Public Relations (3 page)

Just thinking his name ground the vertebrae in Georgia’s neck together. If the cab weren’t jouncing over potholes the size of her great-grandmother’s silver tea service, springs shrieking in protest, the cabbie might’ve heard the sound of bone against bone. She twisted her neck and released the tension with an unladylike crack.

Ten minutes. She’d wanted ten minutes alone with the man to ask about the Wells Foundation, the charity Wells Industries funded and Peter chaired. All night he’d had one woman or another on his arm. Though she’d put herself in his path more than once, he’d completely ignored her. It was as if she’d been transparent, for heaven’s sake. She’d gone to use the loo, and when she’d returned, he’d disappeared. Up and vanished in the midst of the annual benefit speech. Chalking the night up as a total loss, she’d downed two glasses of champagne in quick succession and gone for her coat.

Thirty minutes later, stuck in Saturday night traffic just outside Times Square, she berated herself for going out last night instead of taking the time to research a back-burner story. She’d been so cocksure. Thoroughly convinced Peter’d find her irresistible and talk with her. Maybe even dance with her. By the time he’d bothered acknowledging her existence, his notice had been too little
much
too late.

The uncharacteristic fantasy she’d harbored all week—she a vision in red velvet, he in his crisp tux, twirling about the dance floor as the symphony played a waltz of Peter’s choosing—reared and was quickly superimposed with one of him in a tango clutch with that blonde. A blonde he’d paid. Not just to accompany him, but to…to…

She closed her eyes and immediately opened them when a vision of the woman’s spread legs—Peter Wells’s fingers playing her like a virtuoso with his chosen instrument—flashed in her memory like a pay-per-view porno. Not that she had any familiarity with what those movies were like—not really—and she certainly hadn’t needed any
up-close and personal
lessons from Mr. Wells. She’d had enough of those walking in on her own father
in flagrante delicto
with London’s answer to the Las Vegas showgirl more than once, thank you very much.

Foot tapping, thigh bouncing, she gritted her teeth and willed the ride to be over, the night to be over. She had no decent story for Monday’s column and no time to research something new. It was his fault that she was going to have six inches of dead space to fill with something moronic and meaningless.

Unless…

A tight smile tugged the corners of her mouth, and she sat up straighter. She needed a story, and it seemed it just might be about Peter Wells after all. The beginning of the social gossip piece began to unfurl in her mind. It would be a tad vitriolic. He’d earned it, and that made it difficult for her to feel sorry for him. She’d envisioned him as a gracious, kindhearted, and genuine man—the exact type his PR firm had cultivated in the media. Her uncharacteristically naive imagination had missed the mark so badly she was firing it.

The evening had proved the chairman of Wells Industries to be entirely egocentric, his charitable works done to cultivate a shallow social persona. And his personal life? Less than shallow. Like every part of his urbane personality, it was purchased in cold, hard cash. For God’s sake, she’d seen the money change hands with the escort at his side.

Lap. She’d originally been in his lap.

As if that image wasn’t burned into her frontal lobe. Forever.

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, trying in vain to assuage an ache that had reared when he’d offered to find her a cab. As if she needed his assistance. Having him so close, she’d had to call in every reserve she possessed to give him the proper set down he deserved.

Close up she’d been able to see how the shade of his five o’clock shadow highlighted the sensual cruelty of his upper lip. It had taken every iota of her restraint not to stare at his mouth as his nearness crashed through her defenses. If she’d responded in any other way, she had a good idea she’d be enjoying a very different end to her evening. A shiver of anticipation traveled down her spine. Huffing in disgust, she flopped back against the seat and lolled her head so she faced the far window.

Her disappointment in Peter was more than righteous indignation. Loathing scored her heart. Only a fool would have believed he was different, special. He was like every other moneyed lothario, whether they were gauche Americans or Brits who hid behind their lofty titles and feigned superiority. They were liars. One and all. Just like her father.

Flashes of memory—her mother’s suitcase by the front door, the way she’d walked out without looking back; then her father’s string of mistresses and one-night stands parading around the London manse as if they thought they were already the next Countess Montrose—seared her brain as if the images were brand-new. She blew out a breath to abate the unexpected prick of tears in her eyes and nostrils. No matter how many decades went by, she doubted she’d ever forget the amused look on her father’s face each time she’d walked in on his ill-timed sexcapades. Seeing Peter Wells tonight, like that, had brought it all back and proven what she’d always known. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the jet set. Aristocratic or otherwise.

Thank God she’d ducked the society scene when she’d insisted her father send her to boarding school in the States. It wasn’t as if she’d had to fight all that hard. Though he’d wanted her out of the way, he would’ve preferred a finishing school in Switzerland to the rigorous school she’d selected. Other than a monthly stipend and very occasional visits home, her ties with high society had been severed so completely that only her father’s solicitor knew who and what she really was on either side of the pond. And he knew only because he sent her monthly allowance checks and got her the invitations she needed to do her job.

The cabbie pulled the vehicle to the curb and glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “That’ll be $24.70.”

The building’s night doorman rushed forward to open her door and offered her a hand out. He paid her fare with a credit card the building kept on hand for this purpose. Snow frosted the sidewalk, and flakes fell thickly. The promise of more, maybe a lot more, was on the air.

Shivering, she hurried inside to where the elevator waited. She entered the already opened doors and absentmindedly punched the button. Across the way, the brass doors of the building’s penthouse car reflected her image in waves of rosy distortion. The closing lift cut off her artificially constructed image. Reaching up, she pulled off her platinum wig and dismantled the first piece of her Gigi persona.

Cool air hit her scalp, and she sighed. The pins came out next. By the time the elevator opened at the ninth floor, she’d deposited a fistful of hairpins in the wig’s shell and shaken her hair around her shoulders. She hooked her finger in the back straps of her heels and slid them off in the hall. Visions of the escort’s high heels, their stiletto tips gleaming on her dangling feet, brought a rush of heat to Georgia’s cheeks. She fisted her shoes and wig as every stocking-footed step she took toward her door fueled her sense of justice and the need to deliver a little of the stuff on her own.

Entering her apartment, she stalked across the marble-floored foyer, through the formal living room, and headed to the master bedroom. The flip of a switch sent heavy Roman shades descending uniformly over all six windows, obliterating her snow-frosted view of Central Park. She dialed her managing editor and put him on speaker as she began to wriggle out of a dress she couldn’t be seen in again.

“Huh, Georgie.” Sid’s greeting was warped, likely because his face was mashed into his pillow. “Er early ’night.”

“English, Sid.” Next came the dreaded shape wear. God, this stuff made her feel like a walrus wrestling with a damned fifty-five-gallon drum. She wasn’t sure which she was, and that was the irksome point. Sure, she fell in the “normal” weight range for her height and bone structure, but high society would shave twenty pounds off her frame before she’d be considered a beauty of any measure.

Covers rustled as Sid moved around. A heavy flop said he’d crashed back to the mattress.

“You usually don’t call for another…damn, it’s eleven. You’re early. What happened?” His jaw cracked as he yawned with gusto. “Was it a bust?”

She couldn’t stop the bark of laughter. The only bust to her evening had been an easy 36C, none of it real.

“On the contrary. We have our story.” Tossing the shape wear across the settee at the foot of her bed, she started with the garters. “Look, Sid, I want to bang this thing out and get you to kill that ridiculous piece I did on the senator’s wife. No one cares that she spent two hundred thousand dollars on a tea service. But this? This is gold.”

At Sid’s immediate protest, she interrupted. “It’ll only take me thirty minutes, forty-five tops. I know what it needs to say, composed most of it on my way home. We have a moneymaker, Sid. Give me a chance.”

“Is it worth having me haul Kenny in for a new page layout?” His skepticism stung.

“Want the whole story or the highlights?” She normally loved this game, playing out the evening with him. Sid was the best friend she’d ever had, would ever have, and she cherished him. Tonight, though, there was a desperation in her, a compulsion to get this truth published and feed her need to report news, however trivial this truly was.

More cover rustling before his voice came louder over the speaker. “Gimme the highlights. I’ll have to get the paper to the printer in…damn. It’d have to be there in an hour. We give our dead three days before we bury them, and you’re only giving us an hour to pull off a miracle. You ever heard of sleep, Georgie? It’s up there with food as a necessity. Right now? I feel like a zombie. I haven’t even had enough sleep to throw wood. Oh my God! Do I have a pulse?” Sheets rustled, and the mattress squeaked.

She laughed despite her dour mood. “Fine. Just the highlights then. The Wells Foundation funded a children’s summer camp. The man of the hour gathered his date before the announcement. They disappeared into the private reading room, where she proved she had more unnatural flexibility than a circus performer. He paid her a substantial sum before lecturing her on getting too close to him. His advice? Keep in mind it was all a business arrangement.”

Sid choked so hard she wondered if he’d swallowed his tongue. “Business arrangement? As in a…a…a hooker?”

“I do believe the more expensive women are referred to as escorts, perhaps even mistress, but yes. In spirit? Same thing.” She frowned at the sound of water falling on water. “Are you using the loo?”

“You’re the one putting my ass on deadline for a paper I already put to bed.” Flushing and gurgling prevailed for a moment. “Don’t bitch.”

“Men are vile.” The lot of them. Even Sid. At least tonight. At least until she got this column out of her system.

The more uncomfortable physical traces of her Gigi persona banished, Georgia moved into the little library she used as both a reading space and an office. She popped out her colored contacts and put them in their case as she settled into her desk chair. Later she’d scrub off the clever makeup and ritzy nail polish. The jewelry would go back in the safe before bed. Presently, she had work to do. “I’ve never understood the allure of paying for sex. I suppose it’s a bit like test-driving a Bentley compared to a Nissan, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. I take the subway.” Rustling and static overtook the conversation as Sid grabbed his phone and took it off speaker. His tone changed, morphing from best friend to managing editor in under three seconds. “So you’ll have the piece in on time? This is a huge thing to ask. If I fuck it up… The paper’s already in the financial crapper. You’ve got to get this right. Fast.” Anxiety threaded his voice.

They knew each other so well that she could perfectly imagine the way his brows, shades darker than his lovely blond hair, had winged down in a harsh V. He’d be staring at the clock. “About the piece. What’s the flavor?”

“Well, I’m not sure.” The next words were so caustic she wouldn’t have batted a single eyelash if her tone melted the case on her phone. “I suppose that all depends on whether or not Peter paid his lovely date to swallow before I arrived.”

“Holy. Fuck.” The choked laughter and irreverent awe were tempered by open concern. “He really got to you, didn’t he?”

She snatched up her cell and took it off speaker. “Not even Peter Wells has that much money, Sid.”

“Good luck. Just…”

“What?”

“Get the piece to me pronto.”

She knew those words were surrogates for his original statement. It didn’t matter. Not really. Her mind was shifting, moving toward the task ahead.

Georgia Whitcomb, alter ego to the anonymously infamous Gigi, Lady Montrose, had an article to write, and one very unsuspecting playboy to bring down.

Chapter Three

5:56 a.m.

The blinking blue dots of the alarm clock kept beat with Peter’s rapid pulse as he watched the digits flick to 5:57. Three minutes until his alarm went off, and he’d been staring at the stupid thing for at least a half hour wondering why drinking so much last night seemed like a good idea.

He switched off the alarm and let his gaze drift to the bank of bedroom windows. Trees mummified in a layer of ice-covered snow glittered along Central Park. Above the saw-toothed skyline of the Upper East Side, dawn edged the horizon in a pearly gray wash of lingering clouds.

After a bracing walk and what should’ve been an oblivion-inducing amount of alcohol, he’d been unable to evict that spoiled socialite from his head. Gigi Montrose. London expat. He’d discovered a brief mention of her in a New York society column but little else as he’d sat at his computer into the wee hours taxing his liver and his dubious search-engine prowess. It seemed his little socialite liked to fly under the radar.

With a name that fell off his tongue with all the haughty sparkle of a Tiffany’s bauble, she shouldn’t have interested him. Definitely she shouldn’t have fascinated him to the point he’d declined Chastity’s company in favor of a quick work over in the shower with his own hand. Yet there it was, infatuation, staring him in the face like he was a goddamned teenager with nothing better to do than fantasize about tits and ass.