a hooker. She’d made a serious faux pas when broaching the subject of sleeping with Bart Houghton. However, she had the rest of the weekend to put things right between her and her client.
What she also had to remember was that Pleasure Seekers was a business, and as a contract worker she had to conduct herself like a businesswoman.
She’d come to Southampton as an actress in a role, a role in which she intended to give an award-winning performance.
Her gaze shifted to Alana and Ilene. The two were laughing and dancing, enjoying themselves while she agonized over minutiae. All she had to do was be pleasant and polite for the next two days, and come Tuesday morning she would go back to all that was familiar and predictable.
CHAPTER 24
B art half listened to his chief financial officer ramble on incessantly about a golf game, his attention was focused on Faye Ogden.
He watched her set her martini on the bar. What he’d suspected the night he sat next to her at Enid Richards’s dinner party was confirmed. She wasn’t much of a drinker.
Faye had intrigued him the first time he saw her, and she continued to intrigue him. Dressed for the evening, he’d found her beautiful, sensual, alluring. Dressed casually, she was still beautiful but radiated an aura that said look but don’t touch.
And he wanted to touch her. His touching did not translate into making love because that would ruin his fantasy, vivid images that swept over him when he least expected.
What Bart had found shocking was that he hadn’t indulged in capricious daydreams about the opposite sex since puberty. Then his fantasies weren’t about black girls but a well-endowed redhead at his prep school. When he wasn’t dreaming about Hannah, it was a nubile Hollywood starlet.
He wasn’t certain whether he was undergoing a midlifecrisis, but if he was, he wanted it to continue until he discovered what it was about Faye Ogden that had him so preoccupied with her.
“Nice party, Bart.”
He shifted his gaze, nodding and acknowledging the head of DHG’s banking division. “Thanks, Jeff.”
It was the first time he’d hosted a gathering at his Long Island vacation retreat. He always planned holiday parties for the employees of the Dunn-Houghton Group at upscale Manhattan restaurants, but no one, other than the six who made up his executive team, had ever been inside his Olympic Towers penthouse with panoramic views of the East River, and the many bridges connecting Manhattan with the other boroughs.
He hadn’t taken his company public, but that hadn’t stopped business analysts from following DHG’s successful ventures or failed deals.
His private life was shrouded in mystery, the way he preferred it. A distant cousin had become his date for an occasional soiree, but now that was about to change. He planned to take Faye Ogden to the Cayman Islands for the wedding of the daughter of a former college buddy.
CHAPTER 25
A lana couldn’t pull her gaze away from the brilliance of the perfect Lucinda cut diamond solitaire on the finger of a young woman clutching her fiancé’s hand. A wave of envy swept over her, as she realized she wanted to be the one wearing the ring while sharing adoring gazes with Calvin.
The day, which had begun so delightfully with the limousine ride to Southampton, had suddenly soured. She’d spent the afternoon eating, drinking and floating on an inflated raft in a heated Olympic-size pool before playing a vigorous game of tennis with a man who reminded her of her favorite dessert, Duncan Hines double-chocolate devil’s food cake. The brother literally and figuratively looked good enough to eat. Lowell Knight was single, lived alone and wasn’t a baby daddy. He would’ve been perfect if she wasn’t committed to Calvin, who had promised to call her as soon as he recovered from jet lag. She’d been to England enough times to know that it didn’t take eight days to get over jet lag.
Her light playful mood had vanished,
What she also had to remember was that Pleasure Seekers was a business, and as a contract worker she had to conduct herself like a businesswoman.
She’d come to Southampton as an actress in a role, a role in which she intended to give an award-winning performance.
Her gaze shifted to Alana and Ilene. The two were laughing and dancing, enjoying themselves while she agonized over minutiae. All she had to do was be pleasant and polite for the next two days, and come Tuesday morning she would go back to all that was familiar and predictable.
CHAPTER 24
B art half listened to his chief financial officer ramble on incessantly about a golf game, his attention was focused on Faye Ogden.
He watched her set her martini on the bar. What he’d suspected the night he sat next to her at Enid Richards’s dinner party was confirmed. She wasn’t much of a drinker.
Faye had intrigued him the first time he saw her, and she continued to intrigue him. Dressed for the evening, he’d found her beautiful, sensual, alluring. Dressed casually, she was still beautiful but radiated an aura that said look but don’t touch.
And he wanted to touch her. His touching did not translate into making love because that would ruin his fantasy, vivid images that swept over him when he least expected.
What Bart had found shocking was that he hadn’t indulged in capricious daydreams about the opposite sex since puberty. Then his fantasies weren’t about black girls but a well-endowed redhead at his prep school. When he wasn’t dreaming about Hannah, it was a nubile Hollywood starlet.
He wasn’t certain whether he was undergoing a midlifecrisis, but if he was, he wanted it to continue until he discovered what it was about Faye Ogden that had him so preoccupied with her.
“Nice party, Bart.”
He shifted his gaze, nodding and acknowledging the head of DHG’s banking division. “Thanks, Jeff.”
It was the first time he’d hosted a gathering at his Long Island vacation retreat. He always planned holiday parties for the employees of the Dunn-Houghton Group at upscale Manhattan restaurants, but no one, other than the six who made up his executive team, had ever been inside his Olympic Towers penthouse with panoramic views of the East River, and the many bridges connecting Manhattan with the other boroughs.
He hadn’t taken his company public, but that hadn’t stopped business analysts from following DHG’s successful ventures or failed deals.
His private life was shrouded in mystery, the way he preferred it. A distant cousin had become his date for an occasional soiree, but now that was about to change. He planned to take Faye Ogden to the Cayman Islands for the wedding of the daughter of a former college buddy.
CHAPTER 25
A lana couldn’t pull her gaze away from the brilliance of the perfect Lucinda cut diamond solitaire on the finger of a young woman clutching her fiancé’s hand. A wave of envy swept over her, as she realized she wanted to be the one wearing the ring while sharing adoring gazes with Calvin.
The day, which had begun so delightfully with the limousine ride to Southampton, had suddenly soured. She’d spent the afternoon eating, drinking and floating on an inflated raft in a heated Olympic-size pool before playing a vigorous game of tennis with a man who reminded her of her favorite dessert, Duncan Hines double-chocolate devil’s food cake. The brother literally and figuratively looked good enough to eat. Lowell Knight was single, lived alone and wasn’t a baby daddy. He would’ve been perfect if she wasn’t committed to Calvin, who had promised to call her as soon as he recovered from jet lag. She’d been to England enough times to know that it didn’t take eight days to get over jet lag.
Her light playful mood had vanished,
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