She’d relished every whistle and whoop even as she pretended to ignore them. Male validation, Diana told herself, its what I need right now.
Her mood had improved. At twelve thirty today, she had a meeting with Herb, the best, hardest divorce lawyer in Manhattan. Hearing the name Foxton, the assistant had instantly cleared a time slot for her. She’d show Ernie where he could stick his two hundred and fifty grand. If he was left with a cent, it wouldn’t be her fault.
Meanwhile, she had to deal with Michael.
Her boss was already waiting for her. Diana took in the dark suit, the black shoes, the thickly muscled chest. Cicero looked the same as he always did. She felt a small, fresh surge of nervous adrenaline. What the hell kind of hoop was he going to have her jump through this morning? More work? Like she needed that right now.
“I’m here,” she said bluntly.
Cicero looked her over. What a gorgeous creature she was. He mentally peeled off the light cotton from those stupendous breasts and that grade-A ass. She annoyed him, the way she was so effortlessly perfect every second of the day. How he’d love to slide that tight skirt up over the creamy rounds of her butt, push her over his desk, and trace his name with the tip of his tongue across the freckled valley of her breasts. He thought he could have those nipples hard and dark as sea-washed pebbles in twenty seconds. He imagined her losing her composure, that glossy hair sweaty and tangled as it fell across his chest, the flat stomach bucking against him, her elegant fingers clutching at him as she wriggled about under him.…
Michael made himself look up. He was glad his pants had a roomy cut. He mustn’t allow this girl to cause him any loss of control. Besides which, she was married. She was fully off-limits.
He’d bet she’d squirm like an eel, though.
“So I see.” His voice was remarkably businesslike and calm. “I’ve got some more work I’d like to try you out on.”
“I think I have all the work I can handle.”
“That’s for me to decide,” Michael told her, bluntly. “I want you to look over some more pictures and designs.”
“What for?” Diana tossed back her gleaming blond hair. He thought about catching it, and wadding it in her mouth while he roped her hands and feet together and played with her until she was lifting her body up to him, helplessly. “You don’t file pictures. Don’t tell me you want to start filing all the pictures as well.”
He grinned down at her. It was the most cocky, annoying grin imaginable.
“What are you going to do—stamp your foot?” he asked.
Diana’s face darkened. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Too bad, if I am,” Cicero said.
He twisted the key in the lock of the door. It was quaint, the way these offices opened with a key. Upstairs it was all codes and passwords. Diana noted how Cicero hated overheads. What a contrast to her husband’s—was he still her husband?—yen for luxury. How much were the private jet, the two choppers, the monthly flights out to Atlantic City and the golf-club schmoozing for the super-agents and star writers costing his shareholders? Plenty, but Ernie didn’t care about OPM, other people’s money. Only his own, from which he’d almost completely cut her off.
There was a heavy tread on the stairs. She turned to see a be-suited man coming toward them. She recognized him, it was Reggie Shropton, one of Ernie’s in-house lawyers.
“Hello, Reggie,” Diana said politely.
A faint spot of red rose to the pallid center of his cheeks and he didn’t look up. He was clutching two sets of papers.
“Hello, Mrs. Foxton.” She blinked; it used to be Diana. “Mr. Cicero. I am afraid I have some papers for you.”
Cicero reached out and grabbed them. “Papers already? Starting early this morning, huh?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He lifted his head and stared at Michael with fishy eyes. “I’ll have to ask you to give me that key.”
“Excuse me?” Cicero snapped.
“These are termination papers for yourself and Mrs. Foxton. Every other employee at Green Eggs has been served. The company is withdrawing its stake and closing down the operation at this time. As per your contract, a month’s salary is enclosed in lieu of notice.”
For a second Michael said nothing. He was trying to process the information, and it didn’t compute.
“I suppose it would be far too much to hope that you’re joking.”
“I never joke,” Reggie said thinly.
“Apparently somebody at Blakely’s does, though. I have a contract.”
“With a company consolidation clause, valid for the first eight months, that invalidates further obligations on the part of Blakely’s, including office space, overheads, health plans—and bonuses,” Reggie said. There was a nasty glitter in his eye.
Diana recognized it. It was a favorite look of Ernie’s. Her heart dropped. Her job had evaporated. As little as it had been, it was all she had.
“I’ll have to ask you both to leave. I hope you can do so quietly and not force me to call security,” the lawyer said.
“That won’t be necessary,” Diana said quietly. She nodded to Cicero. “We’re leaving. You can tell my husband he will be hearing from my lawyer later today.”
“And mine,” Michael Cicero added. His thick, bull-like neck was red with anger.
“Certainly,” Reggie Shropton said, in a tone that implied he really didn’t care.
*
They walked out together. It was a nasty experience. Holding onto the severance forms, they passed several Blakely’s staff members as the elevator spat them out into the lobby. Janet Jensen was one; she gave a nasty little snigger as Diana brushed past her.
Michael Cicero said absolutely nothing to her, but she could feel the anger prickling out of his skin, like the static on a balloon. Wordlessly, he took her arm and shepherded her across Seventh Avenue. He was silent until they got to Broadway and Fifty-first. Then he yanked his hand from her elbow and glared down into her eyes.
“What the hell is going on here?”
“How would I know?” Diana asked, angrily brushing her hair back. “Don’t look at me as if I had something to do with this.”
Cicero gave a short bark of laughter. “Man, that’s a good one. You little English girls can sound so sweet and innocent when you feel like it. It’s almost as if I didn’t know you were married to that weak little jerk on the sixteenth floor.”
Diana bit back the retort. Doubtless her divorce would be all over the papers tomorrow, but until that happened, he didn’t need to know everything. The sun sparkled on the glass of the skyscrapers and over the billboards advertising the Broadway shows. She was standing on the sidewalk, but she felt unbalanced, almost like she was dreaming. The whole situation was surreal.
“I didn’t know a thing about this,” she said, ice cold. “I’m not privy to everything Ernie does. I got fired, too.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you mind not using that language?” she said, primly.
He stared at her, like she was from another planet. “You know what, lady? I do mind. Funny, huh? A man works all his life to start a company. Nights. Days. Sleeps on the floor. Gets something good out there. Turns down other deals. Takes this one—and gets shut down, overnight, by—what? A blackguard? A bounder? I prefer to say asshole. I think it’s more accurate.”
“I worked hard enough at that company. If you didn’t cover yourself legally it’s not my fault.”
“Right.” Michael’s dark eyes drilled into her. He was so bestial, so ferocious. A million miles away from Ernie’s thin, spiteful little body. “You worked, sure—like Marie Antoinette playing at being a milkmaid. Now what? You whistle up your chauffeur and go back to your Central Park penthouse.”
“That’s not fair,” Diana said sullenly.
“The hell it’s not. You want to know why you were so disliked by the girls in the office?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I’ll tell you anywa
y. You talked to them about a drink after work and dropping them off where they live. They barely make rent; you’re boasting about your chauffeur-driven limo.”
Diana flushed. “I wasn’t boasting. I was offering them a ride.”
“How many office dogsbodies do you think get driven to work, Diana?”
“Dogsbody,” Diana snarled, “right. That’s what I was to you. A dog. Somebody you enjoyed kicking around just because she had a bit more money and a bit more class than the rest of you. Nothing but shabby jealousy. I made an effort for your wretched little company.”
“Wretched, huh? Is that what you told your husband when you ran upstairs with your spy’s report?”
Diana was enraged. “I didn’t spy on you. Why don’t you stop blaming other people for your problems and look in the mirror? Or better still, stop whining and do something about it.”
What a bitch she was, Michael thought. Beautiful, but such a bitch.
“That’s a great idea. I’m going to see my lawyer.”
“Me too,” Diana said. “Goodbye, Mr. Cicero.”
She turned on her heel and walked away from him.
TWENTY-THREE
“You did what?”
Herb Brillstein, the lawyer Claire recommended, stared at her in horror. The chair she was sitting in, expensive dark-green leather though it was, suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. Diana shifted in her seat. She glanced out over Fifth Avenue, looking serene and calm from the eighteenth-floor offices of Brillstein, Brooks, the most savage divorce lawyers in Manhattan. When she phoned, they had fallen over themselves to get her into their offices. Ernest Foxton’s wife. But during her introductory session with the head of the firm, Diana felt the temperature drop several degrees every minute.
“You departed from the marital home? Voluntarily? And you haven’t contacted your husband in weeks? And you weren’t working, but you took paid employment?”
“That’s right.” Diana blushed. “I just didn’t want to be around him.”
“So you let him move into a hotel. You haven’t been married long, Mrs. Foxton, less than a year. Your position is very weak. You need to move back into your home immediately. How long were you dating before you married?”
“Two years,” Diana muttered.
“Maybe we can work with that. But you must go home, Mrs. Foxton. At once.”
*
Diana left the office feeling rather dazed. The lawyer made it all sound so simple, but she hadn’t thought that way. “Take possession of the marital home.” She hadn’t expected divorce; only for Ernie to see the error he had made and to come crawling back to her. Diana shivered in the thin winter sun. Was her mistake going to be fatal? Reconciliation was not a possibility. Not with Felicity’s laugh still haunting her nights. She didn’t want to go home, and the immigration lawyer had said that she could stay as her marriage to an American citizen was made in good faith. The dinner parties, written up in the New York tabloids, proved that. But now she had lost even the shitty little job she had. She wondered how much her lawyer would charge per hour, and winced. Offices like his carried a lot of overhead. Yes, it was imperative to get a decent wad of cash out of Ernie. If she had to bite the bullet and live with him for a few months, so be it.
Diana had no illusions. Ernie had fired Michael Cicero like he had fired many men before him. But he knew that she was working in that office too. The firing had been a deliberate insult.
She was going to have a fight on her hands.
She had no idea how big a fight.
*
Her cab pulled up outside their building on Central Park West, and Diana stepped out carefully, trying to avoid getting salt stains from the icy slush on her Ralph Lauren brogues. She had selected her outfit with care; a dark Donna Karan dress with a Hermes bag, simple and classic. She was carefully made-up, and her blond hair was secured in a neat chignon. So far the press had not got wind of the separation, of her firing, but if a photographer was there, Diana wanted to be ready for him. She considered removing her sunglasses from her bag, but decided against it. It might look to Ernie as though she wanted to hide red-rimmed eyes, and Diana was not prepared to show weakness.
She stepped through the door and made for the elevator.
“Excuse me, madam.” It was the deep Texas twang of Brad, the security guard. He approached her, blushing slightly, and hung his head. “Do you have an appointment?”
“Of course not. I live here.”
Brad’s flush deepened. “I’m afraid you’ll need an appointment to see Mr. Foxton, ma’am.”
Diana’s brow arched delicately.
“You know me, Bradley. I’m Diana Foxton. Mrs. Foxton.” She unsnapped her bag, letting her engagement ring sparkle in the light, and fished out her keys. “See? I live in the penthouse. I can show myself up.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The apartment is only in your husband’s name. He’s informed the building management not to let you up.”
Diana breathed in sharply. A bolt of anger and fear surged through her.
“You might want to give me those keys,” Brad suggested, taking a step toward her.
Diana drew herself up and stopped him dead in his tracks with a single, icy glance.
“Don’t even think about touching me unless you and your company want to be sued for assault. I’m keeping these keys.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The guard stepped back instantly. “But you’ll find they won’t work anymore. Mr. Foxton asked us to let you know, if you turned up, that he had the locks changed.”
She shook her head. “Very well; I’ll be back with a warrant.”
“Yes ma’am,” Brad said, politely and implacably.
*
She went back to her rental place and called Herb Brillstein.
“Damn. You never should have moved out.”
“Well, I did,” Diana snapped. “How do we fix this?”
“I need to take him to court. We’ll retain you on a no-win no-fee basis, so don’t be concerned about that.”
“If you win, how much is your fee?” she asked.
“Fifty percent,” he said. “In the meantime, you’ll need to live on whatever budget you can. Please keep records of everything.”
“I’ll be sure to,” Diana said, faintly.
She hung up.
*
Diana looked around her with disbelief.
The rental apartment was small and cramped. Instead of antique furniture and delicate oriental rugs, the decor seemed to be right out of Ikea. Redbrick walls decorated with black-and-white posters of babies and tall houseplants in terracotta pots. There was a small television, and a kitchenette—she wouldn’t call it a kitchen—with a microwave, a fridge and precious little else. When she said, “Where’s the dishwasher?” Rita, her potential roommate, just laughed.
Her bedroom—the one the letting agent had boasted about—looked out over a gas station on Tenth Avenue. It was cramped and contained a single bed, in functional pine with a white cotton coverlet.
“I like the bedspread,” Diana lied. “Where did you get it?”
Her prospective landlady examined her Lee Press-On Nails and said, “Kmart. Half price, in the sale.”
“That’s great,” Diana said weakly. “A bargain.”
“Si, bargain. Like thees apartment.” Another quick onceover of her nails. “Only thousand a month, one month deposit paid in advance.”
Diana almost crumpled with embarrassment, but she knew she had to do this. “A thousand is too much. Nine hundred is all I can manage.”
Rita looked up from her nails and fixed her heavy-lidded eyes on Diana. “I got three other people who want the place. For thousand.”
“Yes, but they’re flaky. I’m quiet, and responsible.”
Rita considered. “Eef you will clean up whole apartment, each week, I say nine hundred. I like English people. Very clean. I like also clean.”
Diana swallowed. She glanced around the train wreck of the living room: emp
ty Domino’s pizza cartons, beer cans, make-up towelettes and two overflowing ashtrays. There were probably cockroaches. Then she thought of the bad news her lawyer had delivered: she had little or no case. Her best hope was to refuse to grant a divorce, and hope that Felicity was so desperate for a ring that she would get Ernie to up his settlement.
At any rate, she had no money, and this was at least a Manhattan apartment with her own bedroom and a working washing machine.
Diana was just too proud to go crawling back to England, or take charity from Claire. “That’s a deal,” she said.
*
Diana moved three cases of clothes into her bedroom. She had no room for the rest of them. She had to pay to put most of her stuff into storage, another expense she could barely afford. After she’d unpacked, taking everything meticulously out of its tissue-paper wrapping, she had four suits, five dresses, six shirts, four pairs of pants, and only four pairs of shoes. It was heartbreaking.
“So many clothes!” gasped Rita, eyeing her suspiciously. Nobody with such clothes should live in a place like this. They must be knockoffs, or else the English girl had stolen them. “I never seen such nice things.”
“Thank you.” Diana forced down the retorts that came to mind. Her snobbery would have to take a back seat. She needed this place.
“Yes, well. I show you clean stuff. Come.”
Diana followed Rita’s ample bottom into the kitchen where a filthy bucket containing a mop, a brush and a dirty washcloth was shoved under the exposed sink.
“I don’ have Roach Motel,” Rita commiserated. “We need get new one. Anyway, I leave now. You clean.”
She picked up some ugly-looking candles with pictures of angels on them and squeezed out the door in a waft of cheap perfume and cigarette smoke.
You can do this, Diana told herself, swallowing down the lump of tears that threatened to rise in her throat. Sure, it’s shaming to be cleaning up filth on my own, but I live here. It’s either that or live in a dump like this.
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