Page 2 of On The Beach

If you wantedsignaturedrinks and all that jazz, you went to the Tropicana Club, which was perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. I hated the place because they had a dress code. Who had a fucking dress code on a Caribbean island? Morons, that's who.

Making us thethree amigoswas Cato, who was God knows how old, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and had been in Reef Harbor since forever (no one really knew how long). It was unclear whether Cato had a job, but there was a lot of speculation because he disappeared for days on end. Some said Cato was a mafia hitman. Some said Cato was a vampire who needed regular blood transfusions. Some said he worked for the government, which country was always a hot topic of discussion. The fact was that no one knew if Cato was even his real name or where he was from. He could be Spanish, American, Italian, Dutch, French, Australian, or African—one couldn't tell from his appearance or his accent. He swore in five languages, including Mandarin (I knew thatbecause I spoke Mandarin)—and was famous on the island for gutting a fish in two minutes flat. That was how the hitman theory became popular.

Between Franco, Cato, RiRi, and me, there were enough people in our cluster of friends and acquaintances who could afford bail versus those who got into trouble.

I couldalwaysafford bail. No one asked how. Reef Harbor was not the place where you posed questions such as, "What's your net worth?" or "What's your stock portfolio valued at?"

The questions were easy.

You wanna get a drink?

You wanna get laid?

You wanna get into trouble?

But if someone asked about my net worth, they'd be astonished to learn that Doctor Nicholas Michael Patrick Augustus the Third had enough money to buy the island of Reef Harbor and then some. They wouldn't know from the way I lived.

"Seriously, Mick, you need to get this shower fixed," a stunning Italian Goddess called…something or the other had remarked. She wasn't the one in the white string bikini. This was the one I'd brought home a week ago…or was it two days ago? Who knew? In Reef Harbor, time was fluid in the best possible way.

The Italian was twenty-one, toned, and on holiday. I knew the decent thing would be to remember her name, but I gave her three orgasms and got two for myself, andreally,I was above things like names and titles, anyway. Also, my memory sucked, especially after six cocktails and four tequila shots at the Cove, which was where I picked up the Italian Signorina at one in the morning.

"Why? The beach is right there."

Needless to say, women rarely stayed the night at my beach hut. Besides the lack of proper plumbing, as I told the Victoria's Secret Angel, I slept in a hammock,solo, and fucked on a couch that was just this side of clean. I preferred it this way.

A long time ago, avery, verylong time ago, I lived in a luxury apartment in Back Bay on Beacon Street, had done the dating, getting engaged, getting cheated on, and getting the hell out of dodge thing—and I was never doing thewoman plus relationshipcycle of pain in the ass again. For now, it was fuck ‘em and leave ‘em. No harm, no foul.

The only thorn in my side in the heavenly Reef Harbor was that my mother, Lady Arabella Maria Lucia Augustus, unfortunately, had my cellphone number.

When I came to the island, I ditched my smartphone, deleted my email, and paid someone to erase my digital footprint. No one even knew what I looked like anymore.

I gave up the name Dr. Nicholas Augustus—Stanford PhD, with over sixty peer-reviewed papers and ten pharmaceutical patents—and became Mick Bottom, a certified beach bum.

I now kept a Nokia flip phone that wassometimescharged.

Reef Harbor wasn't the kind of place where you needed a phone, not that having one helped because connectivity was complete shit here.

If Franco needed me, he usually hollered, as he lived a few huts away. If RiRi needed me because a tourist showed up and wanted to charter a boat with Captain Mick, she sent Bubba, who worked for her, on a bicycle, to get me. If Cato…strike that, Cato never needed me or anyone else, so that was moot.

My mother calledall the fucking time.

I picked up the phone once a month when I was sober and felt sufficiently guilty. The conversations with her were never about how her only precious son hadn't left his island for three Christmases; no, she talked to me like I still lived in Boston and she was just calling from London to say hello and check-in.

"And then Missy, you know Countess Melissa, don't you? Well, Missy says that my fascinator is the same one that Kate wore to the Derby. Isn't that something?"

"Something," I muttered.

Arabella was vapid but loving. If I ever needed anything, she'd drop her fascinator like a hot potato and be there for me. But I was thirty-six, and it had been a long time since I needed a mother for anything. So, I listened as she went on about the London, New York, and Paris society scenes, letting her talk for twenty minutes. That's about how long it took before the inevitable headache—one that always flared up during our conversations—became blindingly painful, signaling it was time to hang up.

"Oh, and an Isabelle phoned, asking for you. Do you know an Isabelle, darling?"

I shrugged. It was remotely possible, butnotprobable that any Isabelle I'd met in my recent past would know my mother and have the temerity or interest to call her.

"Hmm," I replied noncommittally.

"She works for your old company andreallyneeds to speak with you."

My old company was a cell and gene therapy startup that I'd founded and then sold for a nice chunk of change to a big pharmaceutical behemoth. I had no intention of ever talking to anyone who worked there, wanted to work there, had worked there in the past, or even had remote knowledge of its existence.

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