Glamour (51 page)

He was the first to speak. “Don’t let her bother you, doll. She was beyond rude. Princess? I’ve seen barmaids with better manners. No idea about making guests feel welcome.”

“I don’t know.” Sally shook her blonde head. “Ever since she first went out to Ghada, before Noor was born, even, she’s been drifting away from us. She was so serious about her damn carpets and lamps. Made me feel bad about having a little fun.”

“But that’s not it, is it?”

“No.” Sally chewed her lip, the way she always did when seething.“She wouldn’t sell me her shares. One. And she told me Jane already asked—two. Jane didn’t tell me.”

“Did you tell Jane?”

“I only just decided to ask. Anyway . . .” Sally wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was true; she glossed over it in her own mind. “The
point
is that neither of them is being fair. Haya’s a princess now—she’s richer than any of us will ever be.What the hell does she need to hang on to GLAMOUR for? GLAMOUR is my deal.”

“And Jane?”

“Same thing. She doesn’t care about the store, to her it’s just a business deal. She doesn’t design anything, she doesn’t care about the stock or the shopping experience.To her GLAMOUR could be a baked-bean factory. She just wants the money.Why can’t she get it trading shares? I
live
GLAMOUR, Chris. I design all the fashion—I do worldwide press and interviews for it twelve hours a day. I’ve got
fans
.”

“Starting with me,” he said.

But Sally was absorbed in her anger.

“When the customers go into the store they aren’t going there because Jane Morgan knows how to get a good deal on a fleet of distribution trucks, or because Haya al-Yanna found them some great carpets.They’re going there for the
sizzle
. For the
style
. For
me
.” Her small fist clenched. “You know, those girls will always be my friends—I hope.” She didn’t sound certain. “But I have to make sure that GLAMOUR is mine. It matters more to me than anybody. And when we get home I’m gonna find a way to take control.”

Jane checked herself out in the mirror.Yes; she looked good. Fresh and rested, for one thing. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t been able to get a meeting with Craig yesterday; his plane, stuck in a stormbound Scandinavian airport, had saved her from herself.

Yesterday, with no sleep and a broken heart, she’d had a drawn look no concealer could disguise. Bags under her eyes the size of the new Hermès Kelly. Circles so dark you could suck a star into them, Jane thought.

She wanted to look good every time she dated Craig.

For breaking up with him, though, she wanted to look perfect.

She switched on the TV. It was Sunday morning, no need to rush to his place before the morning coffee had brewed.

“Thanks, John. We’ll be catching up with the weather every thirty minutes here on
Good Day America
. And now for a little light relief.” The coanchor turned her head to the man on the couch, tossing her chestnut brown bob and giving him a glossy smile. “Did you hear this one, Ken?”

“What’s that, Molly?”

“America has a new princess!” Jane stared as the TV cut to footage of a sumptuous marquee in the desert; there were uniformed soldiers and ladies in ball gowns, and there in the middle, sitting on a damned throne, next to a handsome man in white, wearing a real crown, was Haya. “That’s Haya al-Yanna, better known to America’s women as one of the fashionable trio of ladies who run the GLAMOUR superstores. And now she’s Her
Royal
Highness, Princess Haya of Ghada! Princess Haya grew up in L.A. and was the daughter of a local businessman.”

“Hey, GLAMOUR by name, GLAMOUR by nature, I guess,” said the male anchor, turning a bland white style to camera.

“Sally Lassiter, America’s sweetheart, the
hottest
designer coast to coast, who founded the stores with the princess, was in attendance with superstar fiancé Chris Nelson.”

The screen flashed to a shot of Sally sitting next to Chris; he had her hand in his.

“Definitely the royal wedding of the year.Two amazing couples there. I expect this will bring even more shoppers through the GLAMOUR doors.”

Jane waited for them to mention her.

“And now we’d like to welcome our next guest, a celebrated chef who . . .”

Bitter, Jane flicked her remote at the TV. Turn that bloody thing off. It wasn’t just the States; everywhere was like that. Part of a couple, glamorous,
then
you got attention,
then
you got credit.

She, Jane, was not as beautiful as her friends. She had no princely crown and no va-va-voom figure.

Hers was the business of business. She was the one whose brain had come up with this store. She had financed it—single-handedly. And as it turned out, at the cost of her heart.

Who had found sites for twenty more stores? Who had managed every aspect of the corporation from staffing to invoicing? Who had bought the ad spaces, featuring Sally Lassiter’s pretty face on billboards across America?

Jane Morgan. De facto CEO—but on paper, sharing that title. Multimillionairess, sure, but sharing it with two friends who had ridden to the top on her coattails.

And Haya had blown her off when it came to the shares.

Jane was almost grateful. She didn’t begrudge Haya and Sally their fame, their celebrity status. But she wanted the business side of things, her own project, to herself. Had either of them lived in a roach-infested apartment, or worked eighteen-hour days? No. She thought not. Jane had done fine by her friends; she’d given them wealth and position beyond dreaming. It was time to take control for herself.

A blessing. Something to focus on. Something to get her mind off her inner pain.

She went into the kitchen and, mechanically, made herself a pot of coffee and toasted half a bagel. She wasn’t hungry, but she didn’t want her stomach to rumble, or to get dizzy from lack of blood sugar.

When she was done, she brushed her teeth again to lose the coffee breath, spritzed on a little scent, and headed for Craig Levin’s house.

“Jane? That you?”

There were no staff at his place Sunday mornings—Craig gave them the day off. And Jane had the code to his keypad entry gates. Another excellent reason to do this today.

“Take all your clothes off except your jacket,” he called from the bedroom, “and your high heels, and come upstairs.”

Man. She loved that thick-throated, sexy voice. Craig Levin was as funny and as raunchy as hell. And she loved how he knew she was wearing a jacket.

“I’ll be right there,” she shouted out, and went to the refrigerator; before leaving last night, the chefs had prepared various things for breakfast. Jane selected the large, ice-cold pitcher of freshly squeezed orange and peach juice, poured out two tumblers, and brought them up with her.

He was lying sprawled under the Pratesi sheets on his designer Swedish sleigh bed; they cut off, very sexily, at the thick line of hair right above the flat of his groin.

Jane wanted him instantly. She took refuge in a long pull on the chilled, delicious juice.

“Here’s yours.” She handed him the tumbler.

“You’re not naked,” he observed, taking it. “That’s not good, honey.”

Slowly—Levin let himself sleep long and solidly on Sundays, and he was still groggy—he raised himself to a sitting position; the silk sheet slipped dangerously, but Jane didn’t look.

“Here,” she said. She opened her Chanel purse and handed him two sets of keys. “The spares to your place in Hollywood. And the flat in Rome.”

“I don’t want to know what this is about, do I?”

Jane shook her head; she was already fighting down the tears.

“I’m finishing it.”

“You’ve said that before.” He caught her round the waist. “And I remember how I talked you out of it.”

“I love you, and you don’t love me.” She dashed the back of her hand against her eyes and forced a smile. “Not a good position to make a trade.”

“I do love you,” Levin insisted.The “but” hung in the air.

“Both my friends have got married.”

There. She had dared to say it.The
M
word.

“But they’re not us. What’s right for them is not right for us.”

“Says you.” Jane sighed. “I never should have slept with you, Craig.”

He shook his head, annoyed. “What is that? Are you some kind of Catholic now? No sex before marriage?”

“You tell me,” Jane responded wearily. It was over, she didn’t have to watch her words anymore. “You have what you want. Sex and friendship, no strings, no commitment.Why should you change that?”

Levin winced, just slightly; perhaps she was too near the knuckle, after all.

“I’ve never cheated on you, Jane. I gave them all up for you.”

“Your trouble is you want a gold medal for doing the right thing.” She sighed. “You’re an amazing man, Craig. You’re brilliant; you’re funny; you’re driven; you’re charming.”

“Exactly what you’re looking for,” he said, quite serious.“Jane, if you make the perfect enemy of the good, just because I’m not ready . . .”

“I told you,” she said.“I love you. I can’t be with you and give myself to you when you hold yourself apart from me. I always wanted you, from the first conversation we ever had. But since I slept with you, it’s like an addiction.There’s no reason not to get married, not to have kids. Unless you haven’t decided I’m the one for you. On some level, you’re keeping your options open.”

“I’m just not ready,” he repeated. Levin had no wisecrack. Not this time.

“Unfortunately I am. So. This is it. I’m going to take over GLAMOUR. I want your ten percent. Please give it to me, Craig; I’m asking you, as a favor.”

“Jane—”

“Don’t. Just don’t,” she said, crying in earnest now. “I never tried to force you into anything, and I’m not now. I just won’t settle, Craig. Not with you. Either you choose me or you choose your freedom.”

“I’ve never felt about anybody the way I feel about you.”

She flinched; the soft words hit her heart with a physical stab of loss.

“It isn’t enough,” Jane said. “Will you sell me your stock?”

“My broker will call tomorrow and sell them to you at market,” he said, a touch bitterly.

“Thank you.” She paused. “Good-bye, Craig Levin. I love you.”

“But Jane—I love you, too—” he responded; but her heels were already clattering down the stairs.

Levin flopped back onto his bed, it was a sunny day, and he could see the leaves of an elm tree, golden in the autumn sunlight, waving gently outside his skylight; but his world had gone dark.

No. He would not marry her. Even though she was young, and beautiful, and intelligent, and feisty, and the hottest damn lay he’d ever had in his life. Not because she was skilled, like some high-class hooker, but because of her intense, shuddering responsiveness.

Was she the kind of woman a man married? Everything that drew him to her shouted no. So hot, so strong, so driven. Passionate and independent.Would she settle with him? Mother his children, look after them?

He could not tell if Jane would ever stop looking, ever stop being hungry.

She said she wanted to be married. Levin thought that would ruin it.What if she did stop? Would he want her, if she was there all the time, available, not having to be chased? Would he want her after a morning of picking out drapes or talking to some boring interior designer?

He loved his freedom. And Jane was freedom.

But he did not want to let her go.

Ruefully he stared at the ceiling. It was so, so like her.To confess her pain and love so matter-of-factly—like he hadn’t known, of course he had—and then ask for his shares. At the one time he could not deny her.

She was moving on. Moving up. He thought she was just tremendously impressive. Burying herself in work was exactly what he would do himself.

God, how he loved her; they were partners in crime.

Levin, a man’s man, never cried. He tried to ignore the fact that as he rolled over onto his pillow, his eyes were wet.

Top of the eleventh. Sally breathed in, deeply. She couldn’t take the tension. If the Dodgers struck out again, she was going in search of some alcohol—the real stuff in the VIP boxes, not that useless beer the vendors carted round the stands. Anyway, they’d run out hours ago.

It was a bitterly cold autumn night in Boston, but nobody felt that. The electricity in this stadium could have powered the national grid.

Game seven. The World Series. Tiebreaker. This was it—win, or go home. Baseball’s biggest prize, eternal glory or ignominy, on the cards. Every player on the field had been dreaming of this moment since he was knee-high. For half of them, that lifelong dream was about to turn into a nightmare.

Just to up the pressure, the game was in overtime.

It hadn’t been Chris Nelson’s finest hour. He’d scored a useless single in the third, got a walk in the seventh, apart from that he was 0 for 8.This from a guy with a postseason average of .376.

Sally didn’t need to have a radio with her to imagine what the commentators were telling America.

“He’s exhausted.”

“What was Nelson thinking, spending two days off in the air?”

“Manager John Tepes should have put his foot down.”

“His fiancée dragged him to a fancy Middle Eastern wedding. Hope that slice of cake was good, Chris! Looks like that’s the only trophy you’ll be picking up
this
season.”

The guilt boiled up inside her. They’d all be right, too. What the hell had she been thinking? Lost Chris his dream so that he could get snubbed in the desert, thousands of miles from here.

The World Series, the championship, was more than just one match. It was life. It was the ring you wore forever. It was the Hall of Fame. Lose it, and you might sink into alcoholism or despair. Would that happen to Chris? Would their relationship even survive?

She bit her knuckles. Every inning he failed to connect was a new chance the manager would pull him. In Tepes’s place,
she’d
have pulled him!

Leo Olsen—first up. Single.Thank God. Sally clapped wildly. Even if Chris couldn’t do it, it wouldn’t matter as long as the Dodgers won. His performance thus far would make him man of the series—even with a terrible last game.