Too Damn Rich (40 page)

Fabled legend of the silver screen, Lila Pons
had been right up there alongside Dietrich and Garbo—and had
become, if such a thing is indeed possible—even more reclusive than
that most famous of all recluses, Garbo herself.

Lila Pons.

Kenzie sat there in stunned disbelief.
Somehow, it felt unreal. Was it truly possible that she, of all the
world's experts, should be chosen to appraise the Great Hermit's
collection, perhaps even meeting the legend in person?

But there was the proof, right in her hand.
In black and white.
Lila Pons
. "Jesus Christ," she
whispered.

Zandra gulped the last of her coffee. "Sorry,
darlings," she announced, putting down the cup. "Hate to eat and
run, but I really have got to dash."

"Leaving already?" Karl-Heinz sounded
disappointed.

"Afraid so, darling. Duty calls." Zandra
scooted back her chair.

"Auction's next week, means work galore. And,
with this Holbein fiasco, I'll be backlogged until God only knows
when ... I mean, everybody, but simply everybody's, breathing down
everybody else's neck. You wouldn't believe the stink. Honestly,
you'd think they'd announced World War Three."

"Well," Dina murmured, "if you really have to
be getting back, I suppose we can't keep you."

"I'm afraid there's no choice, darling.
Things are in a bit of an uproar. You know how it goes. Starts at
the top of the food chain and works its way down." Zandra smiled
good-humoredly. "Look at it this way. At least it's not dull." She
stood up and pulled her coat from the back of her chair.

Karl-Heinz rose also. "Perhaps you'll permit
me to escort you?" he asked softly, taking her coat and helping her
into it.

"Oh, gosh. Heinzie, shouldn't you stay and
have a cordial or something?" she asked. "Really. It isn't
necessary to escort me."

"I know, but I would like to." He glanced at
Becky. "You do not mind?"

"
Juste del, cheri
." Becky gestured
elegantly. "Don't be ridiculous. Off you go."

"I'll call you later," he told her. Then he
took Dina's hand and raised it to his lips. "It has been a
pleasure."

Dina preened. "The pleasure was all
mine."

"Becky." Karl-Heinz gave a slight Prussian
bow.

Becky's sculpted features did not alter as
she blew him an almost imperceptible kiss. "
A bientot,
cheri
."

Zandra leaned down and embraced Dina.
"Marvelous lunch," she said. And, more softly: "But, darling,
honestly ... you've simply got to stop with the gifts! Really. Not
that they're unappreciated, but you're going to spoil me absolutely
rotten. You know I'll love you forever anyway."

"Oh do stop, sweetie," Dina begged, although
she looked pleased.

Zandra, smiling radiantly, turned to Becky.
"It's been fab seeing you again!"

Becky smiled that famous Mona Lisa smile.
"And you also,
cherie
."

Zandra tossed her scarf around her neck and
shouldered her leather bag. "Well, toodle-oo you two!" She waggled
her fingers and Karl-Heinz took her arm and guided her to the
door.

Then they were gone.

"
Alors
." Becky, lifting her espresso,
looked over the rim of the tiny cup with hooded eyes. "That went
rather swimmingly, n'est-ce pas?"

"Yes," Dina agreed softly, "it did." She
peered through the cafe curtains in time to catch Zandra and
Karl-Heinz hurriedly jaywalking across Seventy-fifth Street. "You
were right," she told Becky quietly. "They do make the most
attractive couple."

"
Oui
." Becky sipped her espresso and
put down the cup. "Alors. I believe the time has come for your
little tete-a-tete with Monsieur Fairey."

Dina smiled. "About the weekend in the
country."

"
Oui
. A week from this Friday would be
perfect." Becky looked thoughtful and nodded slowly. "Quite perfect
indeed ..."

Emotions collided inside her like a raging
firestorm. Zandra couldn't remember when she'd felt so utterly
powerless or vulnerable. She hated the sensation of helplessness,
the inability to dominate her passions. Her reaction to Karl-Heinz
had caught her completely off-guard.

On one level, the physical attraction he
provoked was intoxicating, uncontrollable, energizing. That was the
plus side.

On the negative, she found herself feeling
tainted, shamed, repulsed.

He's my relative! she told herself grimly.
Good Lord, what I'm fantasizing most likely amounts to incest—

Of course he was a distant enough relation
for that not to be an issue. But, appalling as some people might
find the notion, Zandra couldn't help wondering what an intimate
relationship with him entailed.

Sliding him a brief, contemplative sideways
glance, she thought: Sheer bliss, no doubt. Yes, sheer
unadulterated bliss ...

Because Karl-Heinz was everything a woman
could possibly want. Sleekly handsome, charismatic, holder of one
of the world's oldest titles, and possessed of that aura of casual
confidence which is the by-product of great wealth and power. He
also looked younger than his forty years, and was thoughtful,
amusing, and strong as the proverbial rock.

Heaven help me! she quailed inwardly. Why
can't he have stayed at Mortimer's with Becky and Dina? Why did he
have to insist upon coming along with me?

She was not aware of the traffic lights, or
the clusters of lunchtime shoppers, or even the perilous fleets of
speeding vehicles. The only thing of which she was conscious was
Karl-Heinz's disturbing proximity.

Which explained why, at Seventy-third Street,
she stepped off the curb without looking.

"Watch it!" Karl-Heinz yelled.

Grabbing her arm, he yanked her back to
safety just as a taxi, horn blaring, went barreling past her.

"My God!" he gasped. "You were nearly run
over! Zandra, you really must look where you are going!"

She raised her face and gave a jerky little
nod. "Yes," she said hoarsely, obviously shaken by the close
call.

"You are all right?" he asked, solicitously
holding her by both arms and looking deep into her eyes. His touch
was so electric, and his distress—instantly followed by
immeasurable relief—so genuine, that she felt herself drowning in
the depths of his eyes.

And it was then that she understood the true
extent of what was happening.

There are men who are boy toys, men who are
providers, still others who are protectors, and one in many
millions who is the sum of them all. And he was one of the
latter—she knew that in an unsettling flash of absolute,
crystalline clarity.

His blue eyes, the color of gas flames,
burned with a fierce intensity, and the wind lifted his thinning
hair, which, Zandra noted with appreciation, he didn't try to comb
over his receding hairline. Though handsome, slender, and perfectly
groomed, he was no youthful Apollo, which was precisely the point.
It was his very maturity which appealed. She'd had her share of
vain young Adonises in her past.

The problem was pedigree.

Centuries of inbreeding had related her
family and his. In the long- ago past, the adverse effects of
genetics had been pretty much of a mystery, and the only
requirements for noble marriages and propagation had been to forge
political alliances, broaden sovereign powers, fortify and raise
social positions, and multiply lands and immense fortunes. Among
the ruling classes, marital matches had always boiled down to
keeping power in the family.

Naturally, the by-product of all this
inbreeding—hereditary disorders such as hemophilia, dementia, and
birth defects, to name but a few—had cursed all the great ruling
families of Europe.

In the last decade of the Second Millennium,
though, the inherent problems of marrying one's kin were common
knowledge. She had absolutely no desire to play procreative
roulette. The very notion was unsavory, and fraught with potential
disaster.

I'm not about to play with lives. Every child
deserves a fighting chance.

The traffic lights changed, but she and
Karl-Heinz remained immobile, an obstacle for the pedestrians
surging in both directions. Despite the jostlings and occasional
curses, neither of them moved.

He was still holding onto her arms. "We can
cross now—safely," he said with a gentle smile.

Then he let go of her.

She nearly gasped, so unprepared was she for
the sudden deprivation of his touch.

It was time to will herself to move. She knew
that. Yet still she continued to stare at him, and despite
January's freeze, a wave of incapacitating heat hit her like an
accusation. She could feel the beads of moisture breaking out on
her forehead. Leaving a glistening, telltale sheen, no doubt.

What is it with me? she wondered. Why am I
staring at him so long? And how much more of a spectacle can I make
of myself?

With a supreme effort, she managed to tear
her eyes from his. Then, before her resolve could weaken, she got
her feet working and mobilized herself, fleeing across the
street—

—as if escape from one's emotions were that
easy.

Karl-Heinz caught up with her and matched her
brisk clacking stride. He hoped her need for silence was the result
of introspection rather than a symptom of anger.

His breath sighed noisily. Whichever the
reason, he wasn't exactly left with many choices. Two, to be exact.
He could either drop behind and let her go on alone, or keep up,
contenting himself with sliding furtive, inquisitive glances in her
direction.

He chose the latter—not through arrogant
confidence, but because her mere presence, however moody, put a
shine on his day. His perseverance was rewarded by treasured little
glimpses.

A burst of radiant sunshine lighting her head
and illuminating her haze of billowing orange hair like that of
some glorious pre-Raphaelite—a Rossetti maiden sprang to mind.

A gust of wind causing a streamer of
corkscrew curls to flutter across her face, and the casual,
automatic way she flicked them aside with her fingers—a simple
reflex—somehow seemed special and appealed mightily; made him feel
the overwhelming need to possess this astounding creature of
thoroughbred lineage, devil-may-care elegance, and innate,
unstudied sophistication. Most of all, he wished it were he who
could reach out and gently, intimately, stroke aside the hair which
the wind kept blowing in front of her face.

Why was it, he wondered, that she, of all
women, should be the one to make him realize what he'd missed out
on during decades of cutting a swath through life as a playboy?
Good God, but she even made the prospect of domestication seem a
pleasure to look forward to, rather than the tedious duty he'd
always believed it to be!

Even so, the merciless disregard she showed
him, dismissing his presence as if he didn't exist, lancinated his
heart. He felt the sting of rejection as he hurried, in enforced,
unnatural silence, alongside her. They might as well have been
strangers, coincidental pedestrians sharing the same sidewalk, her
proximity a mockery.

Finally, after they'd gone an entire block
without speaking, he could take it no more. He had to shatter the
invisible barrier separating them. If he didn't, he thought he
would go mad.

His hand sought hers and, holding it tightly
lest she escape, he stopped walking. She turned to him with huge
reluctance.

"For God's sake, Zandra! What is the
matter?"

She would not look at him. "What should be
the matter?" she murmured, shrugging. Then she pried her hand loose
and turned away, studiously perusing the hardware in the dusty
window of a locksmith.

Standing beside her, Karl-Heinz thrust his
hands into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat and studied her
while she, as if with utter fascination, leaned into the flyblown
glass and pretended to study the assortment of locks, doorknobs,
window gates, and keys. They might have been a display of new
spring dresses for all the attention she gave them.

He drew a deep breath. "Zandra," he pleaded.
"Why won't you speak to me? Or is it too difficult to tell me
what's wrong?"

"Wrong? What should be wrong?"

"I don't know," he said. "Why don't you tell
me?"

"Maybe there's nothing to tell."

And abandoning her examination of the
hardware, she hurried on, staring purposefully straight ahead. Her
face closed. Making it clear the discussion was over.

On they rushed, her silence enforcing his,
until they reached the faux- Renaissance palazzo where she worked,
and high above which he lived.

Zandra felt a curious mixture of relief and
heartache. Relief because she could finally flee Karl-Heinz's
unsettling presence; heartache because, much as she longed for it,
things could never—must never!—progress naturally between them as a
man and a woman.

The awkward, oppressive sense of silence
continued as they stood, buffeted by gusts of wind, under the
flapping dove gray awning in front of the entrance. Neither of them
seemed to know what to say. Zandra glanced longingly, almost
edgily, toward the doorman and the giant etched-glass portals
through which she'd make her escape.

But ingrained manners and protocol required
that she bid Karl-Heinz farewell. And that meant looking him in the
face.

She raised her eyes slowly.

Damn. She should have known. Those intense
blue eyes of his were altogether too mesmeric, and conveyed entire
unspoken words—desire, love, loyalty, need—all evident for her to
see. She could feel her resolve weakening, her knees trembling and
threatening to buckle. A lump rose in her throat.

You don't mess around with Mother Nature.

The silence grew. And grew.

It was Karl-Heinz who finally broke it. "I'm
going to be in town for the next three or four weeks," he said.