Yours for the Night (7 page)

The Girlfriend Experience

somewhere in his late forties. Isabel hadn’t given her a profile, just an envelope, his fantasy, and his name. Chase Ramirez. He had the swarthy Latin coloring, but his eyes were the shamrock green of a mixed heritage.

“Nice to meet you, Marianna.” His voice was deep enough to send a shiver along her spine.

“I guess you weren’t expecting a picnic.”

He had a nice smile. “Not when you chose a restaurant to meet me at.”

“Oh, I didn’t pick that. Your friend did.” Provided with his physical description, she’d received the instructions to meet him at two o’clock outside a restaurant in Foster City. The more she thought about it, though, the more she started to see that a lunch date at a restaurant was just too . . . ordinary. She wanted to do something special to fulfill his fantasy.

He wanted a girlfriend experience, which, Isabel explained, was simply pretending you were on a date with your girlfriend instead of a courtesan you’d never met before. And what did girlfriends do? They created surprises. They cooked spectacular dishes for their man. They made him feel special. A restaurant, even a fancy one, simply wouldn’t cut it. Especially since his fantasy intrigued her. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but if he was married, she’d expect him to have taken it off anyway. Yet no telltale indentation marked his left hand. So why did he want to pretend he had a girlfriend?

Stopping by the front end of a silver SUV parked along the street, he reached in his pocket to beep the remote and unlock the doors. “I’ll put those in the backseat.”

She handed him the basket and the blanket. If it rained, she would absolutely scream. It wasn’t supposed to rain. Or rather, she hadn’t looked at the weather channel to see that it might rain until after she’d already planned her picnic, and by then she was so in love with the idea she couldn’t give it up. He removed his jacket, yanked off his tie, and undid the top three buttons of his shirt to reveal a dusting of dark hair sprinkled with gray. He tossed the jacket and tie across the backseat, then opened the door for her. “Thank you,” she murmured as he ushered her in.

The SUV was clean, no empty coffee cups tossed on the floor. You could tell a lot about a man from how he kept his car.

He climbed in, closed the door, and she smelled him. Aftershave. Something 42

The Girlfriend Experience

mellow and slightly sweet, expensive yet subtle. It was the kind of scent you’d find all over you once he was gone, a subtle reminder of him you couldn’t get out of your head.

“You smell good,” she said.

“So do you.” He glanced sideways with just the hint of a smile and started the engine.

She didn’t usually say things like that, but everything about today was different. She hadn’t opened the payment envelope. She’d wanted it to be a surprise when she returned home. Something to look forward to if her date turned out to be dog meat.

Chase Ramirez was the furthest thing from dog meat.

“Where to?” he asked, backing out of the spot.

“Highway 92 to Skyline.” She knew a little-known park up there perfect for a picnic. That’s what girlfriends did, they found romantic out-of-the-way places. As he pulled onto the freeway, she shifted to face him and pulled her feet beneath her. “So, how was your day, honey?”

He turned his head slightly, his eyes touching hers briefly.

“Play along,” she whispered.

“It was fine.”

“You can do better than that.”

“We’ve got a board meeting on Monday, so most of the morning was spent going over everyone’s presentation.”

“And it was extremely boring,” she finished for him. So he was an executive. He smiled, to himself almost, and nodded. “Very. But I’m always shocked at how ill-prepared people are.”

She patted his knee. “Well, I want you to forget about it because I spent all morning making your favorite things.”

“The agency told you all that, huh?”

“Of course not, but I’m a woman so I decided for you.”

He laughed, then suddenly cut it off as if he’d shocked himself. “Which way did you say?” he asked, completely sober.

They were coming up on the 280 interchange. “Toward Skyline.” He concentrated on the winding road as they climbed into the hills. The silence bothered her, yet she had trouble coming up with some decent small talk.

“Take the next left,” she directed. The road looked like a driveway and the 43

The Girlfriend Experience

SUV bumped over it. “To the right.”

He pulled in along a small tributary that was even more rugged than the last. She didn’t remembered it being this rough, but then she hadn’t been up here in .

. . good God, two years. She hadn’t had a real relationship since then. No one she’d even want to spend all morning cooking for. So why do it for a complete stranger?

“You can park here.” Marianna studied him. He had nice hands, capable hands on the wheel. She wondered how they’d feel on her body. He pulled into what had once been a semi-decent parking area but was now so overgrown the macadam had almost disappeared beneath the vegetation. Beyond the so-called parking lot were waves of long summer grass now long dead. A slight breeze blew the fronds flat in one direction, then picked them up and tossed them the other way, giving glimpses of trees, the reservoir, and the ribbon of freeway in the distance.

THE CAR WAS SO QUIET, CHASE COULD HEAR HER BREATHE. HE’D crushed her. But he’d heard himself laugh, and he remembered when laughing was an easy reflex. Before Rosie died. When he didn’t have a clue how close to the edge she was, and laughter hadn’t seemed like a monumental effort or a sacrilege. Shit, he was a downer. Marianna was trying, even if she was getting paid for it, and he was being an ass.

With effort, he changed gears. “What’d you make me, baby?”

She brightened at the endearment. “It’s a surprise.”

In the grief counseling he’d attended with Krista, they’d said that if you could pretend for a little while that everything was fine, eventually you started believing it. He hadn’t been able to pretend, but maybe he’d never tried hard enough.

Marianna jumped out of the car and grabbed the blanket and picnic basket from the backseat. She was sweet, vivacious, and trying really hard to please him.

“Come on, slowpoke,” she called, standing in front of the SUV and waving at him. Her shoulder-length hair blew around her face and neck. Rosie had paid big bucks to get her hair mussed just that way, and she would have been horrified in a stiff wind. Until the last year when she’d stopped taking care of herself. Something he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. 44

The Girlfriend Experience

Marianna trod across the grass, tamping it down, the wind billowing the hem of her skirt.

Chase yanked the door handle and climbed out.

The blanket blew away from her every time she tried to lay it down, then she lost her grip, and the wind tossed it down the hill. She ran after it and dragged it back, laughing like a child. Her exuberance made him want to laugh with her. Her attitude was infectious.

“I guess it’s a little too windy up here,” she said, smiling.

“You hold that end,” he said, “and I’ll put the basket on the other end to keep it down.”

She flopped onto her knees, securing her side, as he fumbled to get the basket onto the other.

“Guess this was a dumb idea.” But she was laughing still. And inexplicably the wind died. Her hair settled prettily. He sat next to the basket as she kicked off her sandals and crawled closer on her hands and knees. It was neither seductive nor sultry, but his heart pumped faster as he glimpsed down her shirt to the edge of a pink nipple peeking out from her lacy bra. He’d been celibate for over a year. Watching Marianna crawl across the blanket was the sexiest damned thing he’d noticed in all those long months. He wanted to feel normal for this one afternoon. Even if they didn’t end up rolling around on the blanket. Even if he didn’t get his rocks off. More than anything, he wanted to pretend he was fine. For today, he’d stop thinking about Rosie. He wouldn’t feel the guilt. He would enjoy whatever Marianna brought him.

“Don’t you dare open that.” She slapped playfully at his hand as he reached for the buckles on the wicker basket. “You’ll see all my surprises and ruin everything.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stretched out, propping his elbow on the blanket. “I’m all atwitter wondering what’s in your magic basket.”

She laughed at his word choice, eyes sparkling. “Now, that’s more like it.”

“I’m starving.” For so many things.

“Good.” She whisked out a plastic-covered plate. “First we have teriyaki chicken drummies. Then we’ve got sliced peaches to go with the chicken. The tastes complement each other. And we also have champagne.” She pulled the bottle from the basket and handed it to him. “Will you do the honors?”

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It was semi-expensive stuff. He twisted off the wire and foil, then held the neck and pushed the cork with his thumbs. With a loud pop, it shot into the air, disappearing in the grass. The scent of champagne misted out, but it didn’t foam over.

“How’d you do that?” Sitting back on her haunches, hands on her hips, she surveyed him. “It always foams when I do it. And to get it off, I have to stick it between my legs and tug like you wouldn’t believe.”

He laughed, and it didn’t feel bad. He tried it out a second time just to be sure. “It’s no wonder it foams all over if you tug on it like that.”

She tipped her head. “Why does that sound vaguely sexual?”

Because he’d meant it that way. “Because you have a dirty mind.”

She smiled. “You know, I think I do.”

And Chase imagined getting down and dirty with her. 46

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7

CHASE HAD EXPERIENCED PAID COMPANIONS, BUT NONE HAD BEEN like Marianna. She wasn’t practiced. She was real.

From her magic basket, she’d pulled a bowl of sliced peaches and two champagne flutes. She plopped a slice in each glass, then handed him one, which he filled, followed by the other. Tapping her flute to his, she saluted—

“Cheers”—and swallowed a quarter of the glass, then closed her eyes, tipping her head back. “Oh God, that’s good. I haven’t had champagne like that in ages.”

He’d have thought she had it all the time.

She opened her eyes. “You haven’t tasted.”

“I was watching you.”

She was still a long moment, regarding him, assessing his words. Then she must have decided she liked what he’d said, because she graced him with another of her smiles and held out the plate of drumsticks.

“One drumstick, then a peach slice. It’s to die for.”

He chose a piece of chicken, the scent mouthwatering. Like her. “Delicious,”

he said, licking the stickiness from his fingers. Instead of giving him the peach bowl, she selected a slice, then fed it to him. After the tang of the teriyaki, the juicy peach was heaven. He savored it along with the flavor of her skin, sweet as the peach. He’d never cheated on his wife. He hadn’t had sex with another woman in more than twenty years. Since Rosie died, he couldn’t even remember thinking about sex. But he thought about it with Marianna, enjoying the image as much as he had the peach.

She ate a slice herself, and he took pleasure in the sensual cast of her eyelids, the low, throaty moan of appreciation. Then, going down on her elbow beside him, she pushed the plate of chicken at him. “Eat. I made a lot.”

He ate, but he liked it better when she fed him.

“So tell me what you do.” She nibbled daintily on a drumstick without getting messy.

“Business.” He didn’t want to talk about work. That would only lead to bad memories.

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She dropped her chin to give him a look through her eyelashes. “That’s illuminating.”

“Sorry.” He stroked a lock of hair from her cheek. Touching her skin, he wanted more. He wanted her to touch him. “I haven’t done this in a long time. I’m not good at making conversation, and I’m a little nervous.”

“Done this?” She flipped her palm out expressively. He held her gaze. “Gone out with a woman.”

“Are you recently divorced?”