by Judith Gould
“You don’t share Niki’s views,” Adrian said, chuck-ling, “but you sounded like Niki. Bravo!”
“Great, but what do we do about it?” she asked.
“We’ll figure out a way around that.” Adrian smiled reassuringly. “You won’t actually have to sacrifice yourself for this cause.”
“I’m not about to ‘sacrifice’ myself, as you put it,” Ariadne snapped, “so get that through your head. The first thing I’m going to do as Nikoletta is find the love of my life.”
The two men exchanged glances. That didn’t sound like Niki. “I guess it could happen,” Adrian said hesitantly.
“It is going to happen,” Ariadne snapped, “or you can find yourself another girl.”
Nikoletta’s cell phone rang, and she picked it up. Checking her caller ID, she saw that it was the PI. She was anxious to hear any news he had and quickly pressed the TALK button. “Yes?”
“I don’t know exactly what these people are up to,” he said, “but it’s very odd, to say the least.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Nikoletta asked.
“I managed to get a good view into one of the rooms at the back of the house today,” he said. “The library, I’d guess they call it. It opens out onto a big slate terrace.”
“I know exactly the room you’re talking about,” Nikoletta replied. “And it’s the library. So what did you see?”
“The TV set—it’s one of those large-screen plasma jobs—is on nearly all the time,” the PI said. “I’d see the light from it, flickering at all hours. Anyway, at first I thought they were television junkies or something. Watching the damn thing all the time. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I mean, what was on the TV. You know, I concentrated on the people in the room.”
“I see,” Nikoletta said impatiently. What’s this nonsense leading up to? “So, what’s the point?”
“The point is, I got a good view of what was on the TV. Something, I might add, that a lot of men who call themselves pros in my field would’ve not seen.”
Jesus! Nikoletta thought. The jerk wants me to pat him on the back all the time. “And?”
“And what I saw was a little shocking,” he replied. “It’s all video footage of you. That’s what they’ve got running in there night and day.”
“Me?” Nikoletta felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The mere thought that Adrian and the others were watching videos of her gave her the creeps. It was such an invasion of her privacy.
Anger welled up in her and threatened to explode in a vile, pustulous mass, but before she could respond to the PI, he went on.
“But that’s not all,” he said. “Seems to me like they’re training her. You know. Making her practice walking like you. She’ll walk back and forth across the room, again and again.”
“You actually saw that?”
“I’ve got very good binoculars, don’t forget.”
Her entire body trembled with fury. She wanted to lash out, to tear and scratch, to kill.
“You shit!” she screeched.
“Look, I’m just the messenger,” he said calmly. “I’m doing this for you.”
In her rage, Nikoletta’s mind raced in a dozen different directions at once, and she found it difficult to concentrate. It was time for action, she thought. Yes. Time to put a stop to this . . . whatever the hell it was. This plot! They were definitely training a look-alike to replace her—that much was obvious.
“Anything else?” she finally asked him.
“That sums it up,” he said. “I think you get the picture.”
“I get the picture, all right,” she said. Then in a hurried voice, she added, “I’ll talk to you later.” She flipped her cell phone shut without waiting for a reply.
After she had calmed down, she sat immobile in the chair for a long time. The board of advisers, she finally decided, could be taken care of. She would have to hire the best legal team to get around her father’s will, but she would eventually be able to effect a boardroom purge, getting rid of every single one of them. In the meantime, she would make their lives a living hell. If they thought they could play hardball with her, they had failed to comprehend the extent to which she could respond in kind.
As for the impostor, she was another story. Whoever she was. She presented a different kind of danger altogether. The thought that such a person even existed—someone the board thought could actually impersonate her!—horrified Nikoletta.
She unlocked a drawer in her desk where she kept an ostrich-skin address book that contained her most private telephone numbers. No one else had access to these numbers or even knew about them. Flipping through it, she quickly found the name and number she needed. Nikoletta had met the man only once a couple of years previously. The introduction had been provided by an international arms dealer of her acquaintance in the south of France, where he often entertained at his villa in the hills above the Côte d’Azur. Yemal, the arms dealer, had taken her for a stroll at one of his legendary parties. Just the two of them, champagne glasses in hand, had chatted about business. In the privacy of a classic lavender knot garden, they came upon a man sitting alone, nursing a glass of club soda. Yemal had airily introduced him as the world’s greatest gun for hire, indicating that only a handful of people knew of his existence or could afford him. The man, in turn, had slipped her a business card on which was printed only a cell phone number.
If anybody can take out this impostor, Nikoletta thought with satisfaction, he can.
But before she called him, she had to make one other call. She wanted the PI off the case. He had become a potential hazard, since he was spying on Adrian’s house in the country. Assuming the impostor stayed there for the next few days, the PI had to be out of the way. I’ll call him first, she thought, and then pay him for services rendered. After he’s gone, I’ll call the assassin. He’ll take care of the imposter. Whoever she is, she won’t be a threat for long.
After dinner Ariadne went outside for a brief walk. She meandered around the garden and wandered over toward the swimming pool. There were no lights on in the pool house or outside around the pool, but a blue-tinted light shone from within the pool itself. As she idly stepped onto the bluestone terrace that surrounded it, she gazed into the pool’s lit depths and saw Matt swimming underwater. His motions were powerful and propelled him with a fluid grace from one end of the pool to the other in only a few strokes.
When he surfaced at the deep end, he shook his head, flinging water off his hair. He looked up at her with surprise, then smiled widely. “Are you coming in?”
“No,” she said. “I was just taking a walk and saw the light, so I thought I’d have a look.”
“Why don’t you? It’s really warm. They run the heater nearly all the time.”
“I don’t think so,” Ariadne said.
“Aw, come on,” Matt coaxed as he pushed himself up onto the terrace with his arms.
Ariadne noticed the ease with which he got out of the water and the way his biceps and triceps flexed. When he stood up, she saw that he wore a very brief blue swimsuit that clung to him. He looked so handsome, she thought. So strong and masculine and . . . sexy. He bent over and took a towel off a weathered teak chaise longue and began ruffling his hair with it.
“I don’t even have a bathing suit,” she said.
“If you feel like you have to wear one, I’m sure there’s one in the pool house that would fit you,” Matt said. “There are lots of extras for guests.” He hung the towel around his neck and walked toward her.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I guess it could count as part of my training, since I’m not a very good swimmer.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said. “I’ll wait for you. You’ll find everything you need in the pool house.”
Ariadne went inside and discovered that the pool house had both men’s and women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms. In the women’s there were more than a dozen bathing suits to choose from. She quickly undressed and found one t
hat fitted, a two-piece with blue and white stripes. Looking at herself in the mirror before she ventured back to the pool, she took a deep breath. She thought of the pictures she’d seen of Nikoletta in magazines and on video and decided that her body compared favorably with her sister’s. Before she could give it another thought, she went back out to the pool.
Matt’s eyes assessed her appreciatively, she noticed, but he swiftly averted his gaze. “Good. You found what you needed,” he said.
Ariadne went to the shallow end of the pool and dipped a foot in. “Wow! It is warm, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “Practically like a bathtub.”
She started down the steps that led down into the pool. “Oh, this feels so good.”
Matt grinned, then went to the steps and followed her into the water.
Ariadne walked in up to her waist, then plunged into the water and dog-paddled toward the deep end. When she reached it, she turned around and faced him. “This is so great!” she said. “I don’t know why I haven’t done this before.”
“Now you can do it anytime.”
She shoved off the wall and plunged into the water again, diving under the surface. Kicking her legs and using long even strokes with her arms, she swam toward the shallow end. Oblivious to anything but the soothing water, she hit something with her hands and surfaced, gasping and sputtering water.
“You must’ve had your eyes closed,” Matt said, laughing.
“I did,” she said. She realized that she was standing directly in front of him, their bodies practically touching. She looked up at him, and Matt’s eyes met hers.
They were silent for a moment. Then he slowly leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. Ariadne trembled with excitement, and she returned his kiss. His arms encircled her, and he gently pulled her closer to him in the water, his lips on hers, then brushing tenderly against her ears and down her neck. She put her arms around him and held on, her breathing rapid, surges of sensual electricity rushing through her body. It seemed that her body had a life of its own, responding to him of its own accord.
She felt his warm breath on her ear, then his lips gently trailing across her forehead, down each of her cheeks, then back to her lips. They kissed again, more passionately. He parted her lips with his tongue, and Ariadne shivered with pleasure, giving herself up to his exploration, relishing the feel of him. For a long time they kissed and hugged in the water, their arms around each other, until he drew back at last.
“Let’s go into the pool house where no one can see us,” he said.
She nodded.
He took her hand and led her out of the water and inside the pool house, where he guided her to one of the couches. Ariadne spread out lengthwise, and he lay next to her and began kissing her again. She felt one of his hands on her breasts, and she gasped as he began fondling them gently. He slid the straps from her shoulders, one at a time, then began kissing and licking her nipples. The pleasure was such that she nearly levitated off the couch, and she held him tight, wanting this to never end.
When she felt his hardness against her, she moaned at its strange but erotic power and felt an urgency between her thighs that was heaven-sent. One of her hands trailed down his back to his rounded, muscular ass, and she stroked it in circles, before slipping her hand beneath the tight swimsuit in which it was trapped.
Matt groaned, and his lips found her mouth again. He began kissing her with mounting passion, and one of his hands slid down to the mound between her thighs, brushing against it lightly, teasingly, feeling her heat and dampness. She pushed against his hand, and he responded by easing his hand inside the confines of her bikini bottom, pressing his fingers to her sweet lips.
“Oh, my God, Matt,” Ariadne whispered, and began to moan.
He slid her bikini bottom down, and she wriggled out of it as he took off his swimsuit. He sprang free against her, and she reached down and touched him, encircling him with her hand. Matt gasped, then kissed her long and hard before suddenly drawing back.
“Oh, Ariadne,” he whispered. “I want you so much. Desperately.” He kissed her again, his passion all-consuming.
“I want you, too, Matt,” she murmured.
Then slowly he began guiding himself to the anxious, swollen lips between her thighs. He was very gentle, trying to control the impulse to enter her with the thrust his desire demanded.
She felt the swollen head of his manhood inside her. As he tenderly continued entering her, her body accepted and welcomed him there. She grasped his back and held on to him with all her might and started moving with him, the desire to have all of him, to satisfy her own passion and his, overwhelming all else. They moved as one, rhythmically, slowly at first, their pace gradually increasing until they were pounding against each other with wild abandon.
Matt suddenly let out a cry, and his entire body jerked, then tensed, as he came inside her. Ariadne felt herself contract around him as a flood tide of ecstasy swept her up, up, up into a realm of pleasure such as she’d never known existed. Time itself seemed to stand still. She had relished their lovemaking since the first time, but she had not experienced erotic pleasure like this before. It was a feeling of completeness, as if nothing could be added to it to make it more perfect.
Matt exhaled a hot breath against her face and hugged her to him powerfully. He began kissing her face.
“Ariadne,” he rasped softly. “Ariadne . . . Ariadne . . . I love you. . . . I love you. . . .”
Ariadne didn’t think she would ever forget this moment. It would be etched in her mind with a clarity that would never diminish, she thought. Even the pale, diffuse light from the swimming pool outside that cast its bluish tint into the room would color her memories of this act of love for the rest of her life. All the years of abandonment and loneliness and questioning seemed unimportant now, receding into the past. Their love—for that was what it must be, she thought—displaced those feelings.
“I love you, too, Matt,” she finally whispered to him.
When they parted at last, Ariadne reluctantly returned to her room in the house, unafraid and unconcerned of the reactions of anyone there. She felt a strength and a hope that were new and empowering. She should be exhausted, she thought, but her entire being was energized as it never had been before by what she and Matt had discovered together. The future held promise now, and she felt it deep down inside, in a place where no one could take it away.
Chapter Twenty-four
New York City
No construction helmets were necessary this time as Nikoletta toured her favorite place on earth, the almost completed PPHL International Headquarters on West Forty-second Street. In her mind, it was a monument erected to her glory, one that would be a landmark in New York City for decades, if not centuries, to come.
Her considerable entourage included Rik Persoons, the principal architect; his most senior associates; several PPHL senior executives; her personal assistant, Danette Shrager; and Glenn Gund, the interior designer, who had arrived with his battalion of minions. The group followed her lead, stopping where she did, showing interest in those things that she did, and staying close to her heels, trying to catch her every word. They all shared certain knowledge: that even at this late stage in the construction process, one single misstep and Nikoletta Papadaki would take great pleasure in seeing a head roll and replacing it with that of someone else. After the arduous process they’d all been through, they wanted the credit for the finished product, and they knew the only way to get it was to be involved until the very end.
After finishing a walk-through of the sixty-seventh floor, where Nikoletta’s luxurious suite of offices was nearing readiness, she announced, “Now I wish to tour my triplex apartment.”
The majority of the entourage was dismissed, except for Rik Persoons, Danette Shrager, and Glenn Gund. Associates and minions were neither welcomed nor permitted beyond the sixty-seventh floor today.
They took the private keyed elevator to the sixty-eighth floor, the fi
rst of the three full floors of living space high above Manhattan. These top three stories of the building that were to be her new digs boasted fifteen-foot ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and thirty thousand square feet of interior space. The terraces on various levels of the apartment would put all others in New York City to shame.
All three floors of the apartment were a hive of activity. Workmen, from plasterers to carpenters, were plowing full speed ahead, and Glenn Gund began rushing around, barking orders, and gesticulating madly as he decided on some last-minute changes. Although he was allowed a certain degree of freedom with the design of the apartment, he always consulted with Nikoletta before making any changes, and those he was demanding today had already been cleared by her.
The workmen grumbled and cursed among themselves, but never within Nikoletta’s earshot and seldom within Glenn’s. They swore that they’d never worked for two such demanding taskmasters, and hoped that they would never have to take a job that involved either of them again.
Rik Persoons led Nikoletta outside, onto one of the many windswept terraces. “I have news that I think will please you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Remember how we scheduled the completion of the building for seven weeks from now?”
“Yes?” Nikoletta, guessing what was coming, felt a surge of excitement.
“And remember the weekly bonuses you promised for early completion?”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s worked wonders with the construction team. The building will be ready for occupancy within three weeks. Maximum.”
“You mean . . . it’s not too early to plan a grand-opening party?” Nikoletta asked. “Not too soon to get my party planner cracking and sending out the invitations?”
“Not by any means,” Rik replied.
“Oh, my God,” she swooned. “That will barely give them enough time to get everything ready. I can hear the complaints already. But who cares? This is fantastic news, Rik. This is better . . . oh, my God, this is better than . . . sex!”