Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory. Сидни Шелдон

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the truth was that for all her flirting, Toni Gilletti had yet to allow Billy to seduce her a second time. The longer she held out, the more Billy wanted her.

      Toni was like no other girl Billy had ever met. Not only was she a wildcat in bed, she was funny and smart, not to mention a brilliant mimic and natural performer. Her impression of Mrs. Kramer, Camp Williams’s elderly proprietress, had her fellow counselors crying with laughter. Toni had balls. Way bigger balls than he did, for all Cassandra’s kind compliments about his attributes. To Charles Braemar Murphy, Toni Gilletti was a trophy, a toy to be enjoyed over the summer. To Billy Hamlin, she was everything. Though he’d admitted it to no one, Billy was head over heels in love. He was determined not just to seduce Toni again, but to marry her.

      TONI WATCHED AS BILLY DIVED INTO the water. Just look at that physique. She loved the way the muscles rippled across Billy’s broad swimmer’s back and the way his powerful arms cut effortlessly through the water like twin scimitars slicing through silk. Charles Braemar Murphy was good-looking in a preppy, chiseled sort of way. But he had none of Billy’s raw sensuality, none of that animal magnetism, that predatory, erotic hunger that oozed out of Billy’s pores like sweat.

      What Charles did have was a trust fund the size of Canada. With each passing day Toni Gilletti found it harder to decide which she wanted more: Adonis the Love God? Or Camp Williams’s answer to Croesus?

      Last night she’d fantasized about screwing Billy again while Charles was making love to her. Lying back on a cashmere blanket, with Charles diligently pumping away on top of her to a sound track of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello, It’s Me”—terrible song, but Charles had insisted on bringing along his portable eight-track to “set the mood”—Toni remembered what it felt like to be pinned beneath Billy’s powerful, masculine thighs. If he kept pursuing her like this she was bound to give in eventually. Toni Gilletti could no more stay faithful to an unsatisfying lover like Charles than a lioness could become vegetarian. Billy had been a wonderful lay. She needed fresh meat.

      “C’mon, Toni! You’re suppothed to be pothum. Try and catch the ball!”

      Graydon Hammond looked up at her plaintively. He had his arm around Nicholas Handemeyer, another adorably geeky seven-year-old and the heir to a vast estate in Maine. Dark-haired Graydon and the angelically blond Nicholas were probably Toni Gilletti’s favorite boys at Camp Williams. For all her carefully cultivated bad-girl ways, Toni was a popular camp counselor and naturally maternal. Her own mother was so interested in shopping and vacations and spending Toni’s dad’s money, she’d have been hard-pressed to pick Toni out of a three-kid lineup. But in spite of this poor parental example, Toni warmed toward small children and found them a blast to be around: funny, energetic, loving. Best of all they didn’t judge you. Toni loved them for that more than anything.

      Today, however, hungover and in serious need of a line of coke, she could have done without the noise, and the questions, and the endless sweaty little hands pawing at her.

      “I’m trying, Graydon, okay?” She sounded grumpier than she meant to. “Throw it again.”

      “Let me help.”

      Billy Hamlin had materialized beside her, his sleek blond head emerging out of the crystal-clear water like an otter’s. After scooping up a giggling Graydon and Nicholas under each arm, he dropped them in the shallows, dividing the other boys up into teams and getting the game started. After a few minutes, Toni swam over, allowing her bare arm to brush against Billy’s as she retrieved the ball. Just that small hint of physical contract was electric.

      “Thanks.” She smiled. “But go enjoy yourself. You only get a half day off per week, and I know you don’t wanna spend it with my kids.”

      “That’s true.” Billy gazed unashamedly at Toni’s breasts. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”

      “A deal?”

      “Sure. If I find a freshwater pearl in the next fifteen minutes, you spend the night with me tomorrow.”

      Toni laughed, enjoying the attention. “You’ve only found three pearls in the last month. You’re hardly likely to scoop one up in fifteen minutes.”

      “Exactly. It’s hopeless. So why not shake on the deal?”

      “You know why not.”

      Toni glanced out to the harbor lanes, where the Braemar Murphys’ yacht, Celeste, glittered in the afternoon sunshine.

      “Oh, come on. Live a little,” Billy teased. “You know he bores you. Besides, like you said, I’m hardly likely to find a pearl in a quarter of an hour, am I?”

      “But if you do?”

      Slipping an arm around Toni’s waist, Billy pulled her close so their lips were almost touching. “If I do, then it’s fate. We’re meant to be together. Deal?”

      Toni grinned. “Okay, deal. But it has to be at least the size of a pea.”

      “A pea? Oh, c’mon now. That’s impossible!”

      “A pea. Now get out of here! I’ve got some serious possum playing to do.”

      BILLY SWAM OUT INTO DEEPER WATER, his shucking knife clamped between his teeth like a pirate’s cutlass. He made a couple of dives, emerging each time with a large oyster shell and making a great theatrical show of prizing it open, but with no success, clutching his heart and swooning into the water, all for Toni’s benefit.

      Within a few minutes, a growing crowd of spectators had gathered to watch from the beach. The boy was an incredible swimmer and he was putting on quite a show.

      Toni Gilletti thought, He’s funny, but he’s getting way too big headed. Turning away, she threw herself into the game with the boys, deliberately ignoring Billy’s antics.

      CHARLES BRAEMAR MURPHY WAS FEELING GOOD. He’d enjoyed a delicious lunch of fresh Maine lobster rolls on his parents’ yacht, washed down with a couple of glasses of vintage Chablis. His old man had agreed to raise his allowance. And Toni had promised to wear the satin crotchless panties he’d bought her in bed tonight, a prospect that had had him in an almost constant state of arousal since daybreak.

      Stretching out on a lounge chair on the upper deck, Charles felt his confidence returning. I have to stop obsessing about the Hamlin kid. Sure he’s after Toni. Everyone’s after Toni. But he’s no threat to me. She already had him and she tossed him aside.

      Toni would be on the beach now, building sand castles with her group of little boys.

      I’ll surprise her, Charles thought on a whim. Bring her some chocolate-dipped strawberries from the galley. Chicks love that sort of meaningless romantic gesture. She’ll be even more grateful in bed tonight than usual.

      He clicked his fingers imperiously at one of the deckhands.

      “Get one of the tenders ready. I’m going ashore.”

      THE BOYS HAD TIRED OF POSSUM and were hunting for crab claws in the shallows. A collective gasp from the beach made Toni turn around.

      Oh my God! Idiot!

      Billy had swum out beyond the barrier that separated the swimming and harbor lanes. There were three large yachts moored offshore, and a host of smaller boats СКАЧАТЬ