Amanda grinned at her flitting thoughts despite the sudden arrival of a squadron of tiny butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She inhaled slowly and deeply three times as she skipped up the last three stairs from the subway and stepped onto the street. But she sighed when the morning turned out to be as gray, dank and unpromising as it had been when she trotted down the subway stairs at East Eighty-Sixth a half hour earlier.
As a mean little gust of too-early fall chill whipped at her ankles, Amanda shivered, hunched her shoulders and turned up the collar of her charcoal, classically tailored Armani jacket. She wished she had gone shopping for the new winter coat the week before as she’d intended. But “Relax babe,” Natalie had said. “You so do not need a new winter coat yet. It is only September seventh and being this obsessive is not cool.” Natalie had laughed and added, “You can wait another week, no matter that you have ‘buy new coat’ in your organizer. It’s not going to make the wheels of high finance fall off. Trust me.”
As Amanda threaded her way between the men and women in authoritative suits—and a fair number of overcoats, she noted grumpily—striding to the beat of their iPodded ears, she felt herself scowling at how wrong Natalie was turning out to be.
“Hey Mandy! Mandy!” The imperious call and teeth-grating diminutive favored by Jason Markowitz made her stop dead, forcing irritated finance workers to part and sweep around them in a shoaling stream of corporate pinstripes.
“Jason, how you doing?” He was her opposite number in a nearby merchant bank that was currently in the news for all the wrong reasons. The grumbling passing throng buffeted the two until they regained their own momentum in the flow.
“So far so good. Still got a desk. And you?” Jason’s bagel crumbs punctuated each word and twirled mote-like in the air between them.
Amanda squared her shoulders and grinned. “We’re looking pretty okay. We’re in good shape and it’s business as usual.”
“Well yeehaw, kiddo. I wish I could share your confidence. It’s feeling pretty arctic around here and I don’t think it’s just the weather.”
They sidestepped a swarm of TV camera crews and reporters gathered outside one of the most venerable institutions and were about to walk on when the glass doors of the palazzo of mega-deals swung open and a troop of taut-faced, well-dressed young men and women marched out, each carrying a cardboard carton of personal possessions. In a concerted surge toward them, the cameras lit up and flashes snapped and crackled into disbelieving faces as strident questions bounced back and forth. But no answers were offered in return.
“Oh jeez,” said Jason. “There’s Andy Stark. ’Scuse me, kiddo, I gotta go check in with him. Catch you soon—huh?”
The sight of her peers stumbling jobless into the unfriendly morning momentarily mesmerized Amanda. They no longer looked like masters of the universe; they were small, frightened people once more. She shivered and again wished she had bought the elegant Nicole Farhi coat she had already decided upon during one of her reconnaissance missions.
“Mandy? Hello? You in there? Catch you later.” Jason was almost dancing about, so nervous were his feet in their highly polished black wingtips.
She shook herself and grinned. “Sure, sure. I’ll call you. No problem.” They air kissed, parted company and she pushed on toward her own temple of glass and multibillions of dollars. Her stomach was churning and she clutched her current favorite YSL Muse purse tighter under her arm. When it began to vibrate against her ribs she stopped to rummage and find her BlackBerry. She checked the screen and a smile relaxed her tight jaw muscles as the photo of her lover appeared.
“Natalie…”
“Hi, babe, you at the coalface yet? You heard the latest? It’s on TV. Looks like Barr Lopez is down the tubes.”
Amanda began to walk again. Being stationary was all at once too agitating to be borne as her stomach churned. “I’ve just passed by there and a bunch of guys were walking out with their stuff. It’s another let-go.”
“Don’t reckon so, babe,” Natalie’s voice sung merrily down the phone. “The news is they’re gone. Like really gone.”
Amanda shook her head, and her stomach did another full roll. “I can’t see that. Barr Lopez has been around forever. They’re way too big to fail.”
“Hope you’re right, babe, but I don’t think so. Check it out.”
Amanda sighed. “Okay, I’ll call you when I get to my desk.”
“Nuh, gonna be busy. Got a video project this morning. Catch ya later, babe.” And before Amanda could respond she was gone leaving Amanda feeling even edgier than before. Having Natalie hang up, sometimes in mid-sentence—always Amanda’s sentence—was disconcerting and made her feel abandoned—and stupid for feeling abandoned. And it was all the more upsetting because Amanda was pretty sure Natalie knew she didn’t like it. And being called “babe” also made her feel childlike and vulnerable and that didn’t help either. Was it sheer perversity or did Natalie really not care? Or perhaps it was a way of keeping Amanda dancing on the string of insecurity. Impossible to know, especially at this hour. Amanda sighed, thumbed the disconnect button and dropped the phone back in her purse. She was annoyed with herself for being susceptible, which itself was even more than annoying. For the third time that morning she found herself reluctantly grinning at her own expense.
“What’s so funny, Amanda?” Marise Mack, who was nakedly after Amanda’s desk and window, fell in beside her rival as they walked up a flight of shallow steps to the slowly spinning brass and glass doors of their building. “You look either happy or crazy. Or both. You gotta hot tip?”
“I was miles away, actually,” Amanda said coolly. “What’s news at your end?”
“Fa-a-a-bulous,” cooed Marise and began to recite exactly how and why her end was fabulous as she wiggled her well-upholstered butt and skipped into the revolving door compartment ahead of Amanda. For a second Amanda considered waiting for the doors to roll on around to give her a minute’s respite from Marise’s yapping, but decided being childish was, well, childish. So she stepped in behind her colleague and, as they shuffled forward into the foyer, Amanda couldn’t help but admire her would-be usurper’s shapely legs and ridiculously high-heeled Manolos. Shoes were Marise’s passion. She had others, so it was rumored on the office grapevine, but mile-high shoes were the most obvious.
“You didn’t hear a word I said,” Marise poked Amanda in the ribs with one of a set of blood-red talons. “You were somewhere else.”
Amanda attempted a grin as she recoiled from the tickling touch. It was her least favorite form of teasing. And in any case, she wasn’t about to tell Marise what she had been thinking.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
They set out across the foyer toward the bank of elevators. Marise’s heels clacked liked castanets on the polished marble, counterpointing Amanda’s relatively staid three-inch navy Pradas.
“I asked whether you’d heard the latest on Lehman’s?”
“Aside from bankruptcy? No, but Barr Lopez is conducting a bloodletting. Bunch of guys were doing the last walk when I came past.”
“Wow. This is so not good. I got a call yesterday and a pal whispered ‘Lehman’s’ but I didn’t believe it. I mean it was Sunday anyway, but shit—it’s happened. I wonder who’s next for the big drop. This is really amazing stuff, Mandypops.”
Amanda’s teeth clenched, but her expression remained sunny even if her face was tight around the jaw. She stuck her index finger on the up arrow and pressed hard enough for it to hurt and leave an indentation in the pad of her fingertip. It didn’t make her feel any less exasperated with Marise.
“Well heads down, butts up, Marise, and let’s see whether we can turn us another coupla mil’ today.” The doors hissed open on an empty car. They stepped in ahead of a surge of impeccable Italian suiting and two other early birds. Amanda held a spot by the doors despite the barging shoulders and mumbling growls.
“Going up. Twenty-third floor, ladies int
imate apparel, leisure wear, tranquilizers and lentils,” she recited with determined joie de vivre. “Any takers?”
Nervous laughter and a mutter of floor numbers was her reward. The doors swished, the elevator trembled once and began its rapid ascent to the dizzy heights of the institution whose name discreetly decorated the façade of the building.
* * *
Elleron Frères, founded by two Belgian émigré brothers in the mid-1800s, was one of the bluest of blue-chip firms. Early into electronic and computer technology and quick to take advantage of financial deregulation wherever it occurred, Elleron Frères had long shrugged off its genteel European origins—although not the chic accent on the “e”—and was an envied and reputable highflier.
After graduating top of her class, Amanda had made it to the venerable firm’s twenty-third floor in three leaps, each of two years’ duration, from other starry outfits in the financial district. And she had lunched with yet another headhunter just four days previously to discuss her next option. But a top job at eFrères, as staff affected to call it, was a highly desirable and powerfully attractive thing, with the occasional unexpected perk, as some found out, sooner or later…
It had begun with a simple cream-colored card in a simple cream-colored envelope, hand addressed in proper ink to Amanda—and other senior personnel—requesting her attendance at the annual cocktail party to celebrate “the holidays and another year of success.” It had been signed “Godfrey Nielsen—CEO” in the same hand and dark blue ink.
“For heaven’s sakes don’t drink the punch, let me get you a martini.” The woman Amanda knew to be the president’s executive assistant had murmured in her ear as she stood in line to collect a cut crystal cup of fruit-adorned poison at the eFrères’ “happy holidays” party. Amanda had been with the bank just three months and it was her first Christmas and first opportunity to meet the firm’s highfliers en masse. Amanda could not be certain but it had felt awfully like the tiniest flick of tongue on her earlobe before the elegant woman stood back a pace and turned a dazzling smile on her.
“I’m Carmel Morrow and I’m Godfrey Nielsen’s EA, welcoming you to the wonderfully dysfunctional family of eFrères.” She extended a manicured right hand. Amanda took it and also took in the glossy dark bob, discreet jewelery and a classic black Vera Wang that managed to simultaneously cover and reveal a toned fortyish body. She also took in that she wasn’t getting her hand back any time soon.
“It’s good to meet you and good to be here,” Amanda said, gazing into brown eyes that sparkled with mischief and a dusting of seasonal frosted mascara.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” said Carmel, giving Amanda’s hand a squeeze. “You are one of our brightest young stars.” She turned to head toward another bar area and Amanda had no choice but to follow, or lose her hand.
“Well I don’t know who’s been talking,” she began in what she hoped was a tone of “aw, gee shucks” humility.
But Carmel merely gave her hand an impatient squeeze and continued over her shoulder, “No false modesty, Amanda, everyone’s talking and if they weren’t you wouldn’t be here. Now, what will it be? Vodka martini?” Her eyes widened and stared straight into Amanda’s, “Shaken and stirred? Could I interest you in something like that?”
She was being flirted with and the keeper of the keys to the castle was doing the flirting. Amanda laughed even as her insides did a flip and a slow burn ignited high up between her legs. She swallowed and said in a voice that was unexpectedly slightly unsteady, “Shaken and stirred sounds very—um—interesting, Carmel. I’ve not tried that before.”
It was Carmel’s turn to laugh, and she threw back her head and revealed perfect teeth and the kind of almost invisible creases around her throat that suggested a woman who probably had quite a bit of work done on the flawless face when supposedly on vacation.
“Now that I find hard to believe, you bad girl,” Carmel took a classic martini glass from a bartender in a starched white jacket and handed it on to Amanda. The drink looked vaguely blue and lethal, and the green olive on its little silver stick was plumply inviting. “Now come with me and I’ll give you the million-dollar tour of the executive floor,” said Carmel. “You might as well get to know it now as I’m sure you’ll be down here before long.”
Amanda felt it politic not to resist and anyway, there was an unanticipated kick to be had by obediently following her hostess’s shapely form through the crowd of revelers. Carmel either worked out or was sporty—or both. Her shoulders and upper arms were sleekly muscled beneath lightly bronzed skin. She carried her own drink in her left hand, which gave Amanda the opportunity to note a pecan-sized diamond and a heavy gold wedding band, as well as a substantial gold signet ring on her pinkie. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought, as they skirted a trinity of silver and white Christmas trees and slipped through a heavy blond wood door that opened at their approach.
“This is the boardroom,” Carmel said as the door sighed shut behind them. It was handsomely proportioned with carefully lit portraits in ornate gilt frames of seriously historical-looking men in muttonchops and frock coats. They peered down quizzically at a vast ultramodern glass and chrome table with a dozen or so chocolate leather and chrome chairs set around it. Beyond the table there were dark green floor-to-ceiling drapes along the wall that would otherwise have afforded some kind of view of New York’s financial district. On the floor was deep carpeting in an understated, vaguely geometric pattern of dark chocolate and latte.
“Very nice,” said Amanda, knowing it was an inane response but preoccupied at the same time by wondering whether something as corny as sex on the boardroom table might be about to take place.
“It’s functional,” said Carmel dismissively. “You’ll find it comfortable enough.” She peered at Amanda over the top of her glass. “Do you aspire to it, Miss Top of the Class at Yale? Or are you waiting for the right guy to come along and save you from all this?”
Amanda took a larger-than-intended swig of the martini and felt the top of her head almost lift off. She swallowed convulsively, coughed and shook her head. “No.”
Carmel frowned and smiled simultaneously. “No what? No you’re not that ambitious or no, you’re not looking for Mr. Right?”
Amanda managed to stem another cough before it erupted and laughed instead. “Mr. Right—in New York? I don’t think so.” She took another swallow of her drink, which she figured must be at least a triple and, thanks to its blazingly instant effect, she added, “Anyway, I’ve only been here three months so I really haven’t given much thought to the presidency. Yet.”
Carmel laughed again. It was a pleasing sight and sound. “Oh my,” she said. “Quite a girl we have here, I’m glad to see.” She stepped away from the table that she had been leaning against, legs extended, ankles crossed, bosom on display. “Well let’s go continue the show-and-tell.” Carmel put out her hand and Amanda took it only to find herself being compelled by dark brown eyes and pulled forward until their faces were almost touching. She could feel Carmel’s breath on her mouth and her own heart thumping in her ears.
“But meanwhile,” Carmel said softly, not taking her eyes off Amanda’s, “here’s a taste of things to come.” And she leaned in and met Amanda with soft lips and probing tongue in a long kiss that was made all the more arousing because their mouths and loosely clasped hands were their only point of contact. Amanda’s initial shock gave way to enjoying the feeling of the slow burn snaking its way around her body, filling every part with pounding blood until her skin tingled and her clitoris swelled. Finally it was Amanda who pulled away and came up for air and Carmel stepped back, smiled and gave her an all-over appraisal while slowly running her tongue around her lips.
“Not just smart but sexy too,” she said and her eyes were expressionless. “And very pretty—not unlike Ellen, although perhaps it’s just the hair.” She ran her fingers through the pale blond strands that framed Amanda’s face, causing shivers. Amanda turned her
face into the warm palm and kissed it. Carmel took a good swallow of her scotch and swirled the ice in the glass. “You should go far, Miss Amanda, if you play your cards right.”
“I’ve always enjoyed a game of cards,” Amanda said, smiling. “I’m a cool hand at Snap, but not much good at Happy Families.”
Carmel chuckled. “I imagine you’d be fairly good at poker though.” Before Amanda could react to the innuendo, Carmel once again tugged on Amanda’s hand and led her around the table to another unobtrusive door.
“Here’s the command center,” said Carmel as the door swung open. Beyond was a spacious room that looked more like a chic parlor than an office. The same lush yet discreet carpeting carried through from the boardroom and more heavy green drapes kept out the New York night. On a glass-topped, oval-shaped table stood a large computer screen and keyboard with not a cable in sight. A tall gleaming glass vase containing a sheaf of white lilies was the only other object on the table. Behind the table was a comfortable looking high-backed chocolate leather chair. Across the room were two armchairs and a couch upholstered in the same rich matte leather. On a glass coffee table in front of the couch was a selection of glossy magazines and the day’s Wall Street Journal. On the walls were two abstract paintings consisting mainly of splashes of paint that looked interesting but unfathomable.
“So this is Godfrey Nielsen’s office?”
Carmel chuckled. “No, silly, this is my office. Now how about a top up?” She moved to the paneled walls, pushed a metal roundel and a door swung open to reveal a well-stocked bar and fridge. “Same again?” Carmel held out her hand for Amanda’s glass.
Amanda sculled the remains of the killer cocktail, removed the olive on its stick and obediently handed over the glass. As Carmel made a fresh martini, dropped chunks of ice into her own glass and poured scotch over them, Amanda could not help but watch the play of light on the muscle and flesh of her bare arms as she munched the olive. Carmel was physically lovely, if unnerving.
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