L'été du champagne

Ta-daaaa, I'm baack!
Tanned and lovely, straight from the French Riviera. I've spent six whole weeks in and around Nice, Cannes and Monaco. My best friend from the Swizz boarding school has a gorgeous summer residence and yacht in Monaco. It felt like re-living the old days, when I was 18, single, with dad's credit cards and had the world at my feet.

One night at the casino of Monaco I accidentally knocked the ash of my cigaratte on - Prince Albert. I was slightly tipsy and immideately went to clean it off, like any mother, by licking on a serviette and rubbing it against his white linen pants. This was one of my dumber moves, as his body guards grabbed each of my arms and dragged me off. They walked off before I could explain myself. Humiliated I began to walk off when the local lady Isadora, married to a tennis champion, stopped me. She'd seen the whole thing and thought it was the funniest thing ever and invited me over to join her party of ten. At the table she re-told the story and the group applauded.
"That was purrrfect, we can't stand that man", one of the fancy men said and kissed my hand. "This must be celebrated, what does the lady wish to toast in?"
I spotted a bottle of my favorite champagne, 1988 La Grande Dame Rosé, in the bar. The same kind I had imported and served at my wedding. I felt cheeky, the price tag was half my car, but the man nodded and didn't seem to take notice of such things.

Hours later I was stumbling out of the casino, with Jean-Marie trying to steady my steps. I wasn't drunk enough to ignore the fact that with this walking style I'd ruin my new Manolos, so I let JM carry them. He smiled.
"What? I'd much rather ruin the soles of my feet!"
He pointed to the harbour and a yacht that was unlike all the others.
"As you can tell I'm also a fan of good champagne", he said and refered to the champagne colored ship and its' name 'Bollinger'.
With one hand on the lower of my back (which makes me all tingly!!) he began leading me towards the yacht. Alarms went off in my head.
"Uh-oh", I became aware that I'd said that out loud and I turned to the man on my side; "Jean-Marie, I'm a married woman"...
"I don't think anyone could've missed that", he said a bit annoyed and pointed to the rock on my hand. "Look, this is simple, he's not here with you, there must be a reason. And I won't do anything you don't want to".
His 'soothing' words made sense to me (at the time). Onboard I closely inspected every inch and was in awe of his taste in art and design. It's a well-known fact that champagne makes me a little randy, and when JM approached me with oysters and a bottle of Bollinger I began toying with the thought of letting myself go, just this once!?
I've been married over a year, without even having kissed another man, but I'd never felt as attracted to anyone as I suddenly did to JM. It was a combination of the language, the smell of the Mediterranean, his olive-colored skin and the champagne, that finally made me succumb.
We kissed passionately under the full moon, but the romantic scene was ruined. He smelled of sweat and seafood, and all I could taste was cigarettes. For a second I wondered if I was in fact licking an ashtray. When he whispered what he wished to do with me in french, all I could think about was hubby and how his french dialect was nicer. It took me two seconds to go from full-on to turned-off, but I didn't even have time to excuse myself before I ran off to the stern and threw up.
"Must be the champagne", I said - knowing it wasn't.
Jean-Marie arranged a car to take me home and motioned 'call me' as I sped off. I found his business card in my purse and threw it out the window. Ha, I should've known, his last name was Bollinger!