, but when I took this job, pissing off your father wasn’t part of my master plan. I should probably concentrate on my work.”

Suddenly, as if responding to a stage cue, Lala emerged from the house, flanked by two energetic little blonds, one boy and one girl, both beaming excited smiles and already suited up for the water. “Gunnar and Mercedes,” Lala announced, “this is Dante. He’s going to teach us how to swim.”

Dante crouched down to address them at eye level. “Are you kids ready to have some fun?”

The twins offered shy nods in answer. Finally, the little boy spoke. “I want to go under the water like a shark!”

“Me, too!” the girl echoed.

Dante laughed. He raised a palm in the high-five gesture. “If you want to learn that, I can teach it.”

Gunnar and Mercedes slapped his fingers with their little palms and collapsed into fits of kiddie laughter.

At that moment, Dante made it his personal mission to take them far beyond Simon St. John’s expectations. The man might not think much of their coach right now, but when he saw these children swim at the end of ten lessons, it would be a whole new attitude. In fact, Dante planned to make them so fearless in the water that St. John would think what Michael Phelps did in a pool was called drowning. “Ready to get started?”

Gunnar and Mercedes jumped up and down and screamed in response.

Dante grinned, rising up to stand between the children, taking two tiny hands in his and playfully marching forward.

His gaze scanned the area for Vanity.

But she was gone.

Vanity
knew,
with all the certainty she felt that Mary-Kate Olsen just needed to get over her food issues and eat a bagel, that Dante Medina was the housekeeper’s son that Max had been talking about last night.

Please.
It
had
to be him. What were the odds? How many working-class boys could be transferring to MACPA in the fall?

And the only reason pissing off her father wasn’t part of his “master plan” was because the hip-hop wannabe hoped he could get an inside edge on a recording deal. Ooh, how cunning. If the poor guy only knew. Teaching toddlers how to float would hardly put him on the fast track with Simon St. John.

On the way to lock herself into her bedroom and shut out the world, Vanity snatched a bottle of Voss water from the Sub-Zero fridge. After telling
Elle Girl
in a miniquestionnaire that it was her favorite H
²
O, the company had started sending her cases by the truckload.

She fired up the Green Day CD in her Bang & Olufsen BeoSound One. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” began to blast. She flung her body onto the unmade bed and fired up the Apple iBook to check e-mail. While the system uploaded, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

She hated her asshole father.