City Chicks

Chapter 5

Five

I was sitting on the front porch—fidgeting, worrying, hoping, dreaming—when the sightseeing caravan returned.

After changing into a colorful sundress, covered with bright yellow lemons against a white background and matching lemon yellow piping, my brain had calmed enough to realize the opportunities abounding. Not only would I be working in presumably close proximity to Ferrero, leading to many fabulous opportunities for great impressions wherein he might actually remember my name and think to promote me when Jawbreaker moves up, but my jewelry designs would be thrust center stage in the fashion world.

Accessorizing an entire collection on a prime runway during fashion week.

This was marketing no advertising dollars could buy.

An advantage the KYs could never hope to obtain and Jawbreaker could never hope to thwart. I would skyrocket up the ranks faster than they could blink.

Now all I had to do was convince Phelps to join in.

The shopping-weary sightseers climbed out of a trio of elegant black limos Jawbreaker had hired for the weekend. They were a ragged bunch, a sea of wrinkled polo shirts and sweat-smudged foundation—on both men and women.

Kelly and Gavin emerged first, arm in arm and smiling falsely at each other. A perfectly matched pair of fakes.

They slinked past me. Kelly didn’t so much as throw me a sideways glance, which suited me just fine, but Gavin slid his gaze over me as they walked by. I scowled at him.

Three dozen or so other sightseers drifted into the house, worn out from an exhausting two hours of shopping and riding around in air-conditioned limos. Oh the trials and tribulations.

The chauffeurs closed the doors after the last of the passengers disembarked.

I frowned.

Where was Phelps?

I watched blankly as the three black vehicles pulled away and headed down the driveway.

Had he bailed on me? Found some cute young thing in town and decided to ditch me? I was going to kill him. I was going to kill Fiona. I was going to kill someone.

A faint buzzing sound rang in my ears.

I shook my head but it didn’t go away. In fact, it got louder. And I realized it wasn’t in my head at all. Squinting down the long drive, I saw a streak of bright yellow heading my direction.

I blinked, watching in horror as Phelps flew up the drive and skidded to a stop right in front of me on a Vespa.

“What,” I bit out, carefully swallowing the squeaky voice threatening to burst forth, “is that?”

“Hey, it matches your dress.”

“What,” I repeated calmly despite the overwhelming urge to launch myself at him, fists swinging, “is that?”

He looked at me like I was stupid—like I was the one roaring around Southampton on a child’s toy. “This is a scooter.” He revved the tiny rubber band engine. “See, vvroom, vvroom. Wanna ride?”

“No!”

“Come on,” he goaded. “You know you want to.”

“No, I don’t.” All I wanted to do was go up to my room—our room—and hide beneath the covers for the rest of the weekend.

Clearly he did not understand the meaning of the word decorum. His brain must have been absent the day they taught that in modeling school.

Or any school.

Had he even gone to school?

What kind of education had he had? Was he one of those wonder models discovered at fifteen and a high school drop out by sixteen?

For that matter, I wondered— “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-seven.”

Dear Mr. Goodbar, he was six years younger than me. I was robbing the proverbial cradle. Sort of.

At least I wasn’t really dating him. That would be worse.

I groaned, wondering when I had begun resorting to rationalization to make everything seem okay.

Phelps climbed off the mini crotch rocket and took me by the shoulders, guiding me down the steps and into the driveway. “This opportunity won’t come around every day, you know. I took the official Vespa training course in Italy. I’m a licensed scooter stunt driver.” He climbed aboard and pulled me across his lap. “And she has to go back by five.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Nope,” he said. “I was filming a scooter chase scene and they needed me to do my own stunts.”

“Let me go,” I insisted.

Before I could launch an argument, he started the engine and roared off toward the street. “Remind me to show you the scar later.”

I was a captive in his quest of adventure.

We sped through the narrow streets of Southampton. We spun doughnuts in the high school parking lot. We even raced long drives on the golf course, much to the dismay of the golfers and the groundskeeper.

And much to my surprise, I enjoyed every minute of it.

By the time we returned Daffy—so named because of her daffodil yellow paint job—to the rental place I was sad to see her go.

Mental Post-it: look into cost of buying and housing Vespa.

“Ray says his brother can give us a ride.”

“What?” I was so busy with my mental debate I didn’t hear anything but the end of Phelps’s comment.

“I said Ray, the scooter shop owner, says the taxis are all at the train station, but his brother can give us a lift back out to the mansion.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, not having any other suggestions.

If I had known what that lift would consist of, I would have come up with some.

Ray-the-scooter-guy’s bother drove a rickety old farm truck, the kind with two-by-fours nailed around the bed to hold in the piles of potatoes or apples or whatever they harvested in the far reaches of Long Island.

And the passenger seat was already occupied by a giant black and white Great Dane. I didn’t think she would understand if I called shotgun.

So Phelps and I rode the five miles back to Jawbreaker’s house on the tailgate of the farm truck. At least Rick, the brother, had a relatively clean blanket for me to sit on so my dress didn’t suffer the effects of the dirty truck bed.

This was my punishment for even thinking about cheating on my baby.

“You look like a mess,” Phelps observed.

Gee, like I expected to look like a Stepford Wife after a ride in a potato truck. I scowled as he lifted me down from the tailgate.

“You’re no shining example yourself,” I returned.

Though I had to admit, no man ever looked so good in a dirt-smudged grey t-shirt with wavy black hair wind-tousled to an Elvis-worthy peak. He was gorgeous, no matter the clothing.

Except for that space suit I had picked him up in. No one could make that work.

“We’d better clean up before dinner.” And I still had to talk to him about Ferrero’s proposal.

He grinned like a schoolboy. “I’ll race ya!”

“No, thank you.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Um... no.”

“You turned down the Daffy ride at first, too.” His eyes sparkled as he poked me in the arm. “And look how much fun that turned out to be.”

“This isn’t the sa—”

“Chicken?”

“No, I’m just too—”

“Chicken,” he declared.

Planting my hands on my hips in what I hoped was a determined nature, I said, “I am not a chicken, I’m just—”

“Afraid you’ll lose.” He looked at me sympathetically. “You’re probably right. Better not to be humiliated like that.”

He turned and headed up the steps.

As his foot hit the top step, I blew past him, calling back over my shoulder, “Just waiting to take advantage of your arrogance.”

When we hit the staircase in the east wing, he caught hold of my hem and tugged me back. He made it two steps before I grabbed his sneaker and pulled him to the ground. I scrambled past him, just lunging out of his grasp, and bolted down the hall to our room.

I stood outside our door, fingers curled around the doorknob, as he raced down the hall in my wake.

“Guess I get the shower first,” I teased.

He covered my hand with his own. “We could always share.”

Sparks exploded where our skin touched.

“In your dreams, Elliot,” I said, feeling carefree and maybe a little reckless.

I pushed open the door and preceded him into the room. Behind me, I swear he muttered, “Don’t I know it.”

It wasn’t until I was under the stream of steaming hot water that I realized he and his wild abandon had made me forget about all my worries and stress for an afternoon. I didn’t want to dwell on what that meant.

The cool rush of the shower washed away the remains of the potato truck, leaving only the glaring unasked question. Would Phelps be willing to play the role of muse for Ferrero? And what would it cost me?

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, one fluffy white towel wrapped around my chest, the other vigorously rubbing the water from my dark blond locks, I was ready to ask him.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, or some such rot.

“Phelps, I have a proposition for you,” I began.

“Mmmm.” He looked up from the book he was reading in the corner chair. “I like the sound of that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not that kind of proposition, you Nutty Bar.” Sitting on the bed, I finished toweling my hair and wrapped the towel around my head. “A bus—”

He set the book down and stood. “How do women do that?”

“Do what?”

“That thing with the towel.” He stepped in front of me and motioned to my turbaned head. “No man alive can do that.”

“Phelps, can you please listen—”

“No straight man, anyway.”

“Phelps!” I hadn’t meant to shout, but he had a way of stretching my patience like Tangy Taffy, pulling until it spread so thin little holes appeared and grew until all that was left was a shredded lace of sticky candy.

“Can you please,” I asked, calmly regaining my restraint, “listen to my proposition.” When he looked ready to joke again about my choice of words, I added, “My business proposition.”

Though he looked a little disappointed, he sat next to me on the bed.

“Are you familiar with the Ferrero menswear line?”

“I’m a professional model, babe, of course I know Ferrero Men. I think I have one of last season’s shirts—the ones with all the heavy-duty zippers—from a shoot for Vanity Fair.”

Ugh, I remembered those shirts. Not only were they ugly, but no man wearing one made it through airport security without a strip search. There had been a lot of store returns on that one.

“Right, well, Ferrero is apparently looking for a muse,” I explained, wondering how on earth you ask someone to be a designer’s inspiration. “He, um, asked me to be his muse for the couture collection, and—”

“His muse, huh,” he interrupted. “The man has good taste.”

I tried to fight my pleasure at the compliment. But it was no good. Any woman would be flattered to be asked to be a famous fashion designer’s muse. And, try as I might to hide it, I was just as susceptible as the next woman.

“Then again,” he said, tracing a finger over the fluffy edge of the towel wrapped around my chest, “you’d inspire anyone in this getup.”

I might have blushed a little. “Yes, well, that’s only half the bargain.”

Phelps was beginning to look a little bored. Or maybe not bored. Distracted. I needed to get to the heart of the proposition.

“He apparently needs a special menswear muse, too.”

He shrugged, his gaze drifting down my bare legs, clearly not getting my meaning.

“You,” I blurted. “He wants you to be his muse.”

“Me?” Phelps asked, distractedly as he reached for the hem of my towel.

I smacked his hand away. “Yes, you.”

For the first time in our twenty-four hours’ acquaintance—and that was twenty-four solid hours with no potty breaks or anything—he had no witty comeback. Nothing, just silence as he stared at my thighs. He chewed on his generous lower lip, his dark brows lowered in thought.

Like maybe he wanted to decline.

Like maybe he was trying to find the right words to tell me to go piss off. No, no, no. I was not about to lose this opportunity.

“I’ll pay you, of course,” I rushed out, “for all the time spent as Ferrero’s muse. I don’t know how much time being a muse demands, but I’m sure we can work something out. We can sketch out a payment plan and—”

“Are you crazy?”

“You wouldn’t be doing this for free,” I continued. “I’ll still pay you—”

“Why the hell would you have to pay me?”

I blinked at him, not really understanding his question. “I don’t know if Ferrero plans to pay you—or me, for that matter—for this, but I’ll p—”

He shook his head and laughed. “I would pay to do this.”

“Really?” Now I was really confused.

“I don’t know what you’re getting out of this deal,” Phelps said, “but this is a golden opportunity for my career. I mean, what model wouldn’t want to be the muse of a couture designer?”

“You’ll do it?” I squeaked.

“Of course I’ll do it,” he confirmed. “Modeling may not be my be all end all, but this will skyrocket my career.” He braced one hand behind me on the bed and leaned in closer. “Why are you doing it?”

My first instinct was to make up a more legitimate and less, well, selfish reason. But he was so close, steadily meeting my gaze and probing my soul with those brilliant baby blues. He surrounded me. I could barely breathe.

I leaned back a little. “Because he wants to use my jewelry in the collection.”

He looked unconvinced, as if he knew there was more to my decision. He was right.

“And because this will give me the advantage in the next promotion,” I confessed, admitting to even myself for the first time how much beating out the KYs and triumphing over Jawbreaker meant to me.

“Well then,” he said, extending his hand, “I guess we’re partners in muse-dom.”