He had, once.
A decade ago.
In two short, amazing years he’d made his first million, made his second, his third and fourth. He’d also met a woman, lost his heart to her, or so he’d thought, and asked her to marry him.
At first, things were fine. Coming home to someone at the end of a long day was new to him. He liked the feeling. He liked having someone to care about.
A business opportunity came along.
It was risky. If he invested in it, he could make millions. He could also lose almost everything he had. He didn’t think that would happen, but when you took risk, there was always that possibility. Still, he was young. Hardworking. And he had a woman standing beside him who loved him.
Wrong.
He told his wife about the investment. He wanted to hear her opinion. And she gave it.
If he lost everything, she said calmly, he would also lose her. What about love? he said, and she said, What about it?
The divorce was quick, the settlement her lawyers got out of him substantial.
The last time he saw her, he’d heard himself ask the question he’d sworn he would not ask.
“Was it all a lie?” he’d said.
She’d smiled, touched his shoulder.
“Not the sex.”
It had been a hard lesson. An awful lesson, but he had learned it well.
He was not a man meant for love. He had raised himself out of poverty, alone. He had created a life for himself, alone. He had become the man he was, alone.
He needed no one. He never would.
The trees bent to a gust of wind. Marco shivered.
Why was he thinking about these things? More to the point, why couldn’t he sleep?
No, it had not been a good day. The Ferrari. His PA. Jessalyn. Annoyances, all of them, but he’d had worse days, especially years ago, days when he had not known where he would get his next meal, when his dreams of success had seemed more distant than the stars.
Nothing that had happened today came close to that.
And yet here he was, standing on his terrace at four-something in the morning, facing another long day ahead, needing sleep and knowing it would not come.
For what reason?
He was not a man given to insomnia. He worked hard, played hard. Literally. He had a workout room on the lower level of the penthouse. He played racquetball. Soccer. American football. He had little time for those things, of course, but when he did, he gave no quarter and expected none. And he slept soundly.
So, what was he doing out here at this hour?
He exhaled heavily, then brought the cup of espresso to his mouth and swallowed the last of the bitter liquid.
He knew the answer.
It was Emily. A rain-soaked waif who had turned out to be tough and determined was in his head.
His lips curved in a smile.
Not many people had the balls to take him on. The fact was, Charles was the only one who ever did and Charles did it with so much tact, it was hard to know he was doing it.
But Emily had stood up to him without hesitation and even though she’d eventually accepted his help, she had been about as impressed by him and his car and the indications of his obvious wealth as these trees were impressed by the city sprawled at their feet.
And that kiss…
He imagined he could still taste the sweetness of her lips, feel the softness of her against him.
What would she have been like in bed?
Like her kiss. Sweet. Tender. But with fire blazing underneath.
His body hardened at the thought.
Dio, was that what was keeping him awake? Sexual frustration? It didn’t seem possible. Besides, he’d done the right thing, walking away, not taking things further.
Hadn’t he?
Of course. A woman like Emily had no place in his world. In his life… and what in hell did that mean? He didn’t even know her last name; he hadn’t asked for her phone number and here he was deciding she wouldn’t fit into his life.
He was a crazy man.
He was a man in desperate need of sleep.
Or activity.
Marco strode back into the penthouse, dumped the cup into the sink, went to his workout room and spent an hour lifting weights. The sky had lightened to a pale gray by the time he was done but he fell into bed, and sleep took pity on him and swallowed him up for one mindless, restful hour.
******
The alarm went off at seven. Marco rose, shaved, showered, dressed in a dark navy suit, white shirt, burgundy tie.
His housekeeper was already in the kitchen and she knew his routine. Orange juice. Half a toasted bagel. A double espresso. Charles was at the table, drinking his usual mug of Earl Grey.
“Ready, sir?”
Marco would have preferred his Ferrari. No point in thinking about that.
“Si. I am ready.”
Traffic was mercifully swift-moving. Charles pulled the Mercedes to the curb in front of the MS Enterprises building. He knew better than to open the door for his employer.
“See you at six, sir.”
Marco nodded, stepped from the car and walked briskly toward the building entrance.
A watery sun was in the sky. The air was crisp. He felt surprisingly good for a man who’d had one hour of sleep.
Perhaps it was because he’d made peace with the Emily incident.
She was attractive and he admired her spirit, but his attraction to her hadn’t been real. It had been the natural follow-through to the entire situation. Woman in need, man riding to the rescue, a modern-day version of playing Sir Galahad when he was far more accustomed to being viewed as a heartless marauder.
And then there’d been the sharp contrast between Emily and Jessalyn.
Marco quickened his pace as he crossed the enormous lobby of MS Enterprises.
Emily was not the kind of woman he normally dealt with. She was most certainly not the kind he wanted to deal with.
Bottom line? He was glad he’d helped her but that was the end of it.
He strode past the lobby reception desk. The clerk behind it sprang to his feet and all but clicked his heels.
“Good morning, Mr. Santini.”
Marco growled a good morning in return. He considered pausing long enough to say that a simple greeting was sufficient, that standing at attention was not necessary, but he’d made the same little speech before and it had gotten him nowhere.
The elevator operator—not really an operator but a security guy—did the same thing. Straightened up and damn near saluted.
“Good morning, sir.”
Marco nodded, and also thought about telling him, once again, that such formality was not necessary, but the elevator doors whisked open and he stepped inside.
He didn’t like being treated like a potentate. Why would he?
The car stopped at the fiftieth floor. The executive level, fronted by a big glass desk and a receptionist.
“Good morning, Mr. Santini…”
“You are not to rise to your feet,” Marco snapped.
The woman looked bewildered, and rightly so. She, at least, had taken him at his word after the millionth time he’d told her to remain seated when he arrived in the mornings.
What had happened to his good mood?
“Sorry,” he said as he marched past her and headed for his office.
He knew what had happened to his good mood.
Reality had killed it. And here was the further proof. He would have to spend the day dealing with the temporary and completely incompetent PA sent up by Human Resources—and, merda, there she was, springing to her feet.
“Good morn—”
“Good morning,” Marco snarled. “And sit down, dammit.”
“Sorry, sir. I only—”
Cristo, was her voice shaking?
“Yes. I understand.” Marco smiled. At least, he hoped he was smiling. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “
Any messages?” he said briskly.
“Yes, sir. I put them on your desk.”
Marco thanked her, entered his office, shrugged off his suit jacket, hung it away and went to his desk.
The stack of messages looked three feet high. His regular PA would have winnowed it by more than half. And the very first message was not a good one. The garage needed more insurance information. His PA should have handled it.
Correction.
Would have handled it, if she were still here.
Marco reached for the phone, stabbed the button for his HR manager.
“What is happening about finding me an assistant?”
She told him that she had contacted an agency that specialized in administrative assistants of the highest caliber.
“I explained the urgency of the situation, Mr. Santini, and they’re sending what they assure me are three excellent candidates for interviews this morning. I’ll narrow it to the one who seems most suitable and send her to you for your approval.”
One problem down.
Another thousand to go, including one that was personal.
He took a piece of letterhead engraved with his name, gave what he would write a minute’s thought before coming up with words that were brief, to the point and not open to interpretation.
For shared memories.
He scrawled his name beneath the words, put the note in an envelope and sealed it, and then he phoned Cartier, just a couple of blocks away on Fifth Avenue, arranged for a duplicate of the diamond bracelet raffled off the night before to be delivered to Jessalyn along with the note, which he sent to the store by messenger.
Excellent.
Now he could concentrate on organizing the data he’d need for his trip to Paris tomorrow morning.
Had Emily ever seen Paris?
Marco frowned.
What a foolish thought. And what was she doing, back in his head?
Maybe he should send something to her, now that he’d sent something to Jessalyn. Not jewelry, of course. Nothing that intimate. Chocolates. Flowers. And a note saying he hoped things would go well for her and if they didn’t, she should feel free to get in touch with him and…
And what?
Chocolates and flowers and notes of any kind would be a bad idea. Hadn’t he just been telling himself he’d been mistaken in thinking he’d been attracted to her? Yes, she was different from the women he knew and that made her interesting, but the truth was, how long would such an interest last?
He already knew that she was unsophisticated. Her accent told him that she was a girl from somewhere in the South, probably a small town where life moved at a slower pace. He figured she was in her twenties. It was easy to imagine her finishing high school, trying to find work as a pianist—a piano player, he thought, smiling—and, after coming up empty, taking a job in an insurance office or maybe at a small retail shop for a couple of years while she saved up enough money to come north to the Big Apple.
She would know nothing of the life he led. She’d be as uncomfortable as the proverbial fish out of water.
Last night had been a page torn out of time.
Besides, suppose he did send her flowers. Or asked her to dinner. Once she realized who he was, what he was, a man building an empire, no matter how unsophisticated she was, that would change things. Like the easy way she’d dealt with him. Of course it would.
Plus, what would they talk about? Not that his conversations with the women he dated were ever deep and meaningful. Hell, he wasn’t looking for deep and meaningful, only that the women who passed through his life fit into it.
Seamlessly.
But he’d bet anything in the world that his rain-soaked tigress would fit into his arms.
Into his bed.
Emily, her skin silken and hot under the stroke of his hands, her mouth sweet and parted to the thrust of his tongue, her body arching against his, her cries of need and desire rising into the silence of the night…
His elbow jerked.
Half the stack of messages tumbled to the floor.
Marco muttered a curse, retrieved them, dumped them on his desk and shot to his feet.
The window wall behind him offered a breathtaking view of the city. He swung toward it, flattened his hands against the cool glass and took long, deep breaths until his mind emptied of everything.
He’d been working too hard lately. He always worked hard but the past few months had been rough. He’d had acquisitions to deal with, the expansion of MS Enterprises into Brazil, endless projects that all required constant attention.
This was the result.
Foolish thoughts. Pointless imaginings. He was, and always had been, a logical man. He didn’t waste time daydreaming. He had built his empire on logic. On clear, cool thought.
Perhaps he needed a break.
“Mr. Santini?”
The Paris trip. Then a few days off. He’d fly down to La Tortuga, the island he’d recently bought in the Caribbean. Hadn’t he promised himself he’d find time to do that? There was a house there, adequate to stay in until he planned the one that would replace it. Maybe he could begin doing that while he was there.
“Mr. Santini. Sir.”
The sun, the sea, the isolation of the white sand beaches and lushly wild interior were the reasons he’d bought the island. Surely, a couple of days in that kind of privacy would restore his equilibrium—
“Mr. Santini. I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but a problem’s developed.”
Marco frowned and turned to the door. His people knew better than to walk in without knocking. If an efficient PA were at the desk she’d have—
Joe Stein, the head of the design team that had handled the Twenty-two Pascal project, stood in the doorway. Joe had been busy all week with final preparation for the building’s grand opening on Wednesday.
Normally, he had a ready smile and bright pink cheeks.
This morning, his face was pale. In fact, he looked as if he were going to be sick.
Marco felt a knot forming in the pit of his belly.
“What problem?”
“You, uh, you remember the plans for the atrium at the Pascal building?”
Marco’s frown deepened. Did he remember them? The atrium was the focal point of the restoration. His company had taken what was basically a useless empty space and turned it into a glass box, open to the sun, protected from rain and snow by a sliding glass roof.
“Si,” he said carefully. “I remember it quite well.”
“Yes. Well—well, we’ve run into some difficulties with it.”
“Dammit, man, don’t pussyfoot. What difficulties?”
“The orchids. For the display.”
The orchids. White orchids. Ten thousand branching stems of them.
The knot in Marco’s gut tightened. “What about them?”
“We’re—we’re not getting them.”
“What do you mean, we’re not getting them? I authorized the order months ago. “
“Yes, sir. But—but…”
Stein launched into an explanation that started with a series of tornadoes destroying dozens of greenhouses and ended with a freak hailstorm trapping a huge cargo plane on a runway.
Midway through, Marco held up his hand.
“Get to the point,” he snapped. “How many orchids are we getting?”
“None.”
Marco could feel his mouth drop open. “None?”
“That’s right. None.”
“Let me be sure I understand this. Today is Monday. The official opening of Twenty-two Pascal is two days away. The mayor will be there. So will NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS. Vanity Fair is sending a photographer.”
“Yes, sir. I know. But—”
“But,” Marco said in a low voice that drained the final bit of color from Stein’s face, “all anyone will see is an eighteen-foot-square glass room filled with rows of glass risers topped by white ceramic vases filled with… nothing.
Stein’s Adam’s apple made
a noticeable up-and-down track above his dark blue tie.
“I could probably find other flowers.”
“But not orchids.”
“No. White flowers.”
“What kind of white flowers?”
Stein’s Adam’s apple moved again.
“Well, if I ordered from several dealers, I could mix them. You know. Roses. Tulips. Carnations. Carnations are easy to come by.”
“You’ll be suggesting daisies next,” Marco said coldly, rubbing the nape of his neck as he paced the length of his office. “Dammit,” he said, swinging toward the hapless designer, “the whole idea was to provide drama. Visual and aesthetic impact. Elegance.”
Stein nodded. “I know.”
“There must be some other way to do it.”
“How about—how about installing a pond? Maybe a waterfall. Some fish…”
Marco’s glower silenced him.
“Birds,” Stein said after a couple of seconds. “White bamboo cages full of—what are those big white birds? Cockatoos.”
“This is a building, not a zoo! Come up with another idea. What about something you’ve done before in—where was it you worked? Chicago?”
“Yes. Chicago.” Stein’s face lit. “I did a terrific display in a big department store.”
“What was it?”
“Well, it was seasonal. It was, uh, it was Christmas.”
“This is September,” Marco said coldly.
“Halloween is coming. Thanksgiving—”
“Pumpkins and turkeys? Get hold of yourself, man! This is not a shopping mall: it is a historic building saved from being razed. I told you what I wanted almost six months ago: a construct that would push back the noise and smells of the streets. Offer tranquility in the midst of a city. An urban oasis.”
“I understood the concept, sir. It was why I suggested the orchids. I’d created something similar in the foyer of a concert hall in Chicago. The papers dubbed it an urban island.”
“What was it?”
“Well, it wouldn’t apply here. I’m not even suggesting that it would—”
“What was it?” Marco said sharply.
“I used candles. All sizes, all shapes—all of them electric,” he added quickly, when Marco raised his eyebrows. “There was no danger of fire. And in the center, a Steinway grand.”
Emily: Sex and Sensibility Page 5