Diana pulled the two rings off the third finger of her left hand and FedExed them to Ernie at Blakely’s. As the metal and diamonds slipped from her flesh, she suddenly felt as though a chain had been unlocked.
She was on her own again, and it felt good.
To Rita’s anger, she moved out.
‘Do yourself a favour, amiga,’ Diana said, thrusting the cleaning brushes back into Rita’s hands. ‘Learn how to make a bed.’
‘What’s my job?’ she asked Michael one Saturday night, eating Chinese food out of a carton as she laid out plates for the box artwork.
He looked over briefly, his face lit by the glowing
numerals on his computer terminal.
‘Whatever you make it,’ he said.
Typical Michael. He had given her raises and bonuses and professional praise, but nothing more.
Diana shrugged. So Michael didn’t like her. The feeling was definitely mutual. As long as she got hers, what the hell did she care?
Besides, she had a friend now. Claire Bryant had cheered her up every step of the way, and had even come apartment hunting with her. Diana was careful not to talk about Michael too much. It was a dead giveaway, and xvhy let Claire know he registered with her so much?
She found a new place on Hudson, a smart enough one bedroom with the luxury of a tiny den that she turned into an office. She decorated the place on a budget, which was a new experience, having no cash and no time. Classic modernism: bare wood floors stained a dark
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brown, a sleek cream rug, an antique bust, and a campaign daybed. Her only other furniture was a low slung sofa, a TV and a writing desk. It made the place look less tiny. You might even be able to swing two cats in it.
She invited Michael to her housewarming, but he turned her down.
‘I can’t make it. Got the new launch in a month. Need
to review the distribution contracts,’ he said.
‘Sure.’ Diana ran a hand through her glossy blond
hair. It was infuriating, the way he just brushed her off. Not that she cared about his opinion. But the rest of the office would be there. It was like he was snubbing her, and who was Michael Cicero to snub her?
‘But there’s something I wanted to say about your home.’
She turned to him, hopefully.
‘You can get a tax break for the home office, if you declare it.’
‘Thanks,’ Diana said, pointedly turning her back. She started shopping again. She had survived on the clothes she had managed to get Ernie to send over, parcelling out her make-up and perfume, dressing simply. She’d been reduced to quietly selling off half her wardrobe in one of the discreet second-hand designer clothes stores that proliferated in the East Village. Now, at last, she could afford to visit Bloomingdales again.
Diana bought a pink silk Miu Miu shirtdress and wore
it to the office with a pair of sassy lavender leather slingbacks.
Michael didn’t so much as notice her.
She flung herself into her work, annoyed.
‘Come and check this out,’ Opie said, beckoning Michael
with one bony finger.
Cicero sighed, but got up to see what he wanted. Opie
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was forever mouthing off about the tight code he’d just busted, or the smooth-jag of his graphic lines. Michael didn’t understand it; he left tech stuff to his band’of geeks. The point was to encourage the troops. He thought Opie and Jenny Faroe were his two best producers as far as games code went. Part of the success of Imperial Games was the enthusiasm and passion of its staff. Michael insisted everyone show up on time, but that was as far as his discipline went.
His creative staff wore shorts and Tshirts with everything from Metallica to wrestling heroes emblazoned over them, while the business side guys wore suits mostly. He’d thought about banning the girls from wearing skirts above the knee, but this wasn’t publishing. It was an office full of kids, and they didn’t thrive when they were being stifled. Diana oFoxton had taken her job as office manager pretty seriously, he had to admit. She’d hit on exactly the right atmosphere for them. They worked out of half a townhouse, and Diana kept it stocked so it felt like a home. She’d found the best hi-tech equipment at prices he found hard to believe, but more vitally, she made sure that each day there were fresh flowers, takeout teas and coffees, baskets of fruit, Coke and cookies for the junk food programmers. She put hairspray, perfume and cologne in the bathrooms, and had takeouts and beer delivered when the boys were working late.
Michael’s staff reported to him that they actually enjoyed coming to work.
He enjoyed it, too. It was a dreamin the making. With each little success he felt the blood in his veins pump faster, demanding more, yesterday! He stayed in his tiny walkup simply because he had no time to move. Michael’s only luxuries were two or three more suits, which he needed, because he was taking so many meetings.
He turned into the little room that overlooked the
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street, where the computer banks were set up under a
soothing watercolour of Martha’s Vineyard.
‘Look at this.’ Opie grinned.
He looked. It was from the new interactive classics series. Henry V, by Shakespeare. The graphics were fluid and exciting. It might not compete with Tomb Raider but he thought parents would have no trouble getting their children to learn with it.
‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘No, better, fantastic. You keep
it
‘And maybe I’ll get a weekend off?’
‘Let’s not get crazy,’ Michael teased. ‘Where’s Diana?’
‘She’s in the front office. She’s been locked in there for an hour with some guy.’
‘I see.’ Cicero turned away so Opie wouldn’t see the dark shadow that crossed his face. He’d tried to get used to Diana. Every single day, the woman turned up wearing something guaranteed to make his blood pressure rise. Either it was a body-hugging, light as thistledown, sky-blue suit, or a halter-neck dress that made a mockery of its modest neckline with the way it draped like liquid over the tight, high curves of her butt, the soft swell of her breasts. Even her shoes he found disturbing; tiny little strappy things, even when they were flats, that made him think of garter belts or the lace of her bra. Her make-up was always subtle, but not so subtle it failed to outline the lush fullness of her mouth, the cutting blades of her cheekbones, or her dark, groomed eyebrows, just shaped a touch instead of plucked to oblivion. Her hair was never the same way twice. He wondered, from time to time, what her next look would be. A sleek chignon, a young, fresh ponytail, complex French braids, or a bouncing curl under the ends that reminded him of a shampoo commercial.
Every single day he thought of telling her not to dress so provocatively.
z38
Every single day he realised he had no case.
Diana was wily, Michael thought. She knew just how to keep to the letter of his executive dress code wllile breaking the spirit. How could he complain about a floor-length white dress with cap sleeves? But how could he ignore the scalloped whisper of lace at the valley of her breasts, the loving grip of the cotton on her butt and her perfectly flat belly, and the way the bias-cut skirt emphasised each tiny, sexy swing of her hips?
She had no meeting today. Cicero prided himself on knowing everything about her calendar. Diana Foxton was a major asset when it came to the formal side of growing his company. Banks and business affairs lawyers just loved her. He enjoyed watching her work them. And work them she did, those long, strong calves tapering off to her discreet shoes that always seemed to match her skirt, he tumbling cascade of hair, that classy, unreachable, ice-queen English voice of hers giving them the summary of what Imperial was about.
He watched the way the men listened, utterly captivated. Was it his growth or her accent, his products or her eyes? The women executives were spellbound too. They took time out from flirting with him to stare at her; always fresh, always pulled together.
But he’d known this time would come. Diana was no shrinking violet, Michael thought angrily, far from it. She knew the kind of pull she exerted over men. She smiled, she brushed back that shiny ha.ir, she dressed to emphasise her sensational body. Sooner or.later she was gonna bring a boyfriend to the office, and Cicero was prepared to hate him. He was bound to be a two-faced weasel like Ernie Foxton. Diana had the worst taste in men and he, Michael, was not going to stand for them in his office.
He moved through the front room, ignoring the various requests to review this and sign that. The door to
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the office where they took meetings with investors and analysts was shut.
He rapped on it.
‘Diana?’
There was a pause. He could hear her talking in low, urgent tones to some guy or other.
‘Yes, Michael. I’m in a meeting.’
The cool accent infuriated him. Almost without thinking, he turned the handle and barged his way in.
Diana was standing there, with her hand in the grasp of an older man. A rich-looking guy, Cicero noted, with a white handkerchief sticking out of his upper pocket. He even wore a vest, despite the early fall heat. Michael disliked him instantly.
‘Can I help you with something?’ Michael said, softly. The man turned round and looked at him like he was something he’d scraped off the sole of his shoe. ‘No, I don’t think so. I had private business with Mrs Foxton.’
Michael ignored Diana’s reddening face. ‘Her business is my business. I’m Michael Cicero.’
‘Yes, I know who you are, sir.’ He made sir come off like an insult. ‘But I’m only interested in talking to Diana Foxton.’
Michael folded his arms, and saw, to his great pleasure, the skinny little guy cast a wary look at his biceps under the plain shirt.
‘I think I’m done here,’ he said hastily.
‘I guess you are. Let me show you out,’ Michael said, evenly. Diana was pissed off, he saw, but tough. She
couldn’t flirt with her latest sugar daddy on his time. ‘I know the way …’
The guy gathered up papers and fled, brushing past Michael with a muttered ‘Good day.’
Michael turned to her. Diana was in a pink smockqike thing, with a half-sleeved, jaggedly cut pink jacket. It picked up the warm summer highlights of corn in her
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hair, and she had teamed it with a light single-note perfume of roses.
She’d dressed up for that guy? He would never understand women. The way money mattered so much to them. Wasn’t she earning enough?
Her former apartment flickered through his mind. Well, compared to a penthouse on Central Park, her current place probably didn’t cut it. She’d worn a few of the same clothes - in different combinations - twice or three times. Maybe that wasn’t good enough for her. She still carried herself like a society dame, and that was what
she probably wanted.
Just like Iris:
Then he told himself that that wasn’t his business. Business wias his business.
‘What was that man doing in here?’ Michael snapped. ‘This is my office. Not a place for you to do your private entertaining.’
‘Who do you think you are?’ Diana said. She was white-faced and her blue eyes glittered. She marched up to him. ‘I believe I told you I was in a private meeting. You think you can just barge in on me?’
‘I think I can do whatever I like. I’m the boss.’
She laughed. ‘Like I haven’t earned the right for fifteen minutes alone? I work night and day for your company, boss.’
‘You think you’ve sacrificed things for Imperial? You don’t have any idea what that even means,’ Cicero said, contemptuously.
Diana reached up and slapped him hard around the face. For a moment, Cicero was so shocked he didn’t even react. If he had seen it coming, he would have blocked her. He didn’t permit girls to hit him. If a guy tried that, he’d be knocked into the middle of next week. From a woman, like Diana, it was nothing but a sting. But the balls of her took his breath away.
He fantasised briefly about tugging her over his knee
and lifting that sexy, taunting smock and spanking her.
That was what she could really use.
‘Would you mind,’ he said evenly, ‘telling me what you
think you’re doing?’
‘I’m doing what I feel like,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t
think I’ve sacrificed anything for this place? Let me tell
you something. That man was a lawyer.’
Cicero blinked. ‘Explain yourself.’
‘Explain myself?’ she said, throwing back her hair. She
looked wild to him, provocative, a challenge. He thought
about shrugging the jacket from her creamy shoulders
and ripping her thin dress straight down the middle. Of
course it didn’t mean anything, I’m just fantasising about
her like I would any other pretty chick. ‘You want an
explanation. How about, you’ve been so goddamn busy
running your damn office you didn’t even notice me! I
had a life before I came here, Michael. I’ve been busy
trying to get back just a fraction of it. With no support
from you. I thought we could be friends; I guess I was wr6ng.’ Diana picked up the papers and tossed them at him.
‘These are my settlement papers. My lawyers just took
half a million dollars from me for making a few phone
calls.’
Michael didn’t bother to pick them up. ‘I’m sorry. But
it’s your own fault.’ :i
Diana gasped. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Certainly.’ God, he could be so infuriating, staring at
her with those heavy-lashed eyes, like he knew it all, and
she was some bimbo. ‘I will excuse your temper, this
once. But don’t blame me for your inadequacies. You
were arrogant. You didn’t go to a lawyer at the outset.
You could have gotten a better deal, but you had to wait
till the last minute. Why is that my fault?’
Diana was thrown. Sometimes she hated him. He was