Diana didn’t like gossipmongers. Now she remembered why.
Of course most of it was lies, she thought, as she nodded and smiled and gave little bows to her guests as they were finally ushered out. But the deadly thing was that part of it was true.
Once the door was closed, she buzzed Michael on the office intercom. He picked up right away. Diana braced herself.
“I’d like to see you,” she said, as calmly as she could.
“I’ll be right there.” He hung up.
Diana moved to the small private bathroom at the back of her office. It was her work sanctuary, with fresh flowers by the sink, Tuscan soaps and two vials of her specially blended Parisian scent. The mirror showed her face, beautiful and composed. Her dark hair was fresh and shiny from the wash and set she’d had done in her building’s ground-floor salon. Her heart felt like it was in a blender, but at least she looked good.
*
Michael plunged through the office, waving aside the executives who tried to come up and press their questions on him. Harry could take care of them. Right now, business didn’t seem that important.
Diana had left her door open. He told Ellen to hold all calls, then went through and shut the door behind him. She was standing at the window, wearing something in pastels, light pink, form-fitting. It showed off the incredible firm, curvy flair of her butt he loved so much, and the high, full line of her breasts. He had a flashback of her ass on top of him, grinding away, her breasts bouncing above him the last time they had made love, yesterday, at lunch, when they had ducked back to his place because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. How hot she got, how completely she had yielded to him, Michael thought. He remembered Ernie had called her frigid. At least he knew in that way, he was different, at least he knew she liked his touch. She could not help herself, under him. He would not allow it. With some girls, his touch had been light, casual, they meant little to him. But Diana was a woman he had to have, she was in his blood. It was imperative to subdue her, to make her writhe and sob with pleasure and shudder in his arms … his fists clenched. There was nothing like it in the world.
His heart lifted just from looking at her. She belonged to him.
The question was, why?
“I guess you read it,” he said lamely.
“Me and the rest of Manhattan.” She shrugged, an elegant, delicate movement that made the sheen on her little sweater sparkle in the light. “It’s fish-and-chip wrapping. It doesn’t bother me.”
She was the old Diana Foxton now, the ice-queen. Daring him to say any differently.
“I have a couple of questions.”
“Fire away.” Diana’s blue eyes sought Michael’s out. He looked angry with her, disappointed. Oh God. She delved deep inside herself for every spare ounce of strength. She couldn’t crumple and cry the way she wanted to.
“First, did you speak to Tina?”
“Yes, I did.” Diana saw Michael’s eyes flash darkly and she prickled defensively. “I spoke to her, but it was nothing like she said, OK?”
“It was nothing like that? You didn’t discuss relationships? You didn’t discuss me and Brad Bailey?”
“Well, yes, but—”
Michael held up one hand, furious. “That’s great, Diana. Talking about me in the office. I guess that wipes out any plans to sue. Tell me, did you also discuss the fact that you were dating a rich guy?”
Diana blushed scarlet. “Yes, I did, but Michael, it really wasn’t like that.”
“I’m sure.” His dark, thick brows frowned at her. He was so angry, she thought. He was controlling it, but the scornful look on his face just made her want to burst into tears. “You know, I took a call from your ex-husband today. He’s a jerk. He said nothing unusual, except for one thing, he said that Tina was right, that you never loved him, that you married him for his money. I told him that was bullshit. He told me to ask you.”
Michael looked steadily over at her. His heart felt like it was being crushed by some unseen iron fist. Please, Lord, let her deny it. I’ll never ask you for anything again.
“So tell me. What’s the story, Diana? You did marry him because you loved him, right?”
There was a pause.
Michael breathed in, raggedly. He knew what her answer was before she said it. Diana walked over to her window again, and rested her hands on the window, her head bowed.
“Wrong,” she said finally. Her voice was leaden, “I married Ernie for his money. I thought we’d be good together. He married me to get a hostess. I thought it was an even transaction.”
“Yeah. Very even. Very romantic,” Michael said. He felt sick. “And Brad? I guess he dumped you, huh? Did you know about the deal with JanCorp?”
Diana couldn’t believe it. She felt the blood drain from her face. She walked back to her desk and picked up her pink leather Prada tote. She had known it was bad, but she had never expected it to be as bad as this. Not from Michael. Not from the guy she loved.
“Of course I knew about it.” She spoke very softly; it seemed to her her voice was coming from far away, like somebody else’s. “I’m a director of this company. Or at least I was. I resign.”
“What?” Michael said. He seemed completely shocked. “Why? You can’t leave. We need you. This is our personal business, nothing else.”
“Yeah, well.” Diana was weary. “Maybe I can’t separate business and personal the way you do. To me, everything’s personal. Maybe it’s just part of being a woman. Whatever, I’m not staying here with you.”
“All I did was to ask you questions,” Michael said, stubbornly.
“And I answered them. I did certain things, yes. But I’m not that person anymore. I’ve changed.” Diana felt a tear seep out, betraying her, and trickle down her chin. “I don’t need to justify myself to you. Because if you can’t trust what we have, it’ll never be any good. I thought you loved me. I guess I was wrong.”
He just stood there. He wasn’t even looking at her. With a wrenching stab of sorrow in her gut, Diana shoved her way past him. She didn’t even say goodbye to Ellen. She marched straight into the lobby and stepped into the elevator, riding down to the parking lot, where she could commandeer one of the company town cars.
It felt weird, so weird, to be going home in the middle of the day. She managed to keep the tears in during the ride home. There would be enough time to collapse when nobody was about. Diana watched Manhattan slip by, and tried to be upbeat. She wasn’t destitute this time, she had options. One of them was going home. She had a quarter-of-amillion-dollar bonus, after all. She could take that money and start another business, maybe her own thing. Claire had offered to take her on in the interior design store. She had a talent for that. So it wasn’t high-profile headhunting, so what? Diana thought. She could make something of it.
But her internal efforts to bolster herself were a dismal failure. She didn’t want to make it on her own. She wanted Michael. She was in love with Michael. And now, she had lost him.
The car stilled, grinding to a halt in the sweltering traffic. Diana couldn’t hold it anymore. She started to cry, as quietly as she could. Why hadn’t she kept a packet of Kleenex in her pretty, impractical bloody bag?
*
She finally tumbled out at the lobby of her building almost thirty minutes later. She had shoved a fifty-buck note at the driver, far too large a tip, but she just wanted to get him away from her as quickly as possible without well-meaning questions about how she was feeling. Diana marched straight into the elevator, making sure the lobby guard didn’t stop to shoot the breeze either. Today, she just wasn’t up to it. All she wanted was a hot bath, her white toweling robe, and Claire’s shoulder to cry on. Maybe it would be best to unhook the phone, too. The media were bound to get hold of her resignation. They would take it as confirmation that the Big City story was gospel. But the thought of more public humiliation, the tittering of Felicity and Natasha—maybe even Brad’s thoughts of a lucky escape—meant nothing to her,
compared to the pain of losing Michael. He had been so angry. In all the time she’d known him, Diana didn’t think she’d ever seen his face like that. So passionate with rage. She had wanted to reach out to him, to ask for forgiveness, but his eyes had forbidden it. God, Diana thought, I thought marrying a millionaire was such a coup. But all it actually did was keep me away from the man I love.
Her control gave up completely. She put her head in her hand and sobbed, loud, deep sobs that tore out of her breast. Her make-up was running, splashing with her tears. Red-eyed and pale, her reflection stared desolately back at her from the elevator’s polished mirror.
Then the doors hissed open at her floor.
She found herself face-to-face with Michael.
Diana stepped out and turned her head aside automatically. There was no hiding how bad she looked.
“How the hell did you get here?” she whispered. “What are you doing? Trying to torment me? You can’t talk me out of resigning. Please don’t waste your breath. Just leave, Michael.”
“I will. Let me say my piece and then you’ll never see me again.” Michael fished a handkerchief out of his suit pocket and handed it to her. “Let me inside for just a second, so we don’t have to do this on the landing.”
Diana sighed; it was only eleven A.M., but she felt so weary. “OK. For a second.”
She let him in and shut the door.
Michael stood there in his work suit. He looked like he didn’t know where to begin. Then he faced her, and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was mad. I was jealous. No other woman has ever made me feel the way you do, and I couldn’t bear the thought that you wanted me for money. What the little fuck said made me want to kill him. And then you confirmed it. But after you left, I realized you were just honest with me. You changed, I know you did. You worked too hard to be in it for the money. And you would have been with me all along if I hadn’t been so damn arrogant with you at first. I hated you for dating Brad Bailey, but it was only once you walked out of the door that I understood why. It was simple jealousy. Because I love you, and I want you to marry me.”
“What?” Diana said. She trembled.
Michael came toward her, caught up her hand, and pressed it to his lips.
“I look awful,” Diana muttered. It was the only thing she could think of to say.
“You look beautiful.” He pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her mouth, her tear-stained cheeks, the hollow of her neck. “You’ve always looked beautiful. To me you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Michael…”
“Just say yes.” His dark eyes locked onto hers. “Just say yes. It’s the only thing I want to hear from you.”
“Yes,” Diana whispered. She kissed him back, fervently. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“That’s my girl,” Michael said.
He scooped her up in his arms and started to walk toward the bedroom.
READ ON FOR AN EXCERPT FROM LOUISE BAGSHAWE’S NEXT BOOK
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
COMING SOON IN HARDCOVER FROM ST. MARTIN’S PRESS
1
“Are you hungry?”
Rose Fiorello smoothed down the pleats of her skirt and glanced over at her mom. Mrs. Fiorello was standing there with that worried look on her face, the one that used only to be there when Rose left to walk to school, and now was there almost every night. “You have to be. Look at you, you’re so skinny, it’s dreadful.”
“I’m not skinny, Mom.” She really wasn’t hungry, but anything to make her mother feel better. “But I could eat, I guess.”
“Good. We need to use up these cold cuts,” Daniella Fiorello replied, turning back to their tiny kitchen countertop. “I’ll make you a nice sandwich.”
“Sounds great.”
Rose eased her heavy, threadbare knapsack off her back and perched her slender frame on one of the whitewashed chairs in the cramped room. There was never any space in their Hell’s Kitchen apartment, but as her father kept reminding her, it was Manhattan. Plus, it was rent-controlled. Even if the area wasn’t of the best, there were plenty of people who would kill for this space. You only got into trouble around here if you looked lost or frightened. And Rose never did. Even when she was dressed in the cute little uniform of Our Lady of Angels—navy, pleated skirt that hovered just above the knee, white socks and shirt, which most of the girls wore unbuttoned to try to look like Madonna—nobody wanted to mess with Rose. She was fifteen, tough, and pissed off. And she was beautiful.
The Fiorellos had always gotten by, up until now. But it had been at a cost. Surviving was expensive, and it meant somebody had to go without. That somebody was usually Rose, and she didn’t mind that, at least not much. Sometimes she wanted stuff; new Nike sneakers, a VCR, Whitney Houston CDs, movie tickets; it was hard not to, right now, in the booming Eighties, when the Wall Street flyboys paid three hundred dollars a month just to park their Corvette convertibles, and it seemed that everybody else was getting rich. Rose told herself she was content to bide her time. She was doing great at school, even if she hated it. School was a necessary evil. She would ace her SATs, get a scholarship to Columbia or NYU, and get a high-paying job as a lawyer or an investment banker. Then she would be able to move her parents out of their shitty little apartment, and buy all the cool make-up and CDs she wanted.
Rose spent so much time being mad, she didn’t really understand just how gorgeous she was. She was coltish, with long legs, dark glossy hair which looked like it came out of a comic book—so black it was almost blue—an oval-shaped face, and full, sensual lips with a natural pout. She was five feet seven, she weighed one twenty, had a cinched-in waist, firm, full breasts, and had just bought her first C-cup bra. Her nose was aquiline and arrogant, her skin was a rich olive, and her eyes—her incredible eyes—were a startling ultra-pale blue, almost white, even wolfish.
Her parents didn’t have those eyes, but no wonder; Rose was adopted.
Men catcalled when she passed in the street, but usually didn’t accost her. They didn’t dare. That stride of hers was pure Bronx, pure menace. Rose Fiorello was permanently mad; at her mom’s disease, at her father’s long hours, at their filthy streets, at the Mayor, at her birth mom, at the world.
But today she had a focus. And the hatred she felt burned as strongly as the first love felt by most other girls her age.
Rose tossed her head, sending a waterfall of sleek, raven-black hair flying through the air.
“Sounds good.” She tried to temper her tone. “More cold cuts from the deli? Did they turn off the power again?”
Daniella nodded sadly. “Your dad’s called ConEd already. But it’s another day’s worth of stuff ruined.”
“I could eat Dad’s stuff all day long,” Rose said loyally. They both knew she already did. Today would just be one more day of it, before the choice Italian meats and cheeses and fish turned bad and had to be thrown out. Before her father lost even more money.
Paul Fiorello was fifty, and had run Paul’s Famous Deli for twenty-five years. Despite the optimistic name, the Deli wasn’t famous: it was in the wrong neighborhood and too small ever to attract the new foodie crowd that would pay twenty dollars for a thin bottle of organic olive oil. But it was good, and the food was fresh and the tastiest for ten square blocks. Her father had a regular clientele, and he’d kept his head above water all these years. The Deli paid for the medications for Mom’s arthritis, and Rose’s Catholic school. It was cheap, but it wasn’t free. Plus, there were costs; the uniform, for one thing. The Deli took care of all that, plus their rent.
Up until last month.
Manhattan property prices were going through the roof. Even the worst areas which they said would never gentrify were already being bought up; the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen to name but two. Some people said Alphabet City and even Harlem would be next. Whatever. Rose didn’t give a damn about the demographics.
She cared about Paul’s Famous Deli.
They were located in a big building, a tall, decrepit old skyscraper on Ninth Avenue and Fiftieth. Next to them were a pizza joint and a fabric merchant which sold buttons and sequins and lengths of dingy netting; above them were offices. But somebody had sold the entire building to Rothstein Realty.
Rothstein was a big, giant, mega-bucks real estate company. They bought and sold in the tens of millions of dollars. They had plans for the building, and those plans did not include the local salami merchant.
Already Paul’s neighbors had taken the hand-out offered by Rothstein and given up their rent-controlled leases. But Paul Fiorello had refused. What would he do with a lousy fifty thousand bucks? He knew nothing but the deli, and where would he find another cheap lease? If the store moved more than five blocks away, it would lose all the regulars, and it would be competing with the smarter, bigger, cheaper delis, the ones with rows of shiny waxed fruit racked up on stands outside the store. Fifty Gs would only last them for one year. And then it would be welfare time.
“You don’t have to move, Dad.”
Rose recalled talking fiercely to her dad about it as he sat in the kitchen, reading the latest letter from Rothstein. It was full of veiled menace. Nothing they could sue over, but which could be read between the lines.
“They can’t force you out. You got ten more years on that lease.”
“They can do stuff, baby.”
“What, send the heavies around?” Rose glared fiercely at her father’s slumping shoulders and graying hair. “If they try any of that shit I’ll go to the police. And the press.”
“Don’t use language like that in this house,” Paul Fiorello growled.
“Sorry.” She rubbed her father’s aching shoulders.
“It’s not about leg-breakers. All they need to do is mess with the water, the electrics…”
“You pay for that, how can they shut it off?”
“Accidents. Interruptions. There are ways. Not to mention the construction noise next door. They’ve already started to gut the other two stores, and they start drilling the floors during lunchtime … crowd’s thinner already.”
For All the Wrong Reasons Page 37