The Last Good Paradise Read Free Page A

brûlée torch at the ready to light them for Ann’s arrival.
    *   *   *
    Ann let herself in through the front entrance of the restaurant. The beauty of the dining room consoled her, despite the fact she was tired and had a stomachache from all the Mars bars. It was her baby, designed from scratch from notes she had taken from their favorite places over the years. Instead of the modern, antiseptic dining spaces then in vogue, theirs would have a rococo feel. The room had deep-red velvet walls with chocolate-brown wood accents and was hung with ornamental mirrors in heavy gilded frames. On the center of each virginal white linen tablecloth stood a small crystal vase, which would be filled with choice blooms spotlit from a halogen light in the ceiling. The tables would not have candles, which were an inefficient use of limited table space, but hundreds of votives would be lit on shelves projecting from the walls. Ann wanted each customer to feel like a prized truffle nestled inside a Valentine box of sweets.
    That was the future. Right now she wanted nothing more than to go home, put on a bathrobe, and hole up in bed with a thick novel, but there stood Richard, inexplicably winking at her. He took her hand and led her to his office, the fiery room fragrant with melted wax and burned sugar. A rubber bowl of whipped cream stood on his desk.
    “Strip,” he said softly, “my sexy thirty-eight-year-old goddess.”
    She giggled.
    “Where’s Javi?”
    “I sent him for ice. An hour-long ice trip to be exact.”
    The lit candles heated the room more quickly than Richard would have thought possible. Stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, he suddenly realized that the room was a classic firetrap. As he led Ann to the sofa, he tried to recall exactly where the new box of fire extinguishers had been stored.
    Meticulously Richard basted her arm in a coat of whipped cream that he then licked off. “No fair!” Ann laughed, and he fed her dollops off his fingertips. He couldn’t help himself—as much as he loved Ann, the whipped cream was making his throat so acidic he felt close to throwing up. He moved to another position, licked spoonfuls off her inner thighs, but the angle made his neck crick. He drove himself on, denying the pain, moaning to release some of the agony, which Ann mistook for passion, prompting her to grab his head and cant his neck at a forty-five-degree angle of torture as she kissed him. He buried his head in her cleavage to hide the tremoring like a Mexican jumping bean beneath his eye.
    They made love. It was nice. Friendly. Comfort sex. She had the sense that Richard was clenched inside; his mind seemed far away. Because he had seemed to enjoy it so much, she grabbed his head again and gave him another hard, bad-girl kiss. Afterward Ann felt a purring contentment as she got dressed, as well as a stickiness under her clothes that she couldn’t wait to go home and wash off. She was still wearing her good suit from the office—she had come straight there from another ten-hour day—but it seemed petty to complain when Richard was trying so hard. He was under such strain, she was surprised he even remembered her birthday. A dry cleaning bill and a potentially ruined wool skirt. Life could be worse than being desired by your husband under a mountain of whipped cream.
    *   *   *
    They sat in the restaurant’s new kitchen with its gleaming stainless steel appliances, its spotless linoleum floor—within weeks the kitchen would never again be as quiet and pristine. Richard and Javi had cooked up a special five-course dinner and dragged a small table in from the dining room, complete with tablecloth and tapered candles.
    Richard had pulled out a 1974 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut Rosé champagne, known for its silky bite and salmon color. They toasted.
    “Did you braise the sirloin tips?” Javi asked.
    “No, I thought the main dish and roasted broccolini would be enough.”
    Javi winked at Ann.