Too Damn Rich (23 page)

Her eyes flicked open and the breath caught
in her throat. It was impossible not to feel the tumescent jolt of
his manhood straining against his trousers.

Raising her head, she tilted it back and
stared up at him, her eyes bright, luminous pools.

"Just making sure you are still awake." He
smiled, moist teeth flickering in the light from all the floating
candles.

Again she laid her cheek back against his
chest, listening to the comforting strong beats of his heart. "You
smell like fresh apples," she murmured.

He had his nose in her hair. "And you of
wildflowers."

Again she raised her head. "You aren't, by
any chance, trying to seduce me?" she asked huskily.

He held her gaze. "And if I am?"

Her voice was hushed. "Then I'd say you're
already halfway there."

The smile on his lips reached his eyes. "Only
halfway?"

The air crackled with sexual currents flowing
back and forth between them.

"Well ... perhaps a little more than
halfway," she allowed.

"Would you like to have another drink first
... perhaps find a nice quiet spot in the halls and look at some
quartzite heads from the twelfth dynasty?"

Her arms tightened around him. "And if I
don't care for the twelfth dynasty? If I prefer the classical
Greeks, and Priapus in particular?"

He smiled again. "Then I can only hope that a
priapic surrogate shall suffice."

Unbidden, an image of his taut, thrusting
body leapt into her mind. "Yes!" she replied throatily, feeling a
raw scorching heat rise up within her. "That ... that would suffice
quite nicely."

"Good. Because what I want to do is hold you
and make love to you forever."

As though in a daze, she drew his head down
to hers. There was a rapturous kind of intensity in her face which
he had not seen before.

"Well?" he asked softly. "Are you ready to
go?"

Her knees were curiously weak and she felt as
if she were drowning in the bottomless pools of those great
greenish-blue eyes.

"Yes!" she replied in a fierce, urgent
whisper. "Let's get out of here! Let's leave now!"

Being a host has its drawbacks

Being a Serene Highness on top of
it—especially as eligible a bachelor as Prince Karl-Heinz—makes for
even further encumbrances. The flurry of interest in him, which
naturally had to be returned in kind, presented more than its share
of social difficulties.

It made it impossible, for instance, to
bestow his undivided attention upon the one person he was delighted
to see—Zandra. However, now that he had obligingly danced with a
half dozen very select partners, he intended to remedy that. He'd
kept one eye peeled for her, so that as he came off the dance floor
with Nina Fairey, he politely excused himself and made a beeline
toward her.

"Quickly!" he said, his voice registering
urgency. "Follow me."

Before Zandra could ask why, he was already
propelling her through the throng, his brisk pace and friendly nods
at friends and acquaintances indicating that he was pleased to see
them, but momentarily too indisposed to stop and chat. Out of the
Temple of Dendur he rushed her, through glass-lined exhibition
rooms to the front entrance.

"Fetch your coat," he told her, pulling a
folded, wafer-thin cellular phone from inside his breast pocket and
flipping it open.

Zandra stared at him. "You mean, you're
leaving your own party!"

"Yes, I'm calling my driver to bring the car
around—the demands of those social vampires grate." He punched a
memorized number. "Now hurry," he urged, "before some
attention-starved vulture detains us!"

"Well, if you're sure," Zandra said, giving
him an oblique look.

"I'm positive." Phone to his ear, he turned
his back to keep new arrivals and early departees at bay.

Getting her scuffed motorcycle jacket from
coat check, Zandra wondered whether Dina would be annoyed by her
disappearance. Somehow she doubted it. She's having too good a time
to miss me. As for Kenzie, I'll see her at work tomorrow . . .

Pulling on her jacket, she joined Karl-Heinz,
who was already at the entry doors, folding the phone shut and
pocketing it. "My driver should pull up momentarily," he said.

And out he hustled her; down the massive
flight of stone steps they dashed. The drizzle had turned into a
deluge, and they both held their jackets over their heads.

Moments later, laughing like truant
schoolchildren, they ducked into the back of his Bentley Turbo.

"Did you find out about the latest club?"
Karl-Heinz asked his chauffeur.

The driver glanced into the rearview mirror.
"Yes, Your Highness. After you called, I checked with some of the
other drivers. They say a place called Dante's Inferno is all the
rage. It's down in the East Village."

"Good. Then that is where we shall go."

Now that he had Zandra to himself, Karl-Heinz
settled back in the rich glove leather, the luxury of which never
failed to bring a stir of ambrosial well-being.

"At last!" he said as the car merged smoothly
with the Fifth Avenue traffic, the arcing flicks of the windshield
wipers and the reflections of tail- lights on wet asphalt giving
the impression they were drifting down a wide, rubied river. "For a
while, I was afraid we would never have an opportunity to be by
ourselves. Would you like a drink? There is a minibar—"

"Not right now, thanks." Zandra's smile was
radiant. "Oh, Heinzie! This is so fabulous!" She reached for his
hand and gave it a squeeze. "I swear, it seems like ages since we
saw each other last!"

"That," he smiled, "is because it has been.
You cannot imagine my delight when you walked in tonight. You
really were the last person on earth I expected to see."

"I'm glad you're pleased," she said. Then her
smile abruptly faded and she fell silent.

"Zandra?" He looked concerned. "What is
it?"

"About your father's health. Is it true what
you said during dinner?"

He nodded soberly. "Yes," he sighed, "I'm
afraid so. The doctors don't give him long."

"Damn!"

He shrugged philosophically. "It isn't as
though it's unexpected, you know. Father is, after all, quite
old."

"Yes, but still ..." Her voice trailed off,
supple leather creaking as she changed position on the seat. She
sensed that despite his acceptance of the situation, it weighed far
heavier on his mind than he cared to let on.

How like him to neither complain nor indulge
in self-pity, she thought. Publicly, at least, he's ever the Serene
Highness, graciously bowing to the inevitable—

—to death.

With a chill shiver, she stared past the
chauffeur and out the cleared arcs of windshield. She saw, but
didn't absorb, the dark expanse of Central Park giving way to the
whorishly lit Plaza Hotel, and then the enticing luxury emporiums
below Fifty-ninth Street—Bergdorf Goodman ... Van Cleef and Arpel .
. . Tiffany . . . Bendel's. The soft squish of tires on wet
pavement was more imagined than heard, such was the soundproof
cocoon of this stately car.

Karl-Heinz's voice was soft. "Zandra?"

She turned to him, both their faces
flickering from the swiftly moving shop windows which flashed past
on either side, like passenger trains speeding in the opposite
direction.

"Let's forget my father for tonight. All the
worrying in the world is not going to help."

She drew a deep breath, held it inside her,
and let it out slowly. "No, I suppose it won't." She stared
intently over at him. "But Dina did hit the nail right on the head,
didn't she?"

He did not reply.

She reached out and touched him on the arm.
"Heinzie, you really must start thinking about securing your
inheritance. Before it's too late!"

He smiled at her earnestness. "I appreciate
your concern, but that, too, is a problem which shall keep until
morning. Now, then." He clapped his hands together briskly. "Enough
about me. I want to hear all about you—are you still breaking
hearts, raising hell, and causing Aunt Josephine apoplexy?"

"Oh, I think Aunt Josie gave up on me years
ago—'Washed her hands' of me, as she rather succinctly put it."
Zandra laughed. "Not that I really blame her. In retrospect, I
suppose I have been rather a handful. But let me see ... something
must be new besides my embarrassing the family in one way or
another, or my unexpected arrival here this morn—"

"Unexpected?" he asked. "Why? Is something
wrong in England?"

Damn! she thought, subconsciously placing a
hand over the sleeve of her forearm, under which the burn wound
throbbed anew. How like him to pick up on that. I'm going to have
to watch my every word.

"Who said anything was wrong?" She forced her
voice to sound light.

But she thought: What isn't wrong? Only
Rudolph and his gambling debts ... the toughs who frightened me so
badly I fled the country ...

But those particulars, she knew, were only
the tip of the iceberg, the symptoms of a much larger and far more
ominously looming problem— specifically, how to raise the cash
Rudolph owed, and, even more precisely and to the point, how to
repay it before the interest kept doubling, tripling, or
quadrupling the principal.

Paying off that debt is the only way Rudolph
and I can ever feel safe.

Money. She needed to get hold of Big Money,
and fast.

And who, an opportunistic voice piped up in
her head, has more money than Karl-Heinz?

She instantly put the skids on that train of
thought. She would never, could never, appeal to Karl-Heinz for
help. Pride precluded it.

Bad enough I'm a poor relation, she thought.
I'm not about to compound that by going begging. Even asking for a
loan is moot, since I haven't a hope in hell of ever repaying such
an astronomical sum ...

"Something is troubling you," Karl-Heinz said
with uncanny acuity. "Why don't you tell me what it is. Perhaps I
could be of assistance."

Tempting as his offer was, she quickly shook
her head. "It's nothing," she lied. "But thanks all the same."

On impulse, she scooted across the seat and
pecked him lightly on the cheek.

He looked both surprised and pleased. "What
was that for?"

Her voice was soft and throaty. "For caring.
For being you. For your birthday. For making this my lucky
night."

"No," he said quietly, "you are wrong. It is
you who have made this my lucky night."

Even in the dimness of the car, Zandra could
feel the gentle force of his gaze.

She thought:
He really is a prince, and in
more ways than one. I only hope to God he gets married in time ...
and that whoever she is, the lucky lady will deserve and appreciate
him
...

Dancing.

Robert A. Goldsmith wasn't very good at it.
What he was extremely good at, however, was playing grab-ass. Now,
as the orchestra played "Someone to Watch Over Me," his hands were
all over Bambi Parker's aerobics-firm buttocks: feeling, kneading,
groping,
squeezing
.

"You mean you've arranged it?" Bambi batted
seductive lashes. "Already?"

"Yeah," he grunted, more intent upon her
perky derriere than on his dancing. "Not that this promotion's
makin' either of us very popular."

"So?" Bambi tossed her head, baby blues hard
and challenging. "Why should we care what other people think?"

"Why?" he repeated in disbelief, realizing
just how uncomfortably big she was getting for her britches. "You
wanna know why? 'Cause the consensus is, you're not up to the
job."

She froze in mid-step. "Would you care to
repeat that?" she said in a Freon voice.

He continued to fondle her buttocks. "I heard
you nearly got yourself fired a few times."

She pulled away from him and stepped back,
standing just out of reach. "You've been talking to that decrepit
old Mr. Spotts, haven't you?" she accused. "That sounds like
something he'd come up with!"

"Actually, it was Sheldon D. Fairey who
brought it up."

"That son of a bitch! I think you should fire
him."

Placing her hands on her hips, her frontal
equipment rose and fell within the snug, low-cut armor of
glittering blue beads.

Pouting, she added: "You would, you know, if
you really cared about me."

Robert went ballistic. Seizing her bare arm,
he yanked her roughly against him. "What kinda games d'you think
you're playin'?" he snapped into her upturned face. "And whaddya
think I am—stoopid? Maybe you'd kill the goose that lays the golden
eggs, but I sure the hell won't. Who do you think made Burghley's
the leading auction house in this country? Huh?"

Bambi made a face against the spray of
spittle.

"Well, I'll tell ya who," he went on grimly.
"Sheldon D. Fairey. And since I've invested a hell of a lot of
money in that company, my first priority ain't a piece of ass—it's
protectin' my investment."

"Are you trying to tell me that I'm
expendable and Fairey isn't?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you are a real bastard!"

He jerked her even closer, plastering her
breasts so tightly against him that he could feel her wildly
beating heart. "You can think what you like. I'm just giving you
some friendly advice."

"Oooooh," she said sarcastically. "I'm
shaking!" With a faint wicked smile, she thrust her hips right up
against his, slid her free hand deftly between him and herself, and
felt his phallus through his trousers.

His erection was immediate.

"Always hard, aren't you, Robert?" she
taunted.

"Christ Jesus!" he whispered fiercely. "Are
you nuts! God alone knows how many people are watching!"

"Will you chill out? In this crowd no one
will notice a thing. At least," she laughed, "not so long as we
continue dancing—and you keep old J.P. tucked inside your
pants!"