The Princess and the Billionaire (17 page)

“You don’t expect me to talk business while you’re bobbing and weaving, do you?”

“I’m listening.” A quick right then a left. “It helps my concentration.”

“Well, it’s blowing the hell out of mine.” Phyllis rose to her feet. “Let me know when you’re finished, Rocky. Then we’ll talk.” She paused in the doorway. “By the way, Isabelle called while you were on long distance with Umeki. She’s canceling dinner.”

He peppered the speedbag with jabs. “She want me to call her?”

“I’m just your assistant, boss, not your social secretary. You figure it out.” She closed the door behind her.

Daniel hauled off and battered the speedbag with everything he had. When he finished, he debated the wisdom of doing it all over again, but his hands ached and his muscles felt more tense and knotted than they had before he started.

She was pulling away from him. It hadn’t taken long. He’d felt it last night, heard it in her voice. All of that damn talk about Japan hadn’t helped. What woman would want to sit there and listen to the man she was sleeping with talk about flying off to Japan to live for a few months? Absence didn’t make the heart grow fonder. Absence made you forget. She knew it, and so did he.

* * *

“For the thousandth time, Maxine, nothing is wrong. I do wish you would stop asking me that. You’re becoming quite annoying.”

“The feeling is on me, lovey, and it won’t be going away just because you say it should. Something is wrong, and I won’t be resting until you tell me what it is.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Isabelle yawned and poured herself a glass of tea from Ivan’s samovar. “Gigi’s finished with the fitting. I believe I’ll go home. I am exhausted.”

“You should take a nap before himself comes over.”

Isabelle glanced away. “I left a message for Daniel. I’m not much in the mood for dinner tonight.”

“Aha!” Maxine stood in the doorway. “You are not leaving, lovey, before you tell me what it is you’re hiding.”

Isabelle opened her mouth to lie but was shocked to find the truth springing to her lips. “Eric is in town.”

Maxine made the sign of the cross. “Mary Mother of God, what would he be wanting with us?”

Isabelle gave her a sidelong glance. “Not us, Maxine. Me.”

“And I hope you’d be sending him packing.”

“No,” said Isabelle, “I sent myself packing right after lunch.”

“Don’t be tellin’ me you ate lunch with him.”

“Yes,” said Isabelle, lifting her chin. “I was curious as to what he wanted.”

“Curiosity can lead a person to ruin.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Maxi. We shared wine and poached fish, not an assignation. I wanted to hear about Juliana—about the baby. Is that a crime?”

Maxine muttered something dark, but Isabelle paid her no heed. The woman was always hearing banshees in the night and feeling the cold hands of fate against the back of her neck. She blessed herself again.

“Will you stop that,” Isabelle snapped. “He’s a fool, not a monster.”

“Fools can be more dangerous.”

“Agreed,” said Isabelle. “And that is why I walked away from him.”

“And how did you feel, lovey, when you did that?”

“Free,” said Isabelle. She sighed. “He showed me pictures of little Victoria. It hurts to know I have a niece whom I’ll probably never meet. Juliana is pregnant again, Maxi. Can you believe that?”

“Poor little tykes to be brought into a world of confusion.”

“Victoria is beautiful,” Isabelle mused. “So fair—with huge blue eyes like Daniel’s niece—”

“Daniel will agree with me,” interrupted Maxine. “Time and distance are what should be between you and Eric.”

“You’re not to tell Daniel about this.”

“You wouldn’t be keeping secrets from him, would you, lovey?”

“We’re not married, Maxi. It isn’t necessary that he know everyone I see and everything I do.”

“I doubt if Daniel would be seeing it that way.”

“Don’t you dare say one word to him, Maxi.”

“’Tisn’t my business to be sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“Good,” said Isabelle.

“Terrible,” said Maxine. “Why hide something if you have nothing to hide?”

* * *

Daniel threw himself back into work with the same intensity he’d brought to hammering the speedbag. Phyllis left a little after six. “Don’t work too hard,” she said. “You’ve got a seven-thirty breakfast meeting with Dershowitz at the Plaza.”

“Yeah, Phyl,” he mumbled, engrossed in the specs on the Japan project. “You, too.”

The telephone rang a few times around eight o’clock, but he ignored it. He didn’t give a good goddamn who called. If it was important, they’d call back. If it wasn’t, the hell with them.

A few minutes later he heard a knock on his door. “What is this?” he mumbled, tossing down his pen. “Goddamn Penn Station?” He crossed the room and opened the door.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. B.,” said Fred, the head of security, “but you weren’t answering your phones.”

“Is there a problem, Fred?” He wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Not tonight.

“Seems you got a visitor downstairs. She says you’re expecting her.”

“I’m not expecting anybody.”

Fred lowered his voice. “It’s that princess, Mr. B. She doesn’t much like being told no.”

“Send her up.” He turned away from the puzzled man as he tried to regain control of his emotions. He didn’t like being taken by surprise.

What the hell did she want? he wondered, as he pushed papers around on his desk. Was she coming to tell him it was over?

A soft tap on the door. “Bronson.” An even softer voice. “May I come in?”

He didn’t look up. “Do what you want.”

“Not a very warm welcome.” A hint of arrogance laced her honeyed tones. He heard the click of the lock.

“You’re the one who canceled, princess, not me.”

He heard her footsteps approaching his desk. “I brought dinner with me.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Pastrami on rye, pickles, cream soda.” No response. “Phyllis said that was your favorite meal.”

“Phyllis should mind her own goddamn business.”

“Look at me, Bronson.”

“I’m not in the mood for game-playing.”

“I don’t want to play games,” she said, sweeping his papers off the desk.

“Son of a bitch! You—” He looked up. Her dark eyes were lit from inside with flame. Her hair was wild about her face. She shrugged off her wine-colored coat, then tossed it to the floor.

“Make love to me, Bronson,” she said, lifting herself onto his desk. “Right here. Right now.”

“What’s going on?”

“I need you.” The expression on her face brought him immediately to a fever pitch.

With a moan he crushed her to him, plundering her mouth, stealing her breath and making it his own. She moved against him with abandon, as if she couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t make it happen fast enough.

He pushed her skirt up around her waist, then tore her panties from her body with one fierce movement. She was ready for him, more than ready, throbbing and wet and eager. She fumbled with his fly, her hands trembling with need. He freed himself from his trousers and briefs.

“Slide to the edge,” he told her, cupping her heat with his hand. She did as told, shivering at the feel of the cool wood against her legs. He spread her thighs. She was all pink and moist, beautiful everywhere.

“Now,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Please—now!”

The sound of her voice was almost enough to bring him to climax. Clasping her buttocks, he lifted her hips and plunged himself into the warm softness of her body. They both came almost immediately in strong, fierce spasms that erased everything but the primal need to own each other, body and soul.

* * *

Afterward they didn’t talk about what had happened between them. They had said all that needed to be said without words, which suited them both. Words always got them into trouble, pushing them apart when they longed to be together.

They picnicked on the floor of his office. Isabelle spread her coat facedown on the thick carpeting, then set out the sandwiches and pickles on paper plates she found in the supply cabinet adjacent to Daniel’s office.

“It isn’t cooking,” said Isabelle as she settled herself down next to Bronson, “but you must admit I assemble quite a nice meal.”

He grinned at her over his pastrami. “You’re a regular Julia Child, princess. I’m impressed.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you making a joke at my expense?”

“I never joke about pastrami on rye.”

He opened her bottle of cream soda for her, then laughed as she got up to search the supply closet for a glass.

“You could drink it straight from the bottle,” he suggested.

She shuddered melodramatically. “Heaven forbid!”

“Once a princess—”

She tossed a paper cup at his head. “I’m well on my way to becoming an independent working woman, Daniel Bronson, and I should thank you to remember that.”

“That reminds me,” he said, gesturing toward his cluttered desk. “I have the prelim advertising forecast Ivan wanted.”

She leaned forward. “And—?”

“Things look great.” He reeled off a few specifics. “Right product, right market, right spokesperson. It doesn’t get much better than that, princess, not first time around.”

“Oh, thank God!” she whispered. It was really going to happen. They were on their way to even greater success.

“The only thing you have to worry about is overexposure.”

Her eyes widened. “The dresses are too short?”

He started to laugh. “Don’t touch those hemlines. Overexposure means you’re getting too famous too fast, princess. It’s time to scale back until the line debuts, then you hit ’em with both barrels.”

The metaphor was a bit fuzzy, but Isabelle understood the meaning. “What should I do?” she asked, pouring some cream soda into a cup. “Find myself some mountain hideaway and stay there until next spring?”

He met her eyes. “You could come to Japan with me.”

She stopped pouring cream soda. “Would you repeat that?”

“You heard me, princess. I’m asking you to come to Japan with me.”

She stared at him, her thoughts leaping in a hundred different directions. “Japan! I never—I mean, I’m so—” She started to laugh. “Are you sure?”

“Now who’s answering a question with a question?”

“I know, but I never expected this.”

“Neither did I. When push came to shove, I couldn’t imagine being without you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Yeah, but you’re still not answering me.”

“Six months is a long time, Bronson. I have responsibilities now. Maxine and Ivan rely on me.”

“If you don’t want to—”

She scooted closer to him. “I do want to,” she said, reaching for his hand. “More than anything in the world. It’s just—”

“Five and a half months.”

She grinned. “Two months.”

“Four and a half.”

“Two and a half.”

“Four.”

She made a show of figuring out the dates. “Three and a half.”

He scowled, but she could see the twinkle in his eyes. “How about you just bring your cute little ass over there as soon as possible, then go home whenever you want to?”

“I’d never want to leave you, Bronson,” she said quietly, “but I cannot abandon Maxi and Ivan.”

“You’re changing, princess.”

“Disappointed?”

“No,” he said. “I think I like it.”

Tell him, lovey.
She heard Maxine’s voice as clearly as if she were in the room with them. ’
Tisn’t good to keep secrets, no matter how innocent.

She took a deep, steadying breath. “Bronson,” she said, meeting his eyes, “I bumped into someone today....”

* * *

Ten days after Juliana met with Marchand in his London office, a courier arrived at the castle with a sealed envelope. Juliana retreated to her private suite, locked the door behind her, then opened the envelope with the pointed blade of a sterling silver Georgian meat skewer that she used as a letter opener.

Her hands shook as she removed the packet of photographs. She could scarcely read the note attached, even though it was typed and in clear, concise English. She sank onto the edge of her bed and, drawing a deep breath, looked at the first photograph. Blood thundered in her ears, making it hard to think. Eric, clearly enjoying himself, was dancing hip-to-hip with a beautiful young woman whose dress was more imagination than fabric. The fact that his hand rested on the woman’s derriere was not lost on his wife.

It was nothing more than she’d expected, and for that she was grateful. Honore had done his best to help Juliana to understand the way it was with a man, but in her heart she rejected his explanation. Reflexively her hand caressed her burgeoning belly. This pregnancy was as distasteful as the last, but there was no escaping the necessity of bearing a male child.

Her father-in-law had also been painfully blunt in his explanation of the arcane laws governing accession in Perreault. The possibility that Isabelle might bear a male child before she did made Juliana feel physically ill.

That a child of that bitch in heat would ever rank above the issue of Juliana and Eric’s marriage—it was simply unthinkable.

She looked at the second and third photographs, but they were variations on the same theme. She began to relax as she flipped through a dozen more, then found another note, this one handwritten, attached to the last batch. “New York City,” it read. The date was a few days earlier.

New York? Eric had said he was going to Buenos Aires. She supposed it was possible that there had been a layover in New York, but the thought did not console her. She tossed the note down on the bed then turned to the photos.

Her sister, dark hair flowing loosely about her shoulders, faced the camera. She looked aloof, a trifle bored, very beautiful. Eric leaned across the table, deep in conversation. She couldn’t see the expression on his face and for that she was grateful.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told herself, repeating it like a mantra. Eric belonged to her in every way in which a man could belong to a woman. As long as she held the reins of power in her hands, he would continue to belong to her. His father had made that promise to her on her wedding day, and Honore would never let her down.