Chapter Two
It took Pearl a few moments to recognize the man who was helping her tug the little girl to the surface, and even then, she wasn't sure she believed her eyes. It was the man from before, the one she had splashed, and he gave her a grin when they broke the surface.
"I figured I was already wet," he said, and then they both tugged the little girl back to the side of the pool. She was crying and still struggling weakly, but that was far better than being limp and still.
It seemed to take forever to get back to the edge of the pool, and Pearl knew it would have been far more difficult without the man's help. There was a crowd gathering at the edge of the pool, one of the certified lifeguards among them, and Pearl gratefully handed the little girl over to her.
Then still trembling with adrenaline, she climbed out of the pool and rolled over on her back at its edge, breathing slowly as the people nearby fussed over the child. She glanced up as the man sprawled next to her. She was somehow unsurprised when she realized he was smiling at her.
"I guess I know what kind of mermaid you are now," he said.
"A foolish one,” she replied, and he laughed.
"Tell me, foolish mermaid. What's your name?"
She hesitated, because for one mad and mysterious moment, she wanted to give him her real name. The older girls had always told her to never give out her real name, and this was the first time she had ever been tempted to. That shocked her to her core, and for a moment, she couldn't even remember her stage name.
"Amilla. What's yours?"
"Luciano Donati. There are about a dozen middle names in between them, but I tend to save them for those I want to irritate."
Pearl was slightly startled that she wanted to know them. God, had all the adrenaline gone to her head?
"What the heck is going on here? Make way, I own this place!"
"Oh god, oh no," Pearl whispered, and she levered herself up into a sitting position as Carson pushed his way through the crowd. She noticed that he had found dry clothes quickly enough, but his thin hair was still plastered to his head.
"You've been warned, Pearl," Carson said, stomping up to her. "You're a distraction and a troublemaker, and my father will..."
"Reward her for rescuing a small child?" Luciano asked.
As Pearl watched, Luciano jumped to his feet, towering over Carson with a kind of casual menace. Carson did a double take that was almost comical, but he still glared up at Luciano.
"Sir, you don't know the situation, and you don't know about that employee's history..."
"I know that she saved that little girl's life," Luciano continued. "I know that it was on your watch that that little girl somehow made it out to the middle of the pool."
That was when a trim and fashionably dressed woman burst out of the crowd. She held the little girl's hand in hers as if she never intended to let it go, and she threw her free arm around Pearl, sobbing noisily. She spoke quickly in Spanish, and Pearl, who only knew a few words, reached up to pat her shoulder awkwardly.
To Pearl's surprise, Luciano switched to Italian easily, comforting the woman and apparently explaining something to her as they all watched.
As quickly as she had come to embrace Pearl, the woman turned towards Carson, her dark eyes spitting fire. No one watching needed to know Spanish to guess that Carson was being roundly beaten down, and Carson himself finally retreated under the woman's onslaught.
Luciano spoke calmly and soothingly to the woman, who looked far more distressed than her child. For her part, the little girl was watching Pearl with large eyes, taking in everything from Pearl's strong arms to the graceful sweep of her pure white tail. Pearl wondered how long it would take for the little girl to start demanding a tail of her own. She knew that for herself, the moment she had first laid eyes on professional mermaids in Florida, she had longed to be one.
Well, it looks like everything's taken care of right now, she thought.
She entered the water with a nearly silent splash. She wondered if she heard someone calling her name, but she was already powering her way back towards her spot. After all, the show was getting ready to start soon.
***
The woman whose little girl had needed rescuing turned out to be Drea Calavedra, from a family that was known to Luciano's own. Between flights of tears and angry recriminations towards the man who had threatened her daughter's rescuers, Luciano got her calmed down and arranged for an escort back to her rooms.
"Mama, Mama," he heard the little girl say. "Where is the mermaid who rescued me? She was so kind and pretty..."
Luciano could certainly agree with that, but when he turned back around, Amilla had disappeared. He shook off a strangely sharp pang of disappointment. When he thought about it, the poor girl had likely had enough trouble that day. Something about her, however, told him that she was a girl who tended to take trouble head on.
He made his way back to his friends, who jeered at him for the splash but were eager to know more about the mermaid with the white tail.
"You think she likes to party?" asked one. "Let's see if she wants to come with us tonight, always room for one more, especially as pretty as that one."
The others laughed, but Luciano shook his head.
"She's too good for all that," he said. "Not that kind of girl, I don't think."
The conversation turned to other matters, and he quelled the strangely protective and jealous streak that was revealing itself inside him. These were men he had been to school with, and he knew them well enough. Of course, that was the problem, and he knew exactly how they liked to party. For some reason, after exchanging less than a thousand words with Amilla, he wanted them far away from her.
Above them, the loudspeakers came to life, announcing the beautiful mermaids of Santa Joan, calling them out by name. As the dozen women dropped into the water one by one, Luciano's belly tightened until he heard the man call out, "Amilla."
There she was, a pale streak cutting through the water with ease, coming to swim in formation with her sisters. All of the women were extremely talented to his inexperienced eye, but it was Amilla who drew his eye over and over again. There was a kind of poetry to her movements, and he remembered how strong she had been in the water, wrestling the little girl to the surface. She had been red-faced in the water, gasping and blowing as she’d hauled the girl to the side of the pool, but there had been something so beautifully vital about her that it felt as if he had given her a small piece of his soul in that moment.
I need to find her again, he decided. I need to speak with her. I need to have her.
In another time, he might have been shocked at his own possessiveness, but here, it only seemed right. There was something beautifully compelling about Amilla the Mermaid, and there was a part of him that would take nothing less than possessing her.
***
In the locker room, Pearl got plenty of hugs and cheers for saving the little girl, and she grinned, exhausted but happy. She was less pleased at the message on her phone from her booking agency, because it seemed that they never had good news, but for once, she was happy to be wrong.
"What's up?" asked Juana, raising her eyebrow.
"I'm out of here," Pearl said with a grin. "They got me a booking for Florida, and I can be on a flight tomorrow night. Good money, and it's a full month of work!"
"Good for you, getting outta this hellhole," Juana chortled, punching her lightly on the shoulder.
It was true. The resort was heaven for the people who could stay there, but for everyone else, it was a constant fight against management over work standards, schedules, pay and more.
No, she wasn't going to miss the resort, and everything that she loved about it could be found elsewhere.
She locked her tail up carefully in the provided locker, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, she was dressed in a thin camisole top with a sarong wrapped around her hips. She could pass for a college girl on break instead of a hotel employee, and that was the way she wanted it.
With her bag slung over her shoulder, Pearl dodged her way out of the locker rooms, and then took a roundabout route to get out of the resort itself. As she went, she could see Carson dressing down some poor waiter, and she shook her head. No, as beautiful as it was, she wasn't going to be sorry to see the last of the resort.
She had a bit of a harder moment when she glimpsed Luciano in the lobby. He was alone, without his laughing friends, and for a single, strange moment, she wanted to go to him. She had a strict policy against fraternizing with guests of the hotel, but she was on her way out. What harm could it do?
Pearl was even taking a step towards Luciano when she saw him wave down one of the waitresses. It was clear that he wasn't interested in the tray of cold drinks she had. Instead, he spoke to her earnestly, standing far closer than Pearl strictly thought he needed to.
Okay, Pearl, you're being ridiculous, she told herself. It's not like you have a claim on him at all. Literally all you did was save that little girl together.
She shook her head at her own foolishness, and then she felt even dumber when Luciano pressed something into the waitress's hand. His number, she decided, and before she could make a bigger fool out of herself, she turned and left the hotel.
***
Luciano groaned quietly to himself as the waitress turned away with his tip. She had said she would keep an ear out for anyone by the name of Amilla, but from the look on her face, he could tell she had no idea who he was talking about at all.
“Amilla, where are you?” he murmured, but he was beginning to realize what he should have understood from the first.
Given his status and the power he commanded, there weren't many women who were inclined to give him the brush-off, but there had been a few. Trust fate to make the most fascinating woman he had ever met one of them.
He knew he should give up. If a woman made it a point to be difficult to find, he owed it to her to let her go in peace. Every time he had that thought, however, he thought of the mermaid's bright green eyes, the lovely way her blonde hair curled to frame her sweet face. He was used to tall redheads, willowy brunettes, women who would never so much as leave the protective shade of a sun umbrella for fear of breaking a nail. He had never had much time to spend with a woman like the mermaid before, one who made her living not just with the beauty of her body but with its strength as well.
Luciano shook his head. It was as if she had turned to smoke and disappeared through his fingers.
While he could certainly respect a good disappearing act, something about this one left Luciano curiously bereft, as if someone had removed something from his heart before he had even realized what it was for.