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He’d recognised her the minute he’d seen her, with the same hard punch he’d felt for her all those years ago.
Back then, it had been a half-formed yearning that Dom hadn’t quite understood. Now he recognised it. Oh yeah, he recognised it – plain, old-fashioned lust, sharp and immediate. Of course, generally when he felt this kind of need, it wasn’t coupled with the shock of seeing a face, a person resurrected from his past.
And from his dreams.
Approaching Delaney hadn’t been a matter of debate. He couldn’t have stayed away if he’d tried. The fact that she hadn’t initially recognised him had only added a little spice to the game.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Came down to take a break, do some diving. I think we should find somewhere quiet and do some catching up.”
She laughed as though she knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Absolutely,” she replied with a wink.
Dear Reader,
This is a story I’ve been looking forward to writing for a long time. For those of you who scoff at such coincidence, let me just say that the meeting described here really happened to my cousin and her husband, who didn’t see each other for fifteen years after breaking up at secondary school. The rest of the story, characters and particulars are of my own invention, but the tap on the shoulder in a Mexican bar is real, as is the fact that today the two of them are happily married with two beautiful daughters. Then again, my parents married two weeks after meeting each other and still hold hands fifty-two years later. Is it any wonder I’m a romance writer?
So we’ve come to the end of SEX & THE SUPPER CLUB, which I confess gives me a pang. I’ll be sad to see the characters go – I’ve got to know them well over the years. Hopefully, you’ll agree that this is a good send-off. Drop me a line at Kristin@kristinhardy.com and let me know what you think. Stop by www.kristinhardy.com for news, recipes and contests, or to sign up for my newsletter.
Have fun,
Kristin Hardy
BY
KRISTIN HARDY
MILLS & BOON
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To Dee,
for letting me borrow her story.
And to Stephen,
may our story never end.
CAST OF CHARACTERS FOR SEX & THE SUPPER CLUB
Book 1 – Turn Me On Sabrina Pantolini and Stef Costas
Book 2 – Cutting Loose Trish Dawson and Ty Ramsay
Book 3 – Nothing But the Best Cilla Danforth and Rand Mitchell
Book 4 – Bad Influence Paige Favreau and Zach Reed
Book 5 – Hot Moves Thea Mitchell and Brady McMillan
Book 6 – Bad Behaviour Delaney Phillips and ?
Prologue
Los Angeles 1995
“A SEVEN,” DELANEY Phillips decided. “How I’m ever going to market a play starring a seven is anybody’s guess.” She raked a hand through her pale hair.
“A seven? How can you call him a seven?” Kelly Vander-vere demanded, as they sat in the nearly empty balcony discussing the dark-haired actor emoting on the stage below. “Look at that ass. He gets at least an eight.”
“Yeah, but his shoulders are weak and he’s not much taller than Paige is,” Delaney pointed out.
Set designer Paige Favreau stirred nearby. “Somehow I feel I should take exception to that.”
“To him having weak shoulders?”
Paige frowned. “Never mind. I think.”
Delaney’s lips twitched. “A seven,” she confirmed, taking a drink from her bottle of Coke. “Feel free to talk him up in your article for the school paper, Kelly—in fact, I encourage it—but you’re dreaming.”
“That’s just your opinion.”
Green eyes dancing, Delaney glanced at the handful of women sprawled in the balcony as they took their dinner break together. Work on the drama department’s spring production had come to a halt—temporarily. “Okay. Show of hands. All who agree with me? Sabrina, Cilla, Paige, Thea, that’s four. Oh, and moi.” She grinned. “That’s five in favor, Kelly, and only you and Trish who disagree. You’re overruled.”
“He’s got a pretty face,” Trish Dawson objected, a flush staining her almost impossibly fair redhead’s skin.
“And the Godzilla-sized ego to go with it,” added wardrobe mistress Cilla Danforth, in designer wear even for scrub work, with her Dolce & Gabbana ripped jeans. “Pass me the pizza, Paige.”
Paige handed the box to Cilla, along with napkins, her manners as tidy as her blond bob. “Yeah, the ego thing definitely takes him back to a six.”
“From an eight to a six,” Delaney said. “He’s dropping like a rock. Trish, you’re happy about the face because he looks hot reading your script.”
“He does a good interpretation,” said Trish, always fair. “The Godzilla ego is kind of a problem, though.”
“He moves like Godzilla, too,” choreographer Thea Mitchell observed, helping herself to a slice from the box as it passed. “Not that he’d ever take any input from me. I think he thinks I look down on him.”
Delaney glanced at the dark-eyed Thea, who at six feet had a perfect ectomorph’s body. “That’s because you do.”
“Well, I was ordered to stop it.”
Kelly made a face. “What are you supposed to do, slouch?”
“Be more encouraging about his movement.” Thea looked down her nose in an uncanny imitation of their prima donna. “I have it on high authority that he’s perfect.”
“Whose authority?” Delaney asked.
Thea looked amused. “His.”
“We ought to dock him a couple of points on general principles then,” interjected Cilla, “especially since I’m going to have to put in extra time in wardrobe to make him look good. Where does that leave us?”
“Four,” supplied Trish.
“How am I supposed to market a play with a star who’s only a four?” Delaney demanded.
“Sell the sizzle, not the steak?” Trish ventured.
“A four, in case you aren’t aware of it, is more fizzle than sizzle. Sabrina, is there anything jazzy you can pull from all the footage you’ve been shooting?”
Film major Sabrina Pantolini put her feet up and tipped her watch cap rakishly over one brown eye. “I’m shooting a documentary, not a showcase. Gritty reality. You want beauty, you’ll have to do something else. Get Kelly to drag out one of the photographers from the school paper.” Sabrina’s mouth curved. “I’m trying to film art.”
“With a four? Good luck on that one,” Delaney said.
Sabrina smiled wider. “It’s an indie production. Beauty isn’t a requirement.”
“Why did I ever volunteer for this anyway?” Delaney grumbled.
“I seem to remember you saying it would be more fun than interning at a local ad agency,” Paige reminded her.
“Yeah, well…”
“Of course, the internship would probably have been better for your career.”
“And maybe my social life, now that I think about it. I bet they have some hot guys working there somewhere.”
“You’re aware that sleeping with people isn’t exactly the smart way to rocket to the top, right?” Paige observed drily.
“Who cares about rocketing to the top? I want to have some fun.”
“Earning a paycheck is a way to start.”
“Always in such a hurry to grow up and settle down, Paige,” Delaney teased, dangling her legs over the seat ahead of her. “You can rush all you want to. Me, I intend to take my time. They want me to grow up, they’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming.”
1
Playa del Carmen, Mexico 2007
“YOU WERE RIGHT.” Dominick Gordon looked over the blue waters of the Caribbean that spread around them, the wind of the dive boat’s passage stirring his dark hair.
Stocky blonde Eric Novak blinked. “Excuse me?” He shifted on the bench seat to stare at his best friend.
“You were right about coming down here. This is perfect.” The boat jounced a bit as it skimmed over the waves, motor roaring as they headed to the next reef. The tiny strip of land on the horizon was the Yucatan; ahead of them, larger, lay Cozumel. Paradise, Dom thought.
And for the first time in five years, he felt as if he could almost breathe. A week of swimming, diving, sleeping—after all he’d been through, it felt like an unimaginable extravagance. Almost as much as chartering the private dive boat instead of going with a package, but what was the point of success if he never allowed himself to enjoy any of it?
He’d somehow lost track of that.
“So this stuff about me being right, you want to repeat that for the record?” Eric asked.
Dom adjusted his sunglasses and leaned back. “You lawyers, always worried about the record.”
“Forget about the legal stuff, it’s the Guinness Book I’m talking about. ‘First time ever, tycoon-in-training Dom Gordon admits he was wrong.” ’
“I didn’t go that far. If I was smart, I’d still be at home working on the initial public offering.” At home, where the mantle of responsibility for Gordon’s Auto Centers weighed like an anchor on his shoulders.
“Jeez, will you get the IPO out of your head for five minutes? I keep telling you, all we can do right now is wait. It’s the perfect time for a vacation. If you were back at home, you’d just be gnawing off your fingers for something to do. Here,” Eric continued expansively, “because of my brilliance and foresight, you can take your mind off it by communing with the fishes.”
“Brilliance and foresight?”
Eric inclined his head modestly. “Mother nature has been good to me.”
“That’s not what you said when that dolphin surprised you.”
“Fickleness, thy name is woman. As you’d remember if you’d had a social life in recent memory.” The dive boat slowed, approaching a lighter area of water.
“Not this again.” Time off, Dom could use. Complicating his life with another woman just when he’d gotten untangled from the last one? No way.
The boat stopped and Dom zipped into the top of his wetsuit and strapped on his breathing tank.
Eric reached for his fins. “What I’m saying is, you’re getting awfully damned boring these days. Have been for a while. Don’t know why I hang out with you, now that I think about it.”
“Because you can’t find anyone else to take your money?”
“That was a marked deck you were playing with yesterday,” Eric said darkly. “No way you flopped a royal flush.”
“Face it, I’m one lucky guy.”
“Lucky, my ass. I want to take another look at those cards.”
“It was your deck.” Dom pulled up his hood. “And you went through it at least three times that I saw.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
Dom shook his head. “I can’t hear you at all, buddy. See you with the fishes.”
“You’d better start playing poker straight, or you’ll be sleeping with the fishes,” Eric grumbled.
“You’d better start playing smarter poker, or you’ll be broke,” Dom countered. Moving to the side of the boat, he let himself roll back into the water.
“OKAY, MUCHACHAS, WE’VE got alcohol,” Delaney announced as she and Sabrina walked up to the palm-thatched palapa, each of them carrying a handful of cups pressed together. The other five members of the Sex & Supper Club were flopped out on towels or chaises, somnolent in the sun.
Kelly stirred. “Did someone say alcohol?” she inquired wistfully, and with a bit of effort levered herself upright.
Delaney set her quartet of plastic cups on the little wooden ledge that encircled the center pole of the palapa, one of a collection scattered down the beach like giant drink umbrellas.
Appropriate, now that she thought of it.
“Okay, one virgin margarita for our little newlywed mama-to-be.” She handed it to Kelly, who was still hardly showing in a hot pink tankini. “And here’s one unvirgin margarita for our oldlywed.” Delaney passed a second cup to Cilla, who sat up, chunky gold earrings swinging.
“I’ll have you know I’m younger than you,” she informed Delaney.
“Marriage ages you artificially.”
“Not at all. Regular orgasms have documented health benefits.”
“Do I look like I’m missing regular orgasms?” Delaney asked.
Cilla considered. “Hard to say. It might just be that your new cut looks so good we don’t notice.”
Delaney had had her shoulder-length hair cropped the week before into a pixie, driven by one of her characteristic bouts of impatience. Life was too short to spend twenty minutes blow-drying and styling, she figured. The first time she’d showered and found her hands closing on air at the back of her head had been a shock, but Delaney wasn’t much for regrets.
Life was too short for them, too.
“I love it. It takes five minutes to dry. I’m in the bathroom and out.”
“It makes you look like Tinkerbell, all eyes and cheekbones.”
“Tinkerbell, huh?” Delaney laughed. “Yeah. Drink a few more of those margaritas and you’ll see my wings.” She picked up another cup. “Are you sure you really wanted a beer, Paige? I never once saw you drink it before you took up with that guitar player. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s been a bad influence on you.”
“Oh, I hope so.” Paige sank back on her lounger in the shade. “Zach’s introduced me to the finer things in life.”
“Here, here,” Thea put in, taking a sip of her own beer. “Although I’m not sure you can call this beer. Or fine.”
“You’re prejudiced because you live with a Pacific Northwest brew snob,” Delaney told her, handing a frothy white drink to Trish.
“Brady introduced me to the finer things in life, too,” Thea said.
“Back to that regular orgasm thing, are we?” Delaney studied her friends around her, all of them married or in long term relationships now, absorbed in their lives, moving on or moving away. Not just Paige and Thea, but the rest of them: Sabrina married to her college sweetheart Stef Costas, Kelly married to Stef’s partner Kev, Trish living with Sabrina’s cousin Ty. Even Cilla, who’d played the field about as much as she herself, had tied the knot.
Only Delaney remained resolutely, stubbornly single. But it wasn’t the same as it had once been. Life didn’t feel the same, she realized with a little twinge, as if she was being pushed to the cliff to jump off into grown-up land, whether she wanted to or not.
To hell with that, she decided.
Golden sand stretched down to the pale aqua waves. The sky arched overhead, periwinkle blue. Paradise. She set her margarita in the sand by her sun couch and untied her bronze sarong to reveal a leopard-spotted bikini. She was young, she was unencumbered. Life was good. Water, sun and fun, that was what she needed to think about, not the shifting sands of her own life.
With a sigh of bliss, Delaney lay back and took a sip of her margarita. “Okay, I am now officially on vacation,” she announced. “Effective immediately, I intend to party like mad, eat myself silly, and do absolutely nothing worthwhile.”
“Except go to the opening of my boutique,” Cilla reminded her.
“Except that.” Delaney took another swallow of her drink. “God, that’s good.” She closed her eyes and held up her cup in a toast. “Okay, here’s to the perks of being over twenty-one.”
“Being over twenty-one?” Paige repeated. “I thought you were the one who always said you didn’t want to grow up.”
“Who said anything about being grown-up? I said here’s to being of legal drinking age.”
“Being an adult does have some other benefits,” Trish observed.
“Name one,” Delaney demanded.
“Good sex,” Kelly said immediately. “High-school boys are clueless.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The best kisser of my entire life was my first boyfriend,” Delaney countered.
“Your first boyfriend?”
“Jake,” she added. “Jake the Snake.”
Cilla, in the middle of a swallow, spluttered. “Don’t tell me that was what he called his—”
“No,” Delaney said positively. “At least I don’t think so. I don’t know. We never got past the kiss and grope stage, but man, that boy could kiss. He was a surfer. Made me melt.”
“Ah, young love,” Trish said, fanning herself.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Sabrina raised her eyebrows. “Not your first love?”
“Come on. I mean, I was fourteen. Two years before that, I was ready to go all the way with Donnie Wahlberg. If I’d ever met him, of course, and if I could have figured out what going all the way actually meant.”
“You were nothing if not adaptable.” Paige tucked her tongue in her cheek.
Meanwhile, Trish rolled on her stomach to look at Delaney. “So who was your first love?”
Delaney laughed lightly. “I’ll tell you when I meet him.”
“You will, one of these days,” Trish said positively.
“I suppose. I can’t say it keeps me up at night.” She studied a couple of shirtless guys playing volleyball up the beach and licked her lips. “I’ve got other things to do that. So come on, I’m still waiting for the tide of benefits to being an adult.”
“Independence,” Trish said.
Delaney made a derisive noise. “Show of hands, how many people had to ask or check with their significant others before making plans to come here?”
“Well, you had to get permission for time off work,” Trish countered.
Delaney made the sign of the cross. “Back, demon. No talking about work. It’s officially a four-letter word this week.”
“Something wrong?” Paige asked.
“I work for Janet Whitcher. Of course something’s wrong.” Delaney’s job at Vision Quest Marketing defined the love-hate relationship. Love for the work, loathing for her boss. “Right about now, DataStor, fondly known as the client from hell, is filming a last-minute commercial they demanded I oversee.”
“Did you mention the little matter of a vacation?” Sabrina asked.
“That I’d been planning for a month and a half and already had the tickets for? Yessiree. I asked if they could push back the filming. Janet told me I was the one who should reschedule.”
“Ah. So the person we see is a cleverly produced hologram,” Cilla said.
“Exactly. Even as you watch me, I’m astrally traveling to inhabit Janet’s body while she’s supervising the shoot. When you see my mouth pinch up like a cat’s behind, you’ll know I’m fully mind-melded with her.” Delaney finished off her drink. “Basically, my life’s a horror flick when I get home, so eat, drink and be merry while ye may, I say.” She turned her cup upside down and sadly watched the last drop or two fall out on the sand.
“Poor little Tinkerbell,” Cilla said, leaning over to take Delaney’s empty glass. “Will another margarita ease the pain?”
Delaney eyed a strapping, dark-haired man as he walked by, shirtless in his blue-and-yellow swim trunks. “Several more margaritas and maybe a naked massage from Mr. Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love over there.”
“I think he’s part of the entertainment staff,” Paige observed as they all tipped their sunglasses down to watch him.
“Heaven knows I need entertaining,” Delaney said.
“YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT it, aren’t you?” Erik asked.
Dom looked over at him. “Who, me?”
“Yeah, you. You’re making that face.”
They sat in an open-sided beach bar near the ferry dock in Playa del Carmen. The thatch of the roof rustled in the light offshore breeze. At the back, a band was milling around on a low stage hung with blue, scarlet and orange batiked cloth. On the horizon, the lights of Cozumel twinkled in the darkness.
Dom picked up the glass of tequila that the bartender slid across to him. “You really need to talk to someone about this paranoia you’ve got.”
Eric put a pinch of salt on the web between his forefinger and thumb. “Yeah, well, you obviously—”
“Need to teach you how to drink quality tequila,” Dom interrupted.
“What’s wrong with the way I drink tequila?” Eric asked, lifting his shot glass.
Dom gave him a pitying look. “Tequila’s like whiskey. The cheap stuff will strip the enamel from your teeth, which is where the salt and lime come in. Añejo tequila like this, though…” He swirled a sip around in his mouth and swallowed. “Slides down like twenty-year-old bourbon.”
Eric eyed him. “This wouldn’t be your idea of a joke, right? Watch me take a drink and have steam come out my ears?”
Dom smiled. “You lawyers are too suspicious.”
“You start your career owing fifty grand in student loans and see how suspicious you are,” Eric invited.
“Your call, buddy. Stick with your lime and salt if you want, but you’ll be missing out.” Dom took another swallow and waited for the liquor to ease the tension that crouched in his shoulders.
Eric tipped the salt into an ashtray and took a cautious sip of his drink. His eyes brightened and he took another swallow. “Nice.”
“One good turn deserves another.”
“Good. Then tonight I’m going to take away your laptop when we get back to the hotel.”
“What?”
“You’ve been checking your e-mail again, haven’t you?”
“What makes you say that?” Dom asked, his voice elaborately innocent. Behind them, there was a thump of bass as the drummer of the band took his seat for the second set. Around them, the bar was filling up.
“You’re going to scare all the chicks away with that weight-of-the-world-is-around-my-neck expression on your face. This is supposed to be party central, not a boardroom.”
“If I scare ’em away, it’ll leave more for you, won’t it?”
“But who’s going to entertain my overflow until I get to them? That’s a logistical problem.”
“I’ve got faith in you, Eric. You’ll figure something out.” Dom tipped back his barstool a little and fought a smile. “Me, I’m just kicking back.”
Eric signaled the bartender. “You’ll kick back better with another shot, my man. As your lawyer, I advise you to drink heavily.”
“Ripping off Hunter S. Thompson, now?”
“It’s not a rip-off, it’s an homage.”
“You lawyers do have a way with words.” Dom clinked his glass against Eric’s. “To hitting it big.”
“Hah!” Eric pounced. “I knew you were thinking about that damned IPO again. You had that look.”
“What look?”
“The look that says you’re running through your road-show pitch. Dude, you’re on vacation. You’re supposed to be having a good time, not working.”
“Do I look like I’m working?”
“Yeah. Either that or thinking about what’s her name.”
Dom flicked his gaze to the ceiling and back. “Her name was Lynn, and trust me, I wasn’t thinking about her.” Their breakup a couple of months before had been a relief as much as anything. Lynn had been one more thing to manage, one more demand on his time, and as things got crunchier and crunchier between them, all pleasure had bled away.
“Well, you definitely don’t need to worry about the IPO,” Eric advised. “The numbers in the prospectus will sell the stock for us.”
Scowling, Dom took a swig of his tequila. “IPOs don’t happen by magic, you know. And if it doesn’t fly, I’m the one who’s on the hook.” Meaning, he should have been back in the room working the way he had every other night they’d been there, not blowing off the evening in a bar. Diving all day, sure, that was why he’d come. But there was a price for every pleasure, he’d learned that the hard way.