The Red Bikini (6 page)

“So why don’t you compete anymore?” she asked.

The change of subject threw him. “I, uh, do, but—” He checked his side mirror and changed lanes before answering. He didn’t want Giselle to know all this. “Let’s get back to you. I need to make some crib notes.”

 • • • 

The tires popped and crackled over the gravel in the church parking lot as Fin found a spot in the very back, against a chain-link fence woven with oleanders. He pulled on the emergency brake.

“Ready?” he said.

Giselle nodded, although she wasn’t sure.

She glanced into the backseat. Coco had fallen asleep.

She was grateful Fin was taking care not to say too much in front of her little girl. She didn’t want Coco to see her playing these games. And good thing Giselle wasn’t going to know Fin forever—she would be embarrassed to even run into him in the supermarket four months from now, after this display. But she also couldn’t help herself. She just felt so frustrated by Roy. She wanted a little dignity back after spending so many nights in tears, alone.

“So how long were you married?” Fin asked into the quiet of the car.

Giselle blinked. She still wasn’t used to hearing her marriage discussed in the past tense. It made her feel lost all over again. As if everything she’d built—the marriage, the relationship, herself as the perfect wife, the perfect hostess, the perfect mother—was gone.

“Ten years.” Her voice sounded far away.

Fin nodded slowly. Maybe, to a guy like this, in his twenties, that sounded like a lifetime.

“Does that sound awful?” she asked.

“Not at all.”

“But not in your game plan?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Too many bikini-clad women on the tour?”

He laughed at that, but didn’t answer.

She wanted to know more, but felt wildly out of her element again. Here she was, about as far away from her cul-de-sac and peanut butter sandwiches as possible—sitting in a seductive leather-trimmed BMW with a sexy, tousled-hair athlete who surfed for a living—and she didn’t really know how to proceed from here. Did twentysomethings feel comfortable talking about their dating lives? Did pro surfers like to talk about the girls they met? Did they even call it dating anymore? Maybe they just “hooked up”—a phrase that always gave Giselle a bad visual.

Unable to form a sane question, she reached for the handle.

“Hold on,” he said.

She shifted back in the seat so she could face him.

“Why didn’t you visit Lia more often in ten years?” he asked.

Why did he keep coming back to this?
And how was he managing to zero right in on one of the major issues between her and Roy? As if he knew how guilty she felt, how many nights she’d cried. She tried to think of an explanation she could say out loud.
Talking about my sisters elicited rough sex from my ex-husband
seemed distinctively out of the question.

“Roy wasn’t fond of my sisters.”

“How could anyone not like Lia?”

Her sentiments exactly. “I don’t know. It was complicated.”

“Tell me later.” The edge of protectiveness in his voice sent a shimmer of warmth through Giselle.

She stepped out of the car and smoothed the pleats of her dress, already feeling vulnerable in the bright sun. She dipped her head and studied the others arriving. So far she didn’t recognize anyone.

“Giselle,” Fin called. His heels made a crunching sound as he approached from the other side of the car. He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded toward her hand. “You might want to take that off.”

She followed his gaze. Her ring. Of course. She twisted it off with more force than was necessary and threw it into her purse as if it burned her fingers. “Thanks.”

She trudged through the lot, unable to meet Fin’s eyes. He kept pace beside her while Coco galloped nearby.

“It makes me look pathetic, doesn’t it?” she whispered, fighting tears.

He didn’t respond, only matched her strides with his own. Eventually, they got to the picket fence that led to the church sidewalk, and he opened the gate to guide her through.

“I asked for purely selfish reasons.” He bent toward her ear. “I don’t want people to think I sleep with married women.”

Giselle stumbled across the wooden gate frame. She was unable to look Fin’s way the rest of the walk.

The church vestibule bulged with funeral guests. Giselle and Fin pressed their way into the warm center, the heavy scent of perfume catching in Giselle’s throat. She hoped no one from Roy’s family would take notice of her yet. Showing up with a hot young man at her elbow and a fake new life was one thing, but having to spin the lie inside a church was another. She gripped Coco’s hand and inched toward the main double doors.

“Gis-
elle
,” said a woman’s voice from beside her. Giselle recognized it immediately, and took a deep breath as she turned to greet Roy’s sister, Ray-Lynn, who was sidling toward them. Ray-Lynn’s voice was laden with sadness—dripping all over that second syllable. It was unclear whether the sadness was for Joe’s death or Giselle’s divorce.

“Ray-
Lynn
,” Giselle replied in a matching tone.

They exchanged hugs, and Ray-Lynn bent to give Coco a squeeze, commenting on how big she’d gotten and how much she looked like Roy, which Giselle didn’t really see.

Giselle watched Ray-Lynn’s eyes dart toward Fin. For a moment, Giselle simply relished: in Ray-Lynn’s speculation, in her confusion, in her probable thoughts that maybe she didn’t need to be as sorry for Giselle as she had been these last several months.

But Ray-Lynn took the mystery into her own hands, and extended her ring-laden fingertips. “I’m Ray-Lynn, Giselle’s ex-sister-in-law.”

“Fin Hensen.” He shook her hand gently and threw her a grin that sent her other hand fluttering to her collarbone.

Ray-Lynn didn’t let go, seemingly waiting for him to clarify. He leaned forward and whispered, “I’m sorry for your loss.” He brought the wattage of his smile down with his voice.

Ray-Lynn opened her mouth, but closed it again as Giselle took Coco’s hand and snuck her toward the doorway.

Fin’s fingers touched the small of Giselle’s back as he led her down the aisle.

This was definitely her best plan yet.

 • • • 

As the minister spoke, Fin glanced around, absorbed in the smell of shoe polish and bad aftershave. He wondered which was the ex. Must be the dude sitting up front, with the doctor glasses on—the one who kept twisting his neck toward Giselle.

At his fourth or fifth glance, Fin was certain. He reached for Giselle’s hand in her lap.

Giselle about leaped out of the pew.

He let go quickly and reassigned his hands to peeling off his jacket. Damn, it was hot in here.

He didn’t know what she wanted. And he didn’t know whether he should touch her. Touching her, in fact, just might be off the table because now, after touching her hand in her lap and accidentally brushing her thigh, his mind had gone into complete sexual overdrive. He let it continue for about twenty seconds, but then reminded himself where he was, and who she was, and how inappropriate this was on so many levels. He inched away and pretended he needed to get something out of his jacket pocket.

A wrapped mint crinkled against his fingertips—it must have been from Javier’s Cantina down on the beach—probably his last date with Catalina Caesar. He held it across Giselle’s body to Coco, who sat on the other side. She took it and swung her little shoes back and forth under the pew.

He leaned back and pretended he was listening to the minister. This might have been a terrible idea. He needed to talk to Giselle. Maybe they needed some ground rules.

“As we all come here together,” the minister continued, “to grieve for Joseph, we allow ourselves to think back to all the joy he’s brought us. . . .”

Fin surveyed the crowd. A lot of people here. Jennifer’s funeral had brought about this number of mourners, too—all those surfers from around the world. He’d been a pallbearer at the request of her parents, who had regarded him kindly but probably wished he’d never met their daughter:
If only he hadn’t convinced her of her talent. If only he’d been watching her more carefully on that last session
 . . . They probably had a million regrets about him.

Fin accidentally met Giselle’s eyes, which seemed to carry some kind of apology. God. That look was so sweet it killed him. Sort of like Lia, only Giselle had a wisdom about her that Lia didn’t quite have yet. He knew there was another sister too, but he didn’t know much about her. Giselle was enough of a surprise—her kindness, her humor, her patience with Coco, her curves, her softness. But he knew he’d be doing her a service by getting the hell out of her way as soon as possible. He wasn’t a good person for her to have brought here. She should have brought someone with honor—someone who would impress these people, who were all losing a man who brought a crowd like this to his funeral. She shouldn’t have brought a guy like Fin, who let his life go from bad to worse and didn’t seem to know how to stop the train wreck.

Fin glanced again at ex-husband-the-doctor and wondered what kind of man he was. Obviously a fool for letting Giselle go, but he must have had some kind of redeeming qualities to have won her over in the first place. And he sure helped create a cute kid. That, in itself, was something to be proud of.

While he watched, the ex cast another glance over his shoulder. And then Fin saw it.

Or
her
, actually: the young blonde at ex’s side, who leaned toward the good doctor’s shoulder, whispering something to get him to focus on the sermon.

Damn
.

Now he got it.

He shifted in his seat and blew out a breath.

Giselle was a scorned wife.

And left for a younger woman.

She was bringing him here to get even. She’d said so in the sand—
young enough, hunky enough, pro surfer enough
—but he hadn’t fully understood. But now he did.

Damn
.

What was the matter with that guy? He must be some kind of jerk to take off for that young thing there, who probably didn’t have half the grace of Grace Kelly here. And to leave a
daughter
? Who was only five?

But this was none of his business. He needed to stay removed. She hadn’t invited him here to get involved—she had invited him here to look a certain way and play a certain role.

The ex turned around again, as Fin figured he would. Although the asshole waited, at least, for an appropriate moment, when the congregation was turning to one another to give peace. Fin leaned forward, just as the good doctor turned, and put his lips against Giselle’s ear.

“How sexy do you want me to be?” he asked.

G
iselle froze against the wood of the pew.

Fin’s breath against her neck was so unexpected, so unprecedented, she couldn’t meet his eyes.

Goose bumps prickled down her arms. She wasn’t supposed to have goose bumps. She was supposed to have fake feelings, with fake shivers. This was her fake date. She needed to separate her attraction to a man of twenty-eight from
real
feelings that were
supposed
to elicit goose bumps—things she could look forward to, perhaps, in the future. Maybe from a nice accountant who would speak nicely to her and wouldn’t mind taking on a new daughter.

Of course, she had had real feelings for Roy and couldn’t quite remember the goose-bump stage. Maybe it had just been short.

“Joseph was survived,” continued the minister, “by his wife of forty-seven years, Lovey; his son, Roy; his daughter, Ray-Lynn; and a granddaughter, Coco. . . .”

Coco twisted in her seat with wide eyes.

“It just means you were Grandpa Joe’s granddaughter,” Giselle whispered.

Coco nodded, still uncertain, and wriggled back into her seat. She clutched Giselle’s arm and nestled her head near her shoulder, putting her thumb in her mouth.

Giselle bit her lip. Coco hadn’t done that since she was two. She reached over with her other hand and stroked her little girl’s hair.

The minister’s words danced through the air like a lullaby and, for a second, Giselle’s shoulders began to relax. She even thought it might be safe to glance at Fin.

He’d spotted Roy. He’d taken her hand, leaned in, and had even asked her that exquisite question at a moment when Roy had turned to gape at them. So Fin knew. She was glad she wouldn’t have to spell it out, say the words:
He abandoned me for a younger woman. . . .
She was glad she wouldn’t have to risk crying. She was glad she wouldn’t have to seem even more pathetic.

“. . . and as Joseph goes to his new place in Heaven,” the minister went on, “so, too, will we prepare for ours, and for the day when we will meet him, once again. . . .”

The minister’s words sent a sudden wave of shame through her.

“As we live our lives in preparation of that wondrous meeting . . .”

She closed her eyes.
Live our lives in preparation. . . .
Her breath shook as she tried to fill her lungs. She shouldn’t have brought Fin here. This was a
church
. She was supposed to feel
forgiveness
. So what if Roy had this laughably young nurse at his side? So what if everyone blinked at Giselle with pity? She was used to it in Indiana, with the neighbors giving her sidelong glances in the grocery store; she could get used to it here. And the funeral was only one day. Was her pride so great she couldn’t deal with a day of pitying glances?

“As we prepare ourselves for that meeting . . .” the minister said.

And what about Fin? He didn’t deserve to be here as some kind of fraud, being forced to lie. He probably wanted to be anywhere but here—anywhere but with a woman almost a decade older than he was, who was covered in black funeral clothes and trying to seem like she didn’t deserve to be left for a beautiful younger woman. Maybe the decent thing to do would be to let him go. Just because she was playing some kind of sick game of one-upmanship didn’t mean she was free to drag along innocent bystanders. What was she
becoming
?

“Fin,” she whispered. The minister was saying something about preparing their souls to meet God.

“What do you need?” He covered her hand, right there in her lap, then let go quickly and dipped his head to try to meet her downcast eyes. He smelled so good—like intrigue and dubious morality. It sent a delicious shiver down her arms.

“Giselle?”

She couldn’t look at him. She shook her head, tried to focus on the minister: “. . . the glory of the kingdom of Heaven shall await . . .”

She’d talk to Fin outside.

When she could breathe again.

 • • • 

The June sunshine assaulted her as she tugged Coco to the car, hoping to avoid Roy’s family. The three of them scurried through the gravel until Fin grabbed her arm and swung her around.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“I shouldn’t have . . .” Tears burned the backs of her eyes. She was a terrible person. How could she bring this guy, whom she didn’t even know, and ask him into a
house
of God
, to
lie
, straight out, along with her, to all these people who loved her—or once did—in front of her
daughter
? At a
funeral
?

“Giselle . . .” He started to reach toward her, but then dropped his hand and studied the other mourners, the cars—anything but the tear that just escaped down her cheek.

“Hey, Coco,” he called, stepping toward the fence where Coco was searching for big rocks among the gravel. “Can you pick some of those flowers over there?” He pointed to a group of daisies that ran along the fence below the oleanders.

Coco squinted. “How many?”

“A bunch.”

“Like a bouquet?” she asked delightedly.

“Yes, big,” he said, showing her with his hands.

“We can bring them to Grandpa Joe!”

“Great idea.”

She nodded and ran off.

Fin spun toward Giselle and grasped her elbows in both hands to move her a few steps away. “I pushed it too far, didn’t I?” His hands felt warm and solid. “We might need some rules. I don’t fully understand this situation or what you want me to do. You didn’t mention the hot number in the high heels.”

Giselle shot Fin a frown. That was all she needed. The stand-in fake boyfriend leaving her for the young nurse, too.

Her shame pulled at her until she felt like sinking into the gravel, letting the pebbles cover her, bury her. But instead she brought her hand to her eyelids and pressed. She couldn’t cry like this. She needed to be strong.

“I shouldn’t have made you come,” she said. “This is awful. I’m terribly sorry. Do you want to drop me off? I can find a ride back.”

He frowned. “We’re at a
funeral,
Giselle. I’m not dropping you off.” He stepped back for a second and took a deep breath. “I just need to know what you want me to do. I thought you wanted me to . . . you know, be the bastard who stole the doctor’s wife.”

Giselle sucked in some air and ran the phrase “stole the doctor’s wife” through her head a couple more times, memorizing the sexy way he’d dropped his voice, and then had a hard time remembering what she’d planned to say.

“I need to know if the touching is too much,” he said quietly.

Oh yeah,
she thought.
The touching is definitely too much.
You’re sending shivers down my spine, and you shouldn’t even be here, and you shouldn’t have to know that a PTA mom is feeling hot for you, and you shouldn’t have to be part of this at all.

Coco’s patent-leather shoes began crunching through the gravel behind them. She would have a big bouquet by now—an overachiever just like her mom.

He glanced over her shoulder at Coco and stepped closer to prompt an answer. “What do you want?”

The footsteps came louder. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch . . .

“Quickly,” he said.

“Gis-
elle
,” she heard from a different direction—Ray-Lynn. Criminy, Ray-Lynn was coming.

“Kiss me,” Giselle whispered.

Fin’s eyes widened. “What?”

“
Kiss
me. Now.”

He glanced over her shoulder. Ray-Lynn was yoo-hooing again through the parking lot, and Giselle could see the exact moment Fin put all the pieces together. He took Giselle’s jaw in both hands and leaned toward her—but stalled before touching his lips to hers. All sound fell away—the crunching, the calling, Ray-Lynn, the crowds, the cars’ tires pulling out for the procession. The world simply, softly, came to a halt. Fin’s lips moved gently across hers, then pressed more seriously. His fingers entwined in her hair, and he covered her mouth with his. He kissed with a sense of discovery that Giselle met, pulse for pulse, while her bones melted into something warm and slow, sliding down her body. She brought a shaky hand toward his jaw, but before she could touch him, he stepped away. Averting his eyes, he dropped his hands and retreated, looking as if he didn’t know what had just happened.

“My, my,” said Ray-Lynn, who was now at Fin’s shoulder, grinning from one to the other.

Giselle’s face grew hot. She’d thought maybe Ray-Lynn would give them some privacy if she saw an intimate kiss. But apparently Ray-Lynn didn’t do subtle hinting. Or not-so-subtle. Whatever. Either way, she was right there. And now Giselle’s newest plan had backfired in more ways than one: The expression on Fin’s face bordered on something between shock and horror.

Coco tugged at Giselle’s skirt. “I told you he was a prince.” She shoved the daisy-and-oleander bouquet toward Giselle.

“We have to go, Ray-Lynn,” Giselle said, trying to disguise the tremor in her voice.

Fin grabbed Giselle’s arm, steering her toward the car. With his other hand, he took Coco’s bouquet and guided her, too, past the dispersing cars in the parking lot.

“Hope I’ll see you at the house,” Ray-Lynn singsonged toward Giselle’s back.

Giselle didn’t know who, exactly, Ray-Lynn was talking to. But she guessed it wasn’t her.

 • • • 

Okay,
Fin thought, as he marched Giselle and Coco to the car.
Okay, okay
. He pressed Giselle’s elbow to speed her along, causing dust to fly over the tops of their shoes.
That meant nothing
.

But he refused to meet Giselle’s eyes.

He got Coco buckled into the backseat, the flowers settled in her lap; then he straightened and finally faced Giselle.

If this were any other woman, he’d step out of the line of sight of her kid and would grab her, right here, and see if that kiss could generate more of the heat he’d felt back there. He’d have her bent back across the trunk of his car—kid or no kid—and would be seeing whether those lips of hers—which, hot damn, were everything he’d imagined them to be—were as yielding as the rest of her body. And—if this were any other woman—she’d comply. Because he dated those kinds of women.

But this was Giselle.

And
damn
. But
damn
. That was hot.

He motioned with his hand for her to get into the car.

This was Giselle.

He walked to the other side and ran through all the reasons to ignore that kiss: He was supposed to be doing her a favor. And she was too sweet to comply with his usual debauchery. And her kid was too sweet. And Lia was one of his only true friends. And he was in a
church parking lot
, for Christ’s sake. . . .

By the time he got to the driver’s side, and his jacket off, he was pretty sure he’d convinced himself it was a temporary madness.

“Hot today,” Giselle said quietly, after they’d driven a mile or so.

He murmured an agreement, loosening his tie.

“Is it always like this?”

“Not usually this early.”

“Thought so.”

That was all she said until they got to the grave site. Fin didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, but he had the strong feeling they were both talking about a lot more than the weather.