Pleasure Seekers (18 page)

F
aye began the first day of her three-week vacation with a brisk walk along First Avenue. She’d walked farther than planned, but on the return thirty-block trip she stopped at a Starbucks for a cup of coffee with a double shot of espresso. The caffeine gave her an extra boost of energy, and she looked forward to the next three weeks with the anticipation of a child going on vacation.

She’d enjoyed her weekend in New Paltz, and the difference in Melanie’s behavior was startling after she’d taken her medication. She was alert, spry and exhibited a wicked sense of humor that kept everyone in stitches. Sophia appeared unusually attentive to her husband’s mother, but Faye suspected the display was more for Alana’s approval than genuine affection. It was apparent the sisters-in-law weren’t fond of each other.

The chiming of the telephone greeted Faye as she opened the door to her apartment. She picked up the cordless instrument from a table in the spacious entryway.

“Hello.”

“Thank goodness I got you!” said a breathless female voice.

“Gina?” Faye wondered why her assistant was calling her at home when she knew she was on vacation.

“Faye, listen, and don’t say anything until I’m finished.”

“Where are you?” she asked, ignoring Gina.

“I’m in the conference room.”

“Why?”

“Please, Faye. I could lose my job for calling you.”

“Okay.”

“John and Stuart are in your office going over your accounts. I heard someone say that they want to give one or two of your clients to Jessica and Zachary. Apparently the executives at Andino are in seventh heaven over the marketing campaign those two assholes put together for the LXR-V. I’m sure you’ve seen the new GM commercial with the
Then. Now. Always.
pitch comparing the old to the new.”

“Yes, I have.” The commercial had a catchy theme contrasting sock hop to hip-hop, AM to XM radio.

“They stole your hip-hop idea and passed it off as their own, Faye. Now they’re strutting around here like their shit don’t stink.”

“And because of their success with Andino, they wait for me to go on vacation then help themselves to my accounts.”

“They’re clueless, Faye,” Gina whispered angrily. “Do they really think they can do what you do?”

Faye’s brain was in tumult, strange and disquieting thoughts racing out of control. As an African-American she was hired to tap into the psyche of the African-American consumer, and her success had become Bentley,
Pope & Oliviera’s success. However, it was apparent she’d outlived her usefulness at the advertising firm.

What if, she mused, she hadn’t planned to leave at the end of the year? What if she hadn’t had another source of income? Sitting on a chair beside the table, she closed her eyes, hoping to bring her inner turmoil under control.

“It’s all right, Gina,” she lied with deceptive calmness. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you shittin’ me, Faye?”

When she opened her eyes they were filled with tears. “No, I’m not. I really don’t care.”

“But you can’t say that.”

“Yes, I can.” There was only the sound of breathing coming through the earpiece. “Gina?”

“Yes, Faye.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.” Depressing a button, she ended the call.

Faye hated lying to Gina because she
did
care, cared more than anyone could imagine. She’d sacrificed taking vacation for years and curtailed her social life to advance her career. But where had it gotten her? Absolutely nowhere because a pack of jackals had invaded her office to steal what she’d worked so hard to develop.

She stirred uneasily in the chair, trying to pinpoint when her working relationship with John Reynolds had begun to deteriorate, mentally recapping the meetings they’d shared. He’d disagreed with several of her creative ideas yet they’d always managed to compromise. She’d found
John open, perceptive and respectful; that’s why she’d found his comment about projecting a gangsta image so repugnant.

As much as Faye didn’t want to place blame on any one person, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jessica Adelson. Somehow Jessica had convinced John she should become the account executive for the African-American market.

The scheming wench may have won this round, but there was no way she would permit her to win the fight.

Faye dialed the number, praying Mrs. Urquhart would answer her call before she lost her nerve and hung up. Bart had given her a business card with his executive assistant’s name and extension at DHG, and also his cell-phone number in the event of an emergency. Bart may not deem her losing her accounts an emergency, but she did.

“Mrs. Urquhart.”

Sitting up straighter, Faye tightened her grip on the receiver. The woman’s voice was strong, no-nonsense. “Mrs. Urquhart, this is Faye Ogden. May I please speak to Mr. Houghton?”

There came a pause. “Hold on, Miss Ogden. I’ll see if Mr. Houghton is available to take your call.”

“Faye?”

“Yes,” she whispered when hearing his deep voice.

“Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes, holding her breath for several seconds. He was asking whether she was all right when there was the possibility that on returning to work she might not
have a job. Her five-year contract had expired in April, and John hadn’t broached the subject of renewing it.

“I’m physically all right.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“I need to see…to talk to you.”

“Where are you, baby?”

She opened her eyes. “I’m home.”

“Meet me in front of your building in twenty minutes.”

A soft click indicated he’d hung up. Faye scrambled off the chair and headed for the bathroom. She had to shower and change her clothes before reuniting with a man she unknowingly had come to depend on.

A
strid knocked softly on the door to Enid’s office. Waiting until Enid turned to look at her, she said, “I still can’t locate her. I’ve called her home, cell and nothing.” A Belgian diamond dealer had requested Ilene because he wanted her to accompany him aboard his new yacht to tour the Greek Isles before docking at Saint Tropez. Monsieur Caribert expected the cruise to last two weeks.

Enid’s eyes narrowed in concentration. Ilene Fairchild was MIA. It was more than a week since she’d purportedly returned from Pine Cay. She knew for certain she’d returned because Demetrious Reyniak had called to thank P.S., Inc. for Ilene. She’d so impressed everyone that she’d come back to the States in one of the partygoers’ private jet.

Enid met Astrid’s expected gaze. A sixth sense alerted her that Demetrious hadn’t told her everything about the Pine Cay bacchanal. “Call Claude Wells and tell him that I need to speak to him.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Enid barely had time to react to her booker’s staid form of address when Astrid’s voice came through the telephone’s intercom. “Mr. Wells is on line two.”

“Thank you, Astrid.” Picking up the receiver and
pressing a button, she said cheerfully, “Good afternoon, Claude. How are you?”

“I would be a lot better if you would come and visit me.”

“I’d come but only if I’m invited.”

She always enjoyed flirting with the transplanted South African. The grandson of a South African who’d owned and operated one of the largest diamond mines on the continent, Claude, repulsed by the system of apartheid, sold the mine and purchased a private island in the Caribbean.

He lived in Jamaica while building the hotel on Pine Cay, fell in love with a local woman and married her when she told him she was carrying his child. Two weeks after the hotel was completed, Claude’s wife drowned in a boating accident, leaving him to care for their three-year-old daughter.

“But will you come alone?”

“Now, you know I can’t do that.”

“Are you still involved with your boy, Enid?”

“How are you using that term, Claude?” At no time could she ever forget white men’s insidious reference to black men as
boy.

“It’s not what you think, Enid. I’m only referring to his age.”

“Marcus hasn’t been a boy in a very long time, Claude. I trust you to remember that.”

“I apologize for being tactless.”

“Apology accepted.”

“What do I owe the honor of this call?”

“I need you to tell me about Ilene Fairchild.”

Enid listened intently as Claude told her what she needed to know. Surprisingly, she wasn’t shocked or angry. Ilene had simply reverted to type. “Thank you for the information,” she said after hearing his explanation. “This is not an empty promise, but I’m going to come to Pine Cay.”

“When can I expect you and Marcus?”

“How’s December?”

“That’s six months from now.”

Enid smiled. “I know. And it’s after hurricane season.”

“If you let me know the date, then I’ll save a private bungalow for you.”

“I’ll let you know before the end of the summer.” What she didn’t tell Claude was that she was seriously considering marrying Marcus. However, it was her secret, one she would reveal to her unsuspecting lover when the time was right.

She rang off, then buzzed Astrid to come into her office. “Leave a message on Ilene’s phones that I want to see her as soon as she returns to the States.”

B
art was waiting for Faye when she walked out of her building. He opened the rear door of the Maybach, waited until she was seated, then slipped in beside her. Pressing a button, he closed the security panel between the back seat and the driver.

Shifting, he stared at the woman who tugged at his heart even when he was halfway around the world; he pulled her into his arms, his chin resting on top of her head. She smelled delicious.

He knew his feelings for Faye Ogden had changed when he told Enid that he wanted her for the summer because weekends weren’t enough; and his feelings had intensified when he’d given her his private number at DHG and cell-phone number.

Within minutes of the jet lifting off for Hong Kong, he’d been tempted to instruct the pilot to abort the flight. It took all of his resolve not to call Giuseppe and tell him to pick Faye up and bring her to the airport so she could accompany him on his Far East business trip.

Faye leaned into the contours of Bart’s body, inhaling the distinctive scent of his aftershave; she drank in the
soothing comfort of his nearness like a warm blanket, and she knew what she was feeling, what she was beginning to feel for Bart was something she was unable to fathom or make sense of. What she hadn’t wanted to happen had: dependency. It’d begun with financial and progressed to emotional.

“I’m sorry you had to leave work and—”

“No apologies, Faye,” Bart said, cutting her off. “I gave you my numbers in case you needed me. You called, so it’s apparent you need me.” The fingers of his left hand toyed with the wisps of hair over her ear. “Now, tell me why you called me.”

Faye told Bart everything, from her failed presentation, subsequent meeting with John Reynolds and the details of Gina’s telephone call as Giuseppe maneuvered down FDR Drive.

“I’m usually not suspicious by nature, Bart, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being set up. My contract with BP&O expired several months ago, so why not let me go? Why would they conspire to dismantle what I’ve worked so hard to create for them?”

Bart kissed her hair. “They’re not dismantling what you created for them.”

“If not that, then what the hell are they doing?”

He buried his face in her short hair. “Think of yourself as a company they want to acquire, but you’re refusing to sell.”

She went completely still. “Are you equating what’s happening to me as a hostile takeover?”

“Yes. Do you know your competition?”

“I believe I do.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a she.” Faye told Bart about Jessica, John Reynolds’s so-called niece.

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” Bart crooned, tugging at her earlobe.

“What?”

“I’ll take care of everything.”

Pulling out of his comforting embrace, Faye stared at Bart, and as their eyes met she felt a lurch of awareness, a ripple of excitement eddy through her. “What are you going to do?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why can’t you?”

He ran his pinkie down the length of her nose to her parted lips. “If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” His mouth replaced his finger, moving over hers in a slow, drugging kiss that stole the breath from her lungs.

Faye found his kiss surprisingly gentle, healing. She gasped audibly when Bart lifted her onto his lap, her arms circling his neck at the same time his lips seared a path from her mouth to the column of her neck, and lower to the pulsing hollow at the base of her throat.

A soft groan escaped her when she felt the growing hardness under her buttocks. Sitting on Bart’s lap had turned him on and his erection turned her on.

Cradling her face between his hands, Bart took Faye’s mouth again, ravishing it and branding her his possession.
He wanted her, not the little pieces she parceled out like bread crumbs, but all of her.

“Bart,” Faye whispered between his frenetic, nibbling kisses that left her mouth on fire.

“I know.” His breathing had deepened with the increasing hardness he was helpless to control.

“We can’t.”

Pressing his forehead to hers, Bart winked at her. “We can, but we won’t.”
Not here, not now,
he thought.

Faye moved off his lap and stared out the side window. “Where are you taking me?”

“You’re coming home with me.”

G
iuseppe inserted a key into an elevator at a manned underground-parking garage, the door opening smoothly, quietly. Faye walked in, followed by Bart, then the chauffeur. Giuseppe inserted another key into another slot marked PH 1, and the car rose swiftly to the upper floors of the East River Drive high-rise apartment building.

The car came to a stop, the doors opening to reveal an expansive entryway with an exquisite chandelier and black-and-white vinyl checkerboard floor. Chippendale chairs flanking a table with a vase overflowing with fresh flowers and a stately grandfather clock created a reserved stately look.

The driver nodded to Bart. “I’ll be in my quarters if you need me.”

Bart smiled at his chauffeur. “I won’t need you until Thursday.”

Faye opened her mouth to ask Bart how was she going to get back home, but he cut her a look that said,
Not now.

Waiting until the elevator doors closed behind Giuseppe, she asked softly, “What are
you
doing, Bart?”

He’d inserted a key into the penthouse 2 slot. Within
seconds the doors opened to glass walls with panoramic views of the East River and the bridges connecting Manhattan with the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn.

Reaching for her hand, Bart led her into a foyer with a parquet floor in a herringbone design boardered in rosewood.

“What
we
are going to do is spend the next three weeks together. I’d planned for us to get together tomorrow, but since you called me today we’ll start now. You’ll spend the night with me. Then we’ll decide how you want to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday.”

“What about clothes? I didn’t pack anything. And as for tomorrow, I promised my mother I would spend it with her. The family’s getting together for a cookout.”

“Where does she live?”

“Queens.”

“Where in Queens?”

“Springfield Gardens.”

“You’re going to have to give me the address so I can arrange transportation for us.”

Faye pulled back, but couldn’t escape when Bart tightened his hold on her hand. “Us? You want to come with me?”

“Why not? Are you ashamed to be seen with me because of our age difference?”

“No! It’s not that,” she said much too quickly.

Faye stared at Bart as if he’d taken leave of his senses. The man had to be completely clueless. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his age, but his race. She’d never dated out of her race, and she wasn’t certain how her parents, her
father in particular, would react to her dating someone who wasn’t black.

“Okay, that settles it. We’ll go hang out with your family then come back here.”

“And do
what,
Bart?”

“We’ll do whatever you want.”

“When are we going to Europe?”

“Not until August. Most Europeans go on holiday in August, but by midmonth a lot of the tourists are gone, so we don’t have to deal with large crowds.”

“I still have to go home and get some clothes.”

Pulling Faye to his chest, Bart stared at her, his eyes making love to her face. “Why do you worry about something so inconsequential as clothes?”

“Inconsequential!” she repeated. “I hope you don’t expect me to wear the same outfit for several days. Or would you prefer that I romp around butt naked like a wood sprite?”

A lascivious grin spread from his lips to his eyes. “Will you, please?”

“Hell, no!” she spat out before she stuck her tongue out at him.

Bart sobered. “Don’t do that, Faye.”

“Do what?”

“Offer me your tongue.”

“Why?”

His hold tightened around her waist. “Just don’t,” he warned softly. “Come, I’ll give you a tour before I show you to your room. We’ll see the first floor later.”

Winding her arm around Bart’s waist inside his jacket, Faye glanced up at his profile. “What’s on the first level?”

“Giuseppe and Mrs. Llewellyn occupy apartments on either side of the kitchen. There is also a living room, formal dining room and a small ballroom. There are pocket doors separating the three rooms that can be opened to expand the space, depending on how many people I want to entertain.”

“What’s the capacity?”

“It could comfortably accommodate seventy-five.”

“Do you do a lot of entertaining?”

“No,” he answered truthfully. He hadn’t entertained since becoming a widower. And he’d never entertained at the penthouse triplex.

Bart led Faye down a hallway that doubled as his art gallery. The walls were filled with framed paintings, prints and photographs. Before he married Deidre, he wouldn’t have recognized a Picasso from a Pollock. But her passion for art was transferred to him whenever he accompanied her to Sotheby’s, galleries and museums. Even after nine years he couldn’t pass an art gallery without stopping in to see their inventory.

“This floor is off limits to everyone but Mrs. Llewellyn, who’ll only come here when I’m not home.” His bedroom, adjoining bathroom, sitting room, walk-in closet, in-home office and library took up more than half the space.

Faye realized Bart’s very masculine bedroom was twice the size of the average Manhattan studio apartment. In fact, his walk-in closet was larger than her bedroom. Suits
hung from racks in corresponding hues of blue, black and brown. Shoes in different styles and colors were lined up like sentinels, while shirts, ties and belts were displayed with the same precision.

Cupping her elbow, Bart steered Faye out of the closet. “Your room is through that door.”

He opened a connecting door to a bedroom that was as feminine as his was masculine. Instead of the leather, dark woods, black-and-white-pinstripe duvet, the bed was a French Country sleigh design covered with antique linens, blankets and throws. Sheer delicate lace panels covered the floor-to-ceiling windows taking up two of the four walls. A matching armoire held a large-screen television and the components for a state-of-the-art stereo unit.

“Your clothes are in there,” Bart said, pointing to a door.

Faye opened the door to find a walk-in closet similar to Bart’s. Skirts, slacks, blouses, jeans, T-shirts, casual and formal dresses and shoes lined racks and shelves. She reached for a tag hanging from a pair of slacks. They were her size.

Crossing his arms over the front of his crisp white shirt, Bart smiled when she turned to face him, her expression mirroring disbelief. “Didn’t I tell you not to worry about having something to wear?”

Faye was too shocked to do more than nod. “When did you buy these?” she asked when she’d finally recovered her voice.

“While you were trying on dresses at that boutique in Grand Cayman I told the owner to send me what she
thought would look nice on you. She already had your measurements, so that made it easy for her. You’ll find underwear and other frilly things in the drawers.”

Lowering her gaze, Faye blushed furiously, wondering whether the man who’d paid for her for the summer season had entertained lascivious thoughts when he saw her
frilly things.

Bart pressed a button on the panel that regulated the recessed lighting and a drawer opened. Light reflected off a tray of black velvet littered with necklaces, bracelets, earrings set with precious and semiprecious stones.

Faye closed her eyes as the significance of what she’d become to Bartholomew Houghton shook her to the core. She’d become a bought woman! He hadn’t missed a beat when he set out to seduce her with clothes, jewels and trips abroad, all the while professing that he wouldn’t sleep with her.

She opened her eyes. She’d be a fool not to accept what he was offering. Now, with her job in jeopardy, she knew she had to step up her game.
If
Bart had come down with a case of jungle fever, she’d give him what he wanted and then some. In the end, both of them would come out winners.

Moving closer, she kissed his cheek. “Thank you. Everything is exquisite.”

Bart didn’t move. “I’m glad you like it.”

Faye pulled his arms down and threaded her fingers through his. “Is there more to see?”

He squeezed her tiny hand. “Come.”

The bedroom opened out to a sitting room with a club
chair and matching ottoman upholstered in pale pink roses with a pinstripe ruffle in a deeper pink. Mahogany tables, Waterford table lamps and a priceless Aubusson rug beckoned her to come and while away the hours without a care. Shelves held books, wireless speakers and a collection of onyx and lapis paperweights.

Faye successfully suppressed a gasp when she walked into a Wedgwood-green bathroom. A garden tub, dressing table, freestanding shower stall and a wall of frosted glass for privacy radiated warmth and spaciousness.

“The drawers under the vanity contain everything you’d need for your face and hair.”

Faye walked over to the vanity and pulled out one drawer. It was filled with hair and skin products she’d been given at Madam Fontaine’s. Another contained bottles of perfume and body crème in her favorite fragrance. She opened another to find a variety of feminine products.

Straightening, she turned and studied the lean face with the penetrating gray eyes. She saw something in his expression that hadn’t been there before—a silent sadness. Was he, she wondered, comparing her to his late wife? And if he was, what were the similarities?

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“I tried to, but if there’s something I missed please let me know.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Bart.”

“Don’t thank me, Faye. I just want you to trust me.”

She walked over to him. “Why do you keep reminding me of that?”

“And I’ll continue to remind you until you come to trust me unconditionally.”

Smiling up at the man whom she found more and more difficult to think of as her client, she said, “What’s upstairs?”

“Come and I’ll show you.”

Another flight of stairs led to a solarium and rooftop garden heated and cooled by solar panels. Faye walked over to the tempered-glass walls, awed by the three-hundred-sixty-degree view.

Moving behind her, Bart wrapped both arms around her body. “What are you thinking?”

“How awesome it must be to sit here and watch the snow fall.”

“I wouldn’t know because I’ve never done it.”

Faye turned in his embrace to face him. “Promise me you’ll invite me over for the first snowfall of the winter.”

Her passionate plea for a promise was something Bart found hard to resist. Didn’t she know? he asked silently. Did she not know the power she wielded over him? He would promise and give her anything just to keep her in his life.

“I promise.”

Shrugging out of his suit jacket and throwing it over one shoulder, Bart continued to stare at Faye. He’d called himself fool of fools once he made the decision to have her live with him for the summer, but once the clothes were delivered and put away in the closet he realized he was trying to recapture his past—another time when he looked forward to coming home to find a woman waiting
for him. He knew he should’ve asked Faye if she wanted to live with him, yet his stiff-necked pride wouldn’t permit him to give her a choice.

He glanced at his watch. It was after one, and except for a cup of coffee and a slice of wheat toast at six that morning he hadn’t eaten anything in hours. “Where would you like to have lunch? We can eat lunch out and have dinner here, or vice versa.”

“I’d rather eat lunch out.”

“Where do you want to eat?”

“How’s your cholesterol?”

“It’s under two hundred. Why?”

“When was the last time you ate at the umbrella room?”

Grinning, he shook his head. “Do you eat your frank with the works?”

Faye sucked her teeth. “You eat the frank. I’m going for a hot sausage with mustard, onions and sauerkraut.”

Bart wrinkled his patrician nose. “Remind me not to kiss you if you’re going for the onions.”

“You shouldn’t be kissing me anyway.”

He sobered, his mood changing like quicksilver. “Why shouldn’t I kiss you?”

“Because it could lead to something more serious—intimate.”

Staring at her under lowered lids, he took a step. “Would that be a bad thing?”

The very air around her seemed charged with something Faye couldn’t explain. She felt the movement of his breathing keeping pace with her own. She wanted to
move, run away, but his compelling eyes, masculine magnetism rooted her to the spot.

Her response to him was so potent that she found it difficult to draw a normal breath. Without warning, it hit her. She wanted him! She wanted to lie with a man whose very presence reminded her that she was a woman—a normal woman with a need that had to be assuaged. Alana talked about being horny as a mink in heat, while she’d denied she didn’t need to sleep with a man, that it was okay to wake up feverish and shaking from erotic dreams in which her orgasms were remembrances of past encounters.

She shook her head slowly. “No, Bart. It wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

A hint of a smile softened his mouth as he reached for her hand. “As soon as I change into something more comfortable we’ll eat.”

Instead of taking the stairs, he led her to a private elevator that serviced only the second and third floors. Faye walked down the winding wrought-iron staircase to the first level while Bart retreated to his bedroom to change.

When she got up that morning, she never would’ve predicted how dramatically her life would change. First the telephone call from Gina, then her call to Bart, and now her admission that she was ready to sleep with him.

Sitting on a tall stool at the cooking island in the stainless-steel kitchen, she mumbled a silent prayer that she would come through the summer unscathed. It wasn’t her body she was concerned with, but her heart.