You don’t know who I am?”
“Should I? I’m sorry. I’m out of the country a lot.”
Out of the country? As if maybe he lived on a ship? Even still. Could he be for real?
“Honestly. I have no agenda but dinner.” He lifted one shoulder and smiled. “And maybe a good-night kiss.”
His smile jolted through her. She looked into his eyes. Warm brown eyes that reminded her of burnished copper. Eyes that seemed genuine and untroubled.
What would that be like? To spend time with someone who wasn’t using her for their own selfish reasons. But that kind of person didn’t exist.
Still, she was so bored with this whole reformed-bad-girl act. And she absolutely did not want to stand around at that gala tonight pretending to make nice. “Okay.”
“Really? I mean, great. The club’s dining room? Say...an hour?”
Nodding, she turned away, her heart thudding again. Would she never learn to think before she acted? Despite his assertions, the guy probably thought he could get her into bed. Failing that—and he would—he probably wanted his name and picture linked with hers in the papers. His fifteen minutes of fame.
Ragi would be furious that she’d made this date. She’d insist on Piper schmoozing at the gala first. The PR firm had been scrambling to find events where she could make appearances and restore her image. So far, the approach had been working. Just last week Modelle had hinted that they would consider renewing her contract when it expired next month.
She’d signed on as the spokesperson for the makeup company when she was a fresh-faced seventeen-year-old. New on the scene. A rising star in the modeling world. Under the thumb of her agent, Ms. H, Piper’s reputation had been unblemished back then.
Now? Well, she’d had a few troubling years. And Modelle insisted their models’ characters be above reproach. After Piper’s arrest in the cruise terminal, Modelle had threatened no new contracts. Since then, Piper had been conspicuously well behaved.
Yet here she was, back in South Beach. Maybe she should send the naval officer a note, canceling.
* * *
“NOW, THAT WAS WALKING, talking trouble right there.” Neil’s buddy Clay lifted his shot glass toward the platform workmen were disassembling outside.
“The trophy girl?” Neil plunked down on a bar stool and ordered a beer. He glanced through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the yacht club’s dining room. The curvy beauty who’d handed him the trophy didn’t look like trouble. Regal. Haughty even. Although that could’ve been the slight British tones in her Indian accent. But there’d been something...fragile about her, as well. And passionate. That kiss had sizzled. “What’s up with her? One minute she’s kissing me for all she’s worth and the next she’s freezing me out.”
“Well, what’d you expect? Her last boyfriend was a French billionaire.”
Neil paused with his beer bottle halfway to his lips. “Why? Who is she?”
Clay’s jaw dropped. “You been living under a rock? That’s Piper.”
Neil gave him a blank look. “Piper who?”
Clay shook his head in disbelief. “She’s a famous model. You’ve never seen her in those Desiree’s Desire commercials?” Clay whistled. “And that bikini she wore on the cover of SportsWorld last year? She’s the most notorious bad girl on the planet.”
A lingerie model? Oh, yeah, he could easily picture her in something sexy like that. Neil’s body heated. He was going to have to start paying more attention to lingerie.
“She snubbed the Queen of England,” Clay said, counting off with his fingers. “Crashed a Lamborghini.” Another finger rose. “Dated and then cheated on Hollywood royalty Brad Benton and last but not least was detained by port authorities, returning from Mexico a few months back.”
“Whoa, Bellamy, you read all those celebrity rags while you’re at the salon having your nails done?”
“You’re a real funny guy, Barrow.” Clay spoke with the long, lazy drawl only someone raised in the Deep South can own. “I hear all that stuff from my mother. She lives and breathes it.”
Neil grinned. It felt good to get Clay Bellamy on the defensive for once. “Your mother’s a saint.”
Clay’s eyes narrowed. “The woman you met is real different from when she raised me.”
Neil sipped his beer as he studied the sunset through the wall of windows. Clay never talked about his childhood in Alabama. Neil could only guess it hadn’t been idyllic. But then, whose was? His own mother fell into the same category. She only seemed like a saint to the public.
Though Neil didn’t mind donating his time to her charities, he preferred swinging a hammer for Build a Home rather than racing some rich dudes up and down the Miami coast. But at least it helped the children’s hospital foundation. One of his mother’s high-profile pet projects that looked good on the resume of a senator’s wife.
Would he have asked the trophy girl out if he’d known she was a famous model? She was mouthwateringly gorgeous. Creamy caramel-colored skin, delicate cheekbones and full lips. Her long, straight black hair fell almost to her waist. She was tall and slender, but not bone thin like the runway models he’d seen. Her sleeveless pink dress hugged some substantial curves.
But it was her eyes that had captivated him. Neil couldn’t get the image of the woman’s luminous light green eyes out of his head.
And whether she actually showed tonight or not, he intended to enjoy what was left of his week’s leave. Take his mind off Lyndsey and the divorce. Or rather, the almost divorce. Had she signed the papers yet? His attorney had assured him it was just a formality. He was supposed to overnight the final papers to Neil as soon as Lyndsey signed. Neil wanted the whole mess over with.
He tore his gaze away from the purple-and-pink-streaked sky and cleared his throat. “Well, sorry to ditch you, bro, but the lingerie model’s meeting me here for dinner in...” He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes.”
“Hmm, what do you know? Straight Arrow Barrow hooking up with bad-girl Piper. This calls for a toast.” Clay gestured to the bartender for a refill of his shot glass. “I guess our weekend plans to raise hell are getting off to a good start.”
“You’re the one who said we’d raise hell down here, not me.”
Clay shrugged. “I thought it’d do you some good. You been living like a monk since the separation.”
“Didn’t know you cared, Bellamy.”
That remark earned him a rude gesture. But the idea of veering from the straight and narrow appealed to Neil. And an affair with the hot cover model would be the sweetest cure for the contagion that seemed to have spread in his soul ever since he’d returned from a tour in Afghanistan to find his wife in bed with her lover.
Despite a lifetime spent trying to do the right thing, nearly killing himself to be the best, to make his father proud, all his efforts had come crashing down nine months ago.
Though
