Beach Lane Collection

by Melissa de la Cruz

  She should just go. She felt awkward and out of place. But before her flip-flops could take her back to the safety of the shadowy hedges, Ryan spotted her and waved her over with a smile. She walked toward him slowly, as if approaching the lion’s den.

  “Hey, you made it,” he said easily, seemingly unaffected by her presence.

  “Yeah.” Mara hoped her smile looked natural. She felt even more naked in the tiny tanga than she had the other night when she really was naked.

  “Hey, Mara,” Tinker greeted her with a smile, leaning over to massage Ryan’s shoulders. If she was surprised to see Mara there, she was certainly doing a good job of hiding it. “Nice to see you.”

  “You too,” Mara said. “Hot out,” she added awkwardly, fanning herself with her bunched-up top. Had she really just reverted to talking about the weather?

  “It’s insane.” Tinker nodded politely, her hands still on Ryan’s bare shoulders. “Hottest summer in the Hamptons ever, I think.”

  “Have a beer, take a seat,” Ryan offered. “Hey, Chuckles, move over,” he said, ordering his friend Charlie to make room for Mara.

  “Nah . . . I’ve got to go, actually. Another party. You know how it is.” Mara shrugged and sighed, as if her schedule were just way too busy for her to even contemplate staying one more minute. “I just wanted to come by over and say hi.”

  “Oh—of course.” He nodded. “ ’Tis the Fourth, after all. The Hamptons Christmas.” Mara gave him a small smile, feeling the slightest bit more comfortable. They’d always compared the busy social schedule on the Fourth of July weekend to the jam-packed winter holidays. It was part of their secret language—which she’d been worried Ryan no longer spoke.

  “Right,” Mara agreed. “Well . . .”

  “I guess we’ll see you around then,” Ryan finished with an upbeat, friendly smile. He was being so polite and maddeningly nice. Sure, Mara wanted the two of them to be friends, but he was treating her as if she were just another guest at the party—not the girl he’d lived with on a freaking boat just last summer!

  “Yeah.” Mara nodded lamely as Tinker got up to greet some new arrivals. She noticed Ryan squeeze Tinker’s leg gently as she stood.

  “Hey, man, can you pass a beer?” Charlie asked from his perch on the hammock. As Ryan reached into the cooler to get him one, Mara seized the opportunity to duck away as quickly as possible.

  As she approached the gate, Mara took one last glance back at the two of them. Tinker had jumped on Ryan’s back, and he was giving her a piggyback ride all the way to the edge of the pool. They fell into the water, laughing and screaming as their toned, athletic bodies splashed about.

  Why did she even want to be friends with him? She couldn’t remember the reasons. She was too angry and confused, her mind racing as she remembered all those times she’d come home from work and found Ryan hanging out with Tinker. She wondered if Ryan had ever really been such a great guy to her after all—or if their relationship had been just a sham. Was it possible there had been something between him and Tinker even then? Mara felt her cheeks burn from the heat, inside and out.

  jacqui enjoys the view from the top

  “ARE YOU READY?” MARCUS ASKED, giving Jacqui a hand as she stepped out of his Jeep onto the red carpet that lined the driveway up to the Swan estate, where the Hamptons magazine bash was being held.

  She nodded and inhaled deeply. It was her first official modeling shoot—or at least as official you could get, since it was taking place at a party—and she was nervous and excited. Especially since the shoot meant a night out on the town with Marcus. A few hours earlier, a two-man hair-and-makeup team had arrived at the Finnemore mega-mansion to prepare her for the evening. It had taken them three hours to transform Jacqui from merely devastating to billboard-worthy.

  She swiveled her legs forward, locked together at the knee so that she wouldn’t show her underpants to the world, and exited the car gracefully. With her bronzed skin, dewy lips, and hair worn in loose, mermaid-like waves, she was radiant in a short white jersey minidress—an Eliza Thompson design, of course—with a back that dipped dangerously low to show “back cleavage.” Hordes of paparazzi stationed at the party’s entrance immediately descended on her like honeybees around a queen. It was pandemonium bordering on hysteria.

  “Jacarei!”

  “Over here!”

  “No, over here!”

  “To your right!”

  “To your left!”

  “Jaaaaacareiiii!”

  Jacqui glanced questioningly back at Marcus. She noticed Midas standing a little removed from the paparazzi horde with his bulky professional camera and tripod, intently taking photographs. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “It’s all part of the shoot,” Marcus explained with a smile. “It’s a day in the life of a glamorous jet-setter, so we tipped the paparazzi to treat you like one.”

  They had advised her there would be some staged scenes at the party, but Jacqui was unprepared for the level of commotion the Easton boys had instilled in the photographers. The buzz surrounding “Jacarei” (one name only, at Marcus’s insistence) had officially begun.

  The Easton boys had envisioned their photo spread as a showcase of Jacqui as a busy Hamptons glamour girl, and tonight would be the first of many shoots. Midas seemed to have the more formal shoots all planned out: they’d get shots of Jacqui attending the biggest parties, hopping off fifty-foot yachts, sunning on Main Beach, riding a horse at the Hamptons Classic. They intended to divide the work between them, and Marcus had readily volunteered to take care of the “behind the scenes” cinema verité moments—Jacqui brushing her teeth over the sink (wearing items from Eliza’s new lingerie line), chatting on the phone, or texting on a BlackBerry, having a cup of coffee. Jacqui was excited at the idea that Marcus would be trying to capture such intimate moments and hoped that it would mean having him around a lot.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she whispered, unsure of how to proceed. Her hesitation was causing a backlog on the red carpet. An assistant to an actress who was idling in her limousine waiting for her moment in the limelight came up to Marcus to complain about the holdup.

  “Very simple, my dear. Model,” Marcus said, whispering huskily in her ear and stepping aside to let her commandeer the spotlight solo. He removed a tiny Canon Elph from his jacket pocket and began taking shots of her as well.

  Jacqui flushed. She turned on her heel and began to pose, causing the paparazzi to shower her with attention. The popping of flashbulbs was intense, but she focused on Midas’s voice, which she heard distinctly above the fray.

  “Over to your left, look over your shoulder. That’s it. Beautiful. Now chin up, like you’ve spotted someone you know. Give them a wave. Yes, yes, beautiful.”

  She noticed Eliza standing next to Midas, pointing and giving suggestions. She gave Jacqui the thumbs-up sign when she caught her eye.

  “This is crazy,” Jacqui muttered to herself when two photographers began shoving each other for a better vantage point. How much of it was real? How much of it fake? Like most things in the Hamptons, she couldn’t tell.

  Midas’s steady voice helped her focus. “Keep your feet facing forward, but swivel your hips to me; that’s it. Gorgeous. Now laugh. As if someone has just told you the funniest joke in the world. That’s it. Good girl.”

  Jacqui felt herself begin to relax. Modeling was all about acting, which required more brain cells than she’d previously assumed. But with Midas’s coaching, she began to let herself loose and enjoy herself. She caught Marcus’s eye and naughtily hooked a thumb underneath the opening of her dress and pulled it to the side, showing even more skin—a taunting, tempting sight that drove the paparazzi wild for more.

  Marcus gave a loud wolf whistle, quickly echoed by the fifty other male photographers who were now shooting in earnest. Several partygoers stopped and stared at Jacqui, and the crowd around her began to grow.

  Jacqui laughed. This was way more fun th
an it should be. Did she say she hated modeling? Maybe she hadn’t given it enough of a chance before. Besides, it was just a bit of harmless fun since it was only for the summer anyway. Jacqui blew several kisses and the photographers cheered.

  “That’s enough, boys,” Marcus said, holding up his hands to signal that the photo shoot was over, but the press pack wouldn’t let her leave. Even when the famous actress finally left her limo, they still trained their cameras on Jacqui.

  “One more!”

  “This one is for the New York Post!”

  “Over here for People!”

  Lucky Yap came up to Jacqui and asked her to spell her name, carefully writing it down on his notepad.

  Jacqui looked over at Midas for guidance. Should she continue to pose? But he was already packing up his camera. He gave her a wordless, amused shrug. Apparently their “staged” paparazzi scene had evolved into a real one. It was all up to her. Jacqui sucked in her stomach and stood with her hand on her hip and a confident smile on her face, looking every inch the nascent supermodel.

  Finally, the photographers put down their cameras. To Jacqui’s complete surprise, they began applauding her performance. She gave them a courtly curtsy.

  “You were perfect,” Marcus said, gliding up to her and gently steering her into the party. “But work is over, and you’re all mine tonight,” he added in a low voice as they made their way from the red carpet to the house’s magnificent entryway.

  “That’s it?” she asked. This modeling gig was all play and no work.

  “That’s it, love.” He nodded.

  A voluptuous girl in a revealing belly dancer’s outfit greeted them at the door, and they discovered that the house and the two-hundred-foot tent in the backyard had been transformed into a sultan’s palace. It was the Fourth of July, Moroccan style. The bombastic magazine publisher was known for his love of theme parties, but even for him, this was over the top.

  “What the bloody . . . ,” Marcus said as they took in the billowing silk draperies, the lavish Oriental rugs, the ceiling-tall hookah pipes, and the dizzying array of grilled meats, fruit, yogurt, twenty different kinds of hummus, stuffed grape leaves, and whole roasted lamb and goat, all sitting in authentic tagines on the buffet table. Low tables were set up with fat, overstuffed silk pillows, and Casablanca was projected on a fifty-foot screen.

  “Welcome!” Christopher Swan, the genial host and owner of Hamptons magazine, greeted them personally. Jacqui had only met him once before, when Mara was writing for the publication. Mara had told her he was a bit of an eccentric. “Happy Fourth of July!” he boomed. He was dressed for the occasion in a fez, a short vest, and balloon trousers.

  “What’s the big idea?” Marcus asked, obviously amused by the decidedly unpatriotic flair of the event.

  “Ssshh, don’t tell a soul, but I got a great deal from this new Moroccan restaurant. They charged me a quarter of the cost to cater the party in exchange for publicity in the magazine.” Christopher shrugged. Like a good mogul, he knew a good deal when he saw one. “Besides, who wants hot dogs and beer when you could have veiled dancing girls and camel rides?”

  Jacqui nodded as she looked around, agape at the fantastic spectacle. There were ornately costumed drummers, acrobats, and dancers everywhere. Fire-breathers were stationed every couple of feet on the beachfront, and an African drum circle was set up around a bonfire.

  “Just don’t leave early,” Christopher cautioned. “At midnight, there’s going to be a re-creation of a cavalry charge, the men firing muskets into the air. Just like the real Fourth of July. Much better than fireworks, don’t you think?”

  Jacqui and Marcus hastened to agree, both of them straining not to look too shocked. A Moroccan theme and a cavalry charge at the same event? Only in the Hamptons.

  “C’mon, I’ve got you guys up at the main table.” Christopher pointed to a couple of gem-encrusted chairs on a dais in the center of the party.

  He led them to their assigned seats, and Jacqui noticed the crowd parting deferentially as they walked by. She overheard a few of the guests’ whispered commentary. “That’s Jacarei—she’s going to be bigger than Gisele. And that’s Marcus Easton with her. Aren’t they just the luckiest people in the world?”

  As Jacqui surveyed the action from the vantage point of her golden throne, she wondered if life could get any more fabulous than this.

  Marcus seemed to read her mind. “Pretty lovely at the top, isn’t it?” He grinned, plucking a grape from the ornate tray on the table and plopping it into his mouth. He leaned back in his gilt chair and surveyed her admiringly. “It’s where you’re meant to be, I think.”

  Jacqui blushed. “That was more fun than I was expecting,” she admitted. When she’d realized that the staged shoot had ended and the real paparazzi had been making a fuss over her, the attention had made her head fizzle, like bubbles in a glass of expensive champagne.

  “You’re just as much fun as I’d been expecting.” Marcus grinned wickedly, leaning forward in his chair. Jacqui held her breath as she saw him lean in toward her, wanting to freeze this moment in time. She was on top of the world, and the most handsome guy she’d met in ages was right there with her.

  She giggled and closed her eyes and felt his soft lips press on hers. He caressed her hair as he kissed her gently, his hand finding its way down her back. She felt butterflies in her stomach at his touch.

  When they pulled apart, he kept his hand firmly on the small curve of her hip, and she decided that she was going to stay within reach of him for the rest of that night.

  Who cared if she had to get up at 6 a.m. the next morning to make the kids their organic breakfast?

  is midas interested in eliza’s designs, or does he have designs on eliza?

  WHEN THE SHOOT WAS OVER and Jacqui had finished preening for the real paparazzi, Eliza tried not to feel too piqued that none of the photographers had bothered to take her picture. After all, wasn’t she someone too? Not too long ago, Eliza Thompson had ruled the glam-girl private school crowd, her photograph appearing everywhere from the Times social diary to Town & Country and Vanity Fair. But her high school days were over, and already a new crop of hot young heiresses ruled the society pages. The new girls even had websites and rankings and online fan clubs.

  Midas saw the slightly distressed look on her face as he stowed away his gear. “You know the press—they’re rabid for a new face. It’s much better to stay in the background without all the fuss, don’t you think? Funny how so much is made of the models when they’d be nothing without the designers.”

  “You’re right.” Eliza nodded, jollied out of her temporary irritation and silly jealousy. After all, Jacqui was promoting her line. She’d just been sort of touchy recently because all anyone seemed to be interested in when it came to Eliza Thompson was her “engagement” to the “Greyson heir.” The papers had been having a field day with the story. Not that she could complain—she’d started it. And at least the publicity had been paying off, since sales in her boutique were through the roof in just its first week. She smiled shyly at Midas, glad to have such a gentleman at her side.

  “Let’s leave them to it, shall we?” He handed his camera and tripod to an assistant and escorted her into the party. The two of them giggled at the outlandish extravagance. “I didn’t realize Morocco was one of the fifty states,” Midas quipped. “But perhaps I need to catch up on my American history.”

  Eliza laughed. “Nope, you’re just in the Hamptons—aka an alternate universe.” She was used to the quirks of the Hamptons high life. She’d once attended a black-tie square dance: the richest people in America line dancing among bales of hay, for the bargain price of five thousand dollars a plate.

  While Marcus and Jacqui had been seated at a grand table at the center of the action, she and Midas opted for a booth in a quiet corner, sinking back into the plump cushions. Midas ordered a bottle of champagne from a passing waitress and they watched as a gyrating belly dancer approach
ed their table, her finger cymbals clanking.

  Eliza felt slightly awkward at the sight of the woman’s undulating stomach, but Midas looked completely at ease, clapping to the beat and smiling. At the end of the performance, he discreetly tucked a ten-dollar bill into the top of her skirt as the dancer indicated.

  “Thank you, sir,” the dancer said, before bowing and leaving them to dance for another table.

  “Very welcome,” he replied. He noticed Eliza staring and explained. “Audience participation is a big part of belly dancing. I learned that in Lebanon.”

  “You’ve been to Lebanon?” Eliza asked, impressed.

  Midas nodded. “We did a shoot for French Vogue in the city ruins. It’s a shame what’s happened to that country. They’ve rebuilt a lot since the war, but it’s a slow process, and the recent skirmishes obviously haven’t helped.” Midas shook his head, saddened. “Beirut was the Riviera of the Middle East. The most fantastic nightclubs, and the food was amazing. Try this, it’s delicious,” he added, passing Eliza a plate of merguez sausages.

  Eliza took a little bite. He was right—they were yummy. Tonight was purely business, but she couldn’t help feeling that the circumstances were rather enjoyable. As an intern with Sydney Minx, she’d helped out on fashion shoots before, but those had been drawn-out affairs, with teams of stylists arguing with the photographer and Sydney about how the clothes should look. The Easton boys worked “light,” with just a handful of assistants, and Midas had been so confident in her vision that he’d let her style the shoot without any help from outside professionals.

  She felt a tiny bit guilty about enjoying the party when she’d left Jeremy alone for the night, but they had made plans to catch the fireworks from his dock later. Besides, as she’d told herself a dozen times, he wouldn’t have fun at a party like this, especially not with her and Midas wrapped up in fashion talk.

  In the short time they’d been working together, Eliza had quickly divined that Midas made all the decisions for team Easton, while Marcus seemed to be content to go with the flow. As far as she could see, Marcus’s main task consisted of talking up the project to anyone who would listen—he was the mouth of the operation, Midas the brain. But when she’d hinted as much, Midas explained that while he usually took the bulk of the photographs with his professional Canon, Marcus tended to capture great candid moments with his little Canon Elph that added texture to the shoot as a whole.