The doorbell rang and she hurriedly spritzed herself with Hermes 24 Faubourg. It pitched itself as a sunny day in Paris, and for him, that was what Diana longed to be.
“Coming,” she said.
THIRTY-ONE
Michael just stared.
God, she was something else. Young, vibrant and all body. It didn’t matter what your personal tastes were, Diana gave you something to drool over. Like breasts? He’d known guys obsessed with breasts who would have followed Diana around like parched dogs with their tongues on the floor. If only they could see what they looked like when you peeled off the shimmery dress and the lacy brassiere, they’d propose on the spot. Like a small waist? He could almost fit his hands around Diana’s. And her butt was the stuff of poetry. In that dress, you just didn’t know where to look first. Would his eye trail lovingly up the sexy curved calves and toned thighs that seemed to stretch up like a skyscraper? Or would it burrow into the small hint of warm, freckled cleavage, or try to fix on the smooth curves of her ass under the fluted flickering hem of her dress? She had no make-up on other than a hint of peach lip-gloss, and she looked like a sixties model—except that she didn’t resemble a park railing but had curves like Raquel Welch. He wondered how those strappy bits of canary nothing that threw out her ass and aligned her whole body in that sensational way could bear the weight. It was a mystery a man would never understand.
She twirled for him, and the white leather coat and curly hem bobbed in the warm light of the candles. Her place was beautifully decorated in the kind of quiet way that society women were always overpaying their decorators in order to emulate. Usually fruitlessly. Diana had achieved it probably without effort. He was a man, and couldn’t be bothered with decor, but the neatness and rightness of her color scheme took his eye. It was a soft scheme in understated tones of palest yellow and cream; a perfect antidote to the boring all-white or all-beige minimalism you saw everywhere in New York. Her paint job seemed to Michael to be sunny and relaxing. Though she couldn’t stock it with the kind of pieces he’d seen at Ernie’s joint, she still managed to make you feel like the place had been in her family for a hundred years, instead of being a luxury development put up in the nineties. And still, she’d decided to go out dressed like this.
“What do you think?” she asked.
He thought he’d need his karate tonight. Kicking the crap out of all the lowlifes who would approach her.
“Not bad,” Michael said.
Diana smiled to stop her face from falling. Damn the man. What was he, made of stone?
“I booked a spot at Balthazar,” he said, after a pause. “Let’s go.” He offered her his arm and she took it. “Maybe we can avoid shop-talk tonight.”
*
“But I don’t know what you mean by inadequate,” Diana said sharply. They were sitting at one of the nicer tables in the ultra-hip restaurant, eating French cuisine that really wasn’t bad for New York, and fighting bitterly. Diana pushed her rocket and goat’s cheese salad around on her plate and thought how aggravating Michael was. She’d just finished the office decor and now he was telling her it was inadequate?
“I mean in terms of size. We’re going to need to expand.”
“Why don’t we wait and see what our sell-through is like?” Diana said, spearing her salad like she had a personal grudge against it.
Michael regarded her. Great, now she was going to tell him his business. It wasn’t enough that he had to deal with all the waiters staring at his date. He swore guys were getting up and going to the bathroom like women just so they could get a shot at trying to look down the front of her dress. Diana was eye candy, and they just couldn’t get enough. She irritated him and fascinated him, and he wanted her badly. He wanted to punch out the lights of any man who even looked at her. And he wanted to finish up his meal so he could get her the hell home. Into bed.
“I’m going down to Wall Street tomorrow. I’d like you to come with me.”
“What for?”
“An exploratory meeting at Goldman Sachs. This is confidential, by the way.”
Diana felt her annoyance blossom into anger. Confidential? “What, you think I’m some ditsy girl who’s just going to tell all the other secretaries by the water cooler?”
“I’m just making sure.”
“Making sure of what? That I have a brain in my head even though I have a pair of breasts?”
Cicero stared at her. “What are you now, some kind of feminist?”
“I love the way you say that like it equals ‘moron,’” Diana shot back. “Maybe I am a feminist. I’m enough of a feminist to know that you talking down to me is getting tiring.”
Michael crunched into his roast beef with walnuts and took a large swallow of red wine. Maybe it would relax him. It didn’t much.
“Could you be a little louder, babe? I think maybe a table on the next block missed you hectoring me. I hate it when women get strident.”
“And I hate it when men get smug.”
“I’m not talking to you as a woman, Diana, OK? I’m talking to you as a director of Imperial. This is business.”
Diana frowned. That was it; she’d had enough. She loved Michael, but if he didn’t love her back there was zero point in sitting here and being insulted. She had a good thing going with him business-wise. Why jeopardize both relationships?
The sensible little voice in her head told her it was time to bail out. There was no husband to pay her bills if Michael gave her the boot.
“If it’s business,” she said coldly, “it belongs in the office. Which is where our relationship belongs—in the office. OK?”
“Fine with me,” Michael spat.
Diana snatched up the bill. “As this isn’t a date anymore, I’ll get it. I can write it off against tax.”
She turned on one of the itsy-bitsy heels and strode out, away from him, and every guy’s eyes followed her out.
Michael forced himself to sit there and finish his meal. Deliberately, he took his time with the wine and the coffee. He had just been dumped in public in front of the whole room. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
*
“Your cash flow’s good, but you’re going to need some serious numbers to finance an expansion. An IPO could do that for you.”
Diana leaned forward over the mahogany table in the Goldman Sachs conference room. A posse of hip young number-crunchers, most of them men, and a slightly older guy, Richard Demotta, had done a tap-dance for Michael for the last half hour. The dollar amounts they kept throwing out were so large they seemed like long-distance telephone numbers with a few zeros attached. And yet he still didn’t seem to be sold. The stubborn bastard.
Diana had spent yesterday night crying herself to sleep and she was resolved it wasn’t going to happen again. This morning, she’d risen and selected the best suit she owned—a Vera Wang champagne-colored skirt that hovered on the knee, and a jacket with sassy three-quarter-length sleeves, teamed with Charles Jourdan pumps and good pearls. Add a simple cream silk blouse and a little make-up and she seemed to have walked right off the cover of Forbes.
Michael’s eyes flickered across her body when she got into the office, but he was all efficiency and respect. Somehow it was even worse than his treatment of her last night.
Diana told herself that was OK. He was a good boss. Everything else was a momentary lapse, a spell of adolescent foolishness that would now be behind them.
“But say we do take the company public,” she said boldly.
The eyes of the M&A specialists flicked across to her. They would ignore a woman here if they could, she knew. Diana wasn’t about to give them that chance. She was a director of this company, and she would start out as she meant to go on.
“What are the chances that Mr. Cicero would lose control? And how long would our investors wait for a return on their investments? What profits would we need to post, and how soon, before they started dumping us?”
Eyebrows were raised. Then
Demotta cleared his throat.
“If I may address your concerns, Mrs. Foxton,” he began.
Diana held up one manicured hand. “Ms. Verity. Diana Verity. I go by my maiden name.”
She caught Michael’s sharp look of annoyed surprise and grinned to herself. When I was a kept woman, Diana thought, I hated anything feminist. But now I’m doing well for myself it’s rather—well—she searched for the word. What was it exactly?
Fun. That was it. Yes, she was actually having fun.
“Certainly, Ms. Verity,” Demotta agreed smoothly, and started to outline the risks. This time he included her in what he was saying.
*
Ernie chewed down on his cigar and blew out a long, thin stream of smoke.
Lunch at the Voyager Club was something he always enjoyed. It was one of Wall Street’s oldest clubs and the members were very old money indeed. Bankers, shipping magnates, select judges, and landowners all rubbed shoulders and networked here in a subtle fashion. The only women they let through the door wore short black skirts and white aprons as they served the drinks. Members’ wives could not accompany their husbands farther than the lobby. The Voyager had resisted every attempt to bring it into the twentieth century. Ernie fondly hoped to be made a member some day soon. Every time he got a crony to put up his name he was blackballed. But Ernie had no shame. He wanted in and he was prepared to wait.
His host, Chester Bradfield III, nodded and smiled and thought what an insufferable little man his client was. It was common knowledge around the club that Foxton was banging on the doors to be let in. He’d go fishing for rainbow trout in the Hudson before that happened. Still, he liked to invite Foxton here for drinks, to romance the limey jerk and make him feel comfortable. Foxton’s stock was on the rise as Blakely’s cut back costs. His venture with the Italians had been well received. Wall Street was always on the look-out for a new Ted Turner or Richard Branson. He didn’t think Ernie Foxton was it, but Bradfield hadn’t gotten his Park Avenue townhouse and estate in Dutchess County by burning his bridges.
Foxton and his lawyers were a new client of Bradfield and Smith, the investment-banking firm that he had the pleasure of chairing. Ernie seemed eager to acquire new companies, and Bradfield loved nothing better than hostile takeovers. They were great for business, so refreshingly eighties. In exchange for his custom, who wouldn’t stand Ernie Foxton roast beef, port and Stilton once in a while, and give him the snippets of information he seemed to lust after so much?
“I spoke with Jack Fineman,” Chester said. Fineman was a good lawyer, too discreet to complain about the client he was saddled with. “He said you were interested in the progress of Imperial Games?”
Ernie leaned forward in his seat. “Oh, yeah. I am. You got anything to tell me?”
“Nothing important. But they seem to be talking to people about an IPO.”
So it was happening. Ernie felt a rush of adrenaline that made him almost light-headed. “And what do you think about that?”
“Only that you’d be advised to buy a piece of the stock once they do sell.” Bradfield knew Foxton loathed the man who ran the two-bit little games company, and he enjoyed needling him. “It’s a small outfit, but well fancied. Into e-business. Could do well.”
Ernie forced his body to relax. “Maybe I will. What exactly makes this firm so special, though? Our new games outfit’s doing OK.”
“I agree, very respectably. But you make games. Shoot ’em ups, or whatever they call them. Michael Cicero, that’s the name, I think—”
“It is.”
“Smart kid. Going places. Buzz on him. Anyway, he makes educational software, games that teach kids how to learn. The products rate higher than the usual academic CD-ROMs because they’re fun to play.” Bradfield shrugged. “When I was a kid we played with toy soldiers, but whatever floats the tiny demographic’s boats.”
He sat back, rather pleased with this. The Englishman looked shrunken, almost drawn-in upon himself.
“Do you know the timetable for the launch?”
Another shrug. “To get it right—and if it’s Goldman they will—a few months, for sure. Maybe four.”
“Interesting.” Ernie stubbed out his cigar, stood and offered Chester Bradfield a weak handshake. “Thanks for lunch, OK? Talk to you again.”
He raced down the oak-paneled stairs of the narrow, nineteenth-century building and out past the bowing doorman. His driver was waiting for him. Lucky the limo had two banks of phones and an in-car fax. Inspiration had struck Ernie Foxton, and he wasn’t going to wait to get back to the office to get to work.
*
“So what do you think?” Michael asked Diana.
It was the end of the day. The staff had gone home, at least most of them. The phones were stilled, and they were going through the figures with cartons of Chinese food and a pair of biros.
It was hard for Diana to be near him, but she gave no sign of it. Both preserved cold body language. Each waited for the other to make a move. But as neither did, they just got on with the job.
“I think we should do it.”
“We’ll need to go to a bank in the interim for a credit line.”
“I know,” Diana agreed. “But if we can tell them confidentially about the IPO, they’ll be happy to give us a credit line.”
“More than happy,” Michael said cynically. They would love to because then there would be collateral. And once it was public, the possibility remained that he could lose control. He glanced over at Diana. She was gathering up her papers. She looked so good in that pale-golden suit. But what a goddamn prima donna she was. Diana Verity? Please. Not only had she dumped him, now she thought she was Gloria Steinem.
“Going somewhere?”
“I have plans,” Diana said sweetly.
“That was fast.”
She arched an eyebrow. “This may surprise you, Michael, but my world didn’t crumble into dust just because we split up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She gathered her things and was gone in a cloud of perfume.
Bitch, Michael thought. Ball-breaking goddamn frozen English bitch. He would say frigid if he didn’t know better.
Well, two could play at that game. There was a seven P.M. start at Yankee Stadium. He would call his friend Joe and see a little night ball. Beer and a ballgame. Better than a woman any day of the week. Especially that one.
THIRTY-TWO
The ballroom glittered like Aladdin’s cave. It was technically only a cocktail party, but you would never know it. Swaths of delicate white tulle covered with minute crystal beads hung from the ceiling like giant spiderwebs covered in dewdrops. Gigantic white pillar candles, scented with iris and lavender, burned at strategic places around the room, casting a warm glow on the golden tables festooned with clouds of creamy lilies and frothing baby’s breath, glittering crystal and sparkling Cristal. A twenty-four-piece orchestra, clad all in white, played softly as the beautiful people mingled. And what a sight they were. Instead of the usual command to dress in black or white, the invitation had said simply: “Wear red.” Guests moved across the expensive white cocoon it had taken Mrs. Merriman’s decorators a day of flat-out work to create like poppies scattering across a field of snow.
Even the men wore red. Diana thought of the extravagance of it; these were publishers, record executives, television people; corporate titans and their womenfolk. None of them would own a red suit. They must all have had one especially dyed just for tonight. And the rubies the women were sporting were something else.
“Impressive,” she said to Claire Bryant, her date for the evening. Claire was always inviting her out to society evenings, and now that Michael was gone from her life, Diana had decided to accept. It was about time she got back into the flow of things. She had some money again; not enough to dazzle, but enough to be respectable. And she was tired of hiding away.
“Isn’t it? Elspeth Merriman throws the most wonderful bashes.” Claire leaned in toward Diana and touched her fl
ute bubbling with a champagne and pressed strawberry juice cocktail. “This one’s to celebrate her fiftieth wedding anniversary. As she gets older, she gets more dramatic.”
“She’s got wonderful style,” Diana agreed. Her dark eyes sought out their hostess, a wizened dwarf of a woman who had defied her own rules and come in black. She was wrinkled, like a toe after a long soak in the bath and, from what Diana could see, dressed extremely chicly.
“You can talk,” Claire said, gesturing at Diana’s gown. It was a brilliant cherry-red, with a vee that just covered her full breasts, then plunged straight down to the breastbone. The skirt was straight and heavy, and the sleeves long and narrow. She looked like a medieval princess, Eleanor of Aquitane, ready to command armies and steal the heart of a king.
“It’s Ralph Lauren,” Diana said simply. She didn’t have the ropes of rubies or the strings of pearl-set garnets that the others were wearing, but she knew she didn’t need them. With a truly dramatic dress, less was always more.
“You have a terrific eye.” Claire loved Diana’s irreverence; she was wearing a comfortable pair of rope-spun sandals under her couture gown. It was the same eye that had decorated her place so tastefully and, Claire was sure, on a budget. “Maybe you should come and work for me.”
“Anything would be better than the boss I have now,” Diana said, flashing her friend a rueful smile.
Claire took her arm. “Come on, let’s mingle. If you’re sure you can handle Madame Merriman, that is. I do have to warn you, she doesn’t pull her punches.”
Diana took a sip of her champagne and smiled slightly.
“Right now,” she said, “neither do I.”
Elspeth Merriman inspected the young woman being presented to her by the Bryant girl with evident satisfaction. She was exactly the right kind of stranger to meet at a party. Rarely, in a world full of new money where taste and cash were possessed by the Manhattan elite in inverse proportions, had she seen somebody so well put together. The dress, for example, was so exactly right. It fit perfectly, it was daring without being cheap. And the girl had picked just the right tones for her skin. She was thirty or thereabouts, at the peak of her beauty, with an English accent and soft brown hair she had not seen the need to color. Elspeth approved. There were so many bottle blondes in this town, it was almost like living in Sweden. Dangerous curves on her, too. It was a good thing Elspeth’s husband had passed the philandering stage long ago. Thank God they had not invented Viagra earlier. It would have caused her such problems.
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