Trading Up by Candace Bushnell Page B

three-inch, spike-heeled Dolce & Gabbana sandals were sinking into the earth, giving her an ungainly gait. This would never do, so she stumbled the few feet back to her car to take off her shoes.
    As she bent over to unfasten the strap, she had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching her. She hated being caught unawares—had, indeed, always hated being in situations in which she couldn’t control the impression she might create—and she jerked her head up. Sure enough, not only was she being watched, she was being watched by the very person she had secretly come to impress: Zizi.
    Now, this was unfortunate, she thought. He was leaning against a Range Rover with his arms folded across his chest (where on earth had he come from, Janey thought, the field had been deserted when she’d driven in), and on his face was an unmistakable smirk of amusement, as if he knew she had come specifically to find him. And the worst thing about it, she thought, as she checked her balance against the car, was that he was every bit as good-looking as she’d thought he would be when he had passed her on the highway in his Ferrari. No, cancel that: He was 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 47
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    better-looking. He had that dangerous sort of male beauty on which a woman might stupidly and readily throw away her pride, and he knew it.
    For a second, she considered getting into her car and driving away (now that would confuse him), but then he started walking toward her. She quickly looked down at her feet, wondering if he was going to stop and talk to her, but instead, he strode by (he was a good five inches taller than she was, and she was 5'10"), and as he passed, he said playfully, “You need boots.”
    “Boots?” she scoffed. “What for?”
    “The mud,” he called over his shoulder.
    And that was it.
    She had a nearly uncontrollable urge to run after him, which was probably what he expected her to do (which was what she imagined he expected all women would want to do), as she stood awkwardly with one naked, exposed foot poised over the grass.
    And then he stopped and turned.
    “Well?” he asked.
    “Well what?” she said.
    “Can I help you?”
    “I’m looking for Harold Vane,” she said, as if to emphasize the fact that she was not looking for him.
    “Ah, el patrón . I will take you to him,” he said, giving her an intense look that implied there might be a larger meaning behind his words. He walked back to the Range Rover, opened the door, and removed a pair of rubber boots.
    “Here,” he said with a smirk.
    He held out the boots to her and their fingers touched. A jolt of electricity passed between them. The shock left Janey dizzy and slightly disoriented, as if she’d lost all sense of the horizon, while other details came into sharp relief: a gray crack on the tip of one black rubber boot, the gritty texture of the rough grass beneath her foot, and, burned into her brain, the strange creamy green color of his eyes, which reminded her of the warm Caribbean Sea through which one can clearly see shells and small bright fish against an oatmeal-colored bed of sand. Had he felt it too, she wondered wildly, or was it all in her imagination? And if not, what did it mean?
    And then he was striding across the field with the confidence of a young god, as she clomped awkwardly after him, trying to keep up. She couldn’t take her eyes off him (who could have?), and as he turned and smiled, she saw that he had that air of deliberate kindness combined with a world-weary aloofness that is the mark of a person whose beauty has set him apart from the rest of humanity. “You are a fan of 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 48
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    the polo?” he asked, and she answered with uncharacteristic honesty, “No. I don’t care a thing about it.”
    She raised her eyebrows as if daring him to disapprove, but there was less aggression and more frank girlishness in this move than