Cabana Boy Read online

  Table of Contents

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  Cabana Boy

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bird Dog | Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Bird Dog

  About the Author

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  Also By Jenny Gardiner

  What people are saying about Jenny Gardiner's books:

  Red Hot Romeo

  “Awesome". So enjoyed the romantic chemistry between the two characters. Read it non stop into the wee hours. Highly recommend this book

  —Mrs. K

  Blue-Blooded Romeo

  "Another brilliant, fun read from Jenny Gardiner. The book is fun to read and I thoroughly enjoyed every word. Jenny Gardiner has put the fun back into romance books and I look forward to each book in this delightful series.”

  —Anne Blyth

  “I had planned on only reading a few chapters at first but couldn't put it down. A terrific storyline, well-developed and extremely relatable characters, what's not to love?? Great read!”

  —Samantha Reeves

  Big O Romeo

  “I could not put this book down. Warning don't start this book late at night as you will not want to stop reading.

  —Di

  Sleeping with Ward Cleaver

  "A fun, sassy read! A cross between Erma Bombeck and Candace Bushnell, reading Jenny Gardiner is like sinking your teeth into a chocolate cupcake...you just want more."

  —Meg Cabot, NY Times bestselling author of Princess Diaries, Queen of Babble and more

  Slim to None

  "Jenny Gardiner has done it again—this fun, fast-paced book is a great summer read."

  —Sarah Pekkanen, NY Times bestselling author of The Opposite of Me

  Cabana Boy

  (Book Three of the Confessions of a Chick Magnet series)

  by Jenny Gardiner

  Copyright © 2019 by Jenny Gardiner

  Cover art by Kim Killion, The Killion Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  http://jennygardiner.net/

  Chapter One

  When Fletcher Campbell first interviewed for the production assistant job with revered film producer Justine Gaynor, he was super excited at the prospect of attending poolside meetings as a perk of the job. After a succession of crap jobs waiting tables while trying to break into the film business, he figured this was payoff for his hard work and persistence.

  “Everyone out here does them,” she’d told him, arms spread wide at the outdoor café where she’d interviewed him. “No reason to waste this sunshine and warm weather!”

  Which suited him just fine. After all, he loved spending time in nature. Having grown up in Montana, the outdoors was practically his middle name. He’d only moved out to LA after college to try his hand in the film industry, but he missed all that time he used to spend hiking and biking and kayaking and fishing. In LA, he devoted most of his time to sitting in traffic, sucking in exhaust fumes, which was painful for someone accustomed to the wide-open spaces around his hometown of Bristol, Montana. There, a hike in nearby Glacier National Park was as likely to yield a grizzly bear sighting as an outing in LA would involve a glimpse of a Kardashian or two. He’d take a bear over a Kardashian any day.

  But this was the cost of pursuing a career in film. After being hired as an extra in a film shot on location in Glacier during freshman summer break, he’d become hooked on the business—even if he did end up on the cutting room floor. That was a memorable summer not only for his “star turn” as one of two hundred people in a crowd scene in the park but also because it was when he and Cricket Ferguson called it quits after having dated exclusively since the ninth grade. Ugh, he didn’t want to think about the breakup. No matter how much time had passed, it still felt raw to him, with so many words left unspoken. But he was in LA now, with a new life, big dreams, and no need to waste time dwelling on what was. Or could have been.

  At today’s production meeting, scheduled at his boss’s sprawling Beverly Hills mansion, he ended up being the only one in attendance besides Justine, who weirdly insisted on wearing a bikini even though she was well past the age—and youthful vigor—that justified voluntarily exposing so much flesh in a revealing bathing suit. It screamed “unprofessional,” but who was he to know how things were out here? Oh well. If she was happy in it, that’s what mattered.

  Her pool—one of those elegant, sprawling, dark-bottomed Gunite types—boasted a waterfall and an actual bridge that bisected the whole pool. It was so large you needed a damned bridge to get to the other side; otherwise you’d be exhausted navigating your way around it. He’d never seen a backyard pool quite like this. Clearly he wasn’t in Montana anymore. She’d dismissed her waitstaff of three as soon as they’d delivered drinks to the two of them, which was weird—day drinking during a business meeting? How very Mad Men of her! Good thing he could hang with the best of them after imbibing several drinks.

  Fletch tried not to gawk at Justine as she perched, cross-legged on the overstuffed sofa beneath the shade of a massive umbrella, a floppy wide-brimmed hat cocked at an angle atop her head. Man, in the short time he’d been in LA, he’d never seen so many women overwrought in an attempt to defy aging, and Justine fit that bill perfectly. First off, bikinis weren’t exactly forgiving when it came to hiding what nature hadn’t gotten quite right or what time had done to a person. So while her surgically overhauled face was pulled so taut you could probably bounce a quarter off her cheeks, her neck was encircled with telltale sagging flesh that reminded him of the rings around a tree trunk that told you how old the thing was.

  Granted, her arms were a testament to her personal trainer, who was usually leaving the office when Fletcher arrived each morning. Whatever that man was doing, he was making sure her guns were in tip-top shape. Same with her long legs, which he knew, along with her belly, had been CoolSculpted into cellulite-free existence. After all, he’d been the one stuck scheduling the expensive appointments. Her hair was the bleach white of those dying reefs you see in National Geographic specials about global warming. Her false eyelashes were so unnaturally long they could’ve derived from legs plucked from a daddy longleg, and she was spray-tanned to within an inch of her life.

  Yet with all that work, maybe with the right clothing, you could possibly shave off ten years from your age, appearance-wise. But half-naked in a skimpy bikini? It all looked the opposite of young. Not that he was judging her. He was, however, getting the vibe that she had designs on him, and he wanted to be loud and clear that he had no plans to tangle up any sheets even if hers were the gold-karat-threaded, silk jacquard Charlotte Thomas ones, which cost more than his beat-up clunker of a truck. He should know—he was tasked with ordering her sheets, natch.

  He’d had a fantas
ized notion of production assistants actually doing something involving producing, but in the few months since he’d been in the job, the only thing he’d done was his demanding boss’s bidding. That meant chauffeuring her around LA because he was “far more handsome” than her regular driver. Fletch could only thank goodness for GPS given he’d hardly committed the geography to memory since arriving here, or they’d have been lost in the Hollywood Hills on more than one occasion. His other duty involved scheduling her weekly Brazilian wax, which bordered on TMI but he was trying to be a cooperative employee, so what was he to do?

  Speaking of a Brazilian wax, her thong bikini bottom was cut high enough on her thigh and down toward her crotch that there was no question she’d made it to her appointment with Brigitte this week to ensure not a stray hair was to be had. Normally a teasing glance of that would have turned him on, big-time. After all, he’d helped Cricket do the honors—albeit with a razor—back when they were together. Shaving her there was the most erotic thing he’d ever done. But with Justine, ugh, he mentally shuddered. It would have been like lusting after someone’s nana. In fact, she was pretty much old enough to be his grandmother. He squeezed his eyes shut at the thought.

  “Fletcher, be a dear and help me get some sunscreen on,” she said, waving the bottle of lotion at him. “Must fight these damaging UV rays.” She winked at him and he winced, steeling himself to put sunscreen on her back and get out, soul intact. But in his gut, he knew that wasn’t what she’d planned. He scraped his fingers through his wavy dark hair, knowing he had to suck it up and do it.

  Standing, he walked to where Justine sat on the sofa and wondered where he was supposed to sit while doing this. It would be one thing if she were laying on her stomach. He’d squirt some lotion, politely dab it around, and beg off when it came to what to do with her thong-exposed butt cheeks. That was hers to figure out. But no. She was sitting there, her legs now extended, even spread a bit to his great dismay. Her ample fake tits—you could tell they were fake, not only because she was too old to have breasts perched so unnaturally high atop her chest, but also because of the telltale line that ridged her chest where a pouch of saline rested inside of each one—jutted out like the peaks of Everest and were equally as threatening to the uninitiated. And while her fabricated tits would look downright spectacular on someone half her age, on her, they smacked of desperation, a woman grasping at straws in the hopes that she could fool the general public that she wasn’t as old as she was.

  Yuck. It was all so icky. Why didn’t women grow old gracefully out here? He thought about how pretty his own mother was, with her salt-and-pepper hair, which she wore in a bob cropped to her shoulder, and the laugh lines that life had given her lighting up her face with joy.

  He didn’t want to think about his mother’s boobs, but he was certain they weren’t parked on her chest like a diving board urging all comers to take the plunge. Geez, he’d take ten aging-gracefully women over one in-massive-denial-of-Father-Time version any old day. His mom was a grandma now and he saw how her grandchildren loved to press up against her soft body and snuggle into her loving warmth. Besides, every man knew that a little meat on the bones was an added bonus. Skin-and-bones ladies with zero percent body fat like Justine, whose hips jutted out like the jagged lines on a heart rate monitor, were a bit extreme; they didn’t appeal to him.

  He took a deep breath, pressing his blue eyes closed—the ones Cricket once said reminded her of precious sapphires. He almost wanted to plug his nose as if his mom was forcing the five-year-old version of him to down a forkful of stinky cauliflower. Okay, Fletch. You can do this. Unpleasant work have-to’s were part and parcel to climbing the ladder in Hollywood. Not that he would succumb to a little slap and tickle with the woman to get his way—no way, no how—but capitulating when your boss coerces you into applying sunscreen didn’t seem too far out of the ordinary.

  “Uh, er, where did you want this?” He squirted some sunscreen into his hand, then leaned over her, figuring he’d go for the arms, which seemed a safe bet. How much trouble could he get into there? He stared at her wrist—far, far from even a hint of erogenous zones (although didn’t Cricket love it when he stroked her wrist with his thumb?)—and began massaging in the lotion.

  Justine let out a tiny moan.

  Shit. Was this turning her on? He accelerated the application pace, moving his palms up her forearms, speed-slathering toward her bicep, hoping to the good Lord above that he could be done with this and get down to business. He’d have to lean over to reach the other arm, so he sucked it up and did it, gnawing on his cheek the whole time and averting his eyes. Anything to avoid coming in close contact with those prominent boobs, which seemed to be climbing toward him. When done with arm number two, he placed the bottle on the sofa next to her, hoping to return to his own seat, a safe several feet away.

  But instead she pointed the toes on her right foot and extended her leg and foot toward his thigh, dragging her gelled toenails (he should know: he made the appointment) up his thigh till he thought he might scream.

  Fletcher never thought the idea of a woman dragging a toe up his leg toward his dick would be a turnoff, but damn, when a granny substitute—and a bad one at that—was doing it, boy was it ever.

  “You forgot these,” Justine said, still flexing and pointing her foot as if that provocative move had any effect on him. Christ, what could he say? If he told her that was inappropriate, she’d fire him on the spot. If he proceeded on demand, his hands would end up sliding up her muscled thighs and practically smoothing over her pudenda. Ha! He hadn’t thought of that term since the test on female anatomy in his middle school sex ed class. He could still picture an awkward Mrs. Rayburn with her pointer stick aiming at the illustration of the female anatomy on the board, and he cringed at the thought. He sure as hell couldn’t mentally refer to this woman’s thing as a “pussy.” If he did, he’d never think of a pussy the same way again. Although he sure as hell wanted to think of a positive pussy to purge what he was doing from his mind. So he pretended he was slicking the sunscreen along Cricket’s thighs, strong and sturdy from a lifetime of riding and living an outdoor life of hiking and running and mountain biking.

  He closed his eyes. Remind me again why I left Cricket for this? He squirted some more lotion onto his hands and raced his fingers along his boss’s legs and thighs, rapidly doing what he had to, just to get the chore over with. Now he understood that phrase, lie back and think of England.

  Justine moaned again and suddenly ground her hips toward his hand, causing his fingertips to slip dangerously close to the thigh edge of her bikini. He feared he would throw up in his mouth. Real nanas didn’t force guys young enough to be their grandsons to finger their twats. He pulled his hands away as if he’d touched a hot stove and dusted them off as though moving on to more important business.

  “Okay. Well, then, weren’t we here to brainstorm about the release of Icicle Man?”

  This was Justine’s latest film—something to do with a dude who froze to death in the mountains while searching for elusive clues to his own past. Right about now, Fletcher was putting his current fate up there with Icicle Man in the sucky outcomes department. Freezing to death almost sounded preferable to his current fate.

  Just then Justine reached out her hand and pressed her palm to the crotch on the outside of his Chubbies trunks—the ones with the silverback gorillas all over them. If only he had the strength of a silverback; he’d knock her out of the way and run, far from this whacked-out woman. He tried to stick his butt out, away from her, to create distance so she couldn’t grab his nuts next.

  “Oh, have some fun,” Justine said, dragging her shellacked sanguine nails along his thigh, making the hair stand on end. And not in a good way. His balls shriveled.

  He had to think quickly, or this would only deteriorate into something even worse.

  “It’s only that my girlfriend—”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Girlfriend?” She waggl
ed an admonishing finger. “And here I thought you were unencumbered.” She thrust out her lower lip in a pout like she was a tween told she had an eleven-o’clock curfew.

  He sucked so badly at lying, especially thinking on his feet like this. “Well, my girlfriend from back home, we decided to give it another go. And, well, I’m about to ask her to marry me.”

  Justine looked up, cocking her head like a cat toying with a mouse before killing it. “Marriage? How very provincial,” she said. “Is that what they do wherever you’re from?”

  He squinted at her. “You mean get married?”

  She nodded, once again dragging her daggers up his thigh, which made his abdomen contract from the chill it induced. “Aren’t you too young for such adult things?”

  Now that pissed him off. Too young to get married but not too young for a cougar thrice his age to come on to him like he was a slab of raw beef thrown at her? Yeah, right.

  “I’m plenty old enough, thanks,” he said, wiping the spare sunscreen off on his trunks as he delicately stepped back away from her.

  “Where is this place you’re from, where your girlfriend pines away for you?” She said it as though his life were some sort of amusement for her to play with like a toddler obsessed with the shiny bow on her Christmas present.

  “I’m—we’re—from Montana.”

  She turned her head up toward him. “Oh, really? One of those places with snowcapped mountains?”

  He nodded and knit his brow, not knowing where she was headed with this. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I think we’ve found where we’re going to premiere our film!” She laughed. “We’re going to Wherever-You’re-From, Montana, and maybe then I can even have a word with that fiancée-girlfriend of yours.”

  Fletch’s face fell. Shit. Fiancée-girlfriend. How was he going to get out of this—bringing his horny boss back home to size up what she saw as competition from a now-former lover (and never a fiancée) who could give half a shit about anything to do with Fletcher Campbell and would assuredly never cover for his lies. And to think he thought he’d been making progress professionally. Sonofabitch.