For All the Wrong Reasons (24 page)

Michael breathed in, hard, and came out of his stupor. The white-hot pleasure of riding Iris dissipated like mist on a bathroom mirror now that he was done. He lifted her gently and rolled across the bed.

She was gasping and whimpering. “Oh, Michael, that was incredible. That was so incredible.”

He eyed her. She wasn't so groomed now, she was reddened and perspiring, and her hair was plastered to her angular face. He saw his thumbs had left small white marks around her waist. Her nipples were still up and full, pointing out at him like angry missiles.

“What did you mean that I wasn't a loser?” he asked softly.

She shrugged, breathing heavily. “What I said. I had faith in you. I knew you would make money, that you wouldn't stay a loser, living in this dump, you know, no car.”

Michael looked at her expressionlessly. “And what if I hadn't gotten that bonus?”

Iris stood up and stretched her heated, slender body. Now, that he was denuded of his lust, Michael considered her more critically. She needed to eat more, for sure, and do some squats. She needed a bigger butt. It was annoying to have all those sharp angles digging into him when he was trying to fuck her.

Iris padded across the room and reached for a large towel, wrapping herself daintily up in it, like he hadn't seen everything she had to offer from every angle.

“Really.” She drew a hand through her hair, tugging it back. “Why make problems where they don't exist? I make way more than you do, but I knew that wouldn't last.” She moved toward the bathroom. She didn't like anybody to see her looking less than perfect. “The point is, you did make this bonus, and you're going places, so we don't really have any problems.”

Smiling coyly, she blew him a kiss and tiptoed into the bathroom. Iris tiptoed all over the apartment when her shoes were off. Michael assumed that for her it represented nature's high heels. She was a high-maintenance girl, all the way down the line. They didn't really have any problems, huh? Think again, baby. He stood wearily and thought about the mechanics of dumping yet another girlfriend. Another gold-digger. Did a girl think it was attractive to be told you were now acceptable because you'd made a million bucks? Were all girls like this? He was drained from sex, too tired to think about it now. Iris would shower, then he would shower and fall straight into bed. Tomorrow night they would have their talk. He was going places, but it would be without her.

Michael lay on his futon and regarded the high towers of Wall Street right outside his window. The moon was rising in the sky, and so was he. Tomorrow he would go to Ernie Foxton and accept the checks for himself and his staff.

He was a millionaire. He had made it. It was one of the sweetest moments of his life.

TWENTY-TWO

The alarm buzzed in her ear. Diana reached out and hit it with one weary hand. She'd been awake for hours. There was too much to think about for her to get any sleep, and she had to be into the office at eight this morning.

She lifted herself out of her lumpy bed and looked at the gray, muggy dawn that was breaking over Manhattan. Uptown, up high in her penthouse, where the air was clearer and the park was green in the sunshine, that two-faced bitch Felicity Metson was sleeping in her bed, with her husband. Diana groaned. Oh, she must have looked ridiculous last night, standing there dumb as a rock, her mouth open like a dying flounder on the beach.

She beat herself up for her stupidity. When her other friends had melted away like the San Francisco morning mist, she had counted on Felicity. She should have known something was up. Diana looked around her clean, functional, soulless apartment with loathing. Fee had wanted her in here and out of Central Park West asap—to keep the coast clear for herself.

Claire had been right about the scheming mistress. Only the mistress in question wasn't Mira Chen. It was her best friend.

“Of
course
I was your friend, darling.” The image of Felicity, smiling smugly like a crocodile about to swallow a fish, swum back into her mind. “I was your friend
and
Ernie's friend, too. You made such a ridiculous fuss and a spectacle of him. Clearly he wasn't the right man for you. I'm just helping you get closure on the process
you
started.”

“I started it? I fucked Mira Chen?”

“It wasn't only Mira.” Oh, the satisfied look on Ernie's face as he'd come out with that one. “You knew the score when you married me, you stuck-up cow. You're so frigid, you forced me into it.”

Diana had stood and gazed from one to the other. She imagined Felicity laughing, giving a blow by blow account to Natasha, Jodie and the others. Probably she had been doing that all along. She imagined the married women, sitting on the best banquettes at the Russian Tea Room, talking about Mira and Ernie, and the scene at the apartment, and her low-class living quarters, and laughing, their champagne flutes clinking. She couldn't move. It was like being in one of those nightmares where her feet were stuck to the ground with superglue.

“You bastard,” she whispered.

Ernie gave a braying laugh. “You bastard,” he mimicked. “Is that the best you can do, love? You've seen my offer, have you? Our lawyer says you haven't got a prayer. Check it out; we've been together barely seven months, and
you
walked out.”

“Because you were cheating,” Diana said. Her tongue seemed stuck in her throat. “I'll sue, here in America. You won't have a dime left.”

Ernie laughed at her. It was amazing, Diana thought, how she'd managed to blind herself. She'd thought he loved her. “I don't think so, babes. I've filed for divorce in England, and you took a job over here, you moved out, no phone call, nothing. By the way, don't bother trying to empty the joint account. I've already done it.”

“What?” she gasped. She steadied herself on the ottoman sofa that she'd scouted out after months of trying at the Amsterdam fine antiques fair last year.

Ernie waved one thin hand condescendingly at her. “Don't worry. You got ten grand left in there. Can't see my ex-wife on the streets. People might talk. Should tide you over. Plus two fifty for being a good girl.”

“But I'm your
wife,
” Diana said. She blinked back the tears, she so badly wanted not to cry in front of Felicity, that smug, aggravating bitch, but she had no choice.

“Not for long,” Ernie said, smirking.

Diana had howled in misery and stumbled back into the lobby. As she stepped into the elevator, the sound of barely muted giggling from Felicity had greeted her, rising up like the hideous bubbling of a cauldron. She had ridden down to the lobby with tears streaming down her face, and the elevator attendant had been reduced to studying his shoes very carefully, making her, Diana, invisible as a lurching drunk on a bus.

Mercifully the cabby who had taken her home—she had no wish to be told by Richard he couldn't drive her anymore—didn't ask any questions, either. This was New York, and misery was common. People minded their own business here.

Diana shook her head, to get rid of the memories. This was real. This utter nightmare, it was real. She had checked last night, and this morning she couldn't even afford her rent for more than a couple of months. Ernie was determined to cast her off, to make a beggar of her. She was suddenly, pathetically grateful for the grinding routine of her job.

Determined to make the best of it, Diana regarded her tired reflection in the mirror? She was a pro at beauty. She had time to take care of those dark shadows, to wash her hair, to put on her best stuff, to douse herself with her bottle of Joy—the most expensive scent in the world. No matter how bad things got, she still had her beauty.

I always relied on it, Diana told herself, and I still can now.

*   *   *

Diana turned up at the office at five to eight. She was wearing one of her sexiest business suits, a camel cotton, tailored suit with a sharply cut jacket that emphasized the flare of her breasts and bottom, and the dainty narrowness of her waist. Her face was a muted, glowing palette of berry and bronze color, the concealers had erased the shadows, and she wore her hair up, neatly, in a French chignon. Defiantly, her engagement and wedding rings still glittered on her left hand. A fragrant cloud of scent hung about her, if you dared to get close enough. The sheerest Woolford hose and butterscotch Patrick Cox heels completed the look.

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.