Chasing Harry Winston

girl who’s up for anything. I’m an unremarkable girl who likes hooking up enough but would rather get to know someone I like than have some dirty fling with a stranger.”

Adriana smiled triumphantly. “And that, my friend, is your problem.”

“That’s not a problem,” Leigh added without opening her eyes.

“It’s the way she is. Not everyone can have meaningless one-night stands.”

Adriana exhaled a long, frustrated sigh. “First of all, girls, ‘one-night stands’ are for sad little people who meet in Atlantic City casinos or Midwestern hotels. ‘Hooking up’ is what drunken sorority girls do after their spring formals. We have affairs. Fabulous, sexy, spontaneous affairs. Understood? Second, I think we’re all losing sight of something here: I am not the one who decided Emmy should be having affairs in every city she visits. She made that little pronouncement all on her own. Of course, if you don’t think you can handle it…”

The waiter, an impishly cute blond guy in a collared shirt and khaki shorts, asked if he could bring them anything. They ordered a round of margaritas and picked up the conversation as though there’d been no interruption.

“No, you’re right,” Emmy conceded. “This was my decision, and I’m going to do it. It’ll be good for me, right? Get me less focused on the whole marriage thing. More relaxed. It’s just that it sounds great in theory, but when it’s midnight and you’re in some strange hotel and staring at this person you barely know and thinking that he’s about to see you naked when you don’t know his last name…I, it’s just…different.”

“But done with the right attitude, it can be very freeing,” Adriana said.

“Or a total disaster,” Leigh added.

“Always the optimist, aren’t you?”

“Look, I hear that Emmy wants to do this, and I totally understand why. I mean, if I’d only been with three guys in my entire life and they’d all been long-term boyfriends, I’d want a little taste of what else is out there. But it’s important she knows that one-night stands-sorry, affairs-aren’t always so glamorous,” Leigh said.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve always been rather pleased,” Adriana smiled. It was true, mostly. She’d been with more men than she could ever possibly count, but she’d enjoyed every one of them.

Leigh pounced. “Oh, really? Then I guess you’re not remembering that surfer guy-what was his name? Pasha?-who high-fived you after sex and then called you ‘dude,’ as in ‘Dude, just chill for a minute,’ when you asked him if he wanted another glass of wine? Or the foot fetishist who wanted to lube up your feet and rub them all over his body? And who could forget the one you met at Izzie’s wedding, taking a phone call from his mother while you were on top? Shall I go on?”

Adriana held up her right hand and summoned her most winning smile. “I think we get the idea. However, dear friend, you’re being a bit misleading. A few bad apples is no reason not to visit the orchard. Those were just unfortunate exceptions. What about the Austrian baron who thought, quite rightly, that diamond shopping at Cartier was good foreplay? Or the time in Costa Rica when the surfer-the other surfer and I-made love on the beach at sunrise? Or when that architect with that amazing rooftop overlooking the Hudson-”

“Just know that it can go either way,” Leigh said, looking straight at Emmy.

“You are such a killjoy!” Adriana shrieked. “I’m going for a swim.” She tried to keep her tone light, but it was all starting to irritate her. What was Leigh so bitter about? The girl had an amazing job at the city’s most prestigious publishing house, an adoring, sought-after sportscaster fiance who had eyes only for her, and a put-together, sophisticated appearance that was just hot enough for men to like but not so hot that women hated her. Why was she always so miserable?

“I hope that after putting me through the wringer you haven’t forgotten your end of the deal?” Emmy said.

“Of course not,” Adriana replied. “In fact, I think I’ve already met my future husband.”

“Hmm,” Leigh murmured, unfazed, grabbing her frozen margarita from the waiter’s tray. She pressed it directly to her forehead for a moment before licking all the way around the salted rim.

“Is that so?” Emmy asked with what Adriana was irritated to hear sounded a lot like condescension.

“Yes, that’s so,” Adriana replied. “And although neither of you seems remotely interested, I’ll have you know that he just so happens to be Tobias Baron.”

Two heads snapped up to look at her in awe. Well, that got their attention, thank god.

“The Tobias Baron?” Leigh asked.

Yes, this was better. “The one and only.” She nodded. “And actually, his friends call him Toby.”

Leigh’s eyes bulged. “Are you kidding? Spill, girl! We need to hear-”

“Of course!” Adriana smiled. “But first I’m just going to have a quick swim.” She climbed out of her lounge chair like a cat unfolding from an afternoon nap and strolled toward the pool. That’ll teach them to not take me seriously. She tested the water with her toes, then dove in, barely breaking the water with her streamlined body, and immediately began a strong yet graceful forward crawl. Although she was not a big fan of oceans (the salt water was so drying to the hair, never mind all those unpleasant stinging creatures), Adriana swam like a fish. Her mother, terrified of having young Adriana toddle into the estate’s pool, had insisted she learn to swim before she could walk. This was accomplished quite efficiently in a single afternoon. Mrs. de Souza carried a squirming nine-month-old Adriana into five feet of water, pulled off the girl’s water wings, and watched as the child sank. Hearing this story for the first time in her early teens, Adriana was horrified. “You just watched as I drowned?” she asked her mother.

“Please, it wasn’t quite so dramatic-you were only under a moment or two. Then you figured it out and paddled your little head to the surface. A bit of water up the nose is hardly a trauma, now, is it?” Not a Dr. Phil-approved method but effective nonetheless.

She swam ten lengths of the pool and gratefully accepted a rolled beach towel from a muscled attendant, offering him a broad smile as reward. Adriana returned, and Emmy folded over the page she was reading and tossed the book aside.

“Adriana de Souza, how have you not told us this already? We’ve been in Aruba now for-”

“Bonaire!” Leigh and Adriana said simultaneously.

Emmy waved her arms in a silencing gesture. “Whatever. We’ve been in Bonaire for two full days already and you’re just getting around to mentioning this now? What kind of friend does that?”

“It’s not serious,” she said, relishing her friends’ expressions-she just adored withholding information until it would have the maximum effect-“but I think he has potential.”

“Potential? The magazines call him an intellectual George Clooney. Handsome, accomplished, straight, unmarried-”

“Divorced,” Emmy added.

Leigh swatted the air. “A mistake in his early twenties that lasted thirty-six months and produced no kids. As far as divorced men go, he barely even qualifies.”

Adriana whistled. “Well, well, it seems like you’re both rather informed. Does this mean you approve?”

They nodded vigorously.

“So tell us all about him,” Emmy breathed, probably relieved that the focus had shifted away from her.

Adriana lifted her dripping-wet torso slightly off the chair to straighten the cushion, but it was enough to cause an audible groan from a nearby sunbather. “Well, let’s see. No need to give you the biographical information-you girls clearly know that!-but, um, he really is a darling. I met him two weeks ago on the set of The City Dweller.”

Leigh flipped over and unhooked her bikini top across the back. “What were you doing there?”

“Gilles brought me. I was going to meet Angelina and Maddox, but instead I met Toby.” Adriana proceeded to relay her conversation with Toby word for word, adding a few sentences (for color) but omitting none. When finished, she wrapped her lips seductively around her striped straw and took a long pull on her margarita. She couldn’t be positive, but she thought the group of cute guys across the pool was staring at her.

“So do you think he’ll call?” Emmy asked with what appeared to be genuine concern.

A little annoyed that her friend had even considered the idea that he wouldn’t call, no less verbalized it, she snapped, “Of course he’ll call. Why wouldn’t he?”

“Oooh, sounds like someone’s a little sensitive…” Leigh practically sang.