Belle of the Brawl Read Online Free PDF Page B

win-win-win-win!
    Charlie relayed all this to Darwin, but after he’d heard her out, he rocked back on his heels and shook his head, crossing his arms protectively over his sweatshirt. “You know who you sound like?”
    “A super-smart girl who has just solved everyone’s problems?” Charlie grinned.
    “No. You sound like my mom. Manipulative. Controlling. Scheming.” Darwin sighed and shook his head again.
    “Your mom’s not all bad. She did manage to build this whole island, after all. Not to mention an empire. And you.” Charlie blush-grinned and saw that Darwin would let himself be convinced. She just had to push the right buttons. “Just trust me, Darwin. I want us to be together. This is the only way.”
    Darwin’s kissable lips lifted in a genuine smile, and Charlie felt her heart lifting, too.
    After all, Darwin was a practical guy. Charlie knew he couldn’t resist a good investment. Especially since theirs was a future worth waiting for.

7
    NORTH SHORE
NARCISSUS DAY SPA
    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH
4:09 P.M.
    Skye settled her tired back against the massage bench of the day spa steam room, her posture relaxing as the steam soothed her aching calves. Like Tweety and Ophelia, who lay on either side of her, each on her own massage table. A heat-activated towel wrapped tightly around her torso sent targeted tea-tree gel deep into her pores. She took a deep breath as the bench’s auto-shiatsu targeted her neck, and closed her Tiffany box–blue eyes. Sighing deeply, Skye swept first one taut leg and then the other in a wide circle through the opaque air, wiggling her freshly pedi’d toes.
    This should have been the perfect end to her day. She’d had a great dance class: Triple was still their instructor Mimi’s favorite dancer, but Mimi hadn’t stopped to humiliate or yell at Skye during class this time. It was a glissade in the right direction. But Skye was drowning inother worries, and her ocean of anxiety was so turbulent that even a change of heart from Mimi couldn’t calm the waters.
    “So now that we’re finally alone,” trilled Tweety, a petite olive-skinned brunette with a birdlike voice. “We’re waiting for the dirt on you and Syd.”
    Skye sighed, unfastening her platinum wavelets from their coil on the top of her head and letting her hair fall around her shoulders. Now that her hair was free, maybe she’d finally be able to confess her real feelings. “The truth?”
    “Don’t leave anything out!” Ophelia grunted from the other bench. Skye could see her flame-red bun wiggling through the white of the steam as she executed an endless series of Pilates crunches.
    Skye closed her eyes again and tried to organize her crazy thoughts into something coherent. If she told the bun-heads, would it get back to Shira? Could Skye afford to take the risk?
    “Syd must be super-intense, like Altoids after a week of Doublemint,” purred Tweety, flipping over on her massage table to do a quick cow-cat yoga sequence.
    “He’s intense, all right,” Skye spat bitterly, then continued in a flat voice. “Intensely annoying!”
    Both bun-heads sat up in the thick steam, sensing they’d hit more dirt than they’d known to dig for.
    Skye wrapped her slender, toned arms around herown shoulders and gave herself a pity-hug. “I’m totally into Taz. But Shira caught me on camera breaking things off with Syd. The camera showed us together, and Syd was acting happy, so Shira put two and two together and came up with five! She thinks Syd and I are a perfect couple, and she said that if I ever hurt her son, she’d send me home.”
    Once a chunk of Skye’s internal dam was chipped away, the whole river of truth came rushing out. Skye took a deep breath of hot steam after spilling her guts, and noticed that she already felt better. She still had Syd hanging over her like a cement cardigan, but now at least she wasn’t hiding it from everyone. Tweety and Ophelia weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, but