A Summer To Remember (Seasons of Love & Lust Book 1) Read Free Page A

seemed like a raw deal but it wasn’t, because when those songs shot up the charts, she was the one who got paid and not the artist. She didn’t have to hold too tight to her stepfather’s money or influential connections but she wasn’t ready to let go just yet.
    I took a quick shower and put on my new turquoise bikini which fit me like a second skin. I wasn’t tanned at all yet. In fact, I was downright pale. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, added a turquoise sheer cover-up, and walked down the stairs in a pair of wooden mules with turquoise straps.
    Monique glared at me until I removed my plush beach towel off my arm to show her a bottle of John Master’s organic sunscreen, SPF thirty. It was the spray-on kind so it was perfect because I could ask Paul for help with my back while I asked about his life and what was going on with him lately.
     
    ***
     
    Paul sat next to the pool on the one of the luxurious wooden loungers with the soft cream pillow tops and soaked in the fairly mild Southampton sun. He had a bottle of Beck’s lager and sunscreen next to his lounger and he seemed to be blocking the world out.
    He was a beautiful specimen with his lightly tanned skin and pair of Speedos that would have looked cheesy on anyone else but just made him look delectable and good enough to eat. Both he and Jude had been on the swim team together so he had a swimmer’s body with a lean muscular build, strong thighs, an athletic back, and firm, strong arms.
    His skin wasn’t the only part him that happened to be golden. His hair was natural honey blond with flaxen highlights from the sun and his eyes were crystal blue with a touch of aquamarine that came out at the most inopportune times. The guy was perfect. His face, which resembled Adonis, hadn’t even come into my sight yet.
    I sighed softly before I walked over to him, my mules clicking against the asphalt, and laid out on the lounger next to his.
    Paul finally turned my way and smiled broadly. “Why, hello, there. Jude called this morning and told me you were heading up here so I thought I would walk over and at least welcome you.”
    He loved to flirt with me but we both knew a relationship could never happen between us because Jude would kill me and then him. Hell, I couldn’t even take him on a test drive if I wanted to keep all my womanly parts. Jude drew the line at very little but Paul was one of the individuals who was firmly off limits to me.
    “Hey, how are you?” I said, feeling quite girly and insecure for the first time in forever.
    I didn’t usually act like this and the way I behaved was not in the natural order of my life. Men bowed down to me and I treated them like a never-ending supply of Ken dolls. They bathed in the attention I gave them, plied me with compliments and I had my fun and left them when I felt like it.
    This was my life since Kevin had left me and it was only now I realized he had done me a favor. Without the complications of a relationship, I could have a lot of fun and not feel guilty afterwards.
    I was a woman of the new generation who didn’t necessarily act like a man but definitely treated sex the way men did. It was completely liberating. Sex was a great past time and a fun activity, but it didn’t necessarily lead to love and I wasn’t expecting it to. I had plenty of time to settle down and find the right guy. Right at that moment, all I was interested in was this Friday night.
    My best friends would be in Southampton with me and we would join the young and beautiful crowd on the beach and have fun, drink too much, and have a wonderful time. This summer was all about spending time with Talia, Savannah, and Autumn. Men were definitely an afterthought, and that is the way it was always going to be as far as I was concerned.
    “I’m doing great,” Paul replied. “I came up for a long weekend. The parents are in Italy so it’s all good.” Paul turned toward me and stared at me with those impossibly blue eyes.