Matthew King had sent all the help away, privacy being the only security that mattered here. He arranged for their meals to arrive prepared, and he, Brooke, and Tara took turns serving and cleaning up.
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
At eight, Monday morning, he was watching the girls riding their bicycles toward the farmhouse when his agent Jeffrey phoned. “The meeting’s tomorrow in midtown.”
Matthew nodded. “Three-thirty.”
“It’s Barbara from Eon who really wants you, Matthew. She usually doesn’t attend these things. But she’s in town. And she’s the one who convinced them to go for you, a gentleman-style James Bond.”
“Do I need to bulk up?”
“No, honey, you don’t,” Jeffrey said. “They’ll send a martial arts expert and a trainer but your own long muscles are fine so long as the audience notices ’em. Dorothy Hall will be your voice coach. Nailing the accent’s gonna be crucial.”
“In martial arts, Jeffrey, it so happens, I’m already a black belt.”
“From Sedona, Arizona, twenty years ago? Just charm Barbara. Anything less than twenty against twenty and we walk.”
“What?”
“They want you, Matthew. Just don’t screw up.”
But before Jeffrey finished saying, “Good-bye,” Matthew was staring out the window, transfixed: Tara in a blue bikini top and Brooke in a pink one-piece dropped their bikes and leaped toward the door.
Ivy and Dexter were eating corn flakes, making a mess while watching cartoons. But when Dexter heard Brooke call hello, he jumped up, ran to his bedroom, and returned with the straw hat to replace her bike helmet.
Tara, whose blue top matched her eyes, shook out her soft light hair and lifted Ivy in the air. She looked lovely but did not seize Matthew’s core the way Brooke did. Tara had even slipped off her shorts, standing in only a bikini. Yet it was Brooke, sheathed to her neck in pink, that caused Matthew to sink against the wall, afraid to look. But even with his eyes closed, he couldn’t shake how her bathing suit rose almost to her neck in front and dipped down too low for (his) comfort in back.
After they exchanged “Helloes” and “See yas,” Matthew rushed along the path to his office. The golden hue of Brooke’s arms and legs struck him to the quick and he was charmed, almost sickened by her thick, dark braid.
He would have, should have…by now Brooke most definitely should be working elsewhere. Except if he sent her away, he was sure Dexter would never forgive him. Dexter adored Brooke and had suffered a horrific year: his mother succumbing to drug addiction while Matthew was traveling in Australia for a project that ultimately fell through. Thus he genuinely believed he owed his son swimming lessons with Brooke in the mornings and bicycling in the afternoons.
Twice Dexter had asked if some day Brooke might be their new mother.
No, Matthew told him. “She’s your nanny this summer, same as last year, and that’s all.”
After a couple of hours, Matthew always appeared poolside, aware that Dexter wanted his father to watch him swim. He left his office and, blinking at the sun’s reflection, straddled the diving board.
“Dad, time how long I can float.”
But too soon, Tara was rushing the kids inside to “rinse off the chlorine.”
Matthew needed to tell Brooke how important the movie deal was, because she thought James Bond was sexist. So he raised a finger. “Shall we?”
Circling him, she skipped through the meadow while Matthew clasped his hands behind him. He concentrated on speaking rather than catching hold of her.
“It would mean twenty million upfront and twenty percent gross. Do you understand about ‘gross?’”
“Of course.”
“It’ll take nearly two years. But it guarantees I can set up Dexter and Ivy in whatever they might want to do. You and Tara, too. College, internships, you name it.”
“Very cool,” she said, pirouetting. “Does it mean Tara and me are the new Bond girls?”
“You watched—which movie?”
“Just part of one; Tara insisted. She said I had to realize that if we fool around the littlest bit, I’ll ruin your life.”
“I don’t know about that.” Matthew laughed, because suddenly tomorrow afternoon seemed forever ahead of them. “Let’s climb above the waterfall.”
Brooke dashed ahead and he stared at the backs of her knees, deep hollows framed by two tendons whenever they bent.
They sat together on the rock ledge beside the waterfall. “You wear sunscreen, I hope. Let me see your skin.”
Shifting to one side, Brooke lifted her skirt and then the bathing suit above her thigh. “See any difference?”
“Not really.” The pink fabric rising like a triangle that fastened around her neck emphasized her high round breasts. Obviously, he could not touch them, but, “May I?” He peeled away a millimeter of her bathing suit. The side of her breast was—well, he shouldn’t say; he shouldn’t think; he shouldn’t really breathe, at least not audibly.
“What are you doing?” She moved away.
“Nothing, forgive me. But, Brooke, will you sit here?” He patted his leg. “Just for a minute.”
She tried to settle herself but had to shift her weight. The middle of her butt felt one side of his erection and then the other. “Shit, Matthew.”
She shoved him hard, dropped her skirt and hat and dove straight down, into the waterfall.
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