She’d been boyfriend-less for the last year. The odd date, but nothing that lasted beyond a month. Daisy had been reconciled with Edward, but now she saw him as nothing more than a friend. She’d had the slow, creeping realization that both the men in her life had been right. About everything. And she, the professional romantic, she had been all wrong, all the time.
There was a reason Daisy hadn’t gone with Edward back when she’d had the chance. She just wasn’t attracted to him. It was a profound truth, and she’d known it in her heart. Brad had been just attraction, Edward just friendship. With both men, she had been willing to settle for half of what she truly wanted. Courting that childhood rejection again and again, not willing to give her own heart what it needed.
Daisy smiled ruefully. She had treated her millions of readers better than she’d treated herself.
Magnus, she had liked. And wanted. And … dumped.
Smart move, kiddo, she told herself.
Well, he hadn’t spent his days pining away. His big deal had gone through, and now he was famous, and a big target for every would-be trophy wife in the world. Even if she’d wanted to forget him, she couldn’t. He was in Nigel Dempster’s column, he was in The Tatler, he was in Harper’s, in Vogue … and Hello! and OK! couldn’t get enough of him.
I still have his number, Daisy told herself. I could call him.
Her fingers were itching to do it. No! Why look pathetic? What would she say, I just wanted to look you up…?
Daisy suddenly shook herself. She wasn’t supposed to repeat the old patterns, to tell herself she wasn’t good enough. What the hell! If he didn’t want to talk to her he’d blow her off. And if he does blow me off, I’ll survive, Daisy thought. It’s not like I haven’t had practice.
*
“Soren Enterprises.”
“Magnus Soren, please.”
“One second.” A pause, then the voice of a PA, somebody new, Daisy thought. “Mr. Soren’s office.”
“Is he about, please? It’s Daisy Markham calling.”
“What company are you with, ma’am?”
“I’m a friend,” Daisy said firmly.
“I see.” The woman had all the personality of an ATM. “Can you spell your name for me, please?” Daisy did so. “And this is regarding?”
“I told you that I’m his friend,” Daisy said. She was starting to feel sweaty and anxious.
“Mr. Soren has a lot of ‘friends,’” the woman said, openly hostile now. “It’s company policy to ask what the matter is regarding.”
“It’s regarding Daisy Markham,” Daisy snapped. “Just give him the goddamn message!”
She slammed the phone down and buried her face in her hands. Ugh. Ugh. Oh well, at least she’d had the balls to call …
Daisy went into her small, sleekly designed urban bathroom and started to run a hot bath with some Origins ginger bath cream. It was a sexy scent and at least taking a bath would mean she wasn’t watching the receiver. Magnus probably wasn’t in town anyway. Tonight she would go to the movies, or the theater maybe …
The phone rang.
Daisy dived for it.
“Daisy Markham,” she said, trying to make it come out normal-sounding and not too much like a squeak.
“Magnus Soren. What a genius you do have for pissing off my secretaries, Daisy.”
“Let me turn the water off—I was just getting ready for a bath…”
“Don’t stop undressing on my account,” Soren said.
“Hold on.” She put the phone down on her bed. I must manage this, Daisy thought, I must control the situation …
She rushed to turn off the water then grab the phone again.
“Where are you staying?”
“The Paramount.”
“Room?”
“Two-oh-six. Listen, Magnus, I thought maybe we could catch up, you know, see a—”
“I’m coming right over,” Soren said, and she was listening to a dial tone.
*
Daisy spent the next ten minutes frantically tarting herself up; she cleaned her teeth, smoothed Clarins Beauty Flash Balm over her face, reapplied her make-up, brushed her long, wild raven hair smooth, and changed her dress. The navy wool was great, but the last thing she wanted was to be all nervous and sweaty. She chose a long gown in white crepe with a zipper and a matching cashmere cardigan for when she was outside; it was uncrushable in a suitcase and played up the olive tones in her skin, and her incredible curves, while still being modest.
It was vital to make a good impression. Daisy wanted to be poised, light-hearted, absolutely in control. A total contrast to the crying wreck he’d seen when he left her last. She reached for her suede “travel jewelry” case … that was the latest thing in London; rich girls had their real baubles, and then they had a second set of elegant little pieces that they could travel with and not have to worry too much about the insurance premiums. Toys for girls. Daisy had some pretty cultured pearls, Akoyas, golden in color, that softened the crisp white of the dress. She put them on, and dabbed perfume on her wrists and the cleft of her breasts. Never put scent next to pearls … she chose Hermès’ 64 Rue Faubourg, her latest favorite, a little slice of summer in the gray heart of winter …
Daisy checked herself out in the mirror. Very elegant, she thought. That would do.
The doorbell buzzed.
She opened it up. Magnus Soren was standing there in a dark suit, a contrast to his blond hair and light eyes. He was muscular enough for it to have had to be specially cut, she thought.
He looked stunning. Daisy fought back a blush. She felt her nipples tauten under the dress and thanked God she had on a padded bra.
“Come in,” she said coolly. “It’s so good to see you.”
Soren said nothing. He entered the room and shut the door, and just stood there looking at her.
“I’m in town for a quick visit,” Daisy said lightly, “and I thought it would be nice to catch up with an old friend. How have you been?”
She leaned forward and kissed the air at the side of both his cheeks, a perfect social air-kiss, distant and ladylike.
Magnus Soren put his arms around the small of her back and effortlessly tipped her off her feet and into them. Then, as Daisy gasped with surprise, he bent his head toward her, and as her lips parted slightly, involuntarily, he crushed them with his, his tongue probing her mouth, his teeth playing with her plump lips …
*
Daisy had never felt anything like it. Soren’s hands were on her, all over her body, possessively, masterfully. He unzipped her dress, letting it pool around her ankles in a fluttering cloud of white froth, leaving her tight, toned body in her Manolos and La Perla.
“Magnus…”
“Shhh,” he said, breathing it against her neck, cupping her breasts under the bra …
Daisy felt as though her belly had turned hot and liquid. She felt as though she could hardly think. His kisses set her skin on fire. Soren pulled her toward the bed, and she didn’t struggle with him.
*
“Do you like it? Don’t bother with the case. Jenkins will take care of it.”
“Very good, sir,” the chauffeur said, whisking away Daisy’s Louis Vuitton. After Magnus had finished making love to her, in a marathon, exhausting session that had lasted through the afternoon into the evening, he had insisted he help her pack and that she check out.
“You’ll be staying with me.”
Daisy kissed him, feeling oddly shy. “Are you sure we should do that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He looked surprised. “You’re my woman, Daisy.”
Now they were standing in front of an exquisite Greenwich Village apartment building. It had scroll-worked iron gates that were sliding apart to receive the car, and gargoyles peeking out of the corners of its Art Deco walls.
“Very nice,” she said approvingly. “Which flat is yours?”
Soren grinned. “All of them. The whole thing. It’s a townhouse. Come on, I’ll s
how you around.”
He led her inside and gave her the grand tour. It was stunning, as expected, but Daisy was surprised to find that among the interior-designed rooms, picked out in cool blond Scandinavian woods and buttery marble, Soren had a vogue for plants and waters; he had built a Roman-style atrium in the center of his house, with a courtyard open to the sky, a fountain, and a mossy rock garden; there were mature trees in the back, cherry and apple, and sprays of climbing roses over the walls that shielded him from his neighbors. Soren had built his own conservatory on the upper levels, crammed with scented, wild tropical plants; ferns, lilies, terracotta tiles underfoot.
“This is magnificent,” Daisy said.
“Winter garden.” Soren shrugged. “When I was a boy in Sweden we got used to making the most of winter. Candles everywhere, for natural light. Here in New York, one does not need light; I want greenery. And if I can’t get to the country, I bring the country to me. I need plants around me all the time, or I get depressed.”
Daisy felt her heart crunch with love. “I can’t see you getting depressed.”
He winked at her. “That’s because I don’t, darling.” He waved at the greenery. “I take precautions. Come and have a drink.”
Soren led her downstairs to the drawing room, which had soft carpeting and a huge crackling fire blazing in the grate. Daisy’s heart pulsed with a moment of pure joy. The cold, nasty Manhattan winter outside these walls seemed a million miles away. She was with Magnus, and she had finally made a stride toward finding her family …
Soren opened a cabinet with a full bar’s worth of liquor and wines and pulled out a champagne bottle covered with flowers.
“Perrier-Jouet. My favorite,” Daisy said, as he popped the cork and poured the fizzing, golden liquid into two flutes.
“I know.” His light eyes held hers, and she blushed, conscious of what he had done to her body earlier that day. “I’ve read your press.”
“I’ve read yours.”
Magnus smiled. “That’s a great way for two people to keep up with each other, no? In newsprint.”
“You could have called me.”
“Ditto.” He regarded her. “I told you before, I wasn’t going to play second fiddle to some married man, or anybody else.”
“That’s over now.”
“So we’ll get married,” Magnus said matter-of-factly. “I don’t want you to be another meaningless girlfriend. The sooner the better.”
Daisy laughed. “Oh yeah, just like that! We’ll just get married. Wooh-hooh.”
“I told you before, but you didn’t listen then.”
“Magnus,” Daisy said, taking her champagne flute and sipping it, “be sensible, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like I haven’t seen you in the magazines with a different girl each week.”
“I was single,” he said unrepentantly. “Now I’m not. You’re the one for me. Look around you.” He nodded at his incredible house, the art on the walls, the vines in the courtyard. “I’m the kind of man who knows what he wants. I have not come this far by second-guessing my instinct. Why waste time? Dance around, date a little? We’ve done that. What is the point?”
My God, he’s serious, Daisy thought, starting to feel nervous and exposed. “I’m not like you, I need some time to think about it,” she said.
“Think about it all you want,” he said, “but it’s inevitable.”
Fifty-Six
“I’m sorry,” the girl on the other end of the phone said brightly, “but we can’t pass messages on to our authors.”
“Then give me the name of her agent.”
“We can’t do that either, I’m sorry. Daisy Markham is a very popular writer, so if you want to, you can send fan mail to her care of this address, and we do forward that on to her representatives. But please do bear in mind that she may be too busy to answer this sort of thing, because she gets so much mail.”
“Look. It says on this dust jacket that Daisy Markham was adopted and that she was seeking information about her family.”
“Oh, are you another long-lost relative?”
Rose flushed. “Yes I am, actually, I’m her sister.”
“Well, that’s only the third one this morning…”
“Put me through to her editor,” Rose snapped, losing it. The phone clicked in her ear, and she was listening to a dial tone.
“Goddamn it!” she shrieked, slamming the receiver back into its cradle. It had taken Rose two hours just to find a person at Andrews Publishing, Daisy Markham’s U.S. publisher, who would take her phone call. It had seemed pretty easy, with all the names listed in the acknowledgments, but Daisy’s editor’s assistant would not put Rose through, and the same went for the heads of Marketing and Publicity and Foreign Rights. At last, Rose had spoken to that junior cow of a publicity assistant, and now she’d hung up on her.
She paced up and down her apartment. Fuck it, who was Daisy Markham anyway? Some author Rose had never even heard of. Of course, she admitted to herself, that might be because she never read any books. But the woman was hardly Madonna. What did she need with all this protection?
Rose picked up Orange Blossom and looked again at her own face, staring back at her in black and white with her own smile …
Of course! She didn’t need to pass a message on to get to Daisy Markham. She was Daisy Markham.
*
Andrews Publishing was housed in a gleaming black skyscraper on Madison Avenue, where it rented a full four floors. Rose knew that Daisy Markham’s editor was in, because her assistant had refused to put her on the phone, rather than saying she was out. Rose strode into the lobby, smiled at the security guard, and picked up the pen to sign in the visitors’ book.
“Which company, ma’am?”
“Andrews,” Rose said, speaking softly and attempting a British accent. “My name’s Daisy Markham and I’m here to see Julia Fine, my editor in America.”
“What time is your appointment?”
“Oh, I don’t have one. Tell Julia I just dropped in to see her.”
“OK, wait there please.” The uniformed guard picked up a phone and dialed an extension. He spoke low, and then turned back to her.
“She says to go right up. You know what floor she’s on, right?”
“Yes, the sixteenth.”
“Her office is on the fifteenth.”
Rose snapped her fingers. “I always get that wrong.” She gave the security guard a dazzling smile, and he blushed and said nothing more.
The elevator was fast and modern and whisked her up to the fifteenth floor in a matter of seconds. Despite her outward poise, Rose was nervous as she exited into the Andrews lobby. Her voice, after all—that would be different. And what about Daisy’s style? Rose was wearing pink Chanel with a matching quilted handbag and a string of nine-millimeter Mikimoto pearls, but maybe this Daisy was a jeans-and-T-shirt chick …
Don’t overthink it, Rose; you’re here, so do it.
She walked up to the front desk as confidently as she could. The girl there gave her a strange look, but then smiled.
“I’m here to—”
“Yes, Julia’s coming right out,” said the receptionist, smiling. “It’s a surprise to see you here after yesterday … But great, obviously, I mean it’s great…”
She was stumbling over her words and seemed anxious, Rose noted; this Daisy woman must be a big cheese in this place. Best not to say anything at all, so her voice didn’t give her away. Rose just beamed at the woman, gestured to the couch and sat down on it.
Just a minute later, a tall brunette in something very chic and very black, with a mop of styled white hair, came bursting out of the frosted glass doors that led into the publisher’s offices. She held out her hands to Rose.
“Daisy! Darling, what a pleasant surprise. I hadn’t expected you back so soon. And so glamorous too, all dressed up, you look like Princess Diana today…”
Rose stood up and let Julia Fine get close, real close; close enough to hug her and
air-kiss both sides of her cheeks.
“So come on, let me take you inside. What’s the reason for dropping by? Not that we don’t always love to see you…”
Rose took a step back and looked Julia Fine right in the face. “I’m not Daisy Markham.”
Julia blinked. “What are you talking about, and what is that accent?”
Rose pulled out her purse, extracted her driver’s license, and handed it over. “As I’ve been trying to tell your staff all morning on the phone, I am Daisy Markham’s sister. I must be. We’re identical. I know she’s looking for her family; well, you just call her up and tell her you found it.”
“Oh my God,” Julia Fine said, looking from the plastic license to Rose and back again. “Oh my God.”
*
By 3 P.M., Jacob Rothstein was a million and thirty thousand dollars poorer, and the owner of a burned-out shell of a building in Alphabet City. He signed the papers, and the seller’s attorney told him it was the fastest closing he’d ever been involved in.
“Good luck, sir,” he said, shaking his hand. Jacob smiled. He knew that a man who could just write a check for a million bucks was the kind of man lawyers liked to get to know.
“If there’s anything else I can help you with, Mr. Rothstein, anything at all,” oozed John Robinson with an oily grin. Jacob suppressed his distaste.
“There is, actually.”
“Name it,” Robinson begged.
“You can give me Rose Fiorello’s number.”
*
“I’m afraid she’s not in,” her assistant said. “She’s taking the day off.”
“Is she indeed? That’s not the Rose I know,” Jacob said.
“Any message, sir?” the assistant asked, pleasantly enough.
“Yes. Tell her Jacob Rothstein called. My number is 555-2092.”
The slight pause at the end of the line told him the assistant recognized the name.
“Certainly, sir,” she said, still pleasant-sounding. He admired Rose’s choice in employees; this woman was staying out of it. “Will she know what it’s regarding, or should I tell her?”
“I can confidently guarantee she will have no idea what it’s regarding,” Jacob said, “but she will want to know about it, nonetheless.”
Devil You Know Page 42