by Peggy Jaeger
“Why can’t he build his own and leave us alone?” I asked, despising the whine in my voice.
Danny shot me one of his are you kidding? glares. “Because you guys are already up and running. And successful. Why start from scratch when you can zoom in and takeover what’s already established? It’s smart, business-wise. It sucks big time for you two, but it’s smart.”
“Sucks being the operative word.” Nell frowned into her coffee cup.
Danny’s gaze softened when he looked over at her. “We’re gonna fight him, Nell. Don’t worry. I’m not gonna let him take away what you guys have.”
She smiled at him, and I swore, he grew two inches taller.
“We need to figure out how he’s gonna try and make you fold to his offer. The guy he’s brought in is a corporate-raiding shark.”
I cleared my throat. “Before we discuss strategy, there’s something you need to know.”
My neck and cheeks heated when he landed his piercing glare on me. Danny was, for lack of a better word, family, and telling a brother you’d had wild, soul-altering sex with someone wasn’t something comfortable to divulge at the best of times.
It took me a few minutes to get everything out in a coherent tale, but I told him about meeting Prince at the condo, Diablo, and the hotel. Dan didn’t interrupt me once, but he did continue glaring at me while I stammered it all out.
When I finished, he stayed silent.
I swallowed hard and said, “Nell thinks he might have known who I was. Like, he zeroed in on me, maybe to use as a blackmail bargaining chip.”
“No. That makes no sense,” Danny said immediately, with a definitive head shake. “Sorry, Nell, but it doesn’t.”
Conflicting emotions swirled inside me. Relief warred with self-doubt, which knocked up against worry.
“Ella cleaning the condo was a last-minute thing. No way Prince knew she’d be there.”
“True,” Nell said. “But he could have recognized her after the fact.”
Danny shot his index finger at her and nodded. “But he wouldn’t know you guys would be at a club he just happened to be at the same time.”
“Again, true,” Nell said. She leaned forward in her chair. “But when he did see her at Diablo, knowing now who she was, he could have decided to use it to his advantage.”
Danny shook his head again. “Maybe, but…”
“But what?” I asked.
Danny turned back to me. He was trying not to smile and having a great deal of trouble not doing so. “Babe.” He took a swig of his coffee. “I’ve known you for over ten years.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Not once, in all those years, no matter who it was, have you slept with a guy without first knowing everything about him. From his favorite color, to the family dog’s name, to what flavor ice cream the guy prefers. There’s no way Prince knew how the evening was going to lay out. He might have hoped; believe me, as a guy with eyes in his head, I know he hoped.”
I reached over and dropped a kiss on his cheek. This time, he let the smile go full force. His eyes softened like they did when he looked at Nell.
“But I don’t think nailing you was so he could nail a business deal. Guys like him tend to have a little more class.”
A flash of Buddy murmuring “gentleman’s code” jumped to the front of my memory.
Hearing Danny’s faith in me made me feel so much better about the entire situation.
“Did you give him any personal information? Cell number? Address? Anything?”
“No. I was surprised he knew my name because I don’t remember telling it to him. I might have, but I have no memory of doing so.”
“Okay, well, don’t go nuts trying to figure it out,” he said. “We need to make certain we’ve got a handle on every single business factor Culverson might use to his advantage.”
For the next several hours, the three of us went over all financial and legal aspects of both Nell’s and my businesses. From what our operating costs were every month, to payroll, to our benefits packages, to cost analysis for the upcoming two- and five-year cycles. Danny was nothing if not a money nitpicker when it came to details. We plowed through the bag of bagels, and at one point, Danny texted his favorite pizza joint and had an extra-large pie delivered to the office.
“You can’t be hungry,” Nell said, inhaling the pizza and giving a little shudder of ecstasy. Pizza, as Danny well knew, had always been her kryptonite. In college, she’d been known to take all sorts of dares for a few slices of heaven.
“I’m always hungry, and you know it,” Danny said, holding the box up temptingly to her. When he lifted his eyebrows in a suggestive wiggle and shimmied the box under her nose, she laughed and punched him in the arm.
“I hate you,” she said with a smile.
“Nah, you don’t. You love me with all your heart.”
He put the box on the table, and Nell wound her arms around his waist from behind, plopped her chin on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I do.”
A quick glance at the wall clock over Danny’s desk and I said, “Listen, kids, I’ve got to run soon. I’m meeting a new client at the Riverdale.”
“Why at a hotel?” Danny handed a slice of pizza to Nell.
“Her niece’s engagement party is there this afternoon, and it’s the one time she’s free all week. She wants to sneak out and meet me in the bar for a few minutes while the party is going on.”
“Who is she?”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. Smugly. “Eliana Delores.”
Both their mouths flew open.
“Holy shit.” Danny almost dropped his pizza in his lap.
“Ella. Oh. My. God. What a coup,” Nell squealed.
Eliana Delores was the current duenna of the nouveau New York illuminati. The richest of the new rich. Dot.com empires, computer apps, you name it, and Gaetano Delores’ index finger was in the digital pie.
“Is the job her penthouse? Because I’ve heard it’s beyond fabulous. American Design featured it last month.” This from Nell.
“I’m not sure. I got a call from her secretary a few days ago to set up the meeting. I’ll find out all the particulars when I get there.”
“Leave,” Nell commanded. “Now. Go home. Shower. Put your best suit on, the grey Chanel knockoff. You need to make a dynamite impression on her. Jesus. Do you realize how many connections she has?”
I did, which was why I was so smug about the meeting. If all went well with Eliana Delores, I was sure more prestigious jobs would come Dirty Damsels’ way.
I kissed them both, received excited hugs in return, and cabbed it back to my condo.
Chapter Seven
The lobby of the Riverdale was packed when I arrived ten minutes early for my appointment.
As Nell suggested, I’d changed into the gray faux-Chanel two-piece linen suit I’d gotten at Nordstrom’s the year before, adding a black silk accent scarf across the shoulders. I wore the diamond studs I’d gifted myself for my first successful year in business, along with my favorite Cartier watch, a fifteenth birthday present from my father. I’d wound my unruly hair into a sleek knot at the nape of my neck and kept my makeup to a professional minimum.
Eliana Delores was the creme de la creme of the new rich, and from what I’d read about her, she personified class with a capital C, so I wanted to make my own sophisticated and elegant impression.
I’d been to the famous hotel many times over the years, the first with my father for my tenth birthday. He’d arranged a private lunch for the two of us to celebrate my day, and I remember feeling so incredibly special, grown up, and loved. My mother had died less than a year before, and my father grieved horribly during the time after. Looking back with an adult’s eyes and perspective, I realized how much her passing cost him. He seemed to shrivel and age overnight.
But by my birthday, he’d bounced back and been determined to make our lives together happy despite our loss.
It all changed when I tu
rned fifteen and he met the Evil Bitch.
I made my way to the bar, where Mrs. Delores’s secretary had told me our meeting would take place.
I knew what Eliana looked like after Googling her, and when I scanned the room, I found her seated at a corner table, deep in conversation with another woman whose back was to me. As I approached, Mrs. Delores’ gaze and mine connected, and she acknowledged me with a smile and a regal nod.
It looked like she’d done her homework, too.
“Here she is now,” she told her companion.
Just as I got to the table, the woman seated opposite Delores turned her head toward me.
I stopped dead, the smile frozen on my face.
Perfectly coiffed and stunning in a green malachite suit, Cal Burton, owner of the condo I’d cleaned, sat, a drink in her hand and a smile on her face.
***
“This is just the break I needed,” Mrs. Delores said as she sipped her martini from its triangular-shaped glass. She delicately licked her lips, eye-signaled the bartender for another, and sighed. “It was getting a little noisy in there.” She waved a hand in the direction of the doors to her left. “The groom’s family is quite loud.”
A waiter materialized from thin air when I’d arrived at the table, pulled a plush seat out for me, and took my water order.
“Before you arrived, I was singing your praises to Eliana,” Calista “call-me-Cal-everyone-does” Burton said in her cigarette-ravaged voice after I was settled. Eyeing my suit, one of her perfectly penciled auburn eyebrows rose. “That Chanel looks good on you. Not many could pull off that color.”
I managed a weak, “Thanks,” my cheeks growing hot in a heartbeat under her perusal.
“Dependable, thorough, and above all, discreet,” Cal said. “I assured Eliana she wouldn’t be reading any little snippets in those horrid gossip rags or online from you or your staff.” Her tiny shoulders pulled inward with a little shudder.
“I can assure you, Mrs. Delores,” I said, taking a fortifying sip of my water and wishing beyond all else it was something much stronger, “my staff all sign non-disclosure waivers before I ever send them out on a job.”
She waved a hand in my direction. “Yes, yes. Understood.” She took another chug of the martini the waiter had placed in front of her.
I stole a surreptitious glance at Cal Burton from under my eyelashes. Her late husband had been a business associate of my father’s, and when I started my company, I made a list of influential people who might be interested in what my start-up offered. Cal Burton was one of my first clients. When we’d met to discuss details of what I could do for her, she’d told me at least three times how much she’d liked my parents, disliked my stepmother, and how proud my dad would be of me if he could see how I was getting along in the world. She’d hired me on the spot to do her condo, an arrangement that proved lucrative and stable. I now had several high-powered clients who came directly through her recommendation. Like a modern-day fairy godmother, she’d helped make my professional wishes come true, and I loved her for it.
“And the work is exemplary. My spare condo routinely looks amazing. You should have heard my nephew singing her worker’s praises this morning.”
Nephew?
My hands, which were shaking anyway from the normal nerves running through me whenever I spoke with a new client, started to quake. I put my water glass down on the table so I wouldn’t be in danger of spilling it all over myself.
“Your nephew?” I asked in what I hoped was a controlled voice.
Cal’s smile was so sweet I wanted to sigh. “Buddy’s such a love,” she said. “He’s staying at the condo for a few days while he does some business in the city. Whoever you sent to tidy up after Ian McMasterson left did a fabulous job. Believe me, I know what a slob Ian is.” A quiet little shudder shook her shoulders. “Buddy said the place practically glowed. And your worker even left a snack prepared for him to help offset his jetlag. Whoever she was, Ella, you should commend her.”
“I will.” How I managed to get that out without my voice breaking, I’d never know. “So. It’s your nephew visiting? What a pleasure it must be for you. To see him, I mean. Since he’s, you know, family.”
Jesus. I sounded like a babbling idiot.
“He’s my youngest brother’s boy and brilliant, to boot. Looks exactly like Sean, my brother. Could be his clone. But Buddy’s got a mind made for finance. He’s helped me quite a bit over the years with investments since Harry died.”
“You should give me his name,” Eliana said, “and I’ll have my husband get in touch with him. You can never know too many people who know about money.”
They both clinked their glasses and nodded. Once again, like I’d been so many times before, I was struck by how it wasn’t what you knew that helped you along in the world, but who.
“Mrs. Delores, why don’t you tell me a little about the job you need done?” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track, even though I wanted nothing more than to sit and grill Cal Burton about her nephew.
With another sip, which looked really more like a gulp to me, of her martini, she nodded. “My youngest daughter is starting Columbia this fall.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “It’s a great school. Tough to get into.”
Her smile was serene and laced with maternal pride. “Jovena was first in her class. My husband wants her to forgo freshman housing. Jo’s never been away from home for any extended time, and she’s a little, well, naive. Protected, you’d say, from the ways of the world. Her father and I would like to keep her that way for as long as we can, and being ensconced in a freshman dorm could lead to problems we’d rather not face—or have her face—right now.”
I refrained from telling her you could take the freshman out of the dorm, but if her daughter wanted to experience college life, living off campus wasn’t going to prevent it, but I kept my opinion to myself.
“Her father has purchased a two-bedroom condo for her at 55 Astly instead,” Eliana said. “Do you know it?”
Boy, did I. Not only was it the current hottest property listing in New York, it was listed by the Calhoon Brothers, the most successful real estate brokers in the history of…well, brokers.
“Her cousin Emmanuelle will be living with her. She’ll be starting Barnard at the same time, and her mother and I felt it would be prudent to have the cousins live together.”
“And you’re looking for someone to keep the condo up to par?”
“Yes. The girls will be busy with their studies. Neither of them has ever lifted a finger for themselves, something my husband and I are to blame for, as is my sister-in-law. I don’t want them living like bums. I can imagine the mess if they were left to their own devices. Neither of them has ever done laundry, and I can’t think they even know how to turn on a vacuum. They’re spoiled, and that’s the truth. I want the condo kept clean, well-stocked with food, and presentable.”
“All things I can certainly provide. 55 Astly is a very protected property.”
Eliana’s lips lifted. “Security is uppermost in my husband’s mind at all times, especially with his children. There will be private protection assigned to her as well. But you have no need to know or concern yourself with that,” she added.
I smiled as I was put very well in my place. I wasn’t stupid or naïve. I knew my position with this woman, and it wasn’t as a friend or confident, that was for sure.
I spent a few minutes detailing the kind of services I’d provide, how often, etcetera. All the business stuff I loved.
“If you’re amenable, I can have the contract faxed over to you by tomorrow morning.”
“Send it to my husband. He takes care of the business stuff.”
I nodded. “I will need to visit the condo at one point before the girls move in,” I added, “to see the layout and square footage to determine how long to book a cleaning for. When we know the girls’ class schedules, I’ll have a better idea of the best time to send som
eone in, so they’ll be as unobtrusive as possible.”
“I’ll have my secretary call you tomorrow and set it up.” She finished her drink, downing the remainder as she had the first glass, and rose, my cue we were done and I was being dismissed.
Eliana Delores and I shook hands. “I’m counting on you,” she said, the implication clear.
I gave her my best, most brilliant confident businesswoman smile, all the while quailing internally. “No worries,” I said.
She turned to Cal. “Are you coming back in?”
Cal consulted her elegant rose gold Aquanaut Patek Phillipe watch, the diamonds surrounding the watch face of which was one year’s maintenance on my condo, and said, “No. I’m due at the Merriman’s for cocktails. Buddy’s picking me up. I’ll call you tomorrow about the Red Cross Auction.” She air-kissed her friend, then wound her hand inside the crook of my arm before I could slip away. “Ella, walk with me down to the lobby.”
She left me no recourse but to do as commanded. Terror bounded inside me as we made our way across the plush carpeting to the elevators.
Buddy was picking her up. There was no way—No. Way.—I could see him again.
It was obvious from what Cal had said that her nephew hadn’t known who I was when he mentioned the cleaning person. She would never have left that unsaid between us if he had. She might not have said anything in front of her friend, but she would have harped on it the moment we were out of earshot.
“You made a very good impression on Eliana,” she said when we were settled in the elevator. “She’ll be a valuable and influential client when it comes to future connections.”
I nodded and kept my gaze on the floor numbers.
“Is everything all right, Ella?” Her hand squeezed the inside crook of my arm where she kept it.