The Suite Life Read Free Page A

“Don’t worry, Priti,” I assured her. “That isn’t going to happen to me—not again.”
    â€œSo are you gonna call him?” she asked, obviously still concerned.
    â€œIn a day or two . . . or three.”
    â€œGood.” She nodded. “Just so long as you keep your pretty little head screwed on straight.”

    At home that evening, and for the two evenings after that, I jotted a few notes in my journal. Alec was never completely out of my mind. What if John and I hadn’t stopped for coffee that day? What if Alec and I hadn’t both been late? If there’d been a speeding fire truck or an ambulance, or some other distraction that slowed either of us down for just a moment? I decided that the whole thing must have been, in one of my Jewish grandma Ruth’s favorite Yiddish words, beshert, meaning “destiny” or “fate.”
    Late on the third day after meeting him, the phone on my desk was beckoning me, but I was also a bit worried about dating someone whose world was completely foreign to me. Truth to tell, I wasn’t even sure what “brunch” was. I knew it was some kind of combination of breakfast and lunch that people “went out for” on Sundays. But I’d certainly never had a brunch date in my life. What exactly did people eat for brunch? Where I came from, we didn’t eat brunch. When we ate in a restaurant, which wasn’t often, it was a local Chinese or Italian place, or sometimes a family-owned diner. A fancy meal was whatever the neighborhood nightclub was serving so all the young men (and the underage girls they supplied with fake IDs) would keep on dancing and buying drinks.
    My courtship résumé consisted of a convicted felon who had cheated on me constantly and abused me in every other way, and a few nice guys trying to climb the ladder in the Financial District who didn’t do it for me. I could already tell that Alec DeMarco wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever known, much less gone out with.
    So far it had always been the guys who didn’t measure up to my standards, but what if this time it were different? Alec was far more sophisticated than I was or anyone else I knew for that matter. His entire demeanor exuded money and privilege. What if this time I’m the one who doesn’t measure up?
    Nonsense, I told myself. Samantha Bonti is special, and if this guy is as special as you think, he’ll know that. So I pulled Alec’s business card out of my purse and picked up the receiver.
    The phone only rang once. “Hello.”
    â€œAlec DeMarco?” I asked.
    â€œThat’s me.”
    â€œSamantha Bonti.”
    â€œSo that’s your last name.” Alec chuckled. “The best day I ever had on the Street just got a whole lot better.”
    â€œCongratulations.”
    â€œIt seems I haven’t lost my touch after all, Samantha Bonti.” The way he said my name sounded like a caress. “I’m telling you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and then you call, and to top it off, it turns out you’re Italian.”
    â€œHalf.”
    â€œLet me guess: the other half is Native American.”
    â€œJewish,” I replied.
    â€œHad to be one or the other.” Alec laughed.
    His easy manner made me comfortable. “You can laugh, but I promise, everything else about me won’t be that easy to guess. You don’t want to know how crazy my life was growing up.”
    â€œ Au contraire, Samantha Bonti. I want to know everything about you, and I can’t wait to get started.”
    Just listening to his voice sent a tingle down my spine. “Brunch this weekend would be nice,” I managed, hoping that I didn’t sound too anxious.
    â€œHang on a sec,” Alec said, and I could hear paper rustling on his end, probably checking his calendar. “I’ve already got a date for Saturday. Let’s do Sunday at