LITMIR.BIZ

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      Drea studied her, then nodded. “Well, obviously it worked. They only bring in girls who deserve it as wild cards, and that would be you.”

      “Deserve it,” Laci repeated, her mind drifting back to San Clemente, a highly touted but very new addition to the competition circuit run by one of XtremeSportNet’s competitors. She’d been brought in as a wild card there, too, and she’d been foolishly, stupidly giddy about it. At least she had until she heard the rumors that she’d slept her way into the competition, trading sex for a slot. And no matter how much she denied them, the insinuations wouldn’t go away. Why would they, when her then-boyfriend was Taylor Dutton, the man who’d been in charge of promoting that competition?

      He’d denied it, of course, but considering that the media was already all over the story and her reputation was shot, nothing he said made a whit of difference.

      The trouble, of course, was that she’d trusted him. No, more than that; she’d loved him. They’d been dating on and off for two months, and they’d fallen into a pattern of easy familiarity that had tingled around the edges. Simply sitting next to each other at a table eating breakfast cereal had moved her, and he could turn her to mush with a soft brush of his thumb against her cheek as easily as with a deeply passionate embrace and a slow slide into bed.

      She’d loved him and she’d trusted him, and because she had, the hurt had gone that much deeper when the media broke the big story that he’d pulled the strings to get her into the competition as a coveted wild-card contender. Not because she deserved it, which she did, thank you very much, but because she’d been sleeping with him.

      She’d wanted to dump him in a flurry of curses and flying pieces of furniture, but instead she’d dumped him with a quiet fury she liked to think was elegant and controlled. Then she’d scurried away to lick her wounds and tell herself that if she never saw Taylor Dutton again, it would be too soon.

      For a few weeks there, she’d even considered leaving surfing behind, but then JC had kicked her butt and told her to get out there on the circuit and prove that Laci didn’t have to sleep her way to a trophy or a world ranking—she could surf her way there just fine.

      As surfing competitions went, San Clemente wasn’t yet a blip on the world-class radar. So her surfing career hadn’t taken too much of a hit when she’d backed out, in spite of all the local media attention. Even so, there was no way—no way—she’d been willing to hang in there and let people think that sex had eased her entry into the events. And for the next fourteen months, she’d aimed for the gold standard—highly prestigious competitions. Competitions that could kick a girl up into the world rankings. Competitions that could get her noticed and get her a sponsor.

      Girls Go Banzai was one of those competitions, and even if Millie’s accident had meant that she’d missed the primary feeder competition for Banzai, nothing changed the fact that Laci had spent weeks carefully selecting which competitions and exhibitions she surfed. She’d done her best, busted tail on the waves, and she’d gotten herself noticed.

      Herself. Not her former jerkwad of a bed partner.

      So, yeah. She deserved this wild-card spot. And with a quick “I absolutely, totally do deserve it,” she told Drea so.

      “Well, there you go,” Drea said, as if that solved everything. Laci sighed. Maybe it did.

      Besides, once she won, that queer, uncomfortable feeling would go away. No one could say that she hadn’t earned the attention (or, she hoped, the endorsements) because the trophy would be sitting on her mantel. But until she actually won, she was just a pretender. And that was a role that didn’t sit well with Laci at all.

      “Is Millie coming?” Drea asked, shifting the subject to Laci’s little sister.

      Laci shook her head. “I wish. But she’s in Sydney doing The Magic Flute. A small role, but she’s got a solo, and she totally steals the show.” The car accident, thank goodness, hadn’t slowed Millie’s career one iota.

      “Really? That’s awesome. You must be totally proud.”

      “Enough to bust a gut,” Laci admitted, though Drea didn’t know the half of it. The truth was, Laci had been more like a mom to Millie than like a sister. No one knew the full story because Laci had never felt close enough to anyone to share. Couple that with the fact that dredging up her sub-par childhood was not on Laci’s list of fun things to do, and it made for a topic that was definitely not discussed in polite conversation.

      She’d never even shared the details of her childhood with Taylor. He’d known she was close to her sister, of course. But all the other baggage…That stuff was best left buried.

      Drea whipped the towel from around her hips and laid it out on the sand, then settled in, faceup to the sun, the pink zinc oxide on her nose making her look cuter than usual.

      Laci swallowed a frown as she settled back, towelless, on the sand. Next to Drea and JC, she’d always felt plain. Brownish-blond hair, a smattering of irritating freckles and a mouth she’d always considered too big. Fresh, the press was calling her now, which Laci interpreted as code for “not sexy in the least.” Not that it mattered. She was here to surf, not to win a beauty pageant.

      Besides, the press chatter about her looks was a lot better than the alternative. So far, at least, not one reporter had mentioned the San Clemente scandal. As far as Laci was concerned, it couldn’t get much better than that.

      Drea turned her head, opened her eyes and frowned. “Do you want to share my towel?”

      She squirmed a little, digging her heels into the warm sand, enjoying the feel of the grains against her back and legs. “No thanks.” The sensation teased her, reminded her of what she was there for and of how far she’d come. All the way from her screwed-up childhood in Laguna Beach, California, where she wasn’t allowed to take a towel to the beach because her mom didn’t want to risk tracking any bit of grit or grime into their blindingly white, paid-for-with-other-people’s-money beachfront condo.

      All of that hadn’t mattered then, and it didn’t matter now. Laci had grabbed Millie’s hand and marched the two of them jauntily through the glitz-and-marble lobby. They’d crossed the walking path to the dunes and plunked themselves down on the sand, Laci’s six years on this earth qualifying her for elder-statesman status over her four-year-old sister. The California beaches weren’t warm like the ones in Hawaii, but to this day she could remember the smell of the surf, and she could still feel the suction beneath her toes as she wiggled them in the warm, wet sand.

      They’d stay outside as long as they could, cooking under a layer of sunscreen, and cooling off with quick dips in the surf and slushies from Joe who worked the concession shack. Then they’d traipse back to the condo, only to be waylaid by Manuel, the doorman, who’d invariably tell her that her mom had a “special guest,” and suggest that Laci and Millie get cleaned up in the poolside shower and maybe take a quick swim for, oh, another thirty-five minutes.

      Millie was too young to understand, but even at six, Laci got it: stay out of their mom’s way for a while longer, and by the next day, they’d have a few new clothes, food in the fridge and a mother who wasn’t in a perpetually pissy mood. Usually, Laci scored a new toy—which she immediately dropped in the charity box at the grocery store, though she’d never, ever tell her mother for fear of one of Alysha’s famous spankings. Their mom had a temper, no doubt about that. And woe be to any adult or child who looked askance at the way she provided for her kids.

      It had been a surreal kind of life, all the more so during the school year when the other moms would pull their daughters away from Laci and Millie, whispering to their girls about associating with the “wrong sort.” Laci didn’t want to be wrong, and she hated the fact that her mother took and took and took, getting by on looking pretty and having the men fawn all over her. She hadn’t known it at the time, of course, but Alysha Montgomery had been the worst kind of whore, trading on her looks, doling out sex and not doing one damned thing to earn herself a place in the world.

      Alysha had never crossed the line into out-and-out

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