Page 7 of Cursed
Vince nodded. “That tails to the text I received. Right now, Marguerite and Caroline’s personal guards are already in place with them, dressed casually, with backup hitting the club in twenty minutes.” He slanted her a glance. “How, um . . . sophisticated are your sisters?”
Edeena winced. “Do I even want to know what you mean?”
When he didn’t respond right away she groaned. “Well, they’re not idiots, if that’s what you’re worried about. They have . . . dated. They’ve had sex. They’ve seen naked men. Ugh!” She threw up her hands. “Just what sort of place are we talking about here, Vince? And how can there be some sort of weird sex club for ‘consenting adults’ on one of the most exclusive islands in South Carolina?”
Vince snorted as he turned out onto the main road, heading for the new resort. “The Cypress not a sex club,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a resort, a resort that caters to the young and unattached, or the coupled-up but childless. As a result, about eighty percent of it is pure up and up—villas, restaurants, gift shops, spas, you name it. High-end, plush, as classy as you’d expect. But there’s also a couple of private pool areas and some nightclub venues that are tailor-made for a slightly edgier clientele. And they’ve taken off like a shot, so the club is trying to promote them while staying within the bounds of decency.”
“Well, that all sounds fairly reasonable. And this, ah, bachelorette party? What’s that about?” He could sense her eyes narrowing as she glanced at him. “How do you know about it, exactly?”
Dangerous waters here, but he waded in anyway. “I make it my business to know everything that happens on the island.”
“Which means you’ve been there when it was going on. How bad is it?”
“It’s . . . harmless,” he said finally. “Basically, a parade of women wearing bathing suits and sashes that say ‘new bride’ and . . . well, a collection of men who buy them drinks and chat them up.”
“A collection. Fabulous,” Edeena snorted, rubbing a hand over her face. “Caro will be puking her guts out within a half-hour. Marguerite . . .” She looked at him. “Is there an actual drinking competition? Because Marguerite will drink the locals under the table, I’m telling you right now.”
“It’s not going to get to that,” Vince said firmly. “Though you’re probably wrong, if it makes you feel any better. In the South, we pride ourselves on a lot of things. Holding our liquor is one of them.”
“In the South, you don’t have tsipouro,” Edeena retorted. Before he could respond to that, she shifted in her seat. “That’s it?” she asked, peering ahead. “It doesn’t look that bad.”
“It’s not that bad.” They were approaching the main clubhouse of the resort, and it appeared every inch the gracious southern beach residence, with dove grey ramparts trimmed in bright white, white decking, stairs and ramps at all levels, and gorgeous container gardens spilling over with softly swaying flowers in rich hues of purple, red, and violet to complement the seagrass that was carefully planted all around the building. Every hurricane that passed over the island carried with it the potential to destroy all of this landscaping, but so far, the new resort had been lucky. And judging from the stream of cars pulling through valet parking, they were accruing more than enough cushion for future landscaping modifications.
Edeena barely waited for him to reach the front of the queue at the valet station before she was out the door, hastening up the front steps.
“Not that way,” Vince said, and she halted, her expression questioning as she turned back to him. He gestured to a side pathway. “That’s the main area of the resort, truly impressive, but not what we want.”
She strode forward quickly, but when she reached him, he extended a hand and grasped her shoulder. She stiffened at the unexpected touch, but she didn’t pull away. Her cheeks were tinged pink, however, as he focused on her.
“I’d rather not cause a scene here,” he said quietly. “The resort is new and it’s state of the art. They’ve got security cameras everywhere and they take notice of anyone acting out of the ordinary. If you want to keep a low profile, I suggest you follow my lead.”
Edeena sighed, then nodded. “I’m sure they’ll be fine, it’s just . . . well they haven’t had a lot of freedoms. You’d expect they would, but my father kept us in line pretty heavily. And we don’t have many clubs with sections for, um, consenting adults in Garronia.” She winced. “With my luck, Marguerite will decide that’s what she wants to focus her internship on.”
Vince elected to refrain from commenting as he steered Edeena to the side entrance into the Cypress Resort. The adults-only section was in the midst of an expansion, with more villas cropping up along the left edge of the building, but the large gated entrance remained subdued, very much in keeping with the design of the main resort. It was only after you got inside that you noticed things were . . . slightly different.
“Please let me be clear,” he said as they continued along the manicured path, “it’s not an adult club in the way you might be thinking. There aren’t wild orgies on the front lawn. It’s simply more permissible for open displays of affection, edgier clothing choices, and—”
“And bachelorette parties in broad daylight. On a Tuesday,” Edeena said. Instantly she glanced up at him. “I’m sorry, I know you must think I’m a prude, but these are my sisters. I’ve always managed to handle them carefully enough that they have fun while still staying safe, but this . . .” she gave a small laugh. “This is a little out of my purview.”
Handle, he mused. Edeena pulled out her passport for identification, and he fished for his wallet. What would it be like to think that you had to ‘handle’ your younger sisters to make sure no harm befell them, and how long had Edeena been doing it? More intriguingly, who’d been assigned as her handler all these years?
They flashed their IDs to the concierge, and the shrewd older woman’s eyes lit up as she surveyed Edeena appraisingly. Beautiful women were the life’s blood of these kind of establishments, Vince knew. Something else he should have warned Edeena about before they arrived. Too late now.
They swept into the open courtyard of the complex, and Edeena’s gaze went immediately to the high walls that provided a distinct visual barrier between the “consenting adults” section of the Cypress and the main resort. The management’s attempts at discretion were notable and immediately obvious, which contributed to the gentility of the place, despite the three large nightclubs that bordered the half-dozen pools clustered in the center of the courtyard.
“No one here is swimming laps, I take it,” Edeena commented drily. The largest pool was a circle, and about half the length of a regulation swimming pool. It was surrounded by a kaleidoscope of other, smaller pools—some apparently heated to hot-tub temperatures, some with waterfalls, all of them boasting men and women in various stages of undress. Not even this section of the Cypress allowed full nudity, but as long as there was a thread of cloth covering the essentials, you qualified.
Edeena’s gaze had already moved to the center pool, and she drew nearer to Vince, as if taking comfort from his presence.
He liked that, he decided. He liked that a lot.
“Oh, dear God,” Edeena choked back a laugh. “They seriously are wearing sashes. I thought that was a joke!”
“Vince! Well, bless my soul. I haven’t seen you here in an age!”
The woman’s sultry voice cut across Vince’s focus, and he turned abruptly to see Janet Mulready, guest experience manager of the Cypress Resort, strolling up to him, her impressively-toned body encased in a swimsuit and sari bottom that left very little to the imagination. Edeena turned as well, and he practically hear her aristocratic eyebrows arching in surprise.
Janet had been the manager assigned to Vince when he’d toured the facility after it had first opened, and she’d offered him far more than a survey of the buildings and grounds. He’d been momentarily tempted, but also late for an appointment on the other side of the island, so he’d managed to keep a hold on his professionalism. The woman was knockout gorgeous, like most of the Cypress’s management. No matter their shape or size, they were all beautiful people, and Janet was more buff than most of them.
“Miss Mulready,” he said, offering her a polite smile—a smile that wavered as she held out long, glistening arms toward him, her fingers fluttering. He caught both of her hands and she pulled him close, bussing him on the cheek while managing not to press her body against his.
“That’s the closest I can get to a kiss, covered as I am in sunscreen,” she cooed. “But perhaps we can work around that later?”
He blinked as she backed up again, her gaze turning to Edeena. “And who is this?” she asked brightly. “Your sister?”