“—I’m sorry,” he said.
She glanced up at him. Sorry?
“I . . .” he began. “Well, it got out of hand. I didn’t mean to . . .” He seemed to be searching the room for the answer. “I didn’t mean to let it get out of hand.”
Giselle cleared her throat and looked at her fingertips, which were now up on the table playing with her paper napkin. She could hardly meet his eyes. Out of hand? Well, she had certainly thought so. But she knew what he was saying—he simply wanted to play this part, to reciprocate this deal they had going, but he didn’t need her to get swept away.
“I understand,” was all she could manage. She shredded the edge of her napkin and hoped he’d change the subject. “No more,” she reiterated.
He watched her eyes for a long time, then nodded.
“Got it,” he said. “Are you ready to go back?”
They went over their signals: a signal for when she needed him to stay by her side and another for when she needed some privacy. She suggested they stay a half hour, just to pay their respects to Lovey, then collect Coco and leave.
Fin put his tie back on and collected his jacket off the chair. “And be prepared for that second bombshell your ex is going to drop. Maybe you should just paddle out—you know, take the wave full-force. Don’t put it off. Be ready for it. I’ll be there for you.”
Giselle watched as he patted his pockets, making sure he had his cell phone, his wallet. A warm feeling began in her stomach, and she forced herself to walk back through those last few words to make sure she’d heard him correctly: I’ll be there for you. Those words meant more to her than he could possibly know.
He glanced up. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
And, for a moment, she felt she’d be ready for anything.
• • •
The house was stellar.
Fin wandered past the living room bar and mused about what it would have felt like growing up here, with a doctor for a father, a boat dock in the backyard, and fancy living room furniture, instead of wondering where his next meal was coming from. The house backed up to a man-made lake, rimmed around its two-mile perimeter with enormous homes, white-stucco condos, and hillsides of tile-roofed townhomes standing shoulder to shoulder. Pristine sailboats and motorboats left a sparkling wake on the water.
“Here you go.” He handed Giselle a mimosa and leaned against the cement balustrade, staring at the boats and homes below. It was a beautiful place, but the man-made nature of the lake bothered him. He loved the grit of the ocean, throwing its sand and seaweed and debris around—debris that had been collected for years, even centuries, stolen from shores all over the world. This man-made lake was nice and all, but it wasn’t anything like natural beauty, which always had stories behind it.
“Cheers to us for handling this crowd so far,” Giselle said, lifting her glass.
Fin toasted. What he really wanted to do was hand her a scotch. She’d had a hell of an afternoon, with her ex giving her speculative glances as soon as she stepped through Lovey’s threshold, and that strange sister-in-law Ray-Lynn dripping with all those platitudes about how much Giselle was missed.
In fact, Fin could use a good scotch, too. But he figured it would be obnoxious to ask Lovey where she kept the Glenlivet.
He downed his mimosa and stared over the balcony railing at the sun, which was still hanging high in the sky. He wondered what the surf was like at home. But he stole a quick glance at Giselle and decided she was a beautiful distraction anyway.
He hadn’t known what had made him open up like that at the restaurant. That was strange. But it was nice to talk—he hadn’t told anyone about Ronny Romano in years. And hearing her stories was nice. Miss Strawberry. Good Lord. He’d had her number from the start. All those Rose queens and homecoming queens he’d seen on television had that same aura. Somewhere, God was still churning out that caliber of woman from his famous queen-making machine: They knew how to use the right forks; they cursed with words like “darned” instead of “fucking”; and they had elongated, pretty necks.
Like Giselle’s.
Which looked pretty fucking kissable from here.
He sighed and leaned into the rail. He wasn’t going to let his mind go there anymore. No more thinking about kissing Giselle. She was in another league.
He put his empty glass on a table behind them and moved farther down the rail.
“All right, thirty minutes and counting,” he told her, consulting his watch.
“You don’t want to stay another excruciating second?”
“Look, I could stand here forever—good champagne, pretty view, pretty Betty . . .”
She gave a mimosa-induced giggle. “I like . . .” She shifted her gaze before she could finish the sentence.
“You like what?” He couldn’t help but smile. And he knew he shouldn’t ask. He knew she was going to say something that was going to make him reverse all his well-laid plans and remind him of what a jerk he was. But he watched her anyway and waited for her answer.
“I like when you call me ‘Betty,’” she whispered, her voice dropping to a girlish level of inebriation and vulnerability he recognized as dangerous.
“It’s ‘a’ Betty,” he said.
“Like a noun.”
“Like a noun.”
Fin closed his eyes. He was a mess. He wanted her. She was so unlike any woman he’d ever allowed himself. So elegant. So smart. So pulled together . . .
“So should we stay?” she said, moving closer.
He stepped away. “No.”
Her smile faded.
As she pivoted away, he caught her arm. “Giselle, I mean, we can stay as long as you like. But I don’t think it’s good to be here if you don’t want to.”
And my good intentions are slipping away by the minute.
The wind came up off the lake and tossed tendrils of hair about her face. Rather than fuss like most high-maintenance beauty queens he imagined, she simply turned toward the wind and pulled the hair away from her lips. He loved her ease with her body, her minimization of movement. It was much like surfing—keeping movements to where you needed them, moving with nature, not against it. He’d never seen anything quite like it on a woman like her.
She twisted toward him. “You’re right. Let’s go with twenty-seven and counting.” She downed the last of her glass and glided through the sliding door.
Fin followed her around for the next twenty-seven minutes like a bodyguard, hoping she wouldn’t drink any more champagne. Twenty-three of those minutes went off without a hitch.
They moved through the house, Giselle nodding toward numerous people who took her hand or leaned toward her with a polite hug. Coco held Lovey’s hand and glowed like an honored guest. Coco was apparently planning to stay behind this evening. Lovey and Giselle spent a good ten minutes in the kitchen, writing detailed instructions regarding Coco’s peanut allergies and her eating schedule. They worried aloud about something called Ninja Kitty—a stuffed animal or something—and even discussed Coco’s clothing size in case Lovey needed to get her a swimsuit.
Fin stood at Giselle’s elbow and stared at the saltshakers. A strange sensation swept over him—something of a recognition of a life he may have wanted. Something of a settled life—saltshakers, daughters’ schedules, a grandmother writing down notes for a sleepover. He had never thought of any of these things before and knew he hadn’t ever longed for them as an adult, so he didn’t know what the feeling was. He shook it off and moved toward the kitchen window to admire Lovey’s view of the lake.
The rest of the minutes were spent circulating. About fifteen people knew Fin’s name as soon as they heard it, and he signed six autographs, all under the stunned stares of Giselle. She clearly didn’t know who he was. Which was pretty refreshing. He felt like he could be anyone. Or, rather, he could be himsel
f.
The last four minutes were the troublesome ones.
“Giselle,” Roy called, as the two of them were almost at the door. The good doctor sauntered toward them in the vestibule.
Giselle stiffened. Fin had suggested, twice, that she head Roy off—accepting bad news was always easier when you were prepared and aggressive about it—but she had shaken her head. She wanted to escape without talking to Roy at all. He’s refused to talk to me for four months. Now maybe I feel like being silent, she’d said. So Fin had acquiesced, figuring it wasn’t his business. But now her shoulders squared.
“Roy,” she said, “thank you for making sure we were able to say good-bye to Joe. We’ll keep him in our prayers.”
Fin turned so he could make eye contact with her. Do you want me to stay? he tried to convey. Giselle smiled in a way that was unreadable. Roy moved so he was exactly between them, then dropped his mouth toward Giselle’s ear.
Giselle paused for a long time to listen. Then she glanced over Roy’s shoulder.
“Fin, if you’ll go wait in the car . . .”
Fin hesitated. This was their agreed signal, of course, but it was always unnerving to leave a woman with a man she didn’t like.
“We’re this way,” he said, giving her one more chance.
She nodded. He paused a second longer before finally loping down the brick driveway. At the bottom, he turned once more, but Roy had closed the door.
• • •
“We need to talk.” Roy pressed the huge mahogany door with his palm. A tight whoosh sucked the air from the entryway.
Sounds of the reception—forks scraping plates, hushed tones, glasses set on polished end tables—swirled from the level above while Roy inspected her through his glasses as if she were some kind of cell he couldn’t figure out.
“Only for a minute,” Giselle said.
She knew she’d had a little too much to drink, and didn’t want to start a heavy conversation in this state, but her curiosity took over. She’d waited so long to hear what Roy had to say. Was he going to give her a clue about what happened?
“Do you want to sit down?” he asked.
“I don’t want to stay long.”
“Sit.”
She was tired of him bossing her around, having the upper hand in this separation, while she waited for answers, waited by the phone, cried because she didn’t know what was going to happen next. How could she plan the next step of her life when she didn’t even know if he was going to sell the house, ask her to leave, or even finish filing the divorce papers? And how could she move on when she didn’t even understand what went wrong? And why was he the one who got to dictate when they talked and when they didn’t?
“Please,” he added belatedly. “Sit. You’re very pale.”
She was feeling unsteady. She reluctantly followed him through a doorway off the vestibule, into a small parlor that Lovey adored, where a rose-colored fainting chaise sat right inside the doorway. Giselle propped herself on the velvet piece. Roy shut the door.
“How do you know Fin Hensen?” he asked.
Giselle lifted her head heavily. That was what he wanted to talk about? Roy hadn’t talked to her in months, and he wanted to start there?
“Roy, I agree that we need to have a conversation, but this isn’t where I want to start. Why don’t we meet for dinner and we can discuss all we need to discuss? Not now.”
“Why not now?”
She didn’t answer. She wished she hadn’t had that last glass of champagne. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her first conversation with him would go. She tried to thrust herself up from the chaise but her legs felt wobbly. She grabbed the upholstered arm.
“You drank too much. Do you think that’s the proper thing to do when you have your daughter with you?”
Disbelief swept through her, followed by a quiet rage that began in her ears. She opened her mouth to respond, but Roy stepped forward and guided her back toward the chaise. “I just want to know how you met him.”
She gripped her purse and felt a twinge of dizziness. But she refused to let him grill her. How dare he question her on who she was dating? Or . . . well, fake dating. Whatever. The point was he had left her for another woman. He had no right to start questioning.
“Move aside, Roy.”
She pushed herself up again and tried to move around him. She was done here.
“Did he approach you, or—”
“It’s none of your business.”
He was blocking her path, and she tried to step around him, but he kept sliding into her line of trajectory.
Startled, she paused. He wouldn’t physically stop her, would he? With all those guests upstairs? Roy had never been violent, except those few times in bed where his grip on her wrists could surprise her. But, despite his small stature, he unnerved her. He often vibrated like a tightrope ready to snap.
“Roy, this is crazy.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “Step aside.”
“I don’t want you seeing him.”
“That isn’t any of your business.”
“He’s not good for you, Giselle.” He slid in front of the door handle and dropped his forehead to catch her gaze, as if he were being caring, comforting. His voice went soft: “He’s known around here as someone who’s wild and reckless. He’s in the paper all the time. He’s dropped out of surfing—probably from being on drugs—but he’s still dragging whorish-looking girls to every event. You’re a mother. You need to make better decisions. I need you to take better care of Coco.”
Better care of Coco? Disbelief and rage warred through her head.
“This is hugely hypocritical of you,” she said, in her best voice of reserve. She took a chance and pressed his arm to get to the door handle, but he shoved her hand away.
“Listen,” he hissed, moving his face closer. Her heel wedged against the leg of the chaise. “Fin Hensen is trouble, Giselle. I don’t want him around Coco. If you continue this lapse of judgment, I’m going to have your custody reconsidered.”
Giselle took a deep breath and tried to get her breathing back under control. She couldn’t even make sense of anything he was telling her. Her custody reconsidered? Was Roy insane? Coco was everything to her—he knew that. She would lay her life down for her little girl.
“Let’s talk about this later,” she whispered. Maybe the champagne was making something difficult to understand here. She needed to get out of this room.
“He’s dangerous, Giselle.”
She took a small step back, a little off balance. Could that possibly be true? She’d wanted her family to think she’d moved on with a hot professional surfer, not a drug addict. Lia wouldn’t associate with him if he were, right?
But a sickening drop of doubt fell through her stomach as she reached again for the handle. She’d had Coco around him. . . .
“Listen to me,” Roy hissed.
She could barely focus on what he was saying. She couldn’t even believe this was Roy. He’d donned Roy’s glasses and wore Roy’s suits, but this was not him. Her Roy loved her, and loved their life. Her Roy loved his daughter. Her Roy would not ignore her for months and then talk to her like this. Her Roy would not hiss at her and say, “Listen,” and grind his jaw. Her Roy would never accuse her of being a bad mother. . . .
The thought forming in her head slipped out as a whisper: “I just don’t understand what happened.”
An expression she hadn’t seen in years—well before the cantaloupe—softened his face. Years of lines suddenly seemed to disappear. He studied the marble tile.
“You’re right.” He moved aside, revealing the door handle like a beacon of hope. “We need to talk. Dinner is a good idea. I can . . . I can take you now.”
“Not now.” She opened her purse for a Kleenex but, poking around, all she could find was a tiny sequined skirt t
hat belonged to one of Coco’s Polly Pocket dolls. The sequins felt sticky at the tops of her cheekbones. “Let’s do it later, when I pick up Coco.”
“How about Friday night, then?” He reached for her shoulder. “Let me take you home.”
“No. Fin’s waiting. I need to—”
“I thought I just said I didn’t want you to see him?” His hand dropped back to his side. Dark, angry eyes met hers from behind his rounded lenses.
“I need to go, Roy.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Of course. You’re sneering from about two inches away.” She sidled around him. “He’s a friend of Lia’s, and Lia is a good judge of character.”
“Yeah, Lia is a model citizen,” Roy scoffed.
“Roy, move.”
“I’m worried about Coco.”
“She’s with you, Roy. Worry about yourself.” The fear that had been gripping her turned sharp inside. “Take care of her. Be a dad. She’s missed you. She waits for you to call her every night, and when you don’t, she just looks heartbroken.” A sob caught in her throat as her feelings continued to churn, not knowing whether to settle on fear, confusion, anger, or sadness. She needed to get out of here. She was having a hard time breathing. These feelings like panic attacks were increasing, whenever she thought about Roy, or Coco sitting by the phone at night, or what her life was going to become. “Let me out of here.”
“Giselle?” She heard a muffled voice from the other side of the door. It was Fin.
Roy leaned on the handle and threw the door outward. Giselle heard a sickening thud on the other side, then, “WHAT THE F—??”
When she peered around the opening, Fin was doubled over, his hands cupping his nose.
“What the—??” He spit out a few more epithets, then looked at Roy with disbelief and rage. A trickle of blood slid through his fingers.
“Oh my God.” Giselle rushed forward. A small shriek came from the other side of the vestibule, and Lovey and Ray-Lynn charged toward them, staring at the drops of blood on the marble flooring. They each tried to peer into Fin’s face. Lovey clutched Fin’s elbow and tried to move his hand away.
The Red Bikini Page 10
