‘Sounds good. Now tell me about your place, again.’ ‘Central Park West,’ Diana rhapsodised, ‘mid seventies, twelfth floor, extremely good building, the committee turned down Barbra Streis.and two years ago because they didn’t want photographers hanging round…’
As she launched into her description of the glories awaiting her just a stone’s throw from Saks, Diana seemed so perfectly happy that Milla allowed her worrying inner voice to be quieted.
She can handle Ernie, Milla told herself. Diana can. handle anything.
I could like it here, Diana thought to herself. She lifted the crystal flute of freshly pressed raspberry juice her maid had brought her, and took another exploratory stroll round their apartment. Huge windows almost as high as the ceilings looked out over Central Park, and the blue lake sparkled in the sun. Beyond that, even Harlem looked peaceful from this distance. On the horizon, when the sky was clear, like it was today, you could even make out the blaze of colour that was Westchester County. Ernie wanted her to go out to Westchester and find them a little holiday cottage. All the Wall Street boys and Park Avenue surgeons had places outside the city, and Mar tha’s Vineyard, Diana thought, was just too much of a clich6. Ditto the Hamptons. Plus, there was the small matter of Ernie’s finances. He was rich - such a hit at Blakely’s already - but he didn’t have real American dollars, the kind that Calvin and Kelly Klein, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw possessed. Diana didn’t want something in the Hamptons if hers would be the smallest place for miles around. She preferred to head out to Scarsdale or Bronxville, and find some rustic little gem for the weekends. Westchester was full of city refugees her new best friend, Felicity Metson, had told her it was the second-richest county in America, after Beverly Hills.
It hadn’t been too hard, settling in. Paul Gammon, the chairman of the board at Blakely’s, a crust.y old social register stalwart who idolised the Brits, had thrown a party for their second night in town. All very select, no
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celebrities, just the money crowd. Diana had worn a classically simple gown of pewter silk and the drop diamond and citrine earrings Ernie had bought her the day, she closed on their apartment; her make-up nothing more than a slick of foundation and a whisper of bronzer. She knew how to invoke the look of the old money she had never really had, and it worked like a charm. As Ernie boasted to the stock-market whizz-kids about his overhead cuts back home, Diana worked the wives. Business was so boring. It was much more fun knowing how to spend money. And it was the wives sometimes the mistresses, too - who held the key to social acceptance here.
London had been a cakewalk, Diana thought, sipping her juice. A few photo shoots here, some blue-blooded relatives there, beauty and a rich husband. You could shop divinely for three weeks around Bond Street and never hit the same store twice. But grown-up exclusivity was about more than velvet ropes and your name on a guest list guarded by a gorilla in a tux. Americans had their own way of doing things, and Diana intended to fit in. The new girl in town needed all the perks of the Manhattan elite: the secret phone numbers the top restaurants gave out so that important customers always got a table; the names of the best manicurists, masseuses, dog-walkers and private shoppers; invitations to the right galleries a.nd parties. Diana had a determined look in her eye as she moved from group to group, in Mrs Gammon’s mahogany-panelled drawing room high above Park Avenue. She offered little cards, collected names, and promised a lunch here, a tea there. Ernie was a publisher, and publishing still carried prestige in New York. And, after all, women are curious creatures. Diana knew they would want to check her out.
She planned her first two weeks like a general. Helen Gammon had provided her guest list - of course Diana
z7
would do nothing so crass as to scrawl down phone numbers at the party - and she worked her way through it. A flurry of lunches, trips to the beauty parlour and expeditions to Prada and DKNY followed. Some of the ladies were fun, most were bitchy, all were rich, skinny and bored.
‘I’d like to throw a party,’ she announced that night when Ernie returned.
Her husband looked at her absently. Diana had hardly been around the house since they’d arrived, and that was just fine by him. At work there was so much waste, so many bodies not making the sales, not pulling their weight. He was busy trying to work out who to fire first. His revolution was blasting away the corporate cobwebs, and that was exhilarating. Let Diana do her thing, as long as she didn’t bother him too much. She never had when they were dating. Why should things change now they were married?
. ‘Party. Is it necessary?’ Ernie sighed. ‘I’ve got things to
do.’
‘I know you do, darling. You’re being so clever. But things like that help with the business. You needn’t plan it, just keep the twenty-first free. And I’ll need some money, of course.’
‘Surprise.’ Ernie grunted.
Diana pouted. ‘But darling, it’ll be so impressive.’
It was the way to his heart; or at least to his wallet. Ernie liked spending money where it showed. Fast cars, flashy jewels. Maybe her engagement ring was just a little vulgar, it was so large, but Diana had never complained about it. Could a diamond really be too .big?
‘All right.’ Ernie nodded. ‘Just one, then.’ He ignored
his young wife’s knowing smile. She thought one would turn into two or three. But if he didn’t like what she produced, it wouldn’t.
z8
At least Diana had come and asked for a budget. Some American wives just spent first and asked questions later. His girl knew better.
It’s my way or the highway, Ernie thought, and returned her smile with one of his own.
‘Let’s go into dinner.’
The dining room was a triumph. Diana had worked with Richard Hesson himself, the hottest, campest interior designer in the city. He was known for his uncompromisingly masculine rooms, maybe to make up for his uncompromisingly feminine looks, but who was she to judge? The room was all dark woods, a heavy walnut table from some eighteenth-century French farmhouse, rich red toile de joie, and a scarlet carpet. The maid had the table-laid for two, one at each end, with crisp Irish linen napkins, small silver vases filled with creamy yellow roses, and beeswax candles in antique silver candelabra flickering invitingly. Diana almost sighed out loud with contentment as she moved to the lower end of the table, across from her husband. This was so… civilised. A lot better than her grotty London flat. She was only missing a little intimacy, and Ernie would probably get round to it once he had stttled in more at the job.
‘Tell me about your day,’ she suggested, as Consuela laid the appetiser before her; tiny baked potatoes served with butter and flakes of truffle.
‘Not much to tell.’ Ernie forked the food into his mouth, barely taking the time to taste it. ‘Showing the lads how to run a modern business. Lots of bullshit talked in books.’
His wife nodded and waited for Consuela to uncork the Merlot. They would eat quietly and then she could probably get away with a long drawn-out bath and Friends while Ernie retired to his study, to trade stock
z9
on the Net or some such. Mentally Diana started to plan her first party. She fully intended to make a splash here.
Ernie talked away at his wife, offering up anodyne stories about his new offices, the incompetence of his assistants. Nothing of real importance, but why should he tell Diana about business? She wasn’t the kind of girl to give a damn. Sure, once in a while, a female came along who understood money. Usually ugly ones, frustrated types. Janet Jensen, a new underling of his, was a prime example. Ernie tried to imagine Janet spending days picking out the perfect duck-egg-blue trim for the guest bathroom - impossible, the hatchet-faced old boot. Janet types had brains; Diana types were arm ornaments and then there were sluts, Ernie’s favourite kind of girl.
After dinner, he gave his wife a brief peck on the cheek before heading to his study. It wouldn’t hurt for her to butter up the Yanks. It was part of the reason he’d slipped that three-carat Tiffany rock on her finger.
Ernie shut the thick mahogany door behind him. Diana’s touch in the office was more old-world subtlety; dark greens, leather, a Persian rug, bookshelves crammed with Victorian tomes that might have been in his family for generations. It was a room his friends’ fathers from Eton might have had; a gentleman’s library, complete with a muted oil of some ancient dame in a riding habit on the far wall. Ernie half loved and half loathed it. If he had dug a little deeper, he might have recognised the screaming sense of insecurity he always had around Di’s good breeding. But Ernie wasn’t into digging deep. He was into instant gratification.
His bride would be an hour or longer at her toilette. Ernie didn’t want to disturb her. Who needed to see women do their private, slightly revolting, stuff? Shaving legs and armpits and plucking and waxing and filing… it made him nauseous, thinking of women like that. Ernie didn’t think much of the traditional idolatry of the .female
3°
body. Most of them ran to fat, let themselves go, had moles, hair and dimpled skin. Whatever his reputation as a raider, he didn’t have a matching one as a playboy like so, many of the wide-boys kicking corporate ass in the big city. He could get it up and he certainly got around. Furthermore he realised that having the right woman was important, like having the right car. That was why Ernie had chosen Diana. She was the best, which was what he had to hae. But she didn’t do much for him.
Ernie slid his thin frame into the ancient leather armchair and flicked on his computer, the only modern touch in the room. His stocks came up, and he cast an eye over his portfolio. How long could the Dow go on this crazy run? Almost indefinitely, maybe. He couldn’t concentrate on trades tonight. His mind was running on Blakely’s:.not the sad, overpaid, underworked old warhorses, company men since their early twenties, who he’d fired today, but the PR girl from Hastings Inc., their new contractors.
Mira Chen. She was probably twenty-five, but she looked younger, apart from that icy, bitchy curve to her lip. Thin as a rail with small, curved breasts which jutted out at an unnatural angle, definitely fake. Their fakeness aroused him. She was a girl who liked to show it off. Her dresses were tight, dark, low-cut, worn with a jacket so snug it made him wonder if she was wearing a corset. Yeah … a corset cutting off her blood-flow, pinching, pushing the little apple boobs upwards, trying to make something of them. Her long nhils were painted bright red. How the hell she typed with them, he didn’t know. Mira’s thin lips too were always scarlet. Ernie thought about her pale, creamy skin, the eyebrows that she had plucked so thin she had pencil up there in place of them. It was a fake, painted look. He loved it.
What’s more, as Mira shuffled her papers, and pre. tended to listen to her boss giving the presentation, she
3x
ad looked over at Ernie. He was good at .reading the faces of his lackeys. Ms Chen was showing neither fear nor agitation. Rather, the look she sent him was slow, assessing and cruel. Ernie had found his throat drying up. He had snuck a look at the skinny, muscular legs protruding from the tight little tube of a skirt, encased in see-through black hose, they tapered down to a pair of high, arched heels, black, with little spiked metal stilettos. It must hurt her feet to be crammed into those, he had thought vaguely through the cloud of lust that enveloped him. When the presentation finished, Ernie told Dick
Hastings, her boss, that they should meet again.
‘I have more questions.’
‘Let’s rearrange,’ Dick said, smoothly. ‘Unfortunately I have a three o’clock uptown.’
‘No problem. One of your co-workers could probably help me out. You.’ Ernie turned to Mira. ‘You’re free now, right?’
‘Absolutely, Mr Foxton.’ She had a nasal Brooklyn tint to her voice, and she was eager. He imagined Mira was a thrusting, grasping little bitch. The way her colleagues glanced at her suggested to Ernie she wasn’t well liked. But she had a tiny, compact little ass, as flat as a boy’s. Who cared about popularity contests?
His gushing secretary showed out the other suits, bowing and scraping, and Ernie shut the door behind them, turning to Mira.
‘Interesting presentation.’
‘I noticed you were gripped,’ Mira said.
Ernie scowled. He wasn’t used to being sassed by people at work, especially women. He opened his mouth to rebuke her, but she held up one hand with those sharp talons. ‘I think public relations is very complex. I’d feel more comfortable discussing this in a social setting. That is, of course, if you found that acceptable, Mr Foxton.’
There it was again, that tightening in his groin. As he
h
ooked at her, Mira ran the tip of a pink tongue across her glossy red lips. A coffee, Ernie thought. What could that hurt? And he was the boss. Nobody would dare to complain.
‘I could probably give you half an hour,’ he said, briskly.
Mira’s mouth curled up at the corners in a slow, deliberate smile. She knew a mark when she saw one. With some men it was written right across them, all she ever needed to do was lay the bait. If a man didn’t respond, no harm done.
Ernest Foxton had a fearsome reputation for ruthlessness, but he also had that thin, petty look about him that usually meant only one thing.
He liked to be treated badly and dominated by women. The gossip was that his wife was a stuck-up, spoiled, ladylike little princess. She would be no threat. The seedy clubs Mira went to were full of high-powered businessmen with a weak streak somewhere deep inside that got off on pain. Only last week she had been forced to finish with her ex-boyfriend, the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, something to do with industrial machinery, or some such. His wife had found out, which was too bad. Mira had definitely been discreet, as long as the gifts kept coming. Most likely the moron had shouted out her name in his sleep. At any rate, the sugar daddy - sugar slave - position was vacant. And if she knew men, Ernie Foxton was a prime candidate to fill it.