The Fling Read Free

herself off just once before she headed to work. She had plenty of mental material to work with now.
    Her cell went off again. Annie reached for her phone then smiled at the words that lit up the screen.
    No fantasy should have an awkward morning after. I’ll see you soon. And yes, I had a great time.

Chapter One
     
    The Reality…Slightly Altered
by Several Glasses of White Wine
     
    Drunk didn’t feel right, but it suited Annie’s mood. She took another gulp of her chilled Moscato, swirling the fruity wine around in her cheeks as she pulled up Jeff’s itinerary on her BlackBerry. Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin, and then a few days “drying out” in Paris before heading back to the states. Four more weeks before her fiancé was back in town.
    If only she could stay drunk the entire time.
    As it stood, Annie was nine months into what her mother insisted be a yearlong engagement to photographer Jeff Treeder. That engagement had been the start of this whole messy situation, and ultimately, the cause of this evening’s intoxication.
    They’d met years ago, when Annie was fresh out of USC. She was a production assistant on some B movie, and Jeff had offered to do the stills for free to build his portfolio. The first day, they’d chatted while balancing their lunch plates on their knees. Two days later, Jeff walked Annie to her car and kissed her. A week after that, they spent the night fucking on her new futon.
    The weeks and months between their first time together and the sunny July afternoon when Jeff proposed to her on the beach passed so quickly, so easily. They never fought, gave each other space and freedom. He was her best friend and the best lover she’d ever had. Not that she’d been with a ton of people before him, but Jeff was definitely the one for her. She proudly wore the ring he’d slipped onto her finger.
    Thanks to her mother’s thirst for extravagance and her maid of honor’s freakish talent for organization, their wedding ceremony would be King James traditional and the reception Martha Stewart perfect with a Laguna Beach twist. It had been Annie’s idea for the two of them to do one thing that her mother had no control over. There would be no bachelor or bachelorette parties. Those functions were lame and outdated. At least that was Annie’s justification for what she really wanted, and her future hubby was completely on board with her proposed alternatives.
    Instead of getting wasted in Vegas, Jeff opted for thirty days traveling around Europe with some buddies on the promise that Annie wouldn’t ask any questions once he was back. Her bridesmaids—Megan, Shane, and Feather—thought she was nuts, letting Jeff go off to do God knows what while she sat at home. But Annie hadn’t let herself get screwed out of the fun. She’d taken full advantage of her freebie.
    One night where she would allow herself to indulge in her longtime fantasy. No veils covered in little plastic dicks. No oiled guys in G-strings. Just one perfect night, just for Annie.
    In the beginning, she didn’t know where to start. Craigslist couldn’t be trusted, and she wasn’t sure if she actually wanted to hit the bars. She had a few gay acquaintances, but none she was attracted to. None but her trainer, the very woman assigned to trim Annie down for said wedding.
    Annie wasn’t surprised by how beautiful her personal trainer was. It was Los Angeles, after all. Head shots were attached to résumés at McDonald’s. She and Annie were nearly the same age, right on the cusp of thirty, but where Annie had traded on her traditionally Anglo good looks, Oksana’s exotic appearance grabbed your attention, whether you wanted it to or not.
    Minutes after meeting her, Annie had to ask where Oksana was from and who had donated the DNA to her light brown skin and her vibrant eyes that reminded Annie of fresh clover. Oksana kept her hair buzzed close to her head, but after seeing it grown out a bit, Annie had to know how someone with