CHAPTER FIVE

Later that evening, after leaving Giorgio in the elevator, Vivian was alone at the hotel. Nayla and the other girls stayed out all night, and decided to stay all day at whatever party they were crashing. At least that was what she figured. She had no clue where they were or what they were up to. They hadn't bothered to check on her.

Not that it mattered to her all that much. She didn't seem to fit in with them anymore anyway. They wanted to have fun and fun and more fun. She wanted to have fun, too, but then she also wanted to have quiet times. She wanted to sightsee and enjoy just doing little of nothing.

She was fine doing her own thing.

And she wasn't leaving Beverly Hills until she walked every inch of the famous Rodeo Drive and took it all in.

That was why she put on her nice shorts and sleeveless blouse, her sandals and nice straw hat, and grabbed her shoulder bag with a bottled water sticking out, and headed out of the hotel's exit doors.

She walked. From Sunset Boulevard over to Rodeo Drive she walked. She looked in the window of all those famous stores and marveled at what she saw. From Gucci to Fendi to Louie Vuitton to Chanel, it was like a name brand museum. Only these stores were alive and well and thriving. She walked and looked and peeped. She even went inside a few of them: just to get out of the heat.

But when she got tired of walking, she went inside an ice cream shop, purchased a cup of ice cream for a ridiculous amount of money she really didn't have to blow like that, and then she made her way back outside. There were tables and chairs outside of a few of the stores, and she settled in front of one of them: the House of Janardi. Another powerhouse name brand store. And she quietly ate her chocolate ice cream and people-watched. She got a taste of how the rich people rolled.

Inside the House of Janardi, Giorgio Janardi had been spotted by a few of their high-end customers and were talking to him. He was back in Beverly Hills after a disappointing trip to South Carolina, and decided to stop by his store. But as he was talking with one of his customers, he heard loud voices at the front door. When he excused himself and walked over to see what was going on, he noticed his store manager talking to somebody outside.

"It is a free country, I grant you that, but those tables and chairs belong to us. If you aren't buying anything, which is obvious you aren't, you need to move on."

Giorgio couldn't agree with his manager more. They had problems with people stopping and sitting without even the curtesy of coming into the store to purchase or at least look. All of his other stores were by reservation. You couldn't just walk into them. But his Beverly Hills store, and his Paris store, and his London store were all exceptions. But loitering around the store was a problem.

He glanced out the window to see who his manager was scolding this time, but when he saw who it was, his heart dropped. And suddenly he wasn't agreeing with it.

He hurried to the door. "Leave her alone," he said to his manager.

"She's just some bitch looking for a rest area," his manager replied.

Giorgio gave him a chilling look. "What did I say?"

The manager, not accustomed to the boss siding with vagrants, stepped back. "Yes, sir," he said, sufficiently humbled.

"Get back to work."

"Yes, sir." The manager did as he was told and left the front area.

Giorgio went back to the window and looked at Vivian. She looked so cute, he thought, in her shorts that showed just how shapely her unblemished, slender legs were, her sleeveless blouse tucked into those shorts, and that hat. She had a flare about her even the most seasoned stylists couldn't match. Because her look was effortless. She wasn't trying too hard. Hell, she wasn't trying at all. And it worked. In his well-trained eyes, it worked.

He knew he should have left her alone, but he couldn't. He went outside and sat at the table with her.

When he first walked out of the clothing store, Vivian was confused. "When did you get back?" she asked him as he sat down.

"Not long ago," he said to her.

"So what are you doing here? You came back to town and decided to buy a suit?"

At first Giorgio didn't understand. Then he realized she had no clue that his last name was Janardi. That he owned the Janardi brand. That he is Janardi.

And it was just as well. "Something like that," he said. "What are you doing here?" Never a believer in serendipity, it seemed too coincidental to him that she would take a break in front of his store of all the stores on Rodeo Drive.

"I was bored sitting around the hotel, so I decided to go sightseeing."

"In your little hat," he said, smiling.

She smiled too. "Me and my hat. At least I have that."

He crossed his legs. Just watching her was giving him a hard-on. "Where are your so-called friends?"

Vivian looked at him. "Nayla, my best friend," she emphasized, "is still out partying. So are the other girls."

"They didn't invite you along? I'm sure the guys they hang with would appreciate having your cute little tush in the mix."

Vivian didn't respond to that. He didn't appreciate her, except for what he got out of that tush of hers, so why should they? "I'm doing my own thing," she said. Then she smiled. "My baby brother called me."

She seemed to perk up just mentioning her brother. "What did he say?"

"He wants me to come home so he could go home. He's staying with his father's mother. His grandma. She's very old and very strict. She didn't want to keep him, but I told her I didn't have anybody else."

"No other friends?"

"That I would trust with my baby brother? No. So she said she'd keep him. But I had to buy her some beer. That's the only reason I was able to go on this trip."

"She sounds like a lovely lady."

Vivian stared at him. He seemed to relish in putting down the people she knew. And she wasn't having it. "Matter of fact, she is a lovely lady. Is she perfect like I'm sure your grandma is? No. Are my friends perfect like I'm sure yours are? No. But they do the best they can."

Giorgio realized his rudeness was showing again. But this time he wasn't apologizing. She wasn't a good grandmother if you had to purchase her beer in order for her to keep her own grandson. Her friends weren't good friends when they left that mansion without bothering to make sure she left with them. They weren't good people he didn't care what she thought. And he should know: his family and relatives were worse. "How's the ice cream?" he asked her instead.

"Delicious." She had some ice cream on her little baby-looking plastic spoon. "Want a taste?" She offered it to him.

As he leaned in and tasted her chocolate ice cream, he thought about how he felt tasting her. And it was no comparison. She won hands down. And he loved chocolate ice cream.

"How is it to you?"

"It's good," he said, nodding his head. "Very tasty."

She smiled. "You look like you've never eaten ice cream in your life."

"Oh that's not true. I ate plenty, right there on the Jersey Shore. And hitching rides to Coney Island during the summers when I was a kid? Forget about it."

"You said the Jersey Shore. You're from Jersey?"

"That's right."

Vivian smiled. "I'm from Newark."

"Ah." He already knew she was from Newark. It was mentioned by one of those girls at the party. "How about that."

"We're so different," Vivian said. "I would have never in a million years thought you were from Jersey."

"See? I'm choke full of surprises."

They both laughed.

Then Vivian looked at him before asking. But she was too curious. She had been worried about it. Even, a time or two, regretted not going with him. "How was your trip to South Carolina?"

A drained look appeared in his eyes. "Unproductive. To say the least."

"You didn't find what you were looking for?"

"No."

Vivian continued to look at him. He seemed like a straight-up guy to her. She didn't see him as a bullshitter. "What were you looking for?" she asked him. "Unless it's too personal to share."

Giorgio studied her. "Why would you assume it was a personal matter and not work-related?"

"By the way you couldn't wait to get there. I don't mean to seem judgy, but you don't come across to me as a man who has to chase a dollar."

"No, I don't have to chase a dollar." Then he considered her. Would she understand, or continue to be judgy , as she put it? "I went to South Carolina because my ex-wife was supposedly seen there."

Vivian didn't expect that to be the reason. "You were married before? I wouldn't have thought you were the marrying kind."

"There you go all judgy again," Giorgio said with a smile.

Vivian had to smile too. "You're right. You are so right. Sorry about that. But why would your ex-wife being spotted in South Carolina cause you to hurry to get there? She's your ex-wife after all."

Giorgio exhaled first. "I have a son," he said. "I may have a son," he added.

Another surprise to Vivian. He didn't seem like the father-type to her either. And that wasn't a judgement, that was an observation. But what he added didn't make sense. "Why would you say you may have a son? You either have one or you don't."

"She was pregnant when we were going through a divorce. Then after the divorce, she claimed to have a miscarriage. But her maid told me she actually did have that baby and fled with him. A midwife came to the house, she claimed, and delivered the child. She didn't know who the midwife was, and I could never find out who she was either. I hired investigators to find Yara and the baby, all kinds of investigators, and I searched too. But nothing turned up."

"And they weren't in South Carolina?"

"She was there, alright. She had been spotted. But by the time I arrived, and my guys were still trying to corral her, she had gotten away again. She has security surrounding her too. She has good money thanks to our divorce settlement. And they're good at their job."

"How long have you been searching?"

"About a year now."

"Did you check the hospital to see if she had a miscarriage? Maybe that maid was lying for her."

"I searched every hospital within a hundred-mile radius. There was no record at any of the hospitals of a miscarriage or a birth by her, or anything else baby-related. So I don't know. And it may be a wild-goose chase. But I need to find out. I said I would never allow a child of mine to be raised the way I was raised. My father abandoned me and never looked back. I was never going to abandon my son. Then this bitch . . ." His anger rose against his ex-wife. But for Vivian's sake, he held his tongue. He didn't want her to think any less of him than she probably already did. But it was her response that surprised him.

"I can't imagine what you're going through, Jonni," she said. And she said it so heartfelt that Giorgio felt that same feeling of warmth toward her that he felt when he was cumming inside of her.

"I don't have children," she continued saying, "but I have a baby brother. And the thought that I wouldn't know where he was in this world would just devastate me. You're right to keep searching to make sure it was a miscarriage. Don't ever stop. You'll find out the truth someday."

Giorgio smiled. Most of his friends told him to forget it and that she probably did have a miscarriage. But not Vivian. She was one of a kind. Thank you," he said.

" Giorgio !"

It was the loud voice of a woman, presumably with a French accent, further down the sidewalk. They both turned and saw a tall, skinny blonde white woman hurrying to them. She had all kinds of shopping bags with her as if she was sightseeing too. But unlike Vivian, she was buying everything she saw.

When Giorgio saw her, he smiled and rose to his feet. "Marianna! It's been ages!"

She all but ran up to him and threw her long, skinny arms around him.

" Ciao bella ," he said as he hugged her vigorously too.

"Oh, Gio, it's so magnifico to see you again! And right here of all places." She looked up at the House of Janardi's sign and they both grinned.

"What are you in town for?" Giorgio asked her.

"Michael's wedding.You?"

"Same."

"Oh my," she said with a grin. "We're getting together. I can see it in the stars."

As soon as she said that, Vivian grabbed up her shoulder bag and her ice cream and began standing up. She felt dirty, like she had slept with that woman's man.

But Giorgio was suddenly concerned. "Where are you going?"

"I've got more things to see."

Marianna extended her hand. "Hello, I'm Marianna."

She was grinning with that Julia Roberts Pretty Woman vibe. But only she seemed to be grinning at Vivian, not with her. Vivian had to sit her ice cream cup back on the table to shake the hand. "Hi." She wasn't about to tell that woman her name. But after they shook hands, she went to pick back up her ice cream cup, only to have it turn over and spill out. "Ah man!"

Marianna was grinning full-throttled now as Vivian tried to clean up her mess.

"It's okay," Giorgio said softly as he touched Vivian's frantic-moving hand to stop her from trying to wipe it up. "I'll take care of it."

Vivian hesitated. She never left a mess for somebody else to clean up. But she suddenly had an emotional swell where she could feel tears attempting to appear in her eyes. And she couldn't allow Giorgio and Miss France, or whomever that woman was, to see her cry. And to see her cry literally over spilled milk. Because why should she cry? She had no stake in him. She, in fact, walked out on him!

But for some unexplainable reason she did feel sad that she wasn't carefree like Marianna . That she wasn't able to go shopping up and down the lane as if the world was her oyster. That she wasn't in his league.

She hesitated longer than she knew was necessary, then she placed her shoulder bag strap on her small shoulder. "Thanks," she said, careful to avoid his eyes, and then she walked away.

Marianna looked at Giorgio and grinned as if to say he could pick'em. Then she threw her skinny arms around him again. "I'm going to enjoy every inch of you," she whispered in his ear. "Every inch."

But as she was whispering sweet nothings in his ear and pushing her body closer against him as she was hugging him, and as he hugged her in return, he was still watching Vivian. Until she was clean out of sight.

Later that night, after spending the evening with Marianna in her hotel room (and bed), he still couldn't get Vivian off of his mind. Even while he was with Marianna, he was envisioning Vivian beneath him. And how badly he wanted to be inside of her again. How much he wished he would have told her why he was going to South Carolina when she asked him, because she might have understood enough to want to go with him. To support him in his disappointment. To be there for him unlike any human being ever had.

When he returned to his own hotel, he still had her on his mind and he couldn't let her go. He found out which hotel room in which she was staying and he decided to drop by. Which was a lot for him to do. He never bothered to walk across the street for any woman. But he was getting off the elevator on the second floor, walking around corridors, looking for her.

But no one answered the door.

Which seemed to sum it up best for him. Leave that good lady alone. Don't get her caught up in your bullshit. Go. Just go. She's better off without you . That was the lesson learned for him.

There were new sightings of his ex-wife that next morning. Howard Zorn, his security chief, believed she had escaped over to ---, with a couple of sightings they were going to check out. Giorgio decided to go too. To make certain they were following up fully and completely. It took three days of his time. And all three days turned up blanks.

When he returned to Beverly Hills two days later, he discovered that Vivian and her so-called friends had already packed up and left.

Although he was hugely disappointed, he let it slide.

But after that day, and for the better part of six long months, he thought about her, and dreamed about her, regularly. Couldn't get her off of his mind. He considered tracking her down probably a hundred times. But when he got her, then what? He even considered committing to her. But he knew he was blowing smoke up his own ass. He wasn't committing to anybody. He was good at never committing. And why should he attempt to drag that decent, moral, tidy young lady into his untidied, immoral life?

By the seventh month, he left that fantasy alone and forced himself, willed himself, to forget all about her.

He was good at that too.