Too Damn Rich (2 page)

Although their on-again, off-again,
no-strings-attached relationship had been sailing along for over a
year now, he still couldn't help but feel slightly dazed whenever
he was confronted by her mesmerizing, energy-packed reality.
Everything about Kenzie Turner seemed to charge the very air around
her.

Physical beauty had nothing to do with it.
Kenzie would never grace a pinup calendar or Sports Illustrated's
swimsuit edition—not with her sable hair, worn in a Louise Brooks
cut, framing a mischievous elfin face with high cheekbones, winged
brows, and small pointy chin. It gave her a vulnerable and gamine,
somehow waiflike, rather than sexually smoldering, look.

But there was something definitely disturbing
and at odds about that small, fine-boned face resting atop the ripe
female phenomenon that was her body. For from the neck down,
everything added up to just the right figures.

It was the sum of these disparate, individual
parts which made men want to ravish her and yet at the same time
protect her.

Her blissful smile widened as she lazily
watched his tongue flick a moist, ticklish path over her sumptuous,
blue-veined breasts, and down her latticed rib cage and softly
muscled hollow of belly to the generous thatch of her sable-furred
mound. A shudder rippled through her as his face disappeared
between her legs to plunder her sweetness.

Her wetness spoke for itself, and it was all
she could do to keep from going crazy. She absolutely loved his
tongue—no one, but no one, could feast on female flesh quite like
Charley Ferraro!

"Not now, Charley," she begged weakly, trying
halfheartedly to push him from between her splayed thighs. "You
know I've got to go to work ..."

His head popped up, black eyes shining. "Sure
you do." Then, balancing himself on his forearms, he raised his
hips high off the mattress and slowly lowered them, entering her
just the way she liked—face-to-face and hip-to-hip.

She let out a whinny of triumph and wonder.
Then, as he began to thrust with a very slow, very deliberate
rhythm, she let herself go, giving in to glorious depravity as his
tempo and breathing intensified.

"Faster!" she whispered eagerly, raising and
lowering her pelvis to match his rhythm. Her eyes glowed like an
animal's caught in the wash of sudden headlights, and she dug
fierce fingers into his buttocks.

"Faster!" she demanded.

"Hey, take it slow, babe," he said softly.
"We're not in a race, you know. Take it slow ..." he repeated.
"Just lie back and enjoy the ride ..."

"Yes!" She inhaled deeply the heightened
muskiness of his fragrant male flesh; shivered deliciously at each
exhalation of his warm breath against the sensitive heated skin of
her breasts. Slowly, the rhythm of his thrusts increased, and she
matched them by thrusting her body savagely up to meet him.
Greedily she contracted her muscles around him, grinding a circular
motion before lowering herself again. Concentrating fully, she kept
repeating the maneuver, gasping each time she held him captive.
Filling her completely.

Possessing her.

Faster and faster they moved in perfect
harmony, as if each of them were an intrinsic, indispensable part
of the other.

"Oh, God," she moaned. "Oh, it's so good! So
good, Charley, so—"

Abruptly his hands gripped her buttocks
brutally, and he half lifted her off the bed. She gasped in
surprise. He was jackhammering now, relentlessly speeding up his
pounding.

Faster, faster! His tempo was increasing, his
testicles slapping against her.

Harder, harder! Her every nerve ending sang
hosannas until, suddenly, the world tilted and went topsy-turvy and
she was flying off over the edge—cartwheeling out into a whole new
dimension, where up was down and down was up and inside was out and
outside in and—

Her face contorted in agony and her scream
was primordial as the first spinning wave of orgasm came
rushing.

"Oh, God! I'm coming!"

Suddenly she tensed and arched herself half
off the bed.

And then he, too, was unable to hold back any
longer. Tightening his arms around her, he reared up and drove
himself into her as deeply as he could.

Sensing his climax, she clamped herself even
tighter around him. Inside her, she could feel him twitch as his
own circuits blew, and the orgasm burst out of him in an explosion
as they came together in a mind-blowing, body-wrenching, thundering
climax of magnificent release.

Her fading scream became a long, drawn-out
sigh of marveling wonder. "Oh, Charley!" she whispered
breathlessly. "Charley ..."

He shuddered once more as the last of his
juices drained into her, and then, together, they collapsed on the
bed. Between drawing deep, ragged lungfuls of air, he managed a
lopsided grin. "Good morning," he croaked.

Her eyes were wide. "I'll say it is!" She
kissed him and ran her hands through his rumpled thick tangly black
hair which, despite his droopy Sam Elliott of a mustache, gave him
a sheepish, almost boyish look.

For a while they lay quietly, still joined.
Then suddenly her eyes widened in horror. She had spied the alarm
clock.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, and shoved him away.
He rolled off her, his limp penis slipping out.

"Now what the hell's the matter?" he
demanded.

"The damn alarm didn't go off!" she shouted,
yanking fistfuls of her hair in frustration.

"I know." Stretching out, he laced his hands
behind his head and smiled smugly. "I shut it off."

"You—you ... what?" She stared at him.

"I told you. I shut it off so it wouldn't
disturb us."

"You shithead! You pig! You ... you ..." She
grabbed a pillow and began beating him over the head with it.

He raised his arms to protect himself. "Hey!"
he shouted. "Hey, relax! I've got the day off."

"Well, I haven't! God, now I'm going to be
late."

The worst of her fury vented, she tossed the
pillow aside, launched herself out of bed, and made a mad dash for
the bathroom.

"What are you so worried about, anyway?" he
called after her. "Can't you phone in sick?"

Her head popped around from behind the
bathroom door. "Have you forgotten, or is your brain between your
legs? This morning marks the first official day under new
management!"

He looked at her dumbly.

"Gawd!" She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"The corporate takeover I told you about? With the new major
shareholder? Well, today's the day the SEC granted approval for it
to take effect, you Dummkopf!"

She glared at him.

"Well? Don't just lie there like God's gift
to women! Get moving, man! Put on some caffeine! And hurry!" She
clapped her hands briskly.

Crossing his arms behind his head, he
stretched out lazily and wiggled his toes. "Aw, come on, Kenz. You
know I'm no good in the kitchen."

"Well, ex-cuuuuuse me!" She rolled her eyes
again, growling, "Cops!" in disgust. "Guess I'm doomed to grab a
cup on the run. Why, oh why," she demanded beseechingly of the
world in general, "did I have to fall for a
too-macho-to-even-make-a-cup-of-coffee Italian cop? Would someone
please give me the answer to that?"

"Maybe because I'm so good in bed?" he
suggested with a leer.

"Too bad you aren't as useful around the
house." She eyed him suspiciously. "Say, don't you have somewhere
you've got to be? Work you've got to catch up on or something?"

"Naw. No work until tomorrow, sweetums, when
I hitch up with my counterpart from Interpol. I told you how I'll
be working with him in the art theft squad—"

But she didn't hear. She'd already slammed
the door and started the shower, and water was crashing down full
blast.

High above Fifth Avenue, Dina Goldsmith awoke
with the feeling that something had changed overnight, and
momentarily wondered what it might be. Lying in her extravagantly
draped fantasy of a Venetian bed, she frowned up at the Fortuny
canopy while trying to shake off the foggy remnants of sleep. What
had changed? she wondered.

Then it hit her.

Sitting bolt upright, she stretched
luxuriously. What a beautiful day this was! How could she have
forgotten? Overnight, she had become the Queen of Manhattan Island!
That's what had changed!

Was it really, truly possible? Perhaps if she
pinched herself . . .

She would have tweaked her arm were it not
for the thick, cumbersome mittens she wore to bed—to protect the
antique lace sheets and keep her hands slathered with moisturizing
lotion.

Amazingly, last night she had gone to bed the
same Dina Goldsmith as usual—the beautiful, Dutch-born wife of
Robert A. Goldsmith, billionaire owner of GoldMart, Inc., the
second-largest chain of (loathesome to her) discount department
stores in the nation.

But now, eight short hours later, she had
awakened a different Dina Goldsmith—the glorious wife of the new
owner (or, at least, the single-largest shareholder and chairman)
of Burghley's, Inc., the world's oldest, greatest, and undeniably
most important purveyor of world-class art, furnishings, jewelry,
postage stamps, porcelains, carpets—not to mention God only knows
what other staggering treasures.

Burghley's!
The very name galvanized,
imbued every item that passed through its venerated doors with
instant value, provenance, and prestige.

Burghley's!
Where every auction during
the late great eighties had broken one world record after
another—whether for the most expensive Picasso or van Gogh ever
sold, to the highest-priced Meissen dinner service or Ansel Adams
photograph.

Burghley's!
With its
three-hundred-year-old headquarters in Bond Street in London, its
own block-long palace right here on Madison Avenue, plus
twenty-three smaller satellite galleries scattered throughout the
world.

Burghley's!
Which ranked right up
there alongside Christie's and Sotheby's, and whose board of
directors and advisory board read like a veritable Who's Who of the
filthy rich and the titled, many of whom had, until now, looked
down their patrician noses at her, Dina Goldsmith, dismissing her
out-of-hand as the wife of a mere five-and-dime peddler!

Well
...

Her lips curved into a scimitar of a
steel-bladed smile. Things had
certainly
changed—and
overnight at that!

Now it was time to act the part.

"Darlene!" she screamed.

Her flustered maid, who had been waiting
right outside her bedroom, came rushing in at once. One look at the
trembling woman, and Dina could tell that even the servants had
gotten the news.

"Run my bath," she ordered imperiously. "And
see that the water's precisely twenty-six degrees. That's Celsius,"
she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am!" Chin down, Darlene scuttled off
to the ensuite marble bathroom.

"But before you do that, get a bowl of hot
water, untie my mitts, and wash this goddamn goop off my
hands!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Darlene was back in a jiffy,
with soap, a steaming bowl of water, a box of Kleenex, and stacks
of washcloths.

Dina held out both hands, arms extended, like
a surgeon. She waited impatiently while Darlene untied the thick
terry-cloth mittens and used Kleenex, soap, and water. When her
hands were finally clean, Dina said, "
Now
go run my
bath."

"Yes, ma'am!" Darlene vanished, along with
the debris of Kleenex, water, and washcloths.

Dina activated her bedside speakerphone—not
the one with the eight outside lines, but the intra-apartment
model. Hearing the dial tone, she stabbed one of the twenty-four
preprogrammed numbers.

The majordomo answered on the first ring.
"Yes, madame?" His amplified voice came out hollow and
tinny-sounding.

"Tell Cook I'll be breakfasting in exactly
one hour," she commanded. "I want hot fresh decaf. Half a cup of
plain, no-fat yogurt. And a single slice of low-cal toast. On the
light side. No butter."

"I'll relay your instruc—"

"Is my husband still here?" she
interrupted.

"I regret that he—"

She broke the connection, then immediately
reactivated the speaker and called her private secretary down the
hall.

One ring ... two ... three ...

"Yeah, yeah?" rasped a gravelly female
voice.

"Gaby, have my car and driver waiting
downstairs in exactly an hour and a half. And call Burghley's. I
want the three highest ranking executives waiting at the front
entrance to give us the grand tour."

"Guess that means I'm coming along," came the
sour reply.

"You guess correctly."

"I'll get on it." Gabriella Morton's voice
echoed weary resignation. "By the way. Don't forget you have a two
o'clock appointment at Kenneth's."

"Not anymore I don't," Dina said grandly.
"Call Kenneth. Tell him that from now on he can come here if he
wants to do my hair." Then, severing the connection, she flung
aside the covers and popped out of bed.

Stretching luxuriously, she took a few
moments to savor her new position. Then, humming cheerfully to
herself, she slipped into a salmon pink silk robe trimmed with
ostrich feathers and wiggled her feet into fuzzy little salmon pink
heels. Thus clad, she swept imperiously off to the bathroom.

For once, she did not dally to admire the van
Gogh portrait above the marble mantel, the Degas Racehorses over
the gilt console, or her treasured trio of sweet little Renoirs.
This was one morning that Dina Goldsmith did not need the tangibles
of priceless art and antiques to validate her position. Today she
knew exactly who she was—and where she stood in this town.

All in all, she had to admit that little Dina
Van Vliet of Gouda, the cheese capital of Holland, had not done so
badly for herself. She had come a long way in her twenty-nine
years—a long,
long
way.