“Oh my God!” Banner doubles over in her seat, head pressed to her knees, shoulders shaking. “No way you get to judge me. This is . . . awful.”
I don’t mind never getting to live this down. It’s worth it to hear Banner’s full-throated laugh. I haven’t heard her laugh like that since college. Completely uninhibited and honest and free. And because of me.
“I guess we should at least talk about our strategy for recruiting sponsors at this party,” she says when we’re about thirty minutes from Kip and Karen’s Santa Barbara home.
“Right.” I couldn’t care less. “Very important.”
Half these potential sponsors have already committed from an email Kip sent the day we had lunch, but she doesn’t need to know that one detail. She might not have come.
“I say we divide and conquer.” Banner pulls down the visor mirror to check her makeup and add more red to her lips.
“Divide” sounds like it might defeat my purpose, which is to spend as much time with Banner as possible.
“Maybe we should stick together,” I suggest.
“I’ve memorized the list of potential sponsors you sent.”
Of course you have.
“And pulled up photos,” she continues blithely.
Overachiever . . . but we knew that already.
“So I think I have faces and names matched and will be fine on my own,” she says. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
It’s not.
“Okay,” I say, resigned. We turn down the long private drive leading to the Carter estate. “Divide and conquer it is.”
“How lovely,” Banner says with a gasp when the house comes into view.
I consider the Carter’s Cape Dutch estate with fresh eyes. I’ve been coming here since freshman year. In the beginning, of course, I’d visit with Bent, but especially now that I live on the West Coast and Bent is in Boston. I come here without him all the time. I was dumbstruck the first time I drove up, too. On one side, moss-colored mountains overlook the vast estate. Aquamarine waters border the other side. Truly the best of both worlds.
I can tell Banner thinks the interior is as impressive by the way she peers up at the cathedral ceilings and reverently approaches the priceless paintings dotting the walls.
“This home is as lovely as your other one,” she tells Karen after a quick hug. “So warm and beautiful.”
“I could say the same of you,” Kip says, turning on Old World charm like he originally hails from Italy, though he grew up in Detroit. He grabs both Banner’s hands, kisses both cheeks.
“Thank you.” She smiles sweetly and accepts his elbow.
“I have several people for you to meet.” He leads her out to the sprawling oceanside backyard already packed with about a hundred guests.
“Kip likes your friend,” Karen says, taking my arm and following at a discrete distance. “He was very impressed by her.”
“You mean at lunch?” I ask wryly. “Or afterward when he dug up information about her?”
She chuckles, slanting me a knowing glance. “Mostly what he dug up after. He loves ambition and drive and intelligence. She has all three.”
“That she does,” I say, hoping I do a good job hiding the touch of pride I feel about the woman Banner has become. She’s far exceeded even what I thought she would be when I knew her in college.
“I can tell you like her, too,” Karen says slyly, catching and holding my eyes. “A lot.”
“I’m that obvious, am I?” I affect a frown. “Need to work on that.”
“I know you well. You’ve never brought a woman around before.”
“She’s a colleague, Karen,” I deflect. “She’s around because we have business that intersects with Kip’s interests.”
“Oh, tell me another one,” Karen scoffs, smiling at her guests in that way she’s perfected: I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for coming. I’ll deal with you later and can’t you tell I’m in the middle of something. “I see the way you look at that girl.”
“How?” I ask, certain that I’ve disguised my hunger for Banner.
“It’s rude to stare at a woman’s ass like that.”
My shout of laughter startles us both. Apparently, I haven’t done a good job after all.
“And you don’t usually laugh this way,” she adds. “I like how you are with her. Where’d you find her and does she have a sister we could trick into marrying Bent?”
“No one said anything about marriage.” I give her a quelling frown. “I can really like her and want to . . . well you know.”
Fuck her . . . again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and repeat.
The look Karen returns tells me she does know all too well.
“I can want that without wanting marriage,” I say. “I don’t know how I feel about that institution. Everyone isn’t as lucky as you and Kip, or as my dad and stepmother.”
“Hard to be faithful to one woman?” she asks.
In ten years no one has measured up to Banner in the dark. Banner on a narrow couch, rushed, hurried. Frantic and perfect. I’d trade every woman I’ve had since for one more night like that with Banner.
“I think I could be faithful.” I grab a glass of the champagne lemonade Karen’s parties are so famous for from a passing tray. “Though I haven’t ever met a woman I wanted to test that theory with.”
“Until Banner, you mean?” Karen wears that pleased grin my stepmother sports whenever she mistakenly thinks I’m going to “settle down” with one of the nice girls she introduces me to. Who wants a nice girl when I could have Banner painfully extracting a pound of my flesh every night?
I search the crowded yard for Banner’s bright dress. A splash of scarlet by the pool gives her away. She’s chatting with a man Kip simply calls Baron, a German businessman whom I’ve never even seen smile. He’s talking animatedly with Banner, probably in German, a besotted grin hanging between his two oversized ears. Everyone falls for Banner. Whether they feel like she’s the daughter they never had, like Karen does, or like she’s the best thing that ever happened to their business, like that blowhard Cal Bagley. Or that she’s the only girl for them, like Zo does. Too bad about Zo because she’s actually the only girl for me. He’ll find someone else. I have faith in him.
I go through the motions of our divide and conquer strategy, basically confirming with the sponsors who’ve already signed on that they’ll hear from me this week, and stay close enough to Banner so that when the dancing starts, which Kip and Karen always have at these things, I’ll be within striking distance.
When the band gets in place on the small stage set up with the ocean as its backdrop, I make my move. Banner’s talking with a guy from San Jose who developed an app that made him a millionaire several times over in less than a year. He’s on his way to a billion and has already signed on to sponsor the golf tournament.
“So the app tracks my diet, nutrition, exercise,” she’s telling San Jose when I walk up.
“That’s fascinating,” he says, eyes dropping to her breasts every other word.
“It is,” Banner agrees enthusiastically, clueless that his next move will be to touch her in a nonthreatening way and get her somewhere alone.
“And your client, Quinn, developed it?” he asks, taking her arm and steering her slightly away from the cluster of people surrounding them. “Could we step over to the terrace? I feel like we’re having to yell, and this app is so—”
“Fascinating,” I cut in. “You mentioned that.”
They both turn surprised eyes to me. Banner smiles, but San Jose, rightfully sensing a threat, frowns.
“Jared, hey,” Banner says, her heavy-lidded look telling me she’s had enough of the champagne lemonade to make her relaxed but not enough to make her careless. “I was just chatting with . . . Oh, gosh. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Miller,” he grits out, clearly disappointed she doesn’t already know him or isn’t enraptured by his net worth. “Kyle Miller.”
“That’s right.” Banner taps his shoulder. “You were going to tell me about your app. Maybe you could collaborate with Quinn to work out some of the kinks in Girl, You Better?”
She blinks long lashes at him over her champagne lemonade, full lips wrapped around the rim of the glass as she takes a sip. A droplet trails down her throat and into her cleavage.
“Oops. Spilled a little,” she giggles.
Banner never giggles. And where’d she learn that? When did she start doing that?
She catches the wayward droplet, shrewdly watching Kyle tracing the path her finger takes as she scoops the lemonade from between her breasts and sucks it from her finger. By the time he looks back, she’s blinking her lashes and smiling again.
“Uh, yeah,” he says eagerly. “I could do that.”
“Oh great.” Banner pulls her phone from her pocket. “Could you air drop your number?”
Another flurry of blinks. “Please?”
They exchange contacts and the music starts up.
“They’re clearing the floor for dancing,” Kyle says. “Maybe we could—”
“I don’t think so,” I interrupt, to his dismay.
“But she and I were about to—”
“I knooow,” I say, trying for a rueful look and probably failing. “Maybe next time.
“But we—”
“Could you go now?” I’m over this and missing the beginning of the dance I’ve plotted all night for.
Banner’s throaty chuckle draws both of our attention.
“I’ll call you Monday, Kyle,” Banner says, slipping the phone back into her pocket. “It was great chatting with you.”
He takes her polite dismissal much better than mine, nodding and walking off.