There's Something About St. Tropez by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

after all. “Feeling better now?”
    â€œYup.” Laureen smoothed her battered pink tutu. She wore a white T-shirt under the too-tight satin bodice and the tulle skirt stuck out like a ruffle over the tops of her plump thighs. Her pink ballet slippers were spattered with mud. She glanced up at Sunny, who stood with her hands on her hips, watching her. “Thank you anyway.”
    â€œHey, that’s okay. You had a long flight, and then the drive. I know exactly how you felt. I did it myself.”
    â€œYou did? Where did you come from?”
    â€œCalifornia.”
    â€œDid you fly in your own Gulfstream?”
    It was Sunny’s turn to be astonished. “I flew commercial,” she said. “With my dog.”
    â€œYour dog is cute.”
    â€œDo you have a dog?”
    Laureen adjusted the princess tiara. “Nope.”
    Sunny sighed. The child simply wasn’t letting her in. She wished she would not say just “yup” and “nope” but then she remembered there was no mother around to correct her, and Billy Bashford did not seem the kind of man to be aware of small things like proper speech. Laureen was wearing a necklace of fine silver mesh strands centered with a silver heart, that sat exactly in the fragile hollow of her throat.
    â€œPretty necklace,” she said.
    Laureen put up a hand to touch it, but said nothing.
    â€œWe’re planning on going into town for breakfast,” Sunny said. “I’ll bet they make delicious crepes there.”
    â€œWhat’s crepes?” Laureen crouched; her small pudgy fingers fiddled with the ribbons on her pink ballet shoes.
    â€œPancakes,” Sunny said.
    â€œI like pancakes.”
    â€œWell, that’s good then, isn’t it?”
    â€œI guess so.” Laureen glanced at Sunny’s feet in the furry pink slippers. “You like pink too.”
    â€œI certainly do.” Sunny felt at least she was gaining some rapport. “Better go back, they’ll be waiting for us.” She took Laureen’s unexpectedly hot little hand in hers.
    Sara Strange was sitting quietly at the table now. She was petite and kind of scrawny. Her hair cut in a deep fringe hung low over her dark brown eyes then straight as a die to her shoulders. She was not pretty but with her skinny ankles and twiggy arms there was a vulnerable air about her, as though she desperately needed someone to take care of her.
    â€œIt’s like this,” she was saying, leaning exhaustedly on the table. “I was on a seven-day cruise of the Mediterranean with my fiancé. Well, boyfriend really. I mean, like he still hadn’t gotten around to buying me a ring. I thought it would be wonderful, y’know what I mean? Like, glamorous, all hot summer nights, champagne, that sort of thing, and when you’re from a small town in Kansas that sounds, like, just plain out of this world. Especially when you’ve saved for a whole year for it. Not even a morning Starbucks if you know what I mean. And you’d be surprised how much you can save by just cutting that out.”
    She pushed her fringe out of her eyes looking at them. “Except my boyfriend thinks he’s the playboy of the Western world, good-looking, a charmer, the kind who stares too deeply into every woman’s eyes, like he really fancies them and he’s passing on the message. Y’know what I mean?
    â€œAnyway, I kept losing him on the ship, and on those shore excursions. I never knew where he was. Turns out he’s been carrying on with this woman behind my back for the entire five days we were on the boat. Oh, everybody knew about it of course, the ship wasn’t that big. Except me that is, until some of the other passengers felt they had to put me straight.
    â€œAnyhow, last night he never even came back to our stateroom. I found out where the woman’s room was, and of course he was there, in bed with her. So . . . I