New York
Eve balanced her spike-heeled shoes and leather tote in the crook of her arm and fumbled impatiently through her handbag for her apartment keys. One more minute and she could peel off her bra. She couldn’t wait to get out of her dress, her makeup—and into a steaming tub. She fished out a lipstick and two tampons before finally snaring her crystal heart key ring from the depths of the bag. When the door latch clicked open and she stepped on to the cold rose marble tile, she breathed a sigh of pure bliss to be home at last.
She’d been on the run since six a.m., with a shoot that had lasted ten hours, and then dinner with her agent, Natalie Royce, and the Estée Lauder people. Her body was crying out for sleep.
The familiar, reassuring beep of the security system greeted her like an old friend. She nearly tripped over Ragamuffin as she dumped her gear and scurried to press the buttons, silencing the electronic welcome.
“Good to see you too, baby. And how was your day?” she grinned wryly as the midnight-black cat with the crooked tail whisked past her without a backward glance and leapt on to the settee beneath the living room window.
She followed Ragamuffin across the softly lit apartment, knelt down beside the cream satin settee, and stroked the tiny cat’s sleek back. “Why can’t you be a dog? A dog would lick my face, fetch my slippers, and at least say hello when I walk in the door. You—you’re a little ingrate.”
She pressed a quick, weary kiss on the top of Ragamuffin’s head and stood up to peel off her panty hose.
“Don’t try to tell me how exhausting your day was. Nothing could beat mine.”
Ragamuffin yawned, and curled into a tighter ball.
Eve chuckled, remembering how little and helpless the cat had seemed the chilly spring day she had found her while on her daily jog through Central Park. Eve had nearly stumbled over the tiny creature curled on the path, intently licking her broken tail. The injury was fresh; Eve could still see crusts of blood. She’d scooped the scrawny kitten into her arms and jogged her straight home. A little peroxide on the tail, a little milk, and half of Eve’s tuna sandwich, and Ragamuffin had settled in good as new on the soft throw pillow nestled before the fireplace. Since then, she’d never so much as sniffed a thank-you, but Eve spoiled her rotten just the same. We’re alike, Eve frequently reminded Nico, who hated cats. Both of us are survivors—stubborn, sensible females who happen to share a passion for soft satin pillows, tuna fish sandwiches—and you. It was true. Ragamuffin followed Nico about like a lovesick fan, rubbing her silky back against his leg, purring whenever he entered the room. The more he ignored her, the more she swooned.
But then, I’ve never met a female who didn’t swoon over Nico, Eve thought, yawning, as she tossed her panty hose over the back of the sofa and then padded barefoot into the bedroom.
No message from Nico. Damn, she really wanted to tell him about the new Estée Lauder contract Natalie had outlined for her tonight. She glanced at the ormolu clock on her bedside table and did a quick mental calculation of London time. It was still an hour or more before dawn would bathe the River Thames in pale mist. Well, the news would have to wait until morning. If she didn’t get her weary body into bed soon, she’d be comatose on her already aching feet.
A thud echoed through the penthouse. Eve froze. A tentacle of fear constricted her heart. Cautiously she edged to the door and peered out, then laughed at her own jumpiness. Ragamuffin had knocked her appointment book off the coffee table and now stood over it, pawing the pages.
“Troublemaker! I bet you wouldn’t even meow if someone was hiding in here!” she scolded. She rescued the book and on second thought double-checked the burglar alarm. Everything was fine. After all, Clara had called the security company last week after the letter had come, and had upgraded the system—just in case.
And anyway, she told herself, returning to the rose and cream bedroom, he was probably just some harmless nut case who would never be heard from again.
Eve unzipped the clingy gold lamé sheath and snaked it to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, her eyes locked on a beautifully wrapped package nestled among the brushes and crystal perfume bottles on her dressing table. It was unmistakably a wedding present, swathed in silver and white doves and thick satin ribbon.
“Nana!” Eve exclaimed as she recognized the familiar script on the card. “What could this possibly be?” She tore off the paper and opened the box, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
She caught her breath as she saw the magnificent tablecloth of ivory Finnish lace tucked between protective layers of white tissue. Eve stroked the delicate stitching with reverence. “Oh, Nana, your heirloom tablecloth,” she whispered, and for a moment tears blurred her eyes.
An instant later she was on the phone to Minneapolis. There was no way she would wake Nana. Liina Hamelainen never went to bed before two a.m.
“Nana, I don’t know what to say.” Eve brushed away a tear and smiled, picturing her stately, silver-haired grandmother propped in bed with a crossword puzzle on her lap and her Nikes perched alongside her exercise bike. “It’s gorgeous. You know how much I’ve always loved it.”
“Evie Bettina, you enjoy it for many, many years. I know it’ll be in good hands.”
“It will, Nana.”
Her grandmother chuckled. “You know, I’ve always meant it to be yours. I never saw anyone’s eyes shine the way yours did when you used to help me set the table each Thanksgiving. Margo, she never noticed anything but her books—but you, you’re as sentimental as I am and you always appreciated the few things of beauty we had. Of course, now that you’re a rich and famous model, you can afford to buy whatever you want, but I still knew you would like to have my heirloom cloth.”
“I’ll treasure it, Nana. So will Nico. And I promise you, when the time comes, I’ll pass it along to someone who will love it as much as we do.”
She’d have to tell Nico about the tablecloth in the morning, she thought as she tumbled into the satin-sheeted featherbed a short time later. Darkness cloaked the room as she switched off the nightlight. Ragamuffin leapt on to the bed and burrowed into Nico’s pillow with a sharp meow.
“You miss him too, don’t you, baby?” Eve smiled as she curled on her side. Her eyes closed. She was fast asleep before Ragamuffin could purr an answer.
* * *
Someone was in the apartment.
The unmistakable creep of cautious footsteps woke Eve.
“Nico? What is it, darling?”
Silence, except for Ragamuffin snoring on the pillow beside her. Then she remembered. Nico wasn’t there. He was still in London.
Then who...
She sat upright in the bed, fear punching into her gut.
Oh, God, it’s him. He’s going to kill me.
She heard it again, the barest whisper of movement. She strained to see through the thick darkness but was unable to discern anything beyond the green quartz crystals of her bedside clock that read 2:30 a.m. She groped along the wall next to her pillow for the panic button on the security panel. Her movements seemed excruciatingly slow and her trembling fingers couldn’t find the panel. Oh, God, where is it? Please, please...
Bile rose in her throat. Panicking, she swung her hand in a wider arc, toppling the African violet. It fell to the carpeted floor with a thud. She heard a soft laugh.
Then she saw him, a shadow sliding silently toward the bed.
Eve screamed, her voice piercing the night. Over and over she screamed.
Terror paralyzed her, freezing the blood in her veins, choking the breath from her. He came closer. She tried to jump up from the bed, but her leaden body refused to respond. She was helpless, immobile. And then he was upon her. As he grabbed her hair she saw the glint of the knife slicing toward her face...
* * *
“No!”
Eve sat up, her breath coming in tortured rasps. All around her was darkness and silence. The apartment was empty. She listened, hearing only the sound of her own labored breathing.
She was alone. Nico was in London, Clara was at her sister’s, and there was no one there. No one.
It had been a nightmare, nothing more.
Still, she sat there on the pillow-strewn bed, shivering, afraid, her palms slick with sweat, her nightgown stuck to her clammy skin.
Oh, God, would she ever be free of this fear?
There had been only one letter, she reminded herself. One. Probably a prank.
So why couldn’t she believe that?
She fell back against the pillows and glanced at the clock beside the lush African violet. Four a.m. And she hadn’t gone to bed until one.
Yesterday had been such a grueling day that she’d been sure she’d sleep like a baby. The shoot had been an eternity of wet hair and icy, damp bathing suits interspersed with brief respites of heated bathrobes and gulps of hot coffee. Never had she worked with such a bear of a photographer, an up-and-coming jackass who had reduced one of the girls to tears and taken so long to set up his lighting that it had been after seven when they’d finally finished. Every muscle had ached by then and all she’d wanted was to retreat to the solitude of home for a long soak in the tub and the warmth of her down comforter.
But her agent had hosted a dinner meeting, and she’d had to go and play supermodel. All through dinner she’d relished the prospect of getting home, getting comfortable, and sleeping until ten, so she’d be relaxed and ready for her Esquire interview the next day. Now here she was, wide awake at four a.m., spooked, shivering, and wishing like hell Nico were there.
She rubbed her bleary eyes. Only a nightmare. But it had been so real. Damn her all-too-avid imagination. Why couldn’t she be more like Margo? Even as a little kid, her composed, ivory-blond sister had scoffed at the boogeyman. Margo, so analytical and logical, had never been susceptible to slumber-party horror stories. Instead, she had gleefully recounted in grisly detail the tales of ax murderers and ghostly visitors to Eve, preying upon her little sister’s gullibility. Terrified, Eve had lain awake through countless nights, listening to every creaky floorboard in that tiny tract house in Duluth.
I’ve got to stop this, or else I’m going to lose my mind. If Nico were here, I’d feel safe. He’s always made me feel safe.
The very first time she’d met him he rescued her. Attending a rock concert in Lisbon, Eve had been caught up in the surge of a crowd gone wild. Trapped in the stampede, separated from her escort and certain she’d be trampled, she twisted and turned, strangling in the press of bodies, but found no crevice for escape. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a strong arm encircled her waist and dragged her from the bedlam. Moments later she was in a sleek silver sports car beside the most handsome man she had ever seen.
Nico Caesarone was six feet tall, with silky black hair and bedroom eyes the color of the Mediterranean. She’d learned later he was one of the top race car drivers in the world. He took her to a tiny sidewalk café, ordered thick peasant soup with crusty bread and dry red wine, and sang snatches of bawdy Italian love songs to her in an off-key baritone until she giggled away the last remnants of the ordeal she’d just been through.
She fell in love with him that very night.
Nico. She could almost smell the exotic, musky scent of him, could almost see his lean, sensuous face and feel his kiss. If only he were there with her now. With his strong arms around her, her head nestled against the dark, matted hair of his chest, she always felt protected. Or at least she had until the letter had come.
She hadn’t told Nico about the letter. She hadn’t told anyone. She’d simply torn it up and thrown it away, as if that would make her fear disappear.
It hadn’t.
Instead, the terse message wrapped around the tiny scrap of fabric had haunted her with its sinister warning.
Maybe I should go to London. A few days with Nico right now will be heaven. Except for the interview, my schedule is clear until Monday—I can catch a flight tonight and surprise him...
The sudden jangling of the phone made her jump.
“Eve, I know it’s disgustingly early, but I really need to talk to you.” Monique sounded urgent, but regal as always. “I waited as long as I could before I phoned...”
Eve glanced at the clock. Six-fifteen. Shit, she’d been lying here scared out of her mind for more than two hours.
“What’s up?”
“I can’t explain it all on the phone, but believe me, you’ll want in on this. How soon can you get here?”
It was a longtime habit. When Monique D’Arcy, now the editor of Perfect Bride magazine, called, Eve still jumped. Twenty minutes later Eve dashed out the door into the fresh pastel pinkness of the morning, adroitly sidestepping an early morning jogger.
“Your taxi’s double-parked, Miss Hamel. Let me get the door for you.”
She nodded absently as Eddie, three steps ahead of her, swung the cab door open with a flourish worthy of a royal footman.
“You look very pretty for so early in the morning, Miss Hamel,” the middle-aged Jamaican doorman said, “very pretty.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” Eve said. Sure, pretty. No sleep, no coffee, no makeup. She hadn’t even taken time to put on lipstick.
No matter how many covers she’d done for Vogue, she still thought of herself as that gangly teenage wallflower who’d desperately wanted to be pretty like her sister. She’d hated herself because she wasn’t five inches shorter and somebody’s girlfriend. All those years of being nobody while Margo was the golden girl, so lovely, so smart, so popular. And then suddenly, the summer before her senior year, it had been as if a fairy godmother waved a magic wand over her head and answered her prayers.
Eve gave herself a shake as the taxi maneuvered along Central Park West toward the Dakota, dodging potholes. She wished she’d had time for a cup of coffee, she reflected, her shoulders settling back between the broken springs that poked through the faded green upholstery. But Monique had sounded so insistent, she’d only taken time to throw on her sweats and Nikes, scrunch her hair into a ponytail, and stuff a bagel into her pocket.
What a night. She dug the bagel out of her pocket and broke off a chunk. She had to get out of New York. At least she’d be able to sleep in London, with Nico beside her. Maybe, for just a few days, she could forget about that damned letter.
As the cab slammed against the curb at One West Seventy-second Street, Eve was almost smiling, picturing Nico’s face when he came into the darkened suite at the Savoy to find her in his bed, wearing nothing but her engagement ring, a dab of perfume, and a wicked smile.
Perfect.
* * *
“Just say you’ll do it, Evie B! Promise me you’ll do it.”
Monique grabbed her hands and pulled her into the spacious, sunlit apartment. Eve stared in surprise. The usually immaculate red and charcoal rooms that mirrored Monique D’Arcy’s own unique drama and charm looked like a landfill. The Oriental rug was strewn with crumpled balls of paper, coffee cups and candy wrappers littered the onyx cocktail table, and crystal ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts. The place reeked of stale smoke and overheated coffee. The October sunlight pouring in through the expansive windows highlighted the unkempt appearance of this usually spectacular apartment.
“Watch your step. Don’t slip on the midnight oil.” Monique waved an airy hand at the mess. “Annette will be here in an hour to deal with all this, but in the meantime, I hope you haven’t eaten. I’ve got breakfast waiting for us in the dining room—coffee, strawberries, and the most yummy orange-nut muffins. I’ve been up working all night and I can’t even think straight without some carbs.”
This has to work, Monique thought as she flung open the French doors on to the terrace, allowing a reviving breeze to sweep the stale air from the apartment. She then led the way into the dining room, her pedicured bare feet skimming the pickled-oak floor. She slipped into a high-back Oriental chair, adjusted the belt of her peach satin robe, and poured steaming coffee from the silver pot into Eve’s Limoges cup.
The sunlight slanting through the dining room windows warmed Monique’s icy hands.
Last night, when Richard had left for the coast, she had been nearly overwhelmed with despair. He’d been pissed as hell about the board of directors’ reaction to the slipping circulation figures. She needed something big, something dramatic and flashy, and she needed it fast.
Every time she thought of the grim set of Richard’s face, the disappointment reflected in his eyes, she was filled with panic. She was desperate to do something so brilliant, so dynamic, he would know he’d made the right decision in naming her editor-in-chief in Shanna’s stead.
She’d stayed up all night—God, what a night. Pacing, groping, her mind racing in a frenzy fueled by cigarettes and caffeine, she’d crafted and discarded one idea after another until finally at five in the morning she’d hit on it.
It had to work. How could it not? Every instinct told her that this particular blend of glamour and romance would captivate not only subscribers and brides-to-be all over the country, but every woman who’d ever dreamed of a fairy-tale wedding. If anything would punch up Perfect Bride’s stodgy image and catapult it into the ranks of the hip and sophisticated, this would.
“OK, you win,” Eve took a sip of coffee and regarded Monique curiously. “I’m dying to know. What exactly is it you want me to do?”
As always, Monique looked exactly like what she was: a native-born French comtesse and the epitome of beauty and glamour. But this morning, beneath her carefully applied makeup and sleek sweep of shoulder-length ebony hair, her gray eyes were bloodshot and underscored with dark circles, and her skin was pale despite the rosy dusting of blush.
“I’m planning something fantastic for Perfect Bride,” Monique said, lifting one expressive black brow. Her eyes shone with excitement as she leaned forward. “And you, my love, are going to be the main attraction.”
“Don’t tell me you want me hawking magazines outside of Saks,” she warned, smearing a muffin with orange marmalade and silently promising herself to run an extra three miles to offset the indulgence.
“That’s Plan B.” Monique exhaled her rich, throaty laugh, but Eve thought her face looked pinched as she compulsively reached for another cigarette. “Plan A is somewhat more exciting. And glamorous. Think about it. What do you and Nico, me and Richard, and Ana Cates and that gorgeous Senator Farrell have in common?”
“We’re all being investigated by the IRS?”
“Bite your tongue. Okay, seriously.”
“We’re all getting married,” Eve said warily, beginning to suspect where this was headed.
Monique nodded, her smile widening. “Exactly.”
“And you want us featured in Perfect Bride?”
“Not just featured—spotlighted. Can’t you just see it on the newsstands? Eve, it’ll sell more copies than Gone With The Wind! Guaranteed.” Monique took a few swallows of coffee. Easy, she cautioned herself. Don’t oversell. “Every woman’s fantasy will be captured right there in the June issue,” she said, and suddenly the words began tumbling out. “Fame, fortune, true love. Three beautiful brides, three hunky grooms, exquisite clothes, and a honeymoon in Maui to die for. Plus, the surefire hook—the Cinderella girl.”
That was the coup de grace.
Monique’s gray eyes sparkled as they locked with Eve’s across the table. “Are you ready for this? I am going to choose some lucky Cinderella from the audience of the Oprah Winfrey Show to share the limelight with us.”
Monique watched Eve’s aquamarine eyes light with surprise, and she went on without missing a beat. “She’ll win a free honeymoon, an all-expense-paid wedding, plus get to keep all the clothes worn in the shoot—gowns, peignoirs, bikinis, sportswear—all shot on location in Maui. We’ll do wedding, boudoir, and beach shots on the island, and maybe I can even talk Richard into doing some shots on his yacht. Just picture it, Evie—three celebrity couples and one ordinary bride and groom splashed all over the pages of Perfect Bride. So,” she finished. “Will you do it?”
Monique held her breath. Eve certainly looked intrigued, but she guessed Nico might be a sticking point. Monique said a little prayer and busied herself refilling their Limoges cups. Her hands were shaking, whether from nerves or lack of sleep she wasn’t sure. Once she got past Eve and Nico, she still had to convince Ana Cates and Senator Farrell. But she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
“Evie, you know it’s going to be fabulous,” she pressed on. “I’m sure I can get Antonio to do the shoot.” She was trying as hard as she could to exude confidence, for if there was one thing she knew, it was that if you acted like you knew what you were doing, people believed you actually did. She realized she was twisting the ends of her hair around her finger, a nervous habit she’d been trying for years to break. She reached for another cigarette and lit it with slow deliberation.
A police siren screaming far below blared into the silence of the apartment. Eve forced down the last bite of her muffin. She sensed this was important to Monique, maybe even more important than Monique was admitting, but she hadn’t counted on Nico being dragged into whatever business they chose to do together. The comtesse was not one of Nico’s favorite people, not since she’d interrupted one of their early secluded weekends in Milan, pressing Eve to fill in at the last minute for a model who’d been hospitalized with bulimia. Nico, possessive by nature, had resented the intrusion into his time alone with Eve. To this day the mention of Monique’s name triggered a mutter of colorful Italian curses.
“Of course I’d love to do it,” Eve said carefully, “but I can’t speak for Nico. You know his endorsement contracts are very strict.”
“Oh, come on, let him throw his weight around.”
“It’s just that he’s still working with his designers on that new car...”
“But you’ll ask him.”
Again that urgency behind Monique’s exuberant sales pitch. Why was this so important to Monique? She was usually so smooth and high-powered, but today there was a desperate edge beneath the dynamic veneer.
This was more than just another high-concept idea. This really mattered. Maybe the magazine was in trouble. If so, Eve knew Monique would rather swallow cyanide than divulge it.
Rich, exotic, and driven, Monique D’Arcy was a born executive with meticulous taste and habits and a genius for manipulation. She was always in control of everyone and everything around her. And lucky for me that she is, Eve reflected, thinking back seven years to the terrified, willowy seventeen year-old who’d first tiptoed into the D’Arcy Modeling Agency with a scrapbook of photos clutched under one trembling arm. Monique had taken one look at the trembling innocent with the rattling kneecaps and had eased her into a chair.
“You’re my Wilhelmina, Cheryl Tiegs, and Elle MacPherson all rolled into one,” she’d breathed. “Your face was sculpted by God with the express purpose of delighting the camera. Darling, you’ve come to exactly the right place.”
And then I dropped my scrapbook on to that luscious alabaster carpeting, pages flying everywhere. Monique had laughed, the sound echoing off the beige suede walls of her corner suite. “Darling, don’t look so scared. You’re about to become the most famous model in the world. Guaranteed. All of your dreams are going to come true—even those you haven’t dreamt yet.”
She’d made good on her word. Eve would never forget how the irrepressible comtesse had pressured Sports Illustrated into featuring an untried, unknown model in their legendary swimsuit edition, relentlessly pushing to ensure that her ingenue was given the most provocative bikinis and sexiest backdrops for her smashing debut.
It had been a brilliant ploy, and a fabulously successful one, catapulting Eve into instantaneous superstardom. That had been the beginning for Eve, a stunning debut that had been followed up quickly with an Elle cover and a Vogue pictorial that had taken Europe by storm. And she owed it all to Monique. Not only had Monique helped Eve survive those first mind-boggling months of overwhelming success, but she’d become more of a sister and confidante than Margo had ever been, a guardian angel protecting her from the circling vultures ready to gobble up naive little girls from Minnesota.
Through all their years of friendship, she’d never seen Monique vulnerable, but she knew her well enough to recognize that there was something damn close to it beneath all this hype. She took a deep breath.
“Yes, I’ll ask Nico. As a matter of fact, I’ll ask him tonight.” She smiled suddenly, thinking of her little surprise. She drained the last of her orange juice and added slowly, “I can guarantee you he’ll be in a good mood, but beyond that, we’ll have to check with the lawyers.”
“I knew I could count on you. This will be dynamite.”
Monique fought against the urge to close her eyes for a moment. She knew she needed sleep, but even after Eve left, she would not let herself succumb. Sleep would just have to wait. First she needed to reel in her other big catch.
She reached for the phone, stifling a yawn. “Shit, not yet. Not until I’ve pinned down Ana Cates.”
* * *
Lying on the red silk settee, waiting for Ana Cates to return her phone call, Monique let her mind drift back to the first time she’d met Eve. She herself had been the one to transform that unsure but exquisite seventeen year-old ingenue with the cascading honey-blond hair and hopeful aquamarine eyes into the elegant sophisticate known throughout the world as Evie B. And I can transform Perfect Bride in exactly the same way. I’ve never failed at anything and I’m not going to let myself fail at this. Shanna Ives is just waiting for me to drop the ball, and I’ll be damned if I will.
But deep inside, a tiny voice reminded her that Shanna had humiliated her once before.
But this is going to work, she told herself. It damn well better work.
After all, Ana Cates was the hottest young star in Hollywood, and every weekly tabloid sold out any edition that spewed forth even the minutest details of her whirlwind romance with the dashing senator from Rhode Island.
And Eve, a superstar in her own right, was engaged to marry heartthrob European race car champion Nico Caesarone —what bride in the country wouldn’t want to look like Evie B on her wedding day?
And she herself was no slouch either. She’d made her mark in both fashion and publishing—running her own top modeling agency, discovering and representing beauties all over the world and catapulting them to stardom. And Richard—well, Richard was Richard, Monique thought wryly. Not only did he own controlling interest in so many companies that he employed ten executive vice presidents just to keep track of them, but Richard Ives was handsome, witty, and one of the most powerful, magnetic men in America.
And he’s all mine, she thought with pride at how very far she had come.
She glanced about the cluttered living room and winced, grateful that Annette would be there in an hour to restore order. Poor Eve had tried so hard to disguise her shock at seeing the state of the apartment. If it had been anyone else, I’d have been too embarrassed to let them in, but no one else would have rushed over at that ungodly hour.
Eve’s friendship was a bonus Monique had never expected. She knows more about me than anyone else except maybe Richard, Monique mused. I wonder what she’d say—what they’d both say—if they knew the whole story.
For all they knew, the Comtesse Monique Lisette de Chevalier had grown up enveloped in incredible wealth and luxury, until her playboy father gambled away all of his fortune in Monte Carlo and then ran off with a Greek shipping heiress, leaving his twelve year-old daughter and his beautiful wife, Mireille, penniless and alone. Monique and her mother had arrived in the United States with only their pride and their title to sustain them, but the exquisite Comtesse de Chevalier had quickly recouped by marrying a Texas oil millionaire. Monique, however, hating her stepfather, had proclaimed herself wary of entrusting her heart or her future to any man’s control, and had been determined to make her own fortune, one no one could take away from her.
She had succeeded brilliantly, according to all accounts, first as a buyer for Saks, then as a consultant to Edith Head, and later as a fashion editor at Glamour and then managing editor of Seventeen. Eventually she had struck off on her own, building an elite stable of the world’s most sought-after models—the legendary D’Arcy Modeling Agency. Now she had taken on a new challenge, abdicating her post as president of the agency to helm foundering Perfect Bride, owned by her very own fiancé.
Sounds good to me, Monique thought, stretching languorously on the settee. A little fact, a little fiction. So I fudged some of the details. Like my mother being the Comtesse de Chevalier instead of being her seamstress. What would Richard say, she wondered, if he ever found out how much I hate Shanna, and why?
Shanna Mulgrew Ives was a part of her past, a part she wouldn’t forget, not until she’d settled the score.
The ringing of the phone jarred Monique from her reverie. She stared at it, praying it was Ana Cates, and praying Ana would say yes.
Please, God, let her say yes.
* * *
“Eve bambina, for God’s sake, where are you? You’re my one ray of sunshine in all this damned foggy drizzle. I miss you,” Nico murmured, his voice purring sensuously from the answering machine. “I miss your eyes looking into mine when we wake in the morning. I miss your lips, the taste of you. I miss your... argh! Where could you be so early? Never mind, I will call you after my dinner meeting. And bambina—please be there.”
Caught between a laugh and a groan, Eve clicked off the machine. If only Nico were there with her instead of an ocean away. The raspy purr of his voice was driving her crazy. Even from another continent he could seduce her. Her delicious, romantic Italian. She pictured him making the call, dark and brawny and wild, his white silk shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands raking through his hair in frustration as he paced back and forth. Nico had the body of a Greek god, the soul of a poet, and the hands of Svengali. Even now her body was responding to him, desire aching through her.
I miss you too, sweetheart.
Propping her flight confirmation on her dressing table alongside the crystal perfume bottles, brushes, and creams, she stripped off her clothes and mentally packed her suitcase. She padded naked across the lush carpeting to the glass-doored sun room, where a jungle of dieffenbachia and philodendrons nestled in their Chinese porcelain pots. Slipping into the steaming tub, she blasted the jets full strength and gave a sigh of pure pleasure. Tiny drops of mist lightly stung her face. Eve felt all remnants of tension melting away, into the swirling water.
In the bright light of day, her nighttime fears seemed absurd. She leaned over, reaching for the thick lace-trimmed towel—and froze.
The green envelope was nearly concealed by the fronds of the dieffenbachia. But it was there, tucked among the leaves, marked with the unmistakable penmanship she had seen once before.
She sat on the edge of the tub. He had been here—maybe he was still here.
She screamed.
Clara ran in from the kitchen, eyes wide, her flour-dusted hands gripping her apron.
“Call the police,” Eve gasped, clutching the towel to her with shaking hands. “Someone’s been in the apartment. Oh, God, he might still be here.”
White-faced, Clara went to the bedroom phone. Eve stared at the envelope, fighting back nausea. Part of her wanted to tear it into little pieces and throw it away without reading it, but the other part of her needed to know. Filled with dread, she tore into the flap. As she pulled out the single sheet of lined green paper, a scrap of gold lamé fabric drifted on to her lap.
“Oh, God, not again.”
The green paper seemed to burn right through her icy fingers. He wasn’t going away. He was drawing closer.
What was she going to do?