Free A Summer To Remember (Seasons of Love & Lust Book 1) by Selene Chardou Page B

crap went to Alastor so I logged out of the spreadsheet and decided to check my Facebook account instead.
    “Sure, that sounds like a plan. When do we leave?”
    “This Wednesday,” Talia said excitedly, sipping from her tall Frappuccino. “We were planning to make a proper trip of it since Independence Day is on Thursday. We would come back home on Sunday so it would be a nice, long relaxing weekend.”
    “Just us girls?”
    “‘Course not. How much fun would that be? Jude, Paul, and a couple of their friends from CDG Investments were going to come so we could make it an exciting weekend. We’re staying at the vacation estate that belongs to his friend’s family. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
    “No, not at all,” I lied, checking my Facebook timeline.
    Since my heart-to-heart with Paul, he’d let Ashley down gently but that didn’t necessarily mean she was out of our lives. Imogen and Jude never hooked up, and since he thought what Paul had done was downright mean, he’d taken up the cause of making sure Ashley was all right. They had become very close over the last couple of weeks and I suspected they were sleeping together.
    On the other hand, Paul was giving me nothing but time to heal from what had happened to me at Vassar. I hadn’t slept with anyone since Brandon and I missed the feel of a warm male body on top of mine. I wanted Paul and I to take the next step and consummate our relationship but he was determined to take it slow. He didn’t want me to rush into anything. At the same time, it wasn’t like we were strangers. We’d known each other most of our lives so why couldn’t we just take the plunge and start a sexual relationship?
    Well, for one reason, no one knew about us. I hadn’t even told Talia what was going on because she’d had work problems and hated working with Scarlet Fever. Their new album was finished but Kasper and Jaden had insisted they start writing songs for the sixth album they planned to record. It was a pain the ass for her and all she did was complain so I didn’t want to make her feel bad with my good news.
    Plus, she’d recently discovered the only man she’d ever loved was going out with Fresca Kerrigan. She was an up and coming actress who’d recently celebrated her twenty-first birthday in Vegas by getting drunk and thrown out of Chateau, an exclusive club at Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. It didn’t exactly sit well with Talia when Seth Delvecchio breezed into the studio to cut a track for Scarlet Fever and his new extension-wearing, bleached blonde, size-two Miss Thang was in tow.
    Talia was hurt beyond belief but she wouldn’t share her pain with me, and to talk about how in love I was with Paul just didn’t seem right or fair. It wasn’t what best friends did. I doubted she would see it that way once she found out, but right at that moment, my lips were sealed.
    “It sounds great. I am really excited,” I said, smiling in return.
    “Cool. I’ll see you at the loft tonight and we can talk about the details then.”
    I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
    Talia opened my door and almost walked directly into Paul. “Jeez, where did you come from? Shouldn’t you be at work or something?”
    “I stopped by to see Jerrica real quick.”
    “Hmm, you dump Ashley and all of a sudden you and Jerri are spending a lot of time together. One wouldn’t have anything to do with the other, would it?”
    I winced. Talia had never been slow on the uptake and she could read us both like open books. Paul laughed it off and grabbed her by the waist.
    “Did it ever occur to you that Jerri and I are good friends? Besides, I didn’t ‘dump’ Ashley. Our parting was mutual, if you must know. She is looking for a husband and marriage. I’m not ready for that yet, and certainly not with a woman I have known less than six months. I’m a player, you know that, Talia.”
    “Humph, in your dreams, maybe.” She kissed his cheek and walked out of the