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“Seriously, what are you getting at?” Mara prodded.

  “Nothing. Just have fun, okay?” Jacqui said gently. Mara would never admit to it, but Jacqui understood what Mara was doing. She wanted to let Ryan know what he was missing. And her bikini-clad body would certainly remind him.

  Jacqui decided to hold her tongue—she’d been around long enough to know that the saga of Mara and Ryan never ended. Those two were either always on the verge of making up or breaking up. Mara couldn’t live with Ryan, but apparently she couldn’t live without him either. But you could never tell that to someone. They had to find out on their own, especially concerning matters of the heart.

  Besides, she was in a good mood. She was going to see Marcus again tonight. The two of them had been flirting ever since the store opening, meeting with Midas and Eliza to brainstorm the shots for the “reality fashion” spread. It turned out that “reality fashion” was just as scripted as reality television. Although the photographs were meant to look like they were documenting a “day in the life” of a normal person, everything was carefully thought out and planned beforehand. Midas had suggested they start by shooting her at a fabulous party to create a glamorous, jet-setting image, and what better venue than the annual Hamptons magazine Independence Day bash? The party at the publisher’s waterfront estate was the hottest ticket in town—the biggest, most exclusive, and most extravagant party of the season.

  “I’ll be back by five,” Mara promised, deciding to drop it. They had agreed to switch off on the kids for the day so that she could attend Ryan’s beach party early and Jacqui would be free to fulfill her modeling duties at the magazine party later.

  She hugged Jacqui goodbye and walked out the back door toward the beach path that led to the Perry estate. She began the trek with a light step, but by the time she arrived at the right hedges ten minutes later, the heat had caused her hair to frizz and her floaty top, which had been so airy and breezy in her air-conditioned bedroom, was wet with perspiration and stuck to her body in a most unflattering manner, bunching up in her underarms and against her butt. She huffed from exertion and cursed a little bit at the sand that had stuck to the soles of her feet.

  The smell of grilled meat and the soft sound of reggae greeted her as she approached the Perry house. She felt a wave of nostalgia as she opened the terrace’s low gate. There was the patio where she’d played poker with Ryan and his buddies that first summer, and that was the pool where her then-boyfriend Jim Mizekowski had caught her and Ryan skinny-dipping that same night. Too many memories. Mara sucked in her breath, wiped the sweat from her brow, and walked toward the crowd gathered by the Weber grill.

  Ryan’s surfer friends were scattered about the pool area, some bobbing in the water on floaties and a few seated by the edge, their tanned legs dangling in the water. Like he’d said, it was a casual event—although this being the Hamptons, the girls were decked out in their Eres bikinis and matching Gaultier sarongs. Mara was glad she’d dressed up, even if the peasant top had left her drenched in sweat.

  She said hello to a few familiar faces as she made her way to the cooler, placing the six-pack of Corona she’d brought inside. She straightened, looking around for Ryan. She took off her cover-up—dear God, it was hot!—and stretched, making sure she wasn’t popping out of the bikini. She’d never worn a two-piece that small before, although Jacqui had assured her tangas were more comfortable since they were cut close to the body and better for swimming. A few of the assembled guys did double takes when they saw her, although she was too busy retying the strings on her left hip to notice.

  Now where was Ryan?

  She was determined to prove to him that they could be friends—real friends—just like he and Eliza were friends. She could live with being called “dude” so long as he remembered how totally hot she was. Really, though, there was no reason they had to be estranged from each other just because they’d once been so close they could finish each other’s sentences and knew each other’s deepest secrets. (Mara’s was that she’d once cheated on a math test, Ryan’s that he’d actually attended an American Idol tour concert—with his little sister, of course). The two of them should be able to hang out, do everything they used to do—well, not everything, but she wanted him back in her life in some capacity at least. She could really use a guy friend, especially now that David, still silent after her vindictive e-mail, seemed to be out of the picture.

  She was on her tiptoes looking around the party, the tiny strings on her bikini dangling sexily down her back and from her hips, when she saw him.

  Sitting in the middle of the circle by the grill, holding hands with a head-turning blonde. A girl who looked all too familiar, and who was wearing an all-too-familiar teensy turquoise bikini.

  Tinker!

  The chick from Ryan’s frat at Dartmouth who had lived in the yacht next to theirs last summer.

  Mara felt a stab of—what? Shock? Jealousy? She couldn’t be sure. But she was determined—there was that word again—to ignore it. So what if Ryan and Tinker were now an item? Wasn’t that just natural? After all, they shared so many things in common—they were both great surfers, they lived for the outdoors, they both looked great in pastel polo tops, and their families both had truckloads of money.

  It was almost sickening how absolutely perfect they were for each other. Mara had always suspected that Ryan would be a lot happier with a girlfriend who shared his interests. Now it looked like he’d found her.

  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 than 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. M
ara 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.”