“Yes. I know what I did, Mr. Brillstein,” Diana said impatiently. “What’s the offer?”
“Seven hundred and fifty.”
She ran the numbers in her head. Seven fifty. With the lawyers’ fees … That was three seventy-five. Barely enough to buy a one-bedroom flat somewhere decent, and it wouldn’t cover the maintenance charges. Ernie was worth about ten million, she thought. If she refused this settlement, though, she’d be stuck here.
Diana glanced out of her window at the pigeons flapping around the white plastic hanger her panties were drying on. Her dry cleaning had overflowed out of her tiny closet and was hanging on the back of the door, off the end of the shelves, over the back of her chair. She wanted to get out so much it hurt.
“Go back to him and tell him one million. Tell him if he refuses we will put an injunction on all the property we aquired together. I might not have got the apartment in our joint names, but I designed that place.” She took a deep breath. “The table, the chairs, the antique sofas, the portraits, the carpets … I signed for it all. Visa will have a record of that. Tell him that unless he wants to take his mistress home to an empty apartment, he can give me the money. And if he refuses, file for the injunction today.”
There was a pause at the end of the line.
“If I may say so, Mrs. Foxton, you should have been a lawyer.”
She smiled to herself. “In life you have to be tough. Ernie always knew that. And now I’m learning.”
She had to wait a day to discover that she had gotten the cash. Half a million for Brillstein and his fancy offices, and half a million for her. She signed the papers in the office, and her marriage was over.
Diana pulled the two rings off the third finger of her left hand and FedExed them to Ernie at Blakely’s. As the metal and diamonds slipped from her flesh, she suddenly felt as though a chain had been unlocked.
She was on her own again, and it felt good.
*
To Rita’s anger, she moved out.
“Do yourself a favor, amiga,” Diana said, thrusting the cleaning brushes back into Rita’s hands. “Learn how to make a bed.”
*
“What’s my job?” she asked Michael one Saturday night, eating Chinese food out of a carton as she laid out plates for the box artwork.
He looked over briefly, his face lit by the glowing numerals on his computer terminal.
“Whatever you make it,” he said.
Typical Michael. He had given her raises and bonuses and professional praise, but nothing more.
Diana shrugged. So Michael didn’t like her. The feeling was definitely mutual. As long as she got hers, what the hell did she care?
Besides, she had a friend now. Claire Bryant had cheered her up every step of the way, and had even come apartment hunting with her. Diana was careful not to talk about Michael too much. It was a dead giveaway, and why let Claire know he registered with her so much?
She found a new place on Hudson, a smart enough one-bedroom with the luxury of a tiny den that she turned into an office. She decorated the place on a budget, which was a new experience, having no cash and no time. Classic modernism: bare wood floors stained a dark brown, a sleek cream rug, an antique bust and a campaign daybed. Her only other furniture was a low-slung sofa, a TV and a writing desk. It made the place look less tiny. You might even be able to swing two cats in it.
She invited Michael to her housewarming, but he turned her down.
“I can’t make it. Got the new launch in a month. Need to review the distribution contracts,” he said.
“Sure.” Diana ran a hand through her glossy blond hair. It was infuriating, the way he just brushed her off. Not that she cared about his opinion. But the rest of the office would be there. It was like he was snubbing her, and who was Michael Cicero to snub her?
“But there’s something I wanted to say about your home.”
She turned to him, hopefully.
“You can get a tax break for the home office, if you declare it.”
“Thanks,” Diana said, pointedly turning her back.
She started shopping again. She had survived on the clothes she had managed to sneak out of the penthouse, parcelling out her make-up and perfume, dressing simply. She’d been reduced to quietly selling off half her wardrobe in one of the discreet secondhand designer clothes stores that proliferated in the East Village. Now, at last, she could afford to visit Bloomingdale’s again.
Diana bought a pink silk Miu Miu shirtdress and wore it to the office with a pair of sassy lavender leather sling-backs.
Michael didn’t so much as notice her.
She flung herself into her work, annoyed.
*
“Come and check this out,” Opie said, beckoning Michael with one bony finger.
Cicero sighed, but got up to see what he wanted. Opie was forever mouthing off about the tight code he’d just busted, or the smooth-jag of his graphic lines. Michael didn’t understand it; he left tech stuff to his band of geeks. The point was to encourage the troops. He thought Opie and Jenny Faroe were his two best producers as far as games code went. Part of the success of Imperial Games was the enthusiasm and passion of its staff. Michael insisted everyone show up on time, but that was as far as his discipline went.
His creative staff wore shorts and Tshirts with everything from Metallica to wrestling heroes emblazoned over them, while the business-side guys wore suits—mostly. He’d thought about banning the girls from wearing skirts above the knee, but this wasn’t publishing. It was an office full of kids, and they didn’t thrive when they were being stifled.
Diana Foxton had taken her job as office manager pretty seriously, he had to admit. She’d hit on exactly the right atmosphere for them. They worked out of half a townhouse, and Diana kept it stocked so it felt like a home. She’d found the best hi-tech equipment at prices he found hard to believe, but more vitally, she made sure that each day there were fresh flowers, takeout teas and coffees, baskets of fruit, Coke and cookies for the junk-food programmers. She put hairspray, perfume and cologne in the bathrooms, and had takeout and beer delivered when the boys were working late.
Michael’s staff reported to him that they actually enjoyed coming to work.
He enjoyed it, too. It was a dream in the making. With each little success he felt the blood in his veins pump faster, demanding more, yesterday! He stayed in his tiny walkup simply because he had no time to move. Michael’s only luxury was two or three more suits, which he needed, because he was taking so many meetings.
He turned into the little room that overlooked the street, where the computer banks were set up under a soothing watercolor of Martha’s Vineyard.
“Look at this.” Opie grinned.
He looked. It was from the new interactive classics series. Henry V, by Shakespeare. The graphics were fluid and exciting. It might not compete with Tomb Raider but he thought parents would have no trouble getting their children to learn with it.
“Pretty good,” he said. “No, better, fantastic. You keep it up—”
“And maybe I’ll get a weekend off?”
“Let’s not get crazy,” Michael teased. “Where’s Diana?”
“She’s in the front office. She’s been locked in there for an hour with some guy.”
“I see.” Cicero turned away so Opie wouldn’t see the dark shadow that crossed his face. He’d tried to get used to Diana. Every single day, the woman turned up wearing something guaranteed to make his blood pressure rise. Either it was a body-hugging, light as thistledown, sky-blue suit, or a halter-neck dress that made a mockery of its modest neckline with the way it draped like liquid over the tight, high curves of her butt, the soft swell of her breasts. Even her shoes he found disturbing; tiny little strappy things, even when they were flats, that made him think of garter belts or the lace of her bra. Her make-up was always subtle, but not so subtle it failed to outline the lush fullness of her mouth, the cutting blades of her cheekbones, or her dark, groomed eyebr
ows, just shaped a touch instead of plucked to oblivion. Her hair was never the same way twice. He wondered, from time to time, what her next look would be. A sleek chignon, a young, fresh ponytail, complex French braids, or a bouncing curl under the ends that reminded him of a shampoo commercial.
Every single day he thought of telling her not to dress so provocatively.
Every single day he realized he had no case.
Diana was wily, Michael thought. She knew just how to keep to the letter of the dress code for his executives while breaking the spirit. How could he complain about a floor-length white dress with cap sleeves? But how could he ignore the scalloped whisper of lace at the valley of her breasts, the loving grip of the cotton on her butt and her perfectly flat belly, and the way the bias-cut skirt emphasized each tiny, sexy swing of her hips?
She had no meeting today. Cicero prided himself on knowing everything about her calendar. Diana Foxton was a major asset when it came to the formal side of growing his company. Banks and business-affairs lawyers just loved her. He enjoyed watching her work them. And work them she did, those long, strong calves tapering off to her discreet shoes that always seemed to match her skirt, her tumbling cascade of hair, that classy, unreachable, ice-queen English voice of hers giving them the summary of what Imperial was about.
He watched the way the men listened, utterly captivated. Was it his growth or her accent, his products or her eyes? The women executives were spellbound, too. They took time out from flirting with him to stare at her; always fresh, always pulled together.
But he’d known this time would come. Diana was no shrinking violet, Michael thought angrily, far from it. She knew the kind of pull she exerted over men. She smiled, she brushed back that shiny hair, she dressed to emphasize her sensational body. Sooner or later she was gonna bring a boyfriend to the office, and Cicero was prepared to hate him. He was bound to be a two-faced weasel like Ernie Foxton. Diana had the worst taste in men and he, Michael, was not going to stand for them in his office.
He moved through the front room, ignoring the various requests to review this and sign that. The door to the office where they took meetings with investors and analysts was shut.
He rapped on it.
“Diana?”
There was a pause. He could hear her talking in low, urgent tones to some guy or other.
“Yes, Michael. I’m in a meeting.”
The cool accent infuriated him. Almost without thinking, he turned the handle and barged his way in.
Diana was standing there, with her hand in the grasp of an older man. A rich-looking guy, Cicero noted, with a white handkerchief sticking out of his upper pocket. He even wore a vest, despite the early fall heat. Michael disliked him instantly.
“Can I help you with something?” Michael said softly.
The man turned around and looked at him like he was something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. “No, I don’t think so. I had private business with Mrs. Foxton.”
Michael ignored Diana’s reddening face. “Her business is my business. I’m Michael Cicero.”
“Yes, I know who you are, sir.” He made sir come off like an insult. “But I’m only interested in talking to Diana Foxton.”
Michael folded his arms, and saw, to his great pleasure, the skinny little guy cast a wary look at his biceps under the plain shirt.
“I think I’m done here,” he said hastily.
“I guess you are. Let me show you out,” Michael said evenly. Diana was pissed off, he saw, but tough. She couldn’t flirt with her latest sugar daddy on his time.
“I know the way.…”
The guy gathered up papers and fled, brushing past Michael with a muttered “Good day.”
Michael turned to her. Diana was in a pink smocklike thing, with a half-sleeved, jaggedly cut pink jacket. It picked up the warm summer highlights of corn in her hair, and she had teamed it with a light single-note perfume of roses.
She’d dressed up for that guy? He would never understand women. The way money mattered so much to them. Wasn’t she earning enough?
Her former apartment flickered through his mind. Well, compared to a penthouse on Central Park, her current place probably didn’t cut it. She’d worn a few of the same clothes—in different combinations—twice or three times. Maybe that wasn’t good enough for her. She still carried herself like a society dame, and that was what she probably wanted.
Just like Iris.
Then he told himself that that wasn’t his business. Business was his business.
“What was that man doing in here?” Michael snapped. “This is my office. Not a place for you to do your private entertaining.”
“Who do you think you are?” Diana said. She was white-faced and her blue eyes glittered. She marched up to him. “I believe I told you I was in a private meeting. You think you can just barge in on me?”
“I think I can do whatever I like. I’m the boss.”
She laughed. “Like I haven’t earned the right for fifteen minutes alone? I work night and day for your company, boss.”
“You think you’ve sacrificed things for Imperial? You don’t have any idea what that even means,” Cicero said contemptuously.
Diana reached up and slapped him hard on the face. For a moment, Cicero was so shocked he didn’t even react. If he had seen it coming, he would have blocked her. He didn’t permit girls to hit him. If a guy tried that, he’d be knocked into the middle of next week. From a woman, like Diana, it was nothing but a sting. But the balls of her took his breath away.
He fantasized briefly about tugging her over his knee and lifting that sexy, taunting smock and spanking her. That was what she could really use.
“Would you mind,” he said evenly, “telling me what you think you’re doing?”
“I’m doing what I feel like,” she snapped. “You don’t think I’ve sacrificed anything for this place? Let me tell you something. That man was a lawyer.”
Cicero blinked. “Explain yourself.”
“Explain myself?” she said, throwing back her hair. She looked wild to him, provocative, a challenge. He thought about shrugging the jacket from her creamy shoulders and ripping her thin dress straight down the middle. Of course it didn’t mean anything, I’m just fantasizing about her like I would any other pretty chick. “You want an explanation. How about, you’ve been so goddamn busy running your damn office you didn’t even notice me! I had a life before I came here, Michael. I’ve been busy trying to get back just a fraction of it. With no support from you. I thought we could be friends; I guess I was wrong.”
Diana picked up the papers and tossed them at him. “These are my settlement papers. My lawyers just took half a million dollars from me for making a few phone calls.”
Michael didn’t bother to pick them up. “I’m sorry. But it’s your own fault.”
Diana gasped. “Excuse me?”
“Certainly.” God, he could be so infuriating, staring at her with those heavy-lashed eyes, like he knew it all, and she was some bimbo. “I will excuse your temper, this once. But don’t blame me for your inadequacies. You were arrogant. You didn’t go to a lawyer at the outset. You could have gotten a better deal, but you had to wait till the last minute. Why is that my fault?”
Diana was thrown. Sometimes she hated him. He was so cocky. She felt her temper surge again. She wanted to lash out, and without thinking, she drew back her arm and made to hit him again.
But Michael was far too quick for her. His hand lashed out and caught her at the wrist, holding it secure. She struggled, but she couldn’t move. In an instant he tugged her to him, and then his hands were cupping her face, forcing her mouth up to meet his, and his lips were on hers, kissing her savagely.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dawn broke over Rome, golden and warm, with the promise of another blistering day to come. Felicity Metson sighed. It was so dreary here; traipsing around the world after darling Ernie was more taxing than it seemed. She hoped that he would drop his plan to
buy one of the multimillion-dollar apartments set into the two-thousand-year-old Theater of Marcellus. She really couldn’t care less about the endless monuments of ancient Rome, a playground now for wild poppies and quick little black lizards that darted around like the tongue of Ernie’s new maid. As for the Renaissance churches with their da Vinci sculptures and paintings by Raphael and what have you, Felicity felt uncomfortable in them. Such silly moralizing. Why keep such art treasures out for the plebs to gawk at? Something in her revolted against the idea of Moses by Michelangelo, say, in Santa Maria Maggiore, being kept there so that fat Italian mammas and working men, with their sunburned hands and cheap suits, could gawk at him after mass. How could they possibly appreciate such refinement? Better it go to a museum, or, preferably, be sold off. Perhaps to her.
Felicity indulged in a small daydream where Moses was delivered to her new townhouse, which Ernie would buy her after the wedding, in a hail of media interest and TV cameras. Of course, he didn’t have that kind of cash just yet. Hopefully the new deal brewing with Signor Bertaloni of Media Cinque, the Italian conglomerate, would put all that to rest. Why think small? Hadn’t Michael Eisner proved that you could get real wealth simply by running a company?
She rang for room service. The Hotel Consul Marcus was Rome’s newest and most luxurious haven, a few blocks from the Colosseum and providing all amenities to the more discerning traveler. Felicity had told Ernie that she simply must have a separate suite … partly so that her beauty treatments could be applied without him witnessing any of them, and partly so that Jung-Li, the latest of the Oriental “maids” she had hired for her fiancé, could have unfettered access to him in the mornings. Her success in this relationship was all about keeping Ernie happy, Felicity reflected. And it suited both him and her to pretend that the other had no idea what was going on.
For All the Wrong Reasons Page 22