Too Damn Rich (19 page)

Husband number two, Leonidas Danaus
Lantzouni, a rich Greek bearing gifts, left her sole heiress to a
self-perpetuating empire so vast it reduced the Wakefield millions
to a bagatelle.

And Husband number three, the Duque Joaquin
de la Vila, a sixty-year-young Spanish nobleman with a lethal
penchant for fast cars, left Becky with more titles than she could
keep track of, and an embarrassment of riches which verged on the
obscene.

Subsequently, Rebecca Cornille Wakefield
Lantzouni de la Vila, or Becky V, as the press had taken to dubbing
her, a sobriquet which had stuck, and by which she was known
throughout the world, suddenly found herself beyond money; beyond,
even, the stratospheric limits of high society itself and occupied
that most exalted of all positions—the sun around which all lesser
planets gravitate. At once the brightest, most photogenic, and yet
pathologically private of all the celestial bodies in the social
firmament, it was her air of mystery, remoteness, and
unapproachability which had been the final catalyst in catapulting
her to near-goddess stature.

Physically she was beguiling, a high-fashion
wraith with a clothes- hanger figure. Sable hair worn in the same
signature cut as Gloria Vanderbilt, tucked behind the ears and
curving forward, commalike, beneath the delicate lobes; taut,
surgically stretched skin; a proud Nefertiti-like profile; and eyes
of the most incredibly intense violet hue.

But even more compelling than her beauty was
her actual physical presence, for Becky V seemed to float regally
through life in an otherworldly aura all her own.

Tonight, as always, she was trailed by two
suits, obviously Secret Service agents, a courtesy extended to all
former U.S. Presidents and their wives for security purposes. And
also as always, she was dressed to kill, all in heavenly sapphire
blue: A billowing, silk taffeta confection by Carolina Herrera,
with a snug bodice cut on the bias, so that one shoulder was left
bare while an extravagant silk bow blossomed from atop the other.
On her feet, custom-made, pointy-toed heels of the exact same
fabric, with ballerina ribbons crisscrossing the ankles, frivolous
fantasies whipped up by a Florentine master whose identity Becky V
guarded as jealously as her privacy.

And finally, there were drop-dead sapphires.
The fabled Kashmir stones known in the trade, and among true
cognoscenti, as "The Shah Jahan Suite." Just one of the many gifts
from her second husband, the Greek.

Karl-Heinz crossed the enormous room, the
guests parting soundlessly for him like the Red Sea for Moses.
"Becky!" he greeted with delight, taking both her hands in his and
kissing each of her cheeks without actually touching skin. "You
honor me with your presence."

She favored him with the elusive smile
Leonardo had made famous, but which she had appropriated. Her
famous Mona Lisa smile, the press called it.

"How could I not be here for your birthday,
Heinzie
, cheri
?" she said, her cornhusk voice a complete
surprise to those who heard it for the very first time. "But your
fortieth?" she continued. "I said to myself,
'Pas possible!
'
"

Ironically, it was she, who had married a
Spaniard, and not her sister, Suzy, who had wed the French vicomte,
who was the unabashed Francophile, constantly sprinkling her
English with enough French to qualify it as Franglaise.

"To me, you do not look a day over
twenty-nine," she said. "
Non, non, non
, not one single
day!"

"Always the diplomat," Karl-Heinz noted with
a chuckle, "and as always, lovelier than ever. You never seem to
age. How do you do it, Becky? You must tell me your secret!"

That mystifying, unfathomable smile remained.
"If I ever divulge that,
je tu le promets, mon cheri
, you,
and you alone, shall be the only person I shall tell!"

Karl-Heinz, who knew she would do no such
thing, cocked one eyebrow in amusement before politely turning his
attention upon her escort.

"Lord Rosenkrantz," he acknowledged with a
slight bow, gripping the firm hand of the bristly browed gentleman.
"A pleasure to meet again."

"On the contrary!" boomed the British-born
financier. "The pleasure is entirely mine. May I wish you all the
best, and many happy returns."

While the men talked, Becky V slowly,
majestically, surveyed the room, her gaze purposely high so that
she saw over the guests' heads and thus avoided catching anyone's
eye, a technique she'd perfected for dealing with crowds during
Bill Wakefield's presidential campaign.

"
Mon Dieu!
" she exclaimed softly, a
little bewildered. "Is it my imagination, or is
le tout
New
York out in full force?"

"You need not worry," Karl-Heinz, well aware
of her aversion to throngs, however choice its denizens, was quick
to assure. "Your timing is perfect. We are about to dine, and since
only half these guests are invited to the dinner itself, the crowd
will thin out perceptibly. But first, just to be polite, we really
ought to circulate for a minute or so. That is," he added
solicitously in light of her privileged status, "if you do not
mind?"

Becky V gamely slipped an arm through his.
"
Il le faut
," she pronounced imperiously. "Today is your
birthday, so just this once I must do as you command.
Tu marcher
en tete!
"

"Leapin' lizards!" gasped Kenzie in a voice
of reverence. "Did you get a load of who just arrived?"

Her new-found Adonis, returning with their
drinks to find her all agog, smiled tolerantly and pressed a glass
of champagne into her hand. "Rest assured," he said, "your eyes did
not deceive you."

"Then you saw her, too?"

Hannes smiled. "How could I have missed her?
She only caused this entire crowd to fall silent."

"Yes," Kenzie said solemnly, "that she did.
And here I was, always under the impression that in these circles,
people were immune to such star-struck behavior."

"Yes, but Becky V is notorious for never
appearing in public," he said.

"So is Michael Jackson," she pointed out.

He smiled. "Why? Do you miss him?"

"Truthfully, no. But enough about that." She
held out her glass and proposed a toast. "Here's to—"

"—us?" he interjected softly, staring
intently into the glowing depths of her eyes.

Thrown completely off guard, Kenzie was deaf
to the clink of their glasses and the surrounding swirl of chatter
and laughter, was aware only of her own heightened sense of visual
perception. Acutely conscious of nothing but the indecently superb
male specimen she had attracted.

Us! she thought jubilantly, wanting to burst
from exultation. He said, "us!"

Taking another sip, she waited to swallow,
savoring the tingly burst of bubbles in her mouth. Privately
celebrated his male proximity by imagining him a bee and her own
nude body a blossom ripe with promising, fragrant pollen. Wondered,
among other things, whether meetings such as theirs were accidental
or predestined, and if he could hear her heart thumping wildly
against her rib cage.

"You've suddenly become very quiet," he
observed. "Is that because silence is golden?"

She did not speak.

"Ah. Then perhaps the proverbial cat has your
tongue?"

"Perhaps," she admitted with a hint of a
yawn, deliberately trying for disinterested cool, but not quite
pulling it off and not really caring one way or the other if she
did. "Are you here with someone?"

"You mean ... a lady?"

She let her silence speak for itself.

"To answer your question," he replied,
obvious amusement playing on his face, "yes, I came with a lady.
But have no fear. It seems that I have been deserted."

"Dumped!" Kenzie exclaimed, her surprise
genuine. "You! For another man?"

He grinned. "Thank God. She was quite
tedious."

"But beautiful?"

"If you consider artifice beauty, then I
suppose so." Hannes swallowed some champagne, all the while holding
her gaze. "And you? I gather you did not arrive here alone,
either?"

"Nooooo," she said slowly. "Does that make a
difference?"

"Only sometimes. Now let me see ... is he
tall, dark, and handsome?"

Kenzie did a moue and pretended to consider.
"Well, he is tall," she allowed flirtatiously, enjoying the
sexually charged banter immensely.

"And handsome?"

She had to subdue a smile. Mr. Spotts was
hardly bad-looking— especially considering his age—but no one could
ever accuse him of being handsome. "Well, I ... I suppose you could
say he ... he looks ... mmm ... distinguished," she ended
cagily.

"But he's not your husband?" Hannes glanced
at her unadorned ring finger.

Kenzie was pleased. It seemed ages since
someone other than Charley had come on to her. In fact, she had
almost forgotten what such attention was like, or how deliciously
it stroked the feminine ego.

"Whatever gave you the idea I was married?"
she wanted to know.

"Just asking."

She smiled. "Well, since you want to know,
I'm still single. There." Without waiting for a reaction, she
sipped another milliliter of champagne. "And the lady you
accompanied here? Is she your wife?"

"God forbid!" he laughed.

"Mistress, then?"

"She'd better not be, or else her husband
might well take a shotgun to me!"

"Ouch!" She made a face. "I take it he's the
jealous type?"

"Oh, yes," he said, "very. As well as a
splendid marksman."

"Sounds awfully romantic," Kenzie said,
meaning it.

"I suppose that's one way of looking at
it."

"But isn't he afraid of entrusting his wife
to your ... care?"

"Why? Should he?"

Kenzie found herself blushing. Lowering her
eyes, she looked down into her glass, slowly twirling it back and
forth by the stem. "Well ... what I mean is ... you're ... well,
you're not exactly ..."

"Exactly what?"

"Well, not the Elephant Man, that's for
sure."

Hannes threw back his head and laughed. It
was a spontaneous, open-mouthed laugh which reached his eyes and
crinkled their corners, a laugh which instantly disarmed,
contradicting the strength of his too- handsome features, bringing
his chiseled perfection down a notch and proving that he was, after
all, a lusty, flesh-and-blood human instead of some narcissistic
marble deity.

Pretending a calm disinterest she did not
feel, she tore her eyes away from his and abruptly changed the
subject. "What ... what kind of a name is Hannes?" she asked,
apropos of nothing.

His voice was a seductive whisper. "It is
Scandinavian, Kenzie. I was born in Porkkala. That is a town on the
Finnish Riviera, slightly to the west of Helsinki."

"I can't believe you're from Finland!" she
exclaimed.

"And why is that, Kenzie?"

"Because ... well, your English! It's
flawless. You don't have the least trace of any accent."

"That," he explained, "is because my father
was a career diplomat. His work took us to every conceivable corner
of the world, and I attended English boarding schools, as well as
American embassy schools in ... oh, it must have been a dozen
different countries."

She stared at him, half paralyzed, her heart
knocking ever harder, and she had the sensation of the room
receding and growing silent until it seemed they were the only two
people there.

"And you're the first Hannes I've ever met,"
she whispered huskily. "Or, for that matter, the first Hans
..."

Once again they were captured by each other's
gaze, his so hypnotic that Kenzie's breath left her altogether, and
she knew with a certainty, with an absolute dead certainly, that
she was gone. There was no use fighting it; resisting him would
only fuel the flames of her own desires, a point proven when he
caught her arm and drew her swiftly to him as if he meant to kiss
her. When she realized, after a moment, that it was only so a
waiter with a champagne-laden tray could pass unhindered, she felt
the dull, empty ache of disappointment.

He sensed it, and instead of letting her go,
held her all the more tightly against him, his lips curved in a
mischievous little smile.

Her lips went suddenly dry and she could feel
a fever raging in her loins; a kind of fire leaping between him and
herself.

Oh, how alive and vital and lustful he was!
And ah, how wondrously spellbinding, this silent communication!

Why on God's earth
, she asked herself,
would I
wan
t to resist him?

And yet, her better judgment hadn't entirely
deserted her—from somewhere far within the recesses of her mind,
some dormant wisdom told her to take it slower, cautioned that
things were proceeding too fast.

A stranger as handsome as Hannes has got
to spell trouble
, the voice in her head warned.
If you know
what's good for you—and you do— you'll quickly make your exit. At
least give yourself time for a breather. Why not repair to the
ladies' room? Who knows? You might even avoid a ton of potential
heartache ....

Extricating herself from his arms, she
murmured vague excuses about visiting the powder room, and backed
away on unsteady legs. Then, turning swiftly, she fled, plunging
through an opening in the dense crowd while repeating, "S'cuse me
... s'cuse me ... s'cuse me ...," giving strangers she bumped
apologetic little smiles to show she'd meant no offense.

Too late, Kenzie saw the tall figure hurtling
toward her on a collision course, an orange-tressed figure wearing
red, white, and black who, like she herself, was hurrying too fast
to be able to stop.

For an instant, time seemed suspended, then
sped up as the inevitable occurred. The two young women
collided—
slam-bam!
—breaths exploding before each bounced
backward a step, the champagne glasses flying out of their
hands.