Domino (The Domino Trilogy) (16 page)

“This perfume was named after the author
Anaïs Nin,” Hannah explained as the overwhelming cloud fragrance made me sneeze. “She wrote erotica, you know. Very sexy writer.”

“Yes, I’ve heard of her. But do you really think all of this is necessary? It’s just dinner.” I was not a perfume person. I wasn’t a fashion person, either. I was more of a throw-on-the-first-thing-I-grab-from-the-closet person. Besides, I was technically meeting
Rostovich in a professional capacity---as a journalist, not a call girl.

“You can never be too careful,” Hannah remarked as she fussed with my hairdo, sticking in a few extra bobby pins
for good measure.

“This look isn’t exactly what I would call
careful.”

She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a probing look. “Nancy, it’s the Ritz. If you aren’t properly dressed, they aren’t even going to let you past the doorman, let alone send you up to
Rostovich’s private suite.” She shook her head and clucked, as if I should have understood this already. “Besides, it never hurts to dress to the nines. It gives a woman a certain, shall we say, power. And you’re going to need that if you want to get your story. Among other things.”

Hannah kept fiddling with my
updo, but I shooed her away. (Between the two dozen bobby pins and the half-can of industrial-strength hairspray she’d already used, my hair wasn’t moving an inch.) I sank backwards into a chair. “This is all very overwhelming,” I said, more to the air than to her.

“Your first love is always the best,” she replied dreamily. “And it never hurts to make a good first impression.”

“I think calling Peter Rostovich my first love is a bit of a stretch.”

She smiled. “Maybe. But I think this whole thing is really sweet. And you’re way past due for your first love. I had mine when I was fifteen, and even though it ended badly, I still have fond memories of him and the whole relationship.”

“Funny, I thought all your relationships ended badly.”

Hannah glared at me. “Now now, let’s not be mean. The important thing is, this is your first real date of your adult life, you’ve got a very important man very interested in you, and you’ve got a golden career opportunity out of it to boot. What’s not to like? Looking like a million bucks when you walk in the door is only going to make things that much better for you.” She retrieved a black velvet clutch purse from the top shelf of her closet and handed it to me. “By the way, you’ll need this. Ditch that denim purse of yours, it looks like something a thirteen-year-old would use. And if you drag that awful duffel bag of yours around, it’ll
spoil the entire look.”

“But that’s my press bag! I’ll need it to do the interview.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’ll lend you my good Coach briefcase. It’s black and good leather, it’ll do in a pinch. Seriously Nancy, you’ll need to pay more attention to how you dress and accessorize if you ever hope to make it in the publishing world. Doubly so if you expect to be in a relationship with someone like Rostovich.”

“Easy for you to say, Little Miss Trust Fund.
I have a very limited budget for that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I am well aware. But there’s always consignment shops. And sugar daddies. I’m thinking that before this evening it out, you might have one of the latter at your disposal.”

“Surely you understand that would go against all my principles,” I shot back just as the door buzzer sounded.

Hannah and I exchanged looks. “Were you expecting anyone?” she asked. “I hope it isn’t Ted. I
so
do not want to deal with him right now.”

I shrugged and shook my head, then went to answer the door, since Hannah was still
unshowered and in her jammies. As I always did, I glanced through the peephole first and was stunned at what I saw.

On the other side of the door stood a uniformed chauffeur. Behind him in the circular drive that fronted our apartment building was a shiny black limousine.

Whoa. Chauffeur-driven limos generally did not make routine appearances on our street. That would be highly irregular even by Hannah’s affluent family standards. There had to be some mistake.

I cautiously opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Hello, I’m here to pick up Nancy Delaney.”

I blinked twice. “Um, I’m Nancy Delaney, but I didn’t order a limo.”

The chauffeur adjusted his cap and cleared his throat. “I was sent here by the Ritz-Carlton concierge,” he said. “I have very specific instructions to pick up a Nancy Delaney at seven o’clock. I know I’m fifteen minutes early, but as I said, I have my instructions. I’ll be waiting for you in the vehicle, ma’am. Unless you have any baggage?”

“Um, no, I don’t think so. Excuse me for just a minute.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

I pushed the door shut, turned on my heel, and found Hannah was standing right behind me, her eyes flung wide. “He sent you a
limo?”
she cried. “Oh, wow. This is just above and beyond.”

“Above and beyond what, exactly?”

She cocked her head at me and smiled. “Oh, Nancy, you have got it made. Really. And by the way, I think you
will
have baggage. Pack yourself an overnight case. You are
so
going to need it. Trust me on this.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

“Nancy, when a guy goes to great lengths to impress a woman, it’s because he expects something in return.”

“You make it sound like I’m a cheap whore who will do anything for a nice dinner and a limo ride,” I shot back. “And besides, isn’t this sort of thing against your magazine’s policy? And I’m sure it’s against the
Plain Dealer’s
policy, too.  Good grief, I cannot deal with all of this.” I pressed my fingers to my temples and took several long deep breaths. My heart was racing, the room was spinning, and I felt sweaty and breathless. Either I was having a panic attack, or I was seriously turned on.

And why wouldn’t I be turned on? A very attractive man was going to great lengths---and expense---
just to impress me. Wasn’t that every woman’s fantasy? Still, it made me very uneasy.

“You know Nancy, you can easily skirt all those ethics rules if you just describe how he
wined you and dined you in the articles. Make it a key part of the story. An illustration of what kind of person---and artist---he is. My own editors would love that. I’m sure the
Plain Dealer
would too, especially if they want you to dig up some dirt on the guy.”

“That’s all well and good, but then it would also make it impossible for me to date him,” I remarked. “Either I’d piss him off, or I’d still be in breach of the ethics policies if I got personally involved. It’s a no-win situation.” I swooned then as the world went blurry for a moment. I grabbed the edge of the breakfast bar for support. Good God, if I couldn’t date him,
then I couldn’t sleep with him either, and the deep aches and cravings that were wracking my body would therefore never be satisfied.

My inner self glanced up with alarm.
This will not do,
she silently told me.
You’ll just have to find another way.

“There is another way,” Hannah said, as if reading my thoughts.

“What’s that?”

“You just don’t tell anyone that you’re dating. Or fucking, if that’s all you’re doing. The two things are not necessarily related. Trust me, I should know.
Rostovich is incredibly discreet, so you wouldn’t have to worry about him spilling the beans. If nobody knows about it, then nobody’s the wiser.”
“Rostovich has already told one person how he feels about me. He told Benny, my boss, that I was his girlfriend.”

Hannah scoffed. “Details. It’s not like Benny runs a newspaper.”

That still didn’t settle the issue. “But
you
would know. And you’re on staff at
Art News Now
. That alone would be a conflict of interest.”

“Sure,
I
would know,” Hannah replied. “But I would keep that information to myself. Your secret is safe with me. Cross my heart and hope to die, and all that.”

“But that’s unethical.”

“Not if I don’t think it would affect your work, which I know for a fact it wouldn’t. You’ve always done a good job of separating yourself from your writing, Nancy. You don’t take anything personally in that department. I only wish all professional writers were so grown-up. You’d be surprised at what I’ve seen happen at the magazine since I started working there full-time. Talk about divas---wow.”

That made me feel a little better, though not much.  It was all just so much to take in at once. I hadn’t even graduated from college yet, for
Chrissakes, and here I was contemplating all sorts of hypothetical ways I could derail my journalism career before it had even started. Plus there was the simple fact that I really wanted to get laid. And the object of my lust just so happened to be someone I was getting paid to write about. Was that really so wrong? Didn’t I deserve to have the same chance at happiness---or at least, sex---as anybody else? Why did I always have to paint myself into a corner where my love life was concerned?

“Maybe I should just cancel the meeting, cancel the assignme
nts, and forget the whole thing,” I mused. “I can’t take this kind of pressure. No freelance gig is worth this.”

Hannah
rolled her eyes. She grabbed my shoulder and gave me a not-so-gentle shake. “Nancy, for the love of all that is holy, just go pack yourself an overnight bag and get in the fucking limo.” She was losing patience with me, and I couldn’t say that I blamed her. “Nobody is saying you have to sleep with this guy. Nobody is saying you have to do anything. It’s a free country, you’re an adult, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But mark my words, if you chicken out on this, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

I went to my room, threw a change of underwear and
some toiletries into my press bag---I didn’t bother to switch it out for Hannah’s pricey briefcase---and headed out to the limo.

The chauffer was waiting for me on the sidewalk, standing at attention and stiffly holding the passenger door open just like in old Hollywood movies. He raised his eyebrows slightl
y at the sight of my beat-up denim knapsack against my otherwise posh outfit, but otherwise didn’t comment. I settled into the plush, heavily cushioned backseat of the limo and found that there was a fully stocked bar at the ready, complete with a glass of iced Pellegrino with lime waiting for me on a marbled walnut table that jutted out from the upholstered wall. The sweating glass sat on a monogrammed Ritz-Carlton cocktail napkin, and beside it stood a polished silver candy dish filled with peach-colored sugared almonds.

There was a selection of hard liquor mixers too, but I never drank anything stronger than red wine
, so that was out. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go into this meeting tipsy. I needed to keep my wits about me. But as the downtown Cleveland skyline whizzed by the tinted limo windows, somehow I thought I might have already lost them.

SEVEN

I’d been in the Ritz-Carlton lobby once before, when my mother and I attended high tea there when she’d come to visit me on campus my freshman year. I’d gotten a bad case of the flu the week before second-semester exams, and since my mom was on a research sabbatical at the time, she’d flown out to take care of me. She’d spent the week sleeping on my dorm room floor, walking around campus chasing
down all my professors to get final assignments and lecture notes so I could study in my room.  She took me to the infirmary and carried back sick trays from the cafeteria, did my laundry, even played solitaire and videogames with some of my suitemates. Hannah had been my resident advisor that year, and we’d gotten to be good friends. It was actually Mom who suggested we move in together off-campus for the next school year.

“This dorm is such a dump,” she’d remarked on her second-to-last day visiting. “I won’t pay for you to stay here next year.”
“You already aren’t paying for it, Mom. My scholarship covers this.” I was mostly feeling better by then, though I was still tired from being sick and cramming for exams.
“Never mind. There’s a Ritz-Carlton downtown. I’m taking you there for high tea. Put on something nice.”

I’d donned my one nice dress and heels, Mom had worn her best wool suit, t
he one she used for presenting sabbatical research to the board of trustees at Beverly, and we’d gone to the Ritz for tea.  I’d been drugged with flu meds and groggy from lack of sleep, so I didn’t remember much about it other than how odd it was to eat cucumber sandwiches with no crusts, and the fact there was a well-dressed maid in the bathroom who’d handed me a warm towel and offered me a selection of complimentary hairsprays and perfumes. Then I’d gone home and crashed and almost slept through my history exam the next morning. Luckily Mom knew my professor from the labor history conference scene and got him to agree to let me start the exam late. They’d ended up going out for coffee together while I sat in an empty classroom and wrote my exam essay in a Blue Book.

Mom was always good for that sort of thing. She could be a real pain in the neck sometimes, but she was great in a crisis. Not only that, her affluent upbringing came in handy when
it came to things like manners and etiquette, especially in high-class settings.