by Lily Zante
Caprice snorted. “That’s tragic! I hope your thirty-first birthday is more exciting. I hope you’ve found a man by then, at least.”
Andrea’s smile slowly faded and she shook her head. “I don’t think I’m too good in that department.” She’d messed up a few months ago with one of her best friends, Nico Cazale. He was now a reformed man who only had eyes for one woman—a woman who had recently become one of her good friends. Andrea hadn’t shared any of this with Caprice and Talia though.
“You don’t give yourself a chance. You’re always too busy working in that warehouse of yours.”
“I happen to love my business and what I do.”
“A business isn’t going to keep you warm in bed at night. You need someone to share it with. You need to live a little.”
“I’m lousy when it comes to reading men.” Andrea replied and didn’t like the way Caprice nodded her head eagerly.
“Am I that bad?” she asked but Caprice seemed to have dropped out of the conversation completely.
“I think he’s interested,” her friend said, speaking low as though she had no air in her lungs.
Andrea turned to look just as Caprice hissed, “Don’t look now—”
But it was too late; she already had. He’d slipped on a baseball cap and pulled it down low over his forehead as he slid down his recliner. The white wires of his headphones hung down his chest and her eyes once more scanned the full length of his body.
She turned back to Caprice, her insides vibrating like jelly. His sun-lounger was three spaces away. Had he been here before them this morning? Or had he only now picked his spot? It wouldn’t surprise her if he’d picked this spot so that he could take a better look at Caprice, she guessed. Men flocked to her as though she was giving away free money. Andrea had seen it all her life, from their college days onwards.
“I think he’s more interested in you,” said Caprice carefully.
Not one to raise her hopes, Andrea balked at the suggestion.
“You don’t think he’s hot?” Caprice, shocked at Andrea’s cool reaction lifted herself to a seated position and sat facing Andrea. She snuck another look at the man.
“Will you stop eyeballing him?” hissed Andrea, embarrassed that he would discover they were talking about him.
“You don’t think he’s hot?”
“He’s…okay.” Andrea drew her words out begrudgingly. If she admitted to finding him even remotely interesting her friend would goad her into making a move. They were desperate, both her and Talia, to pair Andrea up.
“Okay? If I wasn’t engaged,” Caprice paused to admire her huge solitaire diamond ring, “I might be interested. But I think he’s into you. He keeps looking this way.”
Andrea exhaled loudly. “Please, can you drop this?” She begged. For the past four days her friends, both in relationships, had been interrogating her about her single status. Talia was in a new relationship with a man she’d met at a court case and Caprice was engaged to her boyfriend of eighteen months. Because it had been a few years since Andrea had been in a meaningful relationship, her friends had been trying to ‘figure out what was wrong with her’ and had proceeded to carry out an analysis of her condition.
“What’s wrong?” asked Caprice, looking at her as if she’d had a nosebleed. “Why are you so uptight about a drop-dead hunk who keeps looking at you?”
“I’m not interested in having a relationship at the moment. I don’t have the time and energy to go for it.”
Caprice made a dismissive noise “It’s not an exercise class!” she snorted. “With the right guy, you’ll make the time. All your work ethic will go out of the window, you’ll probably spend your time in bed doing more fun things.”
Andrea glared at her friend and wished she would drop the talk. Besides, the man behind her was way out of her league and she wasn’t going to put herself out there. Not yet. She’d been humiliated enough to discover that she’d gotten things so wrong with Nico. These days her ego was fragile and she preferred to focus her attention on her business for now. Dealing with baby and children’s nursery furniture, toys and accessories was easier than dealing with relationships.
“Can’t we make the most of the time we have left and stop talking about men for a change?” Talia had left first thing in the morning and in a few hours Caprice would be going, too. Andrea had extended her trip to stay for one extra day because she had plans to check out a new crib manufacturer on her return journey.
“What else is there to talk about?” asked Caprice, retying the bow of her bikini top and hauling her breasts higher. Andrea watched in envy. There were times when she wished for a fuller figure like her friend’s. “And how can you go without sex for so many years?”
Andrea nearly choked on her breath. “Ssssshhhhhhhhhhh.” If Blue Eyes over there hadn’t been wearing his headphones, she would have died of embarrassment.
“It hasn’t been years,” Andrea retorted. Caprice was making it sound like it had been a decade.
“Your Rabbit doesn’t count. That’s not sex that’s—”
“Will you stop it?” This was the problem with her friends. Because they were so loved up, they were constantly fixated by relationships—whether it was the latest celebrity pairing or someone they knew. This weekend they had been trying to find out what Andrea’s problem was.
“But don’t you miss it?” Caprice insisted, obviously desperate to unravel the mystery of her celibacy.
“Having someone?”
“The sex. Don’t you miss the sex?”
Andrea thought about it. “I miss having someone to talk to, someone to go to dinner with, someone to spend a day like this with.”
“And the sex?” Caprice refused to let the matter settle.
Andrea squirmed. “I miss intimacy,” she whispered. Even though she had her back to him, she could feel Blue Eyes. It was a good thing there were a few sun-loungers between them. “But right now I have other stuff going on.”
“I don’t get why you’re not putting yourself out there more and working harder to find someone.”
“Because I’m busy working hard on my business and I want to expand, find bigger premises, maybe get a second warehouse in years to come.”
Caprice dismissed her words with a wave of her hand. “It’s always about your business. It takes over your life and it’s not a good thing, Andrea. It’s not right.”
“What’s not right?”
“Spending your life alone.”
Andrea set the bottle of lotion on the ground. “I like my business. I like being my own boss and having my own hours. I don’t have to return home today in order to prep for work tomorrow.” She pulled a face at her friend. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound like a dig.”
“Luigi says he doesn’t mind whether I work or not.”
“He’s your boss. He only wants you at work so that he can keep an eye on you.”
“And other things,” said Caprice mischievously. “Sex on his desk knowing that his secretary was sitting outside his office was the biggest thrill. Have you ever—”
“No,” returned Andrea emphatically. She tried unsuccessfully to erase the image that Caprice had conjured up.
“One time I got under his desk and gave him a blow—”
“I get the picture! No wonder you can’t keep away from work,” muttered Andrea. Caprice hadn’t changed one bit. She’d had more boyfriends back in college than she and Talia had combined.
“Sex is more thrilling than ever,” she cooed.
“I bet it is.”
Your work is secondary, thought Andrea. This was where she had a lot more in common with Ava. Both were independent, strong minded women who ran their own businesses. For her friends their jobs were something that sucked up five days out of the week. Talia loved her work; she’d studied hard to earn her law degree and seemed to enjoy her career. Caprice was well taken care of, and work for her was a hobby, or a sex playground, mused Andrea.
It was
different for Andrea. She worked seven days a week, maybe not the whole week at the warehouse but she often took work home. She never had a day when she didn’t do anything related to her business. It consumed her life.
“Let’s relax for another hour, then maybe grab lunch?” she suggested.
“That would work. Luigi wants to take me to dinner at eight so if I get the train by four at the latest, I’ll have plenty of time to get ready.”
With Blue Eyes not too far away, Andrea’s body was buzzing with excitement. She tried to remember when she’d first seen him; was it only yesterday? Or had he been here a few days before that?
What with their lunches, brunches, cocktails and a good few days of girlie fun, time had melted into one long, lazy stretch of memories and she’d stopped living by her watch for a change.
Read the rest of the story in ‘All That Glitters’
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank four wonderful ladies who take time out of their lives to go over my books looking for pesky errors:
Marcia Chamberlain, April Lowe, Carole Tunstall and Charlotte Rebelein.
A huge thank you to my awesome cover artist:
Renata Lechner
Website: http://thelemadreamsart.deviantart.com
About The Author
Lily Zante is the pseudonym for an author who writes contemporary romance.
She lives with her husband and three children somewhere near London, England.
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Copyright © 2015 Lily Zante
It Takes Two
Kindle Edition
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This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and do not bear any resemblance to any real person, alive or dead.
