Pleasure Seekers (13 page)

F
aye stood at the Long Island railroad’s information booth, waiting for her mother. It was 3:10 p.m., and the electronic board confirmed the train from Saint Albans was in the station.

She’d called Shirley the night before, asking her to come into Manhattan earlier than they’d originally planned because she was taking the day off. Within minutes of hanging up she had another call, this one on her cell phone. Astrid Marti had called to let her know that the agreement wherein a client
must
go through P.S., Inc. to contact a companion was no longer in effect because of Bartholomew Houghton’s exclusivity arrangement.

Her second call of the night came from Bart. He’d confirmed the time she would be picked up the following Friday, and asked that she not bring an outfit for the wedding because he planned to buy her whatever she needed once they arrived on the island.

A flicker of apprehension had coursed through her when she realized she would travel out of the country with a man who wasn’t her lover or husband, but her anxiety
was short-lived. She had to stay focused. At no time could she afford to forget that Bart was her client.

“Faye Anne.”

Turning, she saw her mother standing less than a foot away. She’d come up behind her. Moving closer, Faye reached for Shirley’s overnight bag and kissed her cheek.

There was no doubt Shirley and Faye were mother and daughter. At fifty-five, Shirley’s stylishly cut short curly sandy-brown hair was liberally streaked with silver, and her gold-brown face claimed a few laugh lines around a pair of light brown eyes that sparkled like polished citrines. She’d worked briefly as a pattern cutter in the garment district before opting for marriage and becoming a stay-at-home mother.

“Mama, you look so beautiful.” Shirley had chosen to wear a tailored pantsuit in a becoming peach shade with a pair of low-heel black patent-leather pumps.

“So do you, even if you are too thin.”

Faye lifted an eyebrow at her mother. “It’s the dress, Mama.” The ice-blue sheath dress had artfully concealed her curves.

Shirley wrapped an arm around her daughter’s waist. “You
are
thinner.”

Faye rolled her eyes upward. Shirley was like a dog with a bone. “I always lose a few pounds with the warm weather because I’m eating more salads.”

“How much do you weigh now?”

“I don’t know, Mama.”

She hadn’t bothered to hide her annoyance at being
interrogated about her weight loss because she’d made a concerted effort to lose ten pounds. She hadn’t changed her eating habits but had begun walking during her lunch hour three times a week.

“What hotel did you choose?”

A secretive smile softened Faye’s lips. “I’m not saying because I want to surprise you.”

Shirley looped her arm through Faye’s. “You know I don’t like surprises.”

“This is one surprise I know you’re going to like.”

“Ladies, the gentleman at the bar would like you to have these.” The bartender set down two glasses, one a manhattan and the other a cosmopolitan.

Faye stared at a young black man sitting at the bar in the Bull and Bear who nodded in acknowledgment, but before she could signal her thanks he’d turned back to the older man on his right.

Turning her attention to her mother, who sat across from her with a smug expression on her face, Faye shook her head in amazement. “Were you flirting with that man?” Shirley reached for the cosmo, successfully avoiding her daughter’s accusatory stare. “Were you, Mama?” she asked again.

Shirley took a sip of the cool pale pink cocktail. “I can’t believe this little thing is so good.” She waved a manicured hand. “Don’t act so put out, Faye Anne. He kept looking this way and all I did was smile and wave.”

“We came here to have predinner drinks, Mama, not flirt.”

“How am I going to get grandchildren if I don’t look out for you, Faye Anne? Besides, he looks like a successful young man, given the cut of his suit.”

Faye had noticed the man when she and her mother sat down at a table in the popular bar on the ground floor of the Waldorf-Astoria. But it hadn’t crossed her mind to flirt with him or, for that fact, with any other man.

“You’ll never get grandchildren if you feel it’s your duty to pick up men for me,” she said between clenched teeth.

Unperturbed, Shirley took another swallow of her drink. “You’ve been single for more than two years, and not once have I heard you talk about having a special friend.”

“I have a friend.” The pronouncement was out before Faye could censor herself.

Shirley’s hand halted in midair. “Is he special, Faye Anne?”

She picked up the manhattan and took a deep swallow, welcoming the cold, then the heat, spreading throughout her chest. “No. He’s just a friend.”

“Do you think he’ll become more than a friend?” Shirley whispered, intrigued.

Faye met the gaze of the woman she loved beyond description. She hadn’t always done what her mother wanted her to, but Shirley was always there to support her whenever she failed or faltered. Shirley’s
“wait until you become a mother then you’ll understand what I’m talking about”
was a constant reminder that she wasn’t a mother. She and Norman had talked about starting a family after three years, but their marriage had barely survived the two-year mark.

“I doubt it, Mama.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want more,” she said truthfully.

How could she tell Shirley that her friend was a client, a man who paid her to entertain him? In some cultures she would be seen as a courtesan or geisha, but Enid Richards legitimized and made her business morally correct by referring to them as social companions. Although cautioned not to sleep with their clients, Faye wondered if Enid was naïve, or had she chosen to ignore that her clients and social companions were adults who could or would do anything as long as it was consensual.

Shirley patted her daughter’s hand. “Don’t you want to get married again?”

Faye gave her mother a long, penetrating look, knowing what she would look like in twenty years. Despite having been out of the workforce for more than three decades, the older woman was as stylish as any contemporary working counterpart.

“Yes, I do. I miss the companionship of living with someone.”

“What about the intimacy, baby?”

Faye nodded, smiling. Leave it to Shirley Ogden to go straight to the jugular. “That’s what I miss most.”

Leaning over, Shirley pressed a kiss to Faye’s cheek. “Finish your drink before I’m so drunk that you’ll have to call someone to carry me out of here.”

“Would you mind having dinner in our room tonight?”

“Of course not, dear. In fact, I was going to suggest that.”

She knew she’d shocked Shirley when they’d gotten into a taxi outside Pennsylvania Station and directed the driver to take them to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Faye had selected the elegant hotel as much for its historical significance as for its Art Deco lobby, beautifully furnished rooms and impeccable service.

Faye finished her manhattan and signed the bill. Rising, she made her way over to the bar. Resting a hand on the shoulder of the man who’d paid her second round of drinks, she thanked him for his generosity. And before he could ask her her name, she walked out of the Bull and Bear, Shirley several steps behind her.

Quickening her pace, Shirley caught up with Faye and looped an arm around her waist. “You’re going to have to help your mama because I’m slightly tipsy.”

Faye smiled at the petite woman. “You only had two drinks.”

“My limit is one nowadays.”

“You need to get out more. You and Daddy used to party quite a bit.”

Shirley sobered quickly. “We used to do a lot of things together. Everything changed when that whore accused CJ of rape and assault. How could he rape someone who opened her legs for every man in the neighborhood?”

“Please let’s not talk about that now, Mama. I wanted you to spend the weekend with me so that we can have a good time.”

Shirley took a deep breath. “You’re right, baby.”

Faye didn’t want to talk about her brother. Even though
he’d confessed to sleeping with the married mother of three who’d made it a practice to trade her body for food or drugs, he’d vehemently denied raping or beating her.

CJ had made mistakes in the past because he hadn’t always made the best choices, but Faye knew her brother was no rapist.

She walked into the Waldorf’s lobby and gasped inaudibly. Bartholomew Houghton had approached a statuesque redhead who apparently had been waiting for him. Dressed in a Chanel dinner suit, the slender woman appeared to be in her early forties. He offered his arm, and as she took it he glanced up and met Faye’s gaze.

Faye stared wordlessly at him, her heart pounding a runaway rhythm as he stared back with complete surprise freezing his features. There was a silent moment of recognition and acknowledgment in the gray orbs before he looked away.

Never breaking stride, Faye led her mother to a bank of elevators that would take them to their suite. She didn’t recognize the woman with Bart as one of the companions who’d attended the P.S., Inc. dinner party, nor was she at his Southampton gathering.

She knew Bart was as shocked at seeing her as she was, but why, she asked herself as she entered the elevator, was she so flustered just because she’d seen him with another woman?

Shirley pushed the button for their floor while questions assaulted Faye like invisible missiles. Why would it matter who he saw when he was only her client? Why when he’d
said they were friends? And why when he’d said there wasn’t even the remotest possibility that they would ever sleep together?

Girl, you’re going to get in over your head.
Why, she mused, did Alana’s predictions always bring her back to reality?

The doors opened at their floor and she exited the elevator. Within minutes of her inserting the key card in the slot, pushing open the door to their expansive suite and kicking off her shoes, she’d forgotten about Bartholomew Houghton and the very attractive woman clinging possessively to his arm.

B
art withdrew from Felicia Mathis’s moist body; he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, headed for the bathroom and closed the door. He slipped the condom off his flaccid penis, tied a knot in the latex sheath, placed it into a self-stick envelope on the vanity, then sealed it. It was a ritual he’d established the first time he’d ever paid a woman for sex. Call it paranoia but he didn’t want to leave behind any evidence of his sexual encounters.

Sliding back a glass door, he stepped into the shower stall and turned on the water. He hadn’t begun to wash the smell of sex and Felicia’s perfume from his body when the door opened and she joined him.

He grasped her upper arms. “What are you doing?”

Tilting her head, she smiled up at him through her lashes. “What does it look like, darling? I’ve decided to share your shower.”

Bart’s fingers tightened on her pale flesh. “No, Felicia.”

“Don’t you want me to wash your back?” Her smoky voice had dropped an octave.

“I want you to get out of the shower.” He gave her a lethal glare. “Now, Felicia.”

They’d showered together in the past, but he didn’t want her tonight. He’d come to the hotel for one purpose: to slake his sexual frustrations. And if Felicia wanted more then she’d struck out, because seconds before ejaculating he realized he didn’t want the woman moaning and writhing beneath him to have alabaster skin, dark auburn hair or blue eyes but burnished-gold brown skin and eyes. For one brief moment he’d fantasized making love with Faye Ogden.

Felicia left the shower stall, reaching for a terry-cloth robe from a stack on a low table. She was a call girl not a psychologist. Men paid her the big bucks to take care of their sexual needs, not to try and get inside their heads.

This was a Bart Houghton she hadn’t seen before. They’d been sleeping together for years, and this was the first time she thought of him as a john. She’d lost count of the number of men she’d slept with for money; Bart was only one of the half-dozen wealthy men who paid her handsomely to give them sexual pleasure who didn’t make her feel as if she were performing a service.

With Bart it was never slam bam, thank you, ma’am. There was always foreplay and after-play that temporarily held her demons at bay, demons that wouldn’t permit her to feel something other than loathing whenever she slept with a man.

Felicia returned to the bedroom, lay across the bed and closed her eyes. Bart couldn’t exist in her world, nor would she ever become a part of his. The problem was,
she liked Bartholomew Houghton—a lot. He was affectionate, generous, virile and, unlike many of her middle-aged and elderly clients, he didn’t need artificial gadgets to achieve an erection.

She was still in the same position when Bart leaned down and kissed her forehead.

“I’ll call you.”

She opened her eyes and met his steady gaze. He’d showered and put on his clothes. “Okay.”

It was their usual parting exchange. Felicia knew it would be a while before he contacted her again. There was a time in the past when they’d slept together several times a week, and occasions when they wouldn’t see each other for months. However, whenever he called she rearranged her schedule to accommodate him.

And like every man who’d come into her life he was only good for one thing: money.

G
iuseppe held an umbrella over Faye as she handed him her single piece of luggage. He opened the rear door to the Maybach, waiting until she was seated before he closed it. He stored her bag in the trunk, came around the sedan and slipped behind the wheel; he closed the partition behind him before maneuvering away from the curb in one smooth motion.

Faye settled herself onto the back seat of the car next to Bart. She was more than ready for sunshine, palm trees and the clear blue-green ocean because it’d been raining steadily for the past three days.

Smiling, she met Bart’s gaze. Was there uncertainty in the gray eyes, or had she just imagined it? Was he uncomfortable because she’d seen him with another woman? A woman who could’ve been a friend, relative, or even a business client?

He was dressed for traveling: jeans, running shoes and a pale blue Polo Tee. She’d chosen Seven jeans and her favorite Ralph Lauren navy blazer and a matching T-shirt. Leaning to her left, she kissed his cheek. He went completely still before relaxing. She knew she’d surprised him with the
show of affection, but she’d made a promise to herself that she was going to enjoy her Cayman Islands weekend.

“How are you, Bart?”

His expression changed to one of faint amusement. “I’m better now that I’ve seen you.”

He’d been bombarded with one crisis after another: a West Coast construction company was beset with union problems, a loans officer in his L.A.–based banking division had been arrested because of an altercation with the police at a DWI checkpoint, and the Harlem assemblyman was pressuring him to increase the number of low-income units in his new development from fifteen to twenty.

A flash of humor parted Faye’s lips with Bart’s backhanded compliment. “I take it your day didn’t go too well?”

Resting his arm over the back of her seat, Bart turned to face Faye. “Would I offend you if I said it was a bitch?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“How was your day?”

“Wonderful.”

“What made yours wonderful?”

“I woke up my usual time but decided to stay in bed until hunger pangs got the best of me. I was
feenin’
for a down-home country breakfast, so I made scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, grits and homemade biscuits, sat in front of the television and watched everything from
The View
to Oprah.”

His dark eyebrows shot up. “You cook?”

Faye managed to look insulted. “Of course I cook. Who do you think feeds me?”

“I was under the belief that career women only know how to make reservations.”

Seeing the amusement in his eyes, Faye laughed. “Now, that’s a sexist statement if I ever heard one.”

His arm slipped lower to rest over her shoulders. “How many nights a week do you turn into a master chef?”

“Only one,
dah-ling
” she said in her best southern drawl.

“You cook one out of seven days?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes. I cook enough on Sundays for an entire week. I put everything into microwavable containers and reheat them when I get home.”

“Will you cook for me?”

Faye rolled her eyes at him. “No! You have a cook.”

“I cooked for you.”

“You put a steak on the grill that Mrs. Llewellyn had already marinated.”

Bart refused to relent. “I still cooked it.”

“I haven’t cooked for a man since I ended…” Her words trailed off.

“Since you ended your marriage,” he said intuitively, completing her statement. Turning her head to stare out the side window, she nodded. “You don’t have to cook for me if you don’t want to.”

Faye looked at him again, and for a long moment Bart studied her with a curious intensity. She knew more about him than he did her. But he intended to use the weekend to penetrate the fragile shell she’d erected to keep him at a comfortable distance.

The beginnings of a smile tipped the corners of his mouth, bringing Faye’s gaze to linger there. She didn’t know why, but she liked staring at his firm, sensual lips, lips that had touched hers briefly in a parting kiss. A gentle, comforting kiss that was anything but sexual.

“You know you got me for assuming you didn’t cook.”

Faye winked at him. “It serves you right for being so opinionated.”

“I apologize.”

She inclined her head. “Apology accepted.”

Bart curbed the urge to run his fingertips along the column of her neck. Her skin was soft as velvet, her natural feminine scent clean and sweet. She’d been
feenin’
for food, and he was
feenin’
for Faye Ogden. “You should’ve told me you weren’t going to work today because I would’ve arranged for us to fly down earlier this afternoon.”

Unconsciously her brow furrowed. “When you called to confirm our departure time, I was under the impression it couldn’t be changed.”

“I could’ve changed it with a phone call.”

“I suppose I should let you know that I’m not going to work Fridays and Mondays during June, July and August.”

He removed his arm and opened a small compartment next to the built-in bar. He took out a BlackBerry and activated the calendar feature. His thumbs moved with lightning speed as he entered her name on every Monday and Friday for June, July and August.

“Are you able to take more time?”

“How much more?”

“A couple of weeks.”

Faye studied his distinctive profile. “I’m also taking vacation the first three weeks of July and August.” She watched as he entered this information. “What have you planned?”

Bart palmed the cell phone. “How would you like to hang out in Europe with me?”

The shock of what he was offering hit Faye full force. He’d asked whether she’d go to Europe with him as casually as asking the time. “What countries in Europe?”

“It’s your choice.”

“How many choices do I get?” Much to her surprise, Bart showed no reaction to her query.

“As many as you want.”

“France.”

He nodded. “Paris, Cannes and Monaco.”

Her smile was dazzling. “That’ll do.”

His smile matched hers. “Have you ever been to Ibiza?”

“No.”

“Would you like to visit Venice and la Riviera di Ponente?”

“Yes and yes.”

Bart reached for Faye again, pulling her to his side. “I want to show you a good time.” Resting his chin on the top of her head, he closed his eyes. “We’re going to have fun, Faye.”

Relaxing completely, Faye leaned into her client’s lean upper body. He planned to take her to the French, Spanish
and Italian Rivieras. Things were happening so quickly that she found it hard to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

“Did you eat dinner?” Bart asked after a comfortable silence.

“No.”

He smiled, tightening his hold on her shoulders. “We’ll eat once we’re airborne.”

“Which airport are we flying out of?”

“Newark.”

It was Friday, rush-hour traffic was a circus, and they were scheduled to lift off at seven. “Do you think we’ll make it in time?”

“The pilot will wait.” Faye sat up, but Bart pulled her back to lean against him. “We’re not taking a commercial carrier.”

She didn’t know why, but Faye suddenly felt gauche. CEOs of billion-dollar companies did not stand in line with the masses to fly first-class on commercial carriers. They either owned or rented private jets.