Lacey Alexander - South Beach

Dedication

For all the readers who have enjoyed the Hot in the City stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Chapter One

It had been ten years since Holly Pettit stood in the lobby of the Imperial Palms Hotel. And as she wheeled her suitcase in through the oversized revolving door, the past came rushing back to her. Through the marble floors and walls, through the long registration desk. Through the glittering chandelier still hanging over the fountain circled by a collection of elegant, curved sofas. Through the art-deco-style palm fronds carved above the desk and into the arched, acoustically perfect ceiling. Even the very smell of the place caught her off guard, drew her in.

Wow. Shed expected coming back to be easier than this. Shed expected it to be fun. Instead, she felt as if shed just taken a slug to the gut.

Oh my God, isnt this great! Its just the same!

Holly looked to her best friend from high school, Lori, standing beside her, wide-eyed, as she took it all in. The Imperial Palms was one of South Beachs largest and grandest art-deco-era hotels, then and now. And shed expected to feel the way Lori appeared to at the momentshed expected to be reliving that first time theyd walked through this same door back when they were two bright-eyed farm girls from Indiana.

She and Lori had worked here the summer between their freshman and sophomore years of college at Purdueit had seemed so daring and adventurous to spend the summer so far away from the small town where theyd both grown up. South Beach had sounded alluring and exotic, and the hotel had been just as historically majestic as in their fantasies.

So when Lori, now an advertising exec in Orlando, had invited Holly to meet her in Miami for a getaway to their old stomping grounds, it had sounded like a good idea. But maybe being here now, in the flesh, was just a little too real. It was funny how memories worked, how they could steal over you so intensely, how they could even sometimes pull you back in time. And for Lori right now, that was clearly a good thing, a happy thingshe didnt even notice when Holly failed to reply. But for Holly Lord, why hadnt she thought more about this first? After all, she was busy making a new life for herselfshe didnt need to be drawn back into old recollections that had left her broken inside.

Strangely, as they moved to the registration desk, she found herself scanning the large lobby and realized she was actually looking for him. As if he would actually be here. As if she would instantly recognize him ten years later, ten years older. As if maybe through some uncanny twist of fate he, too, would have shown up here on vacation this week.

Thats the kind of irrational thinking he caused in you for a long time. He messed you up so badly inside. Dont even waste your thoughts on himhes not worth it.

And normally, she didnt think about himit had probably been a couple of years since hed crossed her mind. It was just a little more difficult now that she was here, in the very place where their entire summer romance had happened. Shed lost her virginity in this hotel. Shed fallen in love walking the stretch of South Beach that spanned the property. Oh God, it was stupid to have come here. But she supposed shed thought she was really, truly over him. Over all that had happened. Yet maybe things like that never really went away. You might think they had, but maybe they were just hiding under the surface, waiting for the right opportunity to bubble up again.

She stayed silent, in the background, as Lori checked them into an oceanfront room they could only have dreamed of affording when they were eighteen.

Can you believe were really here again, Holl? Lori asked as they started away from the wide marble desk toward the elevators.

Not really, she said.

And that was when Lori finally noticed. Whats wrong? You dont look happy. Its eighty degrees outside, the sun is shining, and we have three glorious days of South Beach decadence ahead of us. How on earth can you not be happy?

I guess Im just remembering some of the stuff that happened while we were here, she said as the elevator doors closed them into privacy.

And then Lori finally caught on, grimacing. Oh no. Dont tell me youre thinking about Trey. And the breakup. I thought you were over that, Holly. Andwell, if you want to travel down memory lane here, think about the good parts. You were in love. You discovered the joys of sex. You had the best summer of your life.

Holly could only sigh. There was something horribly sad about knowing the best was behind her, that her happiness in life had peaked so early. And yeah, she should be able to look back on her romance that summer in a happy way, butshe just couldnt. Still. You know how deeply it wounded me. It changedeverything.

And that was putting it mildly. At the end of her magical summer, she and Trey had agreed to stay together, to do the long-distance relationship thing, him at Florida State, her back in Indiana. Theyd promised road trips and meeting halfway. Theyd promised e-mails and phone calls. Which never came. Hed never called, never written. Not once after the morning theyd said goodbye. And her continued attempts at communication had gone completely unanswered. It had been bad enough to lose him, but for him to be so cold and unfeeling, to leave her so emotionally abandonedit still took her breath away to recall. I was so in love with him, Lori. I wanted to marry him.

I know. I remember. I was there.

And the truth was that shed justnever really recovered. In fact, shed dropped out of school by Christmas that year. And shed made other drastic, life-altering moves, too. Shed started hanging out with less reliable friends than Lori. And then shed taken the money shed saved all summer waiting tables at the hotel and gone on a trip with one of those friends to Las Vegaswhere shed actually decided to stay. And you also know thats when I kind oflost hope in love and let it change me, she said now, recounting some of the events of that time to Lori.

Even so, after that, life had worked out okay in a lot of ways. Shed managed to get a good job at the corporate offices of a major lingerie retailer, Adrianna, Inc. Shed gotten a nice apartment, made new friends.

But shed also gottenwild. As in promiscuous. Shed had a lot of sex. With both men and women. And shed thought she was having funhell, she had been having fun. Until one day about a year ago when shed awakened one morning with the sense that it all suddenly felta little empty. And that she wanted more out of life. I just became someone very different than I ever thought Id be.

But now she was trying to get back on track. Change her wild ways. Make some improvements in herself. Once upon a time, shed planned to go to law school, become an attorney. But shed blown her shot at that when shed dropped out of college. Now, though, at twenty-eight, shed just completed a night course to become a paralegal, and though shed spent many happy years at Adrianna, Inc., she knew it was time to move on.

Lori had stuck by hereven being so far awaythroughout all the changes shed undergone, and part of the reason for suggesting this trip had been to celebrate the completion of Hollys paralegal training and her imminent change in career.

So it just didnt seem fair to be thrust back into the emotions that had, in some ways, truly derailed her life.

As they stepped into the upscale room, both girls abandoned their suitcases and walked to the wide balcony facing the ocean. And as they looked out on the splendorous stretch of sand that was South Beach, packed with tanning bodies on this sunny spring day, Lori said to her, Well, youve always been you deep down. No matter what, youre still my sunny, funny, sweet, cheerful Holly.