Читать книгу The Princes' Brides - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 8

SHE came hurrying along the sidewalk, enveloped from head to toe in black suede, stiletto-heeled boots clicking sharply, her head bent against the rain-driven wind, and barreled into Nicolo just as he stepped from the taxi.

The doorman moved forward but Nicolo had already dropped his briefcase and caught her by the shoulders.

“Easy,” he said pleasantly.

Her hood fell back as she looked up at him. Nicolo, always appreciative of beauty, smiled.

She was beautiful, with elegant bones, a mouth that looked soft and inviting, and eyes the deep blue of spring violets, all that framed by a mass of honey-colored loose curls.

If someone had to run you down, this was surely the woman an intelligent man would choose.

“Are you all right?”

She pulled out of his grasp. “I’m fine.”

“My fault entirely,” he said graciously. “I should have watched where I was—”

“Yes,” the woman said, “you should have.”

He blinked. She was looking at him with total disdain. His smile faded. Though he was Roman, he’d spent a good part of his life in Manhattan. He understood that civility was not an art here but it was she who’d run into him.

“I beg your pardon, signorina, but—”

“But then,” she said coldly, “I suppose people like you think you own the street.”

Nicolo lifted his hands from her shoulders with exaggerated care.

“Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

“You,” she said crisply, “are my problem.”

What was this? A Mona Lisa with the temperament of a hellcat. Innate old-world gallantry warred with new-world attitude.

Attitude won.

“You know,” he said brusquely, “I apologized to you when there was no need, and you speak to me as if I were scum. You could use some manners.”

“Just because I’m a woman—”

“Is that what you are?” His smile was as cold as his words. “Let’s see about that, shall we?” Temper soaring, logic shot to hell, Nicolo pulled the blonde to her toes and kissed her.

It lasted less than a second. Just a quick brush of his mouth over hers. Then he let go of her, had the satisfaction of seeing those violet eyes widen in astonishment…

And caught the rich, sweet taste of her on his lips.

Sweet heaven. Had he gone un po ’pazzo?

He had to be. Only a crazy man would haul a mean-tempered woman into his arms on Fifth Avenue.

“You,” she said, “you—you—”

Oh, but it had been worth it. Look at her now, sputtering like a steam engine, that icy demeanor completely shattered.

She jerked free of his hands. Her arm rose. She was going to slap him; he could read it in those amazing eyes, eyes that flashed lethal bolts of lightning. He probably deserved it—but he’d be damned if he’d let her do it.

He bent his head toward hers. “Hit me,” he said softly, “and I promise, I’ll make your world come crashing down around your ears.”

Her lips formed a phrase he would not have imagined women knew. Not the women in his world, at any rate, but then none of them would have accused a man of something clearly their fault.

Why be modest? The truth was, not a woman he’d ever met would have blamed him even if he were at fault.

The hellcat glared at him. He returned the look. Then she swept past him, honey-blond mane glittering with raindrops, black suede coat billowing after her like a sail.

He watched her go until she was lost in the umbrella-shrouded crowd hurrying through the chilly March rain.

Then he took a deep breath and turned his back to her.

His eyes met the doorman’s. Nothing. Not the slightest acknowledgment that anything the least bit unusual had happened but then, this was New York. New Yorkers had long ago learned it was wisest not to know anything.

And a damned good thing for him.

Kissing her had been bad enough. Challenging her to call the police…

Nicolo shuddered.

How stupid could a man be? He could have ended up with his face spread across Page Six. Not exactly the publicity one wanted before a meeting with the ninety-year-old head of an investment firm that prided itself on decorum and confidentiality.

The rain was coming down harder.

The doorman already had his suitcase. Nicolo picked up his briefcase and walked into the hotel.

His suite was on the forty-third floor, which gave him an excellent view of the park and the skyline beyond it.

When he started looking for a permanent place to live in the city, he’d want a view like this.

Nicolo tossed his raincoat on a chair. If all went well, he’d contact a Realtor after Monday’s meeting.

If? There was no “if” about it. The word wasn’t in his lexicon. He never went after something without making damned sure he knew when, where and how to get it. That approach was a key to his success.

He toed off his shoes, stripped away his clothes and headed for the shower.

He was fully prepared for Monday’s meeting and his long-anticipated buyout of Stafford-Coleridge-Black.

His financial empire was huge, with offices in London, Paris, Singapore, and, of course, Rome.

It was time for Barbieri International to move into the New York market. For that, he wanted something that would be the crown jewel of his corporation.

In the rarefied echelon of private banking, that could only be Stafford-Coleridge-Black, whose client list read like a Who’s Who of American wealth and power.

Only one thing stood in the way: SCB’s chairman, James Black.

“I have no idea what you’d think to discuss with me,” the old man had said when he’d finally agreed to take Nicolo’s phone call.

“I’ve heard rumors,” Nicolo had answered carefully, “that you are considering a change.”

“You mean,” Black had said bluntly, “you’ve heard that I’m going to die soon. Well, I assure you, sir, I am not.”

“What I have heard,” Nicolo had said, “is that a man of your good judgment believes in planning ahead.”

Black had made a sound that might have been a laugh.

“Touché, Signore Barbieri. But I assure you, any changes I might make would be of no interest to you. We are family owned and have been for more than two hundred years. The bank has been passed from one generation to another.” A brief, barely perceptible pause. “But I wouldn’t expect you to understand the importance of that.”

Nicolo had thought how good it was that they were not face-to-face. Even so, he had to work hard to control his temper. Black was an old man but he was in full command of his faculties. What he’d said had to be a deliberate, if thinly veiled, insult.

This high up the ladder, the international financial community was like an exclusive club. People knew things about each other and what Black knew was that Nicolo’s wealth and stature, despite his title, had not come from legacy and inheritance but had been solely self-created.

As far as the James Blacks of this world were concerned, that was not a desirable image.

Probably not desirable as far as Fifth Avenue honey-blondes were concerned, either, Nicolo mused, and wondered where in hell that thought had come from?

What mattered, all that mattered this weekend, was his business with Black. It had mattered enough during that phone call to keep his tone neutral when he responded to the flinty old bastard’s gibe.

“On the contrary,” Nicolo had said. “I do understand. Completely. I believe in maintaining tradition.” He’d paused, weighing each word. “I also believe you would do your institution a disservice if you refuse to hear what I have to say.”

He’d gambled that Black would bite. Not that it was all that much of a gamble, considering what Nicolo knew.

SCB had, indeed, always been family-owned and operated. The problem was that the old man was facing his ninetieth birthday and his sole heir was a grandchild still in school.

Still in school…and a girl.

Nicolo was sure that “tradition,” to James Black, meant handing the reins of the company to an heir, not an heiress. Black had never made a secret of his feelings about women in business.

And that was probably the one thing the two men could agree on, Nicolo mused as he stepped from the shower. It was what he would build his argument on, Monday morning.

Women were too emotional. They were unpredictable and undisciplined. They did well as assistants, even, on occasion, as heads of departments, but as ultimate decisionmakers?

Not until science figured out a way women could overcome the dizzying up-and-down ride of their hormones.

It wasn’t their fault—it was simply a fact of life.

And that, Nicolo thought as he dressed in gray flannel trousers, a black cashmere turtleneck and mocs, was his ace in the hole.

Nicolo was the only investor who could afford the indulgence of buying SCB privately. That meant that Black had nowhere to turn except to him, unless he wanted to sell his venerable institution to one of the giant conglomerates hungering for it, then live long enough to see it disappear within the corporate maw.

He was the old man’s salvation and they both knew it. The moment of truth had come last week when Black’s secretary phoned and said her employer would agree to a brief meeting solely as a courtesy.

“Of course,” Nicolo had said calmly but when he hung up, he’d pumped his fist in victory.

The meeting meant only one thing: the old man had admitted defeat and would sell to him. Oh, he’d undoubtedly make him dance through a couple of hoops first, but how bad could that be?

Nicolo slipped on a leather bomber jacket and shut the door to his suite behind him.

He wouldn’t dance, but he’d move his feet in time to the music. Do just enough to placate the old bastard.

Then Stafford-Coleridge-Black would be his.

Not bad for a boy who’d grown up in not-so-genteel poverty, Nicolo thought, and pressed the button for the elevator.

The rain had stopped, though the skies were gray and soggy.

The doorman flagged a cab.

“Sixty-third off Lexington,” Nicolo told the driver.

He was meeting friends at the Eastside Club. The three of them had agreed, via e-mail yesterday, on the benefits of a quick workout, especially since both Nicolo and Damian had just flown in.

Private planes or not, a man felt his muscles tighten after a seemingly interminable international flight.

Then they’d go somewhere quiet for dinner and catch up on old times. He was looking forward to that. He, Damian and Lucas had known each other forever. For thirteen years, ever since they’d met at a pub just off the Yale campus, three eighteen-year-old kids from three different parts of the world, all of them wondering how in hell they’d survive in this strange country.

Survive? They’d flourished. And formed a tight friendship. They saw each other less frequently now, thanks to their individual business interests, but they were still best pals.

And still single, which was exactly how they all wanted it. In fact, they always began the evening with the same toast.

“Life,” Lucas would say solemnly, “is short.”

“And marriage,” Damian would add even more solemnly, “is forever.”

The last part of the toast was left to Nicolo.

“And freedom,” he’d say dramatically, “freedom, gentlemen, is everything!”

He was smiling as his cab pulled up in front of the Eastside Club. It was housed in what had once been a block of nineteenth-century brownstones that had been gutted, completely made over and combined into one structure.

A very exclusive health club.

The Eastside didn’t advertise. No plaque or sign identified it to passersby. Membership was by invitation only, reserved for those who valued privacy and could afford the steep fees that guaranteed it.

For all that, the club was completely lacking in pretension. There were no trendy exercise gadgets, no bouncy music, and the only part of the gym with a mirrored wall was the free-weight area so that you could check your reflection to see if you were lifting properly.

What there were, in addition to the weights, were punching bags, a pool and a banked indoor track.

Best of all, the Eastside was for men only.

Women were a distraction. Besides, Nicolo thought as he inserted his key card in the front door lock, it was a relief to get away from them for a while.

He had enough women to deal with in his life. Too many, he sometimes thought, when ending a relationship led to tears. He was, he’d heard whispered, “an excellent catch.” He scoffed at that but to himself, he admitted it was probably true.

Why not be honest?

“Good evening, Mr. Barbieri. Nice to see you again, sir.”

“Jack,” Nicolo said amiably. He signed in and headed for the locker room.

He had money. A private jet. Cars. He owned a ski lodge in Aspen, an oceanfront estate on Mustique, a pied-a-terre in Paris and, of course, there was the palazzo in Rome, the one that had supposedly come to the Barbieri family through Julius Caesar.

That was what his great-grandmother had always claimed.

Nicolo thought it more likely it had come to them through a thief in Caesar’s time, but he’d never contradicted her. He’d loved the old woman as he’d never loved anyone else. He’d always been grateful he’d made his first million and restored the ancient but decrepit Palazzo di Barbieri before she’d died.

Her pleasure had brought joy to his heart.

He’d liked making her happy. In fact, he liked making most women happy.

It was only when their demands became unreasonable, when they began to talk of The Future, of The Importance of Settling Down—and he could almost actually feel the physical weight they put into the phrase when it tumbled from their lips—that Nicolo knew that Making Them Happy wasn’t as important as Not Making a Commitment.

No way. Not him. Not yet.

For an evening? Of course. A week? Yes. Even a month. Two months. Hell, he wasn’t the kind of man to jump from bed to bed…

What would the woman in the black suede coat be like in bed? A honey-maned tigress? Or an ice queen?

Not that he gave a damn. It was simply a matter of intellectual curiosity.

He liked women who enjoyed their femininity. Enjoyed being appreciated by a man.

Nicolo hung his things in his locker.

It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out that the tigress was not such a woman. Although, in the bed of the right man, perhaps she could be.

The mane of hair. The delicate oval face. The amazing eyes, that tender mouth. And, yes, he’d felt its tenderness even in that brush of his lips against hers…

Fantastico.

Hell. He was giving himself a hard-on over a woman who’d insulted him, who he would never see again. He didn’t want to think about her or any woman. Not this weekend. No distractions. No sex. Like an athlete, he believed in abstinence before going mano a mano.

He needed to focus on Monday’s meeting.

Nicolo pulled on gray cotton running shorts, a sleeveless, ancient Yale sweatshirt and a pair of Nikes.

A hard, sweaty workout was just what he needed.

The gym was almost empty. Well, it was Saturday night. Only one other guy was in the vast room, pounding around the track with the lonely intensity of the dedicated runner.

Damian.

Nicolo grinned, trotted over and fell in alongside him.

“Any slower,” he said, picking up the pace, “we’d be walking. You getting too old to run fast?”

Damian, who at thirty-one was exactly the same age as Nicolo, shot him a deadpan look.

“I’ll call the paramedics when you collapse.”

“Big talk.”

“A hundred bucks says I can beat you.”

“Twenty times around?”

“Forty,” Nicolo said, and shot away.

Moments later, they finished in a dead heat and turned to each other, breathing hard and grinning from ear to ear.

“How’s Rome?” Damian said.

“How’s Athens?”

The men’s grins widened and they clasped each other in a bear hug. “Man,” Damian said, “you’re a sweaty bastard.”

“You’re not exactly an ad for GQ.”

“How was your flight?”

Nicolo took a couple of towels from a stand beside the track and tossed one to Damian.

“Fine. Some weather just before we landed, but nothing much. Yours?”

“The same,” Damian said, wiping his face. “I really like this little Learjet I bought.”

“Little,” Nicolo said, laughing.

“Well, it’s still not as big as yours.”

“Mine’s always going to be bigger than yours, Aristedes.”

“You wish.”

It was an old line of banter and made them grin again.

“So,” Nicolo said, “where’s Lucas?”

“We’re meeting him in—” Damian looked at his watch. “In two hours.”

“You guys picked a restaurant?”

“Well, more or less.”

Nicolo raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Damian said, “our old friend bought himself a club. Downtown. The club of the minute, he says.”

“Meaning, crowded. Noisy. Lots of music, lots of booze, lots of spectacular-looking women out for a good time…”

“Sounds terrible,” Damian said solemnly.

Nicolo smiled as he draped his towel around his shoulders. “Yeah, I know. But I have an important meeting Monday morning.”

“Well, so do I.”

“Very important.”

Damian looked at him. “So?”

“So,” Nicolo said, after a moment, “I’m hoping to finalize a deal. With James Black.”

“Whoa. That is important. So, tonight we celebrate in advance, at Lucas’s place.”

“Well, I want to stay focused. Get to bed at a decent hour tonight and tomorrow night. No liquor. No distractions—”

“Thee Mou! Don’t tell me! No sex?”

Nicolo shrugged. “No sex.”

“Sex is not a distraction. It’s exercise. Good for the heart.”

“It’s bad for the concentration.”

“That’s BS.”

“We believed it when we played soccer, remember? And we won.”

“We won,” Damian said dryly, “because the competition was lousy.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. Giving up sex is against the laws of nature.”

“Idiot,” Nicolo said fondly. The men walked to the free weights area and made their selections. “It’s just a matter of discipline.”

“Unless, of course, there was such an instant attraction you couldn’t walk away.” Damian grunted as he lifted a pair of twenty-pound weights. “And how often is that about to happen?”

“Never,” Nicolo answered—and, unbidden, the image of the blonde with the hot eyes and the cold attitude flashed before his eyes.

He had been reaching for the twenty-pound weights, too. Instead he lifted a pair of heavier ones and worked with them until his mind was a pain-filled blank.

Farther downtown, in a part of Manhattan that was either about to be discovered or still a slum, depending on a buyer’s point of view, Aimee Stafford Coleridge Black slammed her apartment door behind her, tossed her black suede coat at a chair and kicked off her matching boots.

The coat slid off the chair. The boots bounced off the wall. Aimee didn’t give a damn.

Amazing, how a day that began so filled with promise could end so badly.

Aimee marched into the kitchen, filled the kettle with water, put it on to boil and changed her mind. The last thing she needed was a caffeine buzz.

She was buzzing enough without it, thanks to her grandfather.

Why had he summoned her to his office, if not to make the announcement she’d been anticipating?

“I shall retire next May,” he’d told her almost a year ago, “when I reach ninety, at which time I shall place Stafford-Coleridge-Black in the charge of the person who will guide it through its next fifty years. A person who will, of course, carry on the Stafford-Coleridge-Black lineage.”

Lineage. As important to James as breathing but that was fine because she, Aimee, was the only person with both the necessary lineage and the proper education to assume command.

She had a bachelor’s degree in finance. A master’s degree in business. She’d spent her summers since high school interning at SCB.

She knew more about the bank than anyone, maybe even including Grandfather, who still believed in a world devoid of computers and e-mail.

Aimee marched into the bedroom and methodically stripped off the gray wool suit and white silk blouse she’d deemed appropriate for the meeting with Grandfather this afternoon. She’d wanted to look businesslike, even though she knew damned well you could do as much business in jeans as you could in Armani.

She’d even worked up a little speech of assurance about how she wouldn’t change a thing, though she’d mentally crossed her fingers because there were things that definitely needed changing.

She’d presented herself at his office precisely at four. James was a stickler for promptness. She’d kissed his papery cheek, sat down as directed, folded her hands…

And listened as he told her he had not yet reached a decision as to who would replace him.

Be calm, she’d told herself. And she had been, or at least she’d managed to seem calm as she asked him what decision there was to make.

“You already said it would be me, Grandfather.”

“I said it would be someone capable,” James said briskly. “Someone of my lineage.”

“Well—”

The look on his face had frozen her with horror. “You don’t mean…Bradley?”

Bradley. Her cousin. Or her something. Who understood the complexities of second cousins twice removed, or whatever the hell he was? Bradley had been wimping around the bank for years, interning the same as she had, except he’d never done a day’s work, never done anything except try to grope her in the stockroom.

“Not Bradley,” she’d finally breathed.

“Bradley has a degree in economics.”

Yes. From a college that probably also gave degrees in basket-weaving.

“He’s well-spoken.”

He was, once he had three or four straight vodkas in him.

“And,” her grandfather had said, saving the best for last, “he is a man.”

A man. Meaning, nature’s royalty. A prince, whereas she was a lesser creature because she was female.

Grandfather had risen to his feet, indicating that she was no longer welcome in the royal presence.

“Be here Monday morning, Aimee. Ten o’clock sharp. I’ll announce my decision then.”

Dismissed, just like that.

Sent out the door, down the wheezing old elevator, into the street where she’d walked blindly, no idea where in hell she was or where she was going, which was why she hadn’t seen the man and he’d almost knocked her down.

That despicable, horrible man who’d insisted it was she who’d walked into him. Who’d accused her of not being a woman when, damn him, it was the very fact that she was a woman that was going to deny her the one thing she wanted in life.

What a fool she’d been. What an idiot. She’d turned down two wonderful job offers because she’d believed—she’d been stupid enough to believe—

She’d been anguishing over that when the man charged into her.

As if she were invisible, which she undoubtedly was because she was female. Oh, the arrogance of men. Of him. The way he’d clasped her shoulders and looked down at her from the lofty heights of his lofty maleness.

“Easy,” he’d said, and smiled, and that—the smile, the slight foreign huskiness to the word, the broad shoulders, the ink-black hair, the midnight-blue eyes and the face that was the male equivalent of what had launched a thousand ships, that was supposed to make up for his rudeness?

Aimee had told him what she thought of him.

Men didn’t like honesty. She’d learned that a long time ago. And this one, this—this bad-mannered stranger, had decided she needed a lesson, that she needed a graphic reminder of her place in the universe…

He’d kissed her.

Kissed her! Put his mouth on hers, the arrogant, miserable son of a bitch…

His firm mouth. His soft mouth. His mouth that was, any woman could tell, made for long, deep kisses…

God, she was in bad shape. Anger, adrenaline, whatever you called it, was pumping through her veins. She was completely stressed out.

A man would know what to do to ease such stress.

He’d go to a gym and sweat it out. Actually that would work for her, too, but her gym, a gym for women, was closed. Hey, it was Saturday. Date night for the fairer sex, right?

“Such crap,” Aimee said.

She could almost feel the steam coming out of her ears.

Or a man would call up his buddies, meet them someplace crowded and noisy and guzzle beer. That’s what men under pressure did, didn’t they? Go out, drink, talk about stupid things, pick up women?

Sex was the great relaxer. Everybody said so. Okay, not her because she’d had sex and it had been far from memorable but according to everything she’d read, sex could lower your stress levels every time.

Aimee snorted.

Imagine if a woman did that. Called a friend, went someplace loud to drink and looked for a guy to pick up. Went to bed with him, no strings, no ridiculous exchange of names and phone numbers. Just bed.

Just sex.

Of course, some women did. They went looking for sex.

Sex with a stranger. A stranger with dark hair. Blue eyes. A square jaw, straight nose, firm mouth. And that little accent…

The phone rang. Let it. Her voice mail could take the call.

Hi, her recorded voice said briskly. You’ve reached 555-6145. Please leave a message after the tone.

“Aimee, it’s Jen.”

The last person she wanted to talk to! Jen had taken a job with Fox and Curtrain after Aimee pointed her toward it.

“I’m not going to take it,” she’d said, “so why shouldn’t you?”

Why, indeed?

“Aimee, look, I know this isn’t your thing but a new club opened right near me and it’s supposed to draw a hot crowd. And it’s Laura’s birthday, remember her, from the second floor in our dorm? She’s in town and a bunch of us are getting together to, you know, check out the club…” There was giggling in the background and Aimee rolled her eyes. “Okay, Laura’s right. To check out the guys, see if they’re as hunky as everybody says.”

“Jen?” Aimee said, picking up the phone.

“Oh, you’re there! Listen, I don’t know what you’re doing tonight, but—”

“I’m not doing anything. I’ve had—it’s been one of those days, you know?”

“All the more reason to go with us. Have a drink, listen to some hot music—”

“Get picked up by some hot guy,” a female voice in the background said, to another round of giggles.

“That’s the last thing I need,” Aimee said. “I mean, is that all I’m good for? To go to a club where the music’s so loud I won’t be able to think? To let a guy pick me up, buy me a drink—”

“Yeah. I know. It’s a meat market out there—but sometimes, well, sometimes that can be fun. You know. No BS. Just an evening of fun and games.”

“It’s bad enough men think that’s what we’re all about. That we’re useless except in the kitchen or the bedroom. We don’t have to play into their stupid fantasy.”

Silence. Then Jen cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said carefully, “so just forget that I—”

“Not that I couldn’t be some jerk’s idea of a centerfold playmate, if I wanted.”

“Uh, Aimee, look, I have to run, so—”

“I could go to this club with you. Dance, drink, let some guy pick me up for a night of mind-blowing sex!”

The telephone line hummed with silence again. Then Jen spoke.

“So, uh, are you saying you want to go with us?”

Aimee took a deep, deep breath. “You’re damned right I am,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, dressed in a red silk dress she’d bought on sale and never had a reason to wear, ditto for a pair of strappy gold sandals, Aimee took a last look in the mirror, gave her image a quick salute, then headed out the door.