The au pairs skinny-dipping by Melissa de La Cruz Page A

stated, in the same way that someone would say, "The sun is hot" or "The earth is round," like it was simply a fact of life and nothing to get all hot and bothered about.
    "Thank you," she said, meeting his gaze with her level one.
    "You must get told that a lot, I'm sure. It must get extremely. . . ennuyeux . . . uh, boring," Philippe said.
    "It is, actually," Jacqui said seriously.
    "Then maybe I should just say you are very ugly," he teased.
    Jacqui threw a snorkel at him. He was cute, but he was also quick and she liked that. She hugged her legs to her chest and reluctantly cracked open her SAT book. Her first class was tomorrow night, and as much as she just wanted to spend the day flirting with Philippe, she couldn't afford to be distracted.
    Philippe's cell rang again, which it seemed to do constantly. Jacqui wondered how someone who'd never been to the Hamptons could have made so many friends so quickly.
    '"Allo?" he asked, snapping open his phone. He spoke in rapid French, then excused himself, hoisting his backpack on his shoulder.
    "Where are you going?" Jacqui called.
    Philippe held up his finger to say, "Just a minute," but he kept walking away toward the boardwalk. Jacqui noticed several girls
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    watching him from behind their oversized Gucci and Chanel frames, as well as a few guys checking him out from under their striped umbrellas. Philippe was giving everyone, male and female, the same flirtatious smile. Jacqui sighed and dropped her head to look at her book. She would never understand the French.
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    that's why it's called
    page six six six
    LATER THAT SAME MORNING, MARA WOKE UP TO FIND
    herself alone in the au pairs' room. It was almost eleven-thirty, and Philippe and Jacqui were nowhere to be found. Mara was surprised she'd slept so late and that neither of them had woken her up. Last night was a hazy blur. She remembered dancing wildly when the old rock song "Livin' on a Prayer" came on, crashing into Eliza, and trading shopping stories with Chauncey Raven, the beleaguered pop star who'd recently had her second quickie marriage in Vegas, who was sitting at the next table. She'd also spent a good part of the evening perched on Garrett's lap, since a bunch of his friends had shown up and they'd had to squeeze into the banquette, but she'd fended off his good-night kiss when he'd dropped her off at four in the morning.
    Mara shuffled into the main house, which was reverberating with the sound of the Reynolds Castle's jackhammers. She shook her head--all that pounding was not what she needed right
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    now--and walked into the kitchen, where antique French cabinetry covered every surface, even the Sub-Zero fridge. She realized that maybe the Reynolds Castle was just like every house in the Hamptons, just bigger and more obvious. The kitchen was empty save for Madison, who was weighing a boiled chicken breast on a kitchen scale. Mara watched as the girl carefully cut it in half, weighed it again, and then put it on a plate with several raw baby carrots.
    "What are you doing?"
    Madison glared. "Nothing."
    Mara pulled up a stool next to her and began to assemble breakfast, slicing a banana and pouring two-percent milk over a bowl of cereal. "You know, Madison, when I was younger, I was kind of chubby. But when I turned fourteen, my metabolism kicked in when I was playing a lot of soccer, and I lost a lot of weight."
    "I hate soccer," Madison sulked, slamming the door behind her.
    Mara sighed. She picked up a copy of the New York Post, which had been opened to the Page Six column. HAS THE REYNOLDS HEIR FOUND LOVE? screamed the headline, above a picture of Mara perched on Garrett's lap from the night before.
    She was leaning on Garrett's arm, laughing at what he was saying. Garrett was smirking into the camera, holding a fizzing bottle of champagne in one hand, with the other clasped firmly around
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    Mara's waist. Aside from a few snide mentions about the hundred-thousand-square-foot "Frankenstein Castle" the