Too Damn Rich

The destinies of three vibrant women, each as
stunningly beautiful as they are dangerously ambitious, intersect
at Burghley's, the oldest and most venerated auction house in the
world - and a seething hotbed of greed, sexual passions and
cut-throat intrigue.

MacKenzie Turner - threatened by boardroom
and bedroom machinations over which she has no control, whose
rampant erotic appetite has her juggling two lovers. Dina Goldsmith
- the social-climbing wife of Burghley's new owner, taking the
express elevator to the pinnacle of fifth Avenue society. Zandra
von Hohenburg-Willemlohe - an impoverished runaway noblewoman who
sells herself to the lord of a vast fortune to save the life of her
dissolute brother.

But MacKenzie, Dina and Zandra discover the
summit of privilege and glamour of Burghley's to be fraught with
danger, a glittering prize targeted for the crime of the century -
and only MacKenzie can stop the scythe of evil from cutting its
deadly swath. But first she must uncover the conspiracy - and then
survive the countdown to terror. As the drama races from Manhattan
to Mustique to its tension-packed climax, all learn the high price
of living the good life, that there really is such a thing as being
Too Damn Rich
....

"[a}] page-turning plot and deliciously evil
villains. A delight." PUBLISHER"S WEEKLY

"A romp…a smash success!" NEWYORK DAILY NEWS

"Judith Gould is a master." KIRKUS REVIEWS

"Mouthwatering." CHICAGO TRIBUNE

"Plenty of shocking surprises." COSMOPOLITAN

"[a] great escape. A tale filled with suspense…and
exotic characters." BOOKLIST

Sins*

Texas Born

LoveMakers

Second Love

DAZZLE- The Complete Unabridged Trilogy *:

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. I: Senda

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. II: Tamara

Dazzle The Trilogy Vol. III: Daliah

Never Too Rich*

Forever

Too Damn Rich*

Second Love

Till the End of Time*

Rhapsody*

Time to Say Good-Bye

A Moment in Time

The Best Is Yet to Come

The Greek Villa

The Parisian Affair

Dreamboat*

The Secret Heiress*

*(Available as an e-book)

www.judithgould.com

Too Damn Rich

By Judith Gould

Copyright 1999 by Judith Gould.

Published by Vesuvius Media, LLC at Smashwords

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the
product of the author's imagination or are used ficticiously, and
any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales
is entirely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people.

"It is better to live rich,

than to die rich."

—BOSWELL, Life of Johnson

"No one should come to

New York unless he is

willing to be lucky."

—E. B. WHITE (1899-1985)

Once Upon a Time, In the City of London...

A man by the name of Charles Burghley
established an auction business. The year was 1719 and His Majesty,
King George I, was on the throne. Burghley dealt in silver and
porcelains.

His company flourished.

In 1744, a bookseller named Samuel Baker
decided to expand his business by turning to auctioneering. His
enterprise, too, proved successful, although it was his nephew and
successor, John Sotheby, who gave the company its legendary
name.

In 1766, James Christie opened the doors to
yet another auction house. Since he concentrated on selling
pictures and furniture, and did not infringe upon Burghley's area
of silver and porcelains, or Sotheby's of books, his venture also
thrived.

For nearly two centuries, the three auction
houses coexisted happily. When the contents of a major country
house were sold, Christie's would send the libraries to Sotheby's,
and relegate the silver and ceramics to Burghley's. And although
nothing became of it, Christie's and Sotheby's actually considered
merging, first in 1934, then in 1940, and again in 1947.

But by 1964 such harmony was a thing of the
past. It began with Sotheby's acquisition of the Parke-Bernet
Galleries in New York, which in a single stroke established it as
the first truly international auction firm. In no time, Christie's
and Burghley's had gained Manhattan footholds of their own and,
like Sotheby's, began to expand operations to dozens of other
cities around the globe.

Now, with the entire world's treasures as
possible merchandise, competition between the three houses grew
fierce. Each expanded voluminously and added departments and
experts to handle furniture, art, rugs, books and manuscripts,
wine, photographs, musical instruments, coins, arms and armor, and
jewelry.

The age-old tradition of sharing the spoils
became a relic of the past.

In the heyday of the eighties, with art
prices skyrocketing, Burghley's, Christie's, and Sotheby's was each
seeing between two and three billion dollars in annual sales—and
reaping a hefty twenty percent profit in double-ended commissions
from both sellers and buyers. Even with the softening of the art
market in the recessionary nineties, when annual sales plunged a
billion dollars or so, the profit at all three auction houses was
still enormous.

Naturally, with such vast sums involved, the
dowdy, genteel auction house went the way of the Edsel.

Auctioneering had entered the era of Big
Business. And that is where this story begins....

Macao, September 13

The meeting took place in a remote seaside
villa far from the outskirts of this teeming city of gamblers,
prostitutes, thieves, and adventurers.

One person arrived by stolen car and used the
front entrance.

The other came by sea and docked a stolen
speedboat at the jetty out back.

Each was dressed in black, and wore a bulky
jumpsuit, gloves, and shapeless hood. Thus, neither would recognize
the other if they happened to run into each other by accident.

The same held true of their voices. For added
protection, electronic distorters were strapped around their
mouths, reducing their words to deep, robotic monotones.

There was safety in stealth, protection in
remaining but a code- named entity.

As planned, their paths converged in a
windowless marble anteroom, where the rheostat on the crystal
chandelier was turned down to a weak glow. Even in the dimness of
that shadow-strewn light, their eyes were invisible. For added
anonymity, both wore black sunglasses under their hoods.

For a moment they stared at each other with
wary respect. Each knew that the other was one of the two most
dangerous individuals alive.

The taller one spoke first. "I shall require
the ten best specialists in their field," the electronically
distorted voice squawked monosyllabically. "I have a list here. Six
are laying low. They will have to be found. Four that I know of are
serving life sentences. They will need to be sprung. Do you think
you can do it?"

"What is the timetable?" the other's
identically distorted voice asked.

"There is none yet."

"Good." The hooded head nodded once, the
gloved hand took the list, shone a penlight down it, and memorized
the names. After a moment, a lighter flared and the list burned and
was dropped, the charred remains shredded under a crepe heel. "I
will need four months."

"You have it. The job could be soon after, or
it might be a year or more from then. Our people will need safe
houses and patience."

"And their incentives?"

"Ten million dollars each. After the job is
completed."

There was a pause. "And mine?"

"One half share of the remainder."

"Which will be?"

"The same as I get. Approximately half a
billion dollars. I take it you find that acceptable?"

The other hooded figure nodded.

"Good. We will meet again in exactly two
months' time. I will get in touch by the usual method."

Before the first light of dawn, two
"accidents" occurred at opposite ends of the island.

One involved a car which went out of control,
hit a stone wall, and exploded upon impact. By the time the fire
department arrived, it was but a furiously burning shell.

The other occurred almost simultaneously and
involved a speedboat that rammed one of the docked hydrofoils which
made the Macao- Hong Kong run. Again, a massive explosion and an
enormous fireball rent the night.

Zhang Gu, the island's fire chief, was
baffled after he visited the scene of each fire. His investigators
and scuba divers had combed every square inch of both accident
scenes, and had only come up with wreckage.

"It's impossible," Zhang Gu told Lin Zhu, the
assistant fire chief.

"What is, sir?" Zhu asked.

"We have two major accidents, and yet not a
shred of human bone or tissue."

"It could have been vandalism, sir."

"I suppose so," Gu sighed. "But I do not like
it. Something smells of three-day-old fish."

"So do we continue our investigation?"

Zhang Gu thought for a minute and then shook
his head. "No," he decided wearily. "Call the men off. We will not
find anything. It would only be a waste of time."

Zhang Gu didn't know how right he was. Both
perpetrators had long since vanished.

One of them was already a thousand miles
away, on board a Qantas flight bound for Sydney, Australia.

The other was on the first leg of a Northwest
flight putting down in Tokyo. Headed for Honolulu and the warm
waters of Waikiki.

GoldMart Chairman Wins Bid for Auction House

Special to the New York Times

NEW YORK, Oct. 12—Robert A. Goldsmith, the chairman
of GoldMart, Inc., has invested nearly a billion dollars in
Burghley's, Inc., in exchange for a major stake in the corporation,
Wall Street sources said yesterday.

In the transaction, Mr. Goldsmith has obtained over
50 percent of the company's stock, or about 32.5 million shares in
the venerable auction house, which was founded in 1719 and is the
world's oldest. This deal represents a financial coup on the part
of Mr. Goldsmith, who obtained the stock at what analysts consider
a bargain-basement price in the current recessionary climate.

New York City, October 12

MacKenzie Turner awakened wanting to take a
bite out of the Big Apple.

It was one of those clear, brisk mornings in
Manhattan. Even the sky was polished, and not a wisp of cloud or so
much as a tinge of smog marred its perfection. But the weather had
nothing to do with the way she felt.

That was entirely due to the method by which
she was being awakened, surfacing from sweet dreams to an even
sweeter reality by the delicious nibbles of her delicious lover,
who had his mouth on one of her breasts and a hand down between her
soft thighs.

"Mmmmm ..." Moaning dreamily and half
smiling, she changed position without opening her eyes, her body,
like a sunflower turning toward the sun, instinctively seeking the
radiating warmth of his.

Between her legs, he gently worked two
fingers up inside her.

"Mmmmm!" Her luminous amber eyes snapped
open.

"Thought that might wake you up." He grinned
raffishly.

"Never start a job you can't finish!" she
said, narrowing her bright eyes challengingly. "So what are you
going to do about it, buster?"

"How about this?" Even as his lips closed
around her nipple once again, bringing it to its fullest and
hardest, his eyes were upon her. Eating her up.