The Red Bikini (5 page)

G
iselle opened and closed the refrigerator seven or eight times while she waited for Fin to arrive.

“Do you want an apple?” she asked Coco.

“I already had a banana after surf camp,” Coco said, spreading her Polly Pocket dolls across the dining table.

Giselle closed the fridge again. She hadn’t been able to eat a thing this afternoon, but she knew she needed something in her stomach. Coco had had fun at surf camp—already perfecting her “pop-up” under the proud grin of Rabbit—and Giselle had gotten some good photos. But now her stomach was in knots: She was jittery about seeing Roy again, about facing his family, about Coco’s reaction to going anywhere with a strange man in a strange car. Plus she was flat-out nervous about seeing Fin again. Spending an afternoon with a man who made your heart pound could be thrilling under normal circumstances, but when it was set up as a favor, not an actual date, it seemed like it had disaster written all over it. She already regretted coming up with this cockamamie idea.

When the knock finally sounded, she took a deep breath and smoothed her dress.

“Hello!” she breathed out as she swung the door open.

Fin filled the doorway, wearing some kind of Armani suit—a rich, double-breasted fabric that lay in a flat, black sheen along the contours of his body. The crisp white at his collar—secured with a simple black tie—contrasted with his golden tan and made his eyes especially blue. He had one hand in the trouser pocket like some kind of cologne model.

She’d expected . . . Well, she didn’t know what she expected. But she didn’t expect
this
. She expected him to maybe be a little shocking, like a good renegade surfer date should be—maybe messy hair, or a mismatched suit, or a childish tie. Instead he just looked gorgeous.

“You look . . .” She searched for words.

He stood quietly, waiting for her verdict.

“. . . like a Wall Street broker,” she said.

His mouth quirked up at one side. “How tragic.”

“I don’t mean—”

“Do you hate Wall Street brokers?”

“No.”

“Is your ex a Wall Street broker?”

“No, it’s just—”

“All right, then.” He shifted his attention to Coco, who was dipping her head beneath Giselle’s arm to see around the side.

“Hi!” She bounded out the door in her little navy dress with the butterflies on it and reached for Fin’s hand. “I surfed today!”

“How was it?”

“It was
stellar
.”

He laughed—a real, from-the-gut kind of laugh she hadn’t heard yet from him. “Spoken like a true surfer.”

“Mommy was scared.”

He glanced up at Giselle, but she let her gaze slip away before that line of questioning could get started.

“Do you still have the abalone?” Coco pressed.

“I do.”

“Then we can go.” She thrust her hand out again.

He stared at her little fingers, as if not sure what to do with them, then finally tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “M’lady, your chariot awaits.”

Coco giggled. “Just like the prince.” She started her rapid-fire steps across the patio, dragging Fin behind her.

“The prince?”

“The one for Mommy, who lives in the castle.”

Fin raised an eyebrow back at Giselle, but she ducked her head to lock the door.

“Your abalone will help,” Coco told Fin in a very loud whisper.

“My abalone will help with what?”

“It’ll make you a prince,” she said, as if the answer were obvious. “It’s used for jewelry, so it makes you a prince. But you have to carry it with you, so it will work.”

Giselle watched Fin nod, seemingly trying to follow the turns the conversation was taking. She wondered whether she should try to rescue him.

“Are you carrying it with you?” Coco asked sternly.

“I put it on my window ledge,” he said.

“In your kitchen?”

“In my bathroom.”

Giselle followed them down the stairs and wondered again whether she should intervene. Obviously, Fin thought he could spin a tall tale with her little girl, but maybe she should put a stop to this. He probably wasn’t used to getting the third degree from a five-year-old, but it was brutal, and they were truth detectors.

“But if you want to be a prince, you have to carry it with you,” Coco said.

From the back, she saw him nod again. “I’ll remember that.” His voice sounded more amused than annoyed.

Fin beeped open his car. As she got closer, Giselle came to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk. He drove a BMW—much like the car Roy drove.

“What’s the matter now?” he said.

“I just thought . . .” She shrugged. “I thought you’d drive something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

He smiled. “Like a surf van?”

Her cheeks heated. Maybe. It wasn’t that she thought he was Jeff Spicoli from
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
or anything, but she wanted to make a splash. If he dressed like a doctor and drove a doctor’s car, what kind of new image was she showing off?

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said, yanking open the passenger door.

“I’m . . . sorry. This is nice.” She was lucky he was deigning to come at all, really. She needed to pull herself together and stop projecting her anxiety. She’d lost him at “hello.”

He lifted the leather seat to let Coco climb in the back, then leaned in to tug at the seat belts. Giselle caught a great view of his behind, supported by some amazing hamstrings, as he held himself steady in the frame with one hand. The seat belts were still wedged between the cushions.

“Is this a new car?”

“No—three years.”

“You’ve never used the seat belts?”

“Not back here.” He tugged the plastic off one of the buckles.

Giselle raised an eyebrow. Must be a bachelor thing.

“Sorry again about what I said,” she said, trying not to stare at his behind. “This is a beautiful car. I just wanted to . . . make a
point
, I guess.”

His body slid fluidly out of the backseat. “You want me to play a
part
,” he said, not as a question.

“Yes, but—”

“As the surfer dude.”

“Yes, but that’s not necessarily how I see you, it’s just—”

“It’s okay,” he said. He held the door wider.

Giselle bit her lip. This was a stupid idea. She had been so upset that he saw her in a singular role—Donna Reed—but here she was, doing the same thing. She thought he’d appear to be some kind of renegade coming to hang out with Roy’s family—the laid-back, good-looking young athlete who gave her hot nights and great sex and had chosen
her
among the dozens of women at his beck and call. And she wanted to look like the renegade ex-wife who loved it. She just didn’t want the pity anymore. The pity was burying her alive.

“If you don’t want to do this, I’ll understand,” she said.

“It’s fine.” He moved the door, as if hoping she’d just get in.

She paused, guilt curdling in her stomach. Maybe she should backpedal this whole plan—this was ridiculous, wasn’t it?

“Do you want me to start saying ‘dude’ and ‘hella’?” His mouth drew back into a crooked grin. “I could throw in some ‘bro’s, too.”

Relief flooded through her.

The tiny sports car smelled like leather and aftershave. Fin slid in and glanced at her sideways, offering an ornery smile, complete with laugh lines where she imagined blond stubble would poke if you woke with him early in the morning. “I could call you a ‘Betty.’”

Her eyes widened. That was what one of Rabbit’s friends had called her. “What is that?” she asked cautiously.

“It means a pretty girl.” He leaned forward and started the car. “You said we’re heading to Arroyo Viejo, right?”

She swallowed hard and nodded at the map in her lap, trying to ignore the tingling in her stomach. “Well,” she added primly, as he pulled out and gunned for the road, “it sure beats Donna.”

Fin studied the road as they drove past beachside florist shops and ice cream stands.

“You know that’s a compliment, right?” he said, shifting gears.

“Donna Reed is a compliment?”

“Pretty wife, someone you don’t mind coming home to every night . . .”

“You would want to be married to
Donna Reed
?”

“Well, I don’t want to be married at all, so I’m the wrong one to ask. But those boys mean it as a compliment.”

Giselle thought maybe they had visions of milk and cookies floating through their heads. They certainly weren’t imagining long nights of silence in a huge, cold house. She stared at her hands and summoned the courage to ask the next part.

“Why don’t you want to be married?” Her voice had a thin, stretched quality to it she didn’t recognize.

“Just . . . not in my game plan, I guess.”

She’d have guessed as much. Why settle down with one woman when you must have so many swimming up to your door every day?

“Well”—she cleared her throat and went on with her point—“would you call that woman with the yellow bikini—the one at your party—would you call her ‘Donna’?”

“Veronica?” Fin chuckled. “Not if I wanted to live through the night.”

“Would you call her ‘Betty’?”

“It’s ‘
a
Betty.’ Like a noun.”

“But would you call her that?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not stupid. And not eighteen.”

She ignored the heat in her cheeks and rearranged her hands in her lap. She was probably irritating him already, so instead she watched a couple of primary-colored beach cruiser bikes glide by.

“Are you trying to make some kind of point?” he finally asked.

She couldn’t quite read his face—whether he was irritated or amused—but she took a deep breath and went on with her argument. “I’m just saying, ‘Donna’ is not the compliment you think it is—to me. And ‘Betty’ is probably not either, to someone like Veronica.”

Fin seemed to think that over as he merged into traffic. “All right, I suppose if I were eight years younger, and hanging with Rabbit and the boys, I might still use that line on her. Because it’s not meant to be mean. Guys mean it as a compliment.”

She ignored the tiny ping of jealousy that ricocheted in her chest and leaned back in her seat. “Fine, then. You’ve made my point. Let’s nix the ‘Donna’ thing.”

Fin glanced at her one more time, but then kept his eyes on the road.

She thought she saw him smirking.

 • • • 

The drive was long.

And Fin was amused.

Although his amusement was pricked with pangs of confusion, like a balloon letting out air, as he kept glancing at Giselle and trying to figure out what was going through her head.

She was beautiful. His heart had flipped, right there, on the patio, as soon as he saw her in that dress. It was black, of course. Funeral, after all. But there was leg. Lots of leg. And there were curves all over her body—waist, hips, curves everywhere, sloping in a very touchable-looking fabric that he longed to test.

But this was no time to be losing sight of the plan.

She was putting him through the paces, though. For whatever reason, she wanted her ex to think she was seeing a van-driving hippie surfer dude. He filed that one away. She also smelled like wildflowers. He filed that away, too. And she was fiercely protective of her daughter. And had the softest voice. And didn’t like being associated with Donna Reed. . . .

He kept a mental tally of each detail. The curves and the voice and the wildflower thing might be for his own edification, but the rest seemed like details he might need to know to play this well. He wanted to do a good job for her today.

“So is there anything you want to tell me about this family?” He glanced toward the backseat to make sure Coco wasn’t listening.

She leaned toward him, bringing the scent of wildflowers with her. “I was very close with his parents. I have trouble with the rest of the family, but Lovey and Joseph always treated me well. Lovey’s going to be devastated with the loss of Joe, but she’s strong. You’ll see it today. Joe was . . .” Her eyes began glistening.

Fin rubbed his chin and focused on the car in front of him. Damn. Even though he knew he was playing a ruse here, stuff like that brought home the fact that this was a part of her real life. He waited for her to go on.

“. . . Joe was a good man,” she added. “He was a doctor. Quiet, but always kind.”

“And your ex?”

She shot him a strange glance.

“I mean, was your ex a doctor, too?”

“Roy,” she said.

“What?”

“His name is Roy.”

“I prefer ‘ex,’ thanks.” He cleared his throat. “So is he a doctor?”

“Yes, a heart surgeon.”

He let out a low whistle. “Nice.”

He wondered again what happened here—what would cause a man like that to give up a woman like this, or if it might be the other way around—but it wasn’t in his nature to get involved. He liked his life to be lived on the outer edges, worrying about his own behavior instead of the behavior of others. His own was bad enough.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“How did you know they were both doctors?”

“Seems like the kind of thing that runs in families. Father’s expectations, all that.” He gripped the steering wheel harder. He knew that one well.

“Yes, they were both doctors. Roy came out here a few times a year, in fact, to work with his dad on research and some charity events they did out here. He was here a lot.”

“Did you ever come to Sandy Cove before?” The odds seemed high that he might have run into her before, around Lia.

“Only once, when I was pregnant with Coco. Roy usually came out here alone.”

“Did you stay with Lia?”

“Yes, one night.”

“I used to live next door to her. In the apartment Rabbit is in. That’s how I met her.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that would have been about . . . six years ago?”

“That’s about when I was there.”

He nodded. It would have been great to have met her back then. Those days had been fun and carefree, when he hung out with Lia and they were all younger and more idealistic. When surfing was for love and made him feel whole. Giselle might have liked him back then.