“You’re getting good at this.”
“I have an exceptional teacher. Come meet our friends.”
I followed him down to the lawn and across the wide expanse of grass. “Where is everyone?”
“Liam and Simon took the boat out to go jet-skiing with Nick and Desmond, a couple of our security guys. Oliver is playing tennis down at the courts with Raj. Trevor and Fergus, also security, are in the gym. And Rory… I think Rory is taking a well-deserved nap.” He laughed at that.
And then I understood.
Lying out by the pool were three young, sublimely formed females in various stages of naked. If I hadn’t had a heart-to-heart with myself about being comfortable with the fact that I would likely be twenty years older than all the other eye candy offered on this trip, I might have reacted differently. I might have run back to my hotel. Back to L.A. But I’d rationalized it shopping for swimsuits at Barneys. And on the flight to Switzerland. And again, just now, in the drive over from Cannes. I was here because Hayes wanted me to be. And being near forty and having birthed and nursed a child did not change any of that.
Hayes proceeded to introduce me to their guests. In one corner, Oliver’s girlfriend, Charlotte: a porcelain-skinned, bikinied brunette who’d separated herself from the others with the aid of an oversized sun hat and an iPad. She smiled up at me from her place in the sun, sipping Vittel and cracking pistachios with the finesse of a duchess.
And in the other corner, the French girls, Émilie and Carine. I’d mistaken them for twins, but Hayes disabused me of that notion. They were locals, friends of Rory, delightfully pretty and ridiculously young, in matching black bikini bottoms. And sunglasses.
“Ça va?” I nodded toward them. I’d grown up summering with girls like this. I had only stopped being intimidated once I’d realized that the particularly aggressive mixture of competitive tanning, cigarettes, and Bordeaux caught up with them at aroundage thirty-two. But I could appreciate them for all their nubile beauty now. I assumed Hayes could as well.
“Avez-vous du feu?” the one with the slightly more perfect breasts asked.
“Non, desolée. Je fume pas.”
“Tant pis, alors.” She tossed her blonde head.
Hayes called to me from the far side of the pool. Someone had set up a lovely spread: crudités, fresh fruit, a selection of chilled drinks. “Rosé?”
“What? No Scotch?” I made my way over to him.
“When in France…”
“So your friend Émilie—”
“Rory’s friend,” he corrected me, pouring the wine.
“Rory’s friend. She justvous-ed me.”
“So?”
“So I’m guessing she thinks I’m your mother. Or that I work here.”
“Really?” he said, handing me a full glass. And then, before I could take a sip, he grabbed my head in both his hands and kissed me firmly on the mouth. “Well… she doesn’t think that now.”
Somehow I’d managed to forget how wonderful his mouth was. Soft, enticing. “You should probably do that again. Just to be sure.”
“Just to be sure,” he repeated. And then he obliged me.
When he eventually pulled away, I could feel the girls’ eyes on us. Even Charlotte, who was still cracking pistachios.
“Not that that wasn’t fun,” he said, soft, “but you probably shouldn’t care what she thinks.
“Come.” He grabbed his glass. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“The French girls, what are they? Twelve?” I asked once out of earshot.
He laughed. “Eighteen.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Desmond checked their IDs.”
