Page 41 of Vitamin Sea
She fired off a quick email to Jack asking if he and his friend would like to meet her and Lala for dinner. To bypass her lack of a phone she asked him to text Lala.
Not ten minutes went by before a message popped up on her bestie’s device.
“They’re in!” Lala exclaimed. “He wants to know if we’d like to go to their resort. Apparently, they have five different restaurants. What do you think?”
“Let’s do it,” Chloe replied.
Lala typed out a text and confirmed a time.
“I said we would meet them in their lobby at six,” she said, tossing her phone on the couch.
“Careful!” Chloe teased—if something happens to your phone, we’re back to communicating like it’s the nineties.”
“Not landlines and letters?” Lala said in a mock horror.
“Yes, Lala,” Chloe deadpanned. “Landlines and letters.”
???
At quarter to six, Chloe and Lala were waiting in the lobby of Costa Morpho for a house car to drive them next door. It was a short walk, but given they were both wearing pumps and had spent a large portion of time on their hair and makeup, hoofing it to the resort was out of the question. Not to mention, Chloe was still a hurting unit.
Lala’s red locks were done up in sexy curls that made it look like she had just left a salon, and she wore a fire-engine-red mini-dress and ‘barely there’ makeup that took just as much time to do as makeup that’s ‘very there’. Chloe, for her part, had opted to pull part of her hair back with a clip and had put on layers of mascara, a swipe of eyeliner, and a hefty helping of blush. Her black linen gown had a thigh-high slit, a fitted bodice, and an off-the-shoulder neckline.
When Chloe had looked in the mirror, she felt good about herself. Despite the assortment of black, purple, and blue bruises she was sporting, she felt confident. It had been a while, she realized, since she had felt that way. The last six months of dating Liam had done a number on her self-esteem.Which hadn’t improved after being broken up with. But, she questioned, had her confidence been all that high when she was with Liam to begin with? It was one of the things she had been thinking about now that she had the benefit of time and distance.
The van pulled up to the familiar—to Chloe—vaulted-ceiling lobby of the Four Seasons and the duo stepped out of the car and into the warm evening air. They were only a few steps inside when Chloe spotted Jack and his friend sitting on cushioned chairs just to the left of the concierge. A grin spread across Jack’s face as he stood up to greet them, and his friend followed behind.
“Hi!” Chloe smiled. “Lala, this is Jack.” She gestured to her rescuer who was handsomely clad in blue cotton pants and a white button-up linen shirt. It offset his perfect tan, and Chloe felt her stomach do flip-flops.
“Jack, nice to meet you.” Lala shook his outstretched hand.
“Likewise.” He grinned at her bestie. “This is Daniel,” he nodded his head towards his friend. Daniel was in gray slacks, a white button-up shirt and a gray linen sports jacket. He looked just as handsome as his friend and Chloe could see the spark of interest emanating from Lala.
They shook Daniel’s hand and Chloe thanked him for coming to her aid the previous day. Daniel shook it off and insisted that it was all Jack.
For Chloe, itwasall Jack, but not in the sense of being rescued.
“For dinner, we have a couple of options,” Jack told them. “I made reservations at the seafood, Italian, and Asian-fusion restaurants—what are we thinking?”
“I vote Italian,” Lala said automatically.
“A woman who knows what she wants,” Daniel teased.
He was already flirting with her friend and that was before any kind of liquid courage. Maybe Chloe wasn’t the only one who had found a potential vacation romance.
Lala shot Daniel a flirty smile and turned to Chloe. “What’s your vote, Chlo?”
“I’m good with Italian,” she nodded.
“Italian it is,” Jack declared.
The foursome walked through the lobby and onto the grounds of the resort exchanging small talk as they went. Jack naturally ended up beside Chloe while Daniel and Lala walked just ahead of them.
“You look stunning,” Jack remarked as they headed towards the restaurant.
“Thank you.” Chloe smiled shyly. “At any rate I imagine I look better than the soggy sea creature you pulled out of the ocean yesterday.”
Jack laughed before Chloe added: “By the way—you look pretty good yourself.”
