Varnish and gilding hide many stains.
—Mansfield Park
There are no words to describe what sex with a twenty-five-year-old Brazilian stable boy is like. It’s as good as it sounds, better even. I woke up beside Bernardo. Naked. I wish I didn’t remember how it happened but that would be a lie.
I had intended to go home with Binky to prove that I could sleep with a man I wasn’t physically attracted to just because he was rich. But I never found out because I decided that in order to sleep with Binky, what I needed was one final glass of pink champagne. So there I was at the tiki torch-lit bar in Orietta’s garden having just poured a glass, fully prepared to chug it in one gulp, when Bernardo appeared at my side.
“You should never drink champagne alone,” he said and leaned over me to grab a clean flute, his bicep brushing my breasts as he did so. “You are a beautiful woman, Lady Katie.”
I laughed at his accidental near-rhyme, which offended him.
“You are making fun of my accent?” he asked, perplexed that any woman would do such a thing.
“God no!” I squealed. “I was giggling at being called ‘Lady Katie.’ ”
“That’s not right?”
“It is when you say it,” I flirted blatantly. As I gazed into the beautiful eyes of the stable boy I felt the hair on my neck stand up. I turned and saw Binky swaying on his little duck legs, his eyes red from drink, his forehead beaded with sweat, and knew then and there that I couldn’t leave with him.
“Are you ready, Kate?” Binky blurted out and grabbed the bar with one hand to steady himself.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Bernardo. But I needn’t have worried. Bernardo leaned into my neck and whispered.
“Are you with him?”
“Please get me out of this,” I whispered back helplessly.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
“Lady Katie is not well,” Bernardo said to Binky. “I’m taking her back to her hotel.”
“I thought she was coming with me,” Binky argued hopelessly. “I can drive her.”
“You’ve had too much to drink, sir,” Bernardo said politely. He was obviously accustomed to dealing with the massive egos of the very rich. “You should stay here. I will see she gets home.”
Bernardo grabbed my hand and, giving Binky a reassuring pat on the shoulder, led me away. Sure, Bernardo wasn’t rich but it proved one thing. I may be homeless, broke, and unemployed, but I wasn’t desperate. I still wanted the whole package—and so far that meant one man: Scott Madewell. But until I could wrestle him away from Tatiana, Bernardo was a nice distraction.
I spent the next three nights with my Brazilian. Fawn was exasperated and couldn’t fathom why I would waste time on a fling when I should be focusing on Scott.
“But he’s with Tatiana,” I whined.
“And he’s going to stay with Tatiana unless you start showing your face more,” Fawn scolded me. “Really, besides sex, what could you possible have in common with Bernardo?”
It was true, Bernardo and I had nothing in common, but the sex was unbelievable. Although we also talked a lot; in fact, I learned about Brazil, about the village he came from and how poor his family was. His father had been a racehorse trainer and had taught him everything he knew about horses, but then his father was killed in a car accident and Bernardo had quit high school to provide for his family. He loved horses and polo and was apparently a great player, but lacked the money to own ponies, so had accepted this job to be close to the animals he loved. I told him nothing of my situation. He was the one person in Palm Beach who I didn’t have to impress.
The Breakers, however, was impressed with my blog for Haute. It was going so well that the hotel not only offered to extend my stay an extra week, they moved me to my own private beach bungalow. Jennifer loved the blog, too. I simply avoided answering any direct questions about how my experiment in finding a wealthy bachelor was going. The fewer people who knew about Bernardo the better.
It was our fourth night together and as the smell of Brazilian steak wafted in from the patio, I gathered up the appetizers Bernardo had made and carried them outside. He stood there in his white tank top and dark denim jeans and poured us two glasses of pinot grigio from a frosty green bottle.
“You like my new digs?” I asked proudly.
“Dig?” he repeated.
I waved my arms around, taking in the bungalow and the view. “My bungalow.”
“You bought it?”
“The hotel gave it to me,” I said. “Because I was a good girl.”
He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me inside his massive arms. “And why shouldn’t the hotel treat you this way? They are lucky to have someone of your class here. This is how it should be.”
I grinned. “I suppose you’re right. Lady Katie deserves a house of her own.” We burst out laughing.
Later that night the sex was as great as ever, but when we were finished Bernardo sat up and stared out the patio door into the darkness. I wanted to cuddle, so I reached for his arm and tried to make him hold me but he wouldn’t touch me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, wide awake with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t say,” he spoke softly. “It’s hard to discuss with a woman like you.”
My curiosity went into overdrive. There’s nothing more titillating than a gorgeous naked man with a secret.
“You can tell me anything,” I prodded.
“I want to ask you something but I’m afraid of your answer,” he said without looking at me.
I turned his head toward me so that I could see into his eyes. He looked longingly at me and we kissed. But as his lips pressed mine I had a horrible sinking feeling that I was about to receive a marriage proposal.
He pulled away and smiled. “I shouldn’t be ashamed to ask, we are practically in love.”
Ashamed? In love? What the fuck was “practically”? I decided to try to stop him before it became embarrassing. I could only imagine Fawn’s reaction.
“Bernardo, look,” I said warmly and touched his thigh. “I’ve loved our time together but I’m not looking for a commitment.”
Without missing a beat he smiled and said, “Neither am I. I need money.”
I snatched my hand from his thigh as if it were on fire. “Money?” I stammered. “How much money?”
“Not much for you, Lady Katie,” he said swiftly, beaming those white teeth at me the way he did that night at Orietta’s dinner party. “I want to buy a string of polo ponies; I know of an Argentinean player who needs money and will sell to me dirt cheap. You can be a sponsor, if you like.”
“If I like?” I snapped. “What makes you think I have enough money to buy a string of horses? I don’t even like horses!”
“But Lady Katie,” he continued. “You don’t understand because you are rich. When you are rich and an aristocrat, people give you things, like this bungalow. But when you are poor, people try and keep you that way. I want to be a player and I deserve it.”
The tables had turned. I was sleeping with a man who was a gold digger. He wasn’t interested in me. He wanted my money. He had taken me literally when I said the hotel had given me the bungalow. This stable boy was better at gold digging than I was. I was suddenly horrified by the thought that maybe he was sleeping with someone he didn’t find attractive because he needed the money and that someone was me. Just the possibility felt a whole lot worse than when Chris left me for that other, younger woman. I’d never felt so used. I was hurt and livid, and yes, a hypocrite.
“I can’t help you,” I said at last.
His demeanor changed at once and he got up from the bed and began dressing in the dark, muttering in Portuguese.
“What are you saying?” I asked, knowing as I watched him dress it would be the last time I’d ever see him.
“You don’t want to know!” he shouted.
“I wish you weren’t angry,” I said quietly. There was no way I was going to confess my situation to him. I couldn’t risk it.
“Don’t tell me how to feel!” he continued to shout. “You used me!”
I laughed out loud. “You’re the one who wants the cash!” But I stopped myself there. I wanted cash, too. “Bernardo, I can’t explain, but trust me I don’t have the money you want.”
“Trust me,” he growled, now fully dressed and poised in the doorframe. “You are no lady.”
And with that he stormed off.
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said to the empty room.
With a deep breath, I climbed out of bed and stood staring at the ocean for what seemed like forever. I had wasted precious time on a fling. Enough was enough. I had to get serious. No more Bernardos. I strolled onto the veranda and poured the leftover pinot grigio into my glass. It was no longer chilled so I tossed in a fading ice cube for good measure and took a sip, feeling as leftover and lukewarm as the wine, alone and forgotten, waiting to be tossed out after the party was over.