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BECAUSE OF THE TIME difference, it was noon when we arrived at Vegas’ McCarran International Airport. Tank had called ahead for a car for us, and we were taken to The Four Seasons Hotel at Mandalay Bay, where Blackwell had reserved two adjoining rooms for us—each Presidential Suites.
When Tank went into his room to shower and change after the trip, Alex and I went into ours, and I have to say that what I saw as we entered the suite was nothing if not disarming. It was bright and sunny and beyond elegant and the Art-Deco vibe was almost palpable.
“Apparently, this is where the whales roll,” Alex said as we moved through the foyer and into the living room with his arm around my waist.
“It’s stunning,” I said. “And the air is so cool. My God, it was hot when we got off that plane. It reminded me of the kind of heat we experienced on the island, but without the humidity.”
“Let’s not even think about the island,” he said.
“Done.”
“Would you like a drink?”
“Maybe just half a glass of wine? We both need to be sharp when we see Jones. Otherwise, I would ask for a martini.”
“You got it,” he said.
He stepped over to the bar to see what they had in stock while I moved toward the wraparound, floor-to-ceiling windows that encompassed us. We were on the highest floor—the thirty-ninth—and the panoramic views of the Strip and the mountains beyond it were something to remember. “It’s gorgeous,” I said.
“For your first time here, I wish it were under better circumstances,” Alex said. “Vegas can be fun.”
“Another time—you know, maybe after you’ve taken down Stephen Rowe.”
“We’ll touch glasses to that in a moment.”
He removed a bottle of wine from the wine cooler tucked beneath the bar and raised his eyebrows when he checked the label. “This place doesn’t mess around,” he said, holding up the bottle for me. “Screaming Eagle sauvignon blanc. They want a grand for it—and I say that we deserve it.”
“Don’t they have a box of wine?” I asked. “That kind of money sounds ridiculous for a bottle of wine.”
“You’ve actually had better.”
“Maybe I have—not that I know about it. But never forget that I’ll always be the girl who values you more than I do any of this. We could live in a shack and I’d be happy.” I looked around the suite while he popped open the bottle. “I mean, look at this place. Talk about over the top.”
He poured two glasses of wine, and came over to hand me one. “To us,” he said as we touched glasses. “And to finishing this.”
“To finishing it.”
We sipped, and I found the wine cool, crisp, fruity, and light.
“So, where’s the bedroom?” Alex asked.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe I have something in mind...”
“Alex, I’d love nothing more than to be with you right now, but if you have your way with me, I’ll just be one hot mess when we meet—”
He stopped me by putting his hand on my ass. “Later, Mrs. Wenn. I’m thinking about later. Let’s go and have a look.”
The master bedroom was off to the left, past a small office area that had a glass desk with three chairs—two on one side of it, one on the other. When we stepped into the bedroom, it certainly didn’t disappoint.
On the gray textured walls were modern works of art, a Lalique Bacchantes vase glinted in the sun on one of the side tables, and the king-size, four-poster bed sitting across from us looked downright luxurious. It was placed along the wall that faced another display of windows. I could only imagine the Strip views when the sun set behind the mountains, and Vegas was allowed to fully ignite to glittering life.
“So,” Alex said with a grin. “You know—for later.”
“For later,” I agreed. “Now, we need to focus. Why don’t we relax for a bit, talk strategy with Tank, and then shower and change before we go to see Janice? Sound like a deal?”
“Actually,” Alex said, “if luck is on our side, this might be just the first deal we’ll make today.”
* * *
“IT’S LIKE A MASSIVE gold brick,” I said to Alex and Tank as we neared Trump’s Turnberry Towers. We were in a limousine driving south on the Strip, and the building, which was to our left, gleamed in the afternoon sun as if it were a beacon of golden light for the privileged, which naturally is what the Trump brand wanted. “Look at it—it’s almost the color of Trump’s hair, only—uh—more well kept.”
“There’s an observation,” Alex said.
“Well, somebody had to make it.”
“At this point, I’m surprised he hasn’t plated his teeth in gold,” Tank said, and when he said it, I just turned to look at him. Once again, Tank had showed us his sense of humor, and as always, it surprised and delighted me.
“Aren’t you cheeky?” I said.
“Just an observation,” Tank said dryly, but I caught the amusement in his eyes for a moment before it vanished from them and he became serious. “So, I’ll escort you to her condo on the Dream level—whatever that is—and will wait outside her condo while you talk with her.”
“That’s right,” Alex said. “But let’s just hope that the Dream level doesn’t turn into a horror show.”
Tank nodded at that. “Good luck,” he said.
* * *
WHEN WE ENTERED THE building, it was five o’clock sharp, and I was terrified that Jones might have reconsidered seeing us.
But I was wrong.
When we entered the private lobby that was reserved specifically for the Dream level, we spoke to a gentleman behind a desk, and he picked up a phone and punched a few numbers. After a moment, he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Wenn to see you, ma’am. They also have a guest, who is part of their security detail. No, he will be standing outside your door until they leave. Shall I send them up?” He paused for a moment. “I’m sorry? You do want to see them? All right. Thank you, Ms. Jones. I’ll send them up now.”
The man hung up the phone and looked at us. He was an older man—mid-fifties, I’d say—and everything about him exuded confidence, poise, and professionalism. “The elevators are just over there,” he said, pointing behind us. “Ms. Jones is on the forty-fifth floor. Suite 45D. She’ll see you now.”
* * *
“DID YOU CATCH WHAT he said?” I said to Alex and Tank as the elevator soared toward Jones’ floor. “He said, ‘I’m sorry. You do want to see them?’ Did you hear that?”
“I heard it,” Alex said.
“So did I,” Tank said.
“That sounds to me as if she might have spoken to him earlier and had a change of heart about seeing us, which makes me want to hurl. There is so much riding on this meeting, my heart won’t be able to take it if she turns us away. And she still could do it, you know? She could open that door and say that whatever we’ve come for no longer interests her. Pray that isn’t the case.”
Luckily, it wasn’t.
When we reached Jones’ condo, Alex rang the buzzer, and we waited for what seemed to me like an eternity before the door swung wide, revealing a beautiful, polished young woman who was dressed to the nines and who was perhaps a few years older than me.
Janice Jones obviously knew the power of clothes, and she had brought that power straight to the forefront in an effort to make a serious first impression.
She’d won.
She was wearing a sleeveless, embellished-front black silk blouse with a dramatic halter neckline that emphasized her breasts—which, unlike Epifania’s, were in proportion to the rest of her body.
Her ivory-colored pants sat at the navel and had voluminous wide legs that moved in the way that only silk could. Other than a pair of large diamond studs that glimmered at her ears, Janice Jones had made the decision to wear no other jewelry. Her blonde hair had been pulled away from her face in a chic ponytail, which revealed the angular, delicate features of a face that also possessed perfect skin. On her feet were a pair of black Louboutins that I owned myself.
She looked flawless—and I had to admit that because of her background as a stripper, she was not at all what I had been expecting. If Stephen Rowe was going to cheat on Meredith, no wonder he’d chosen this woman.
“Hello,” she said with a smile and an extended hand. “I’m Janice Jones, but I gather you already know that.”
Alex and I shook her hand and exchanged greetings while Tank hung back and remained on the sidelines. Not that Janice Jones was having that. She came forward and also shook Tank’s hand.
“I’m assuming by the sheer size of you that you are Alex and Jennifer’s security guard?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Janice.”
“Tank.”
“Tank?”
“My real name is Mitch, ma’am.”
“I like Tank—it suits you. And I have to say, Tank, that you look as if you could get the job done. But it seems silly for you to have to stand out here, though I understand that it’s probably safest that way due to privacy concerns. Can I at least offer you something to drink? I just made some iced tea.”
“I’m fine, but thank you.”
“You men are always fine,” Janice said. “But it’s hot in the desert, so I insist. Let me show Alex and Jennifer inside, and I’ll be back with some iced tea for you.” She looked at us, and on her face I saw nothing but a polite woman moving aside so Alex and I could step past her. “Please,” she said. “The great room is just down the hallway. I’ll dip into the kitchen, grab a glass of tea for Tank, and then I’ll join you. Give me two seconds.”
When she moved left into the kitchen, Alex and I stepped silently into the great room, which was indeed great. It had to be at least twenty-feet wide, it was bright with sunlight, and the walls were painted pure white. Straight ahead of us was a sheet of windows interrupted only by two large glass doors that opened onto an expansive-looking terrace that overlooked the north end of the Strip.
“It’s beautiful,” I said to Alex.
“No arguments here. We should buy one of these.”
“Not happening. It would just remind me of Rowe.”
“Point taken.”
We heard a door open, there was an exchange of words, Janice laughed, and then she closed the door, locked it, and clicked down the hallway toward us.
“Well,” she said as she entered the room. “Here you are—in my go-away home. Pretty, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I said.
“Personally, I can’t stand it, but then you know that from Epifania. I’d rather be back in New York with the man I love, but you two managed to chase him away from me when he became CEO and chairman of the board of Wenn Enterprises, and Alex decided he didn’t like it.” A darkness came over her face as she stopped before us and clapped her hands together once. “So, here is how this is going to go. I’ve asked Stephen to call me at six. In fact, I ordered him to. I told him that if he didn’t, I’d be calling Meredith, which put him in a terrible mood—but who cares? I certainly don’t. The way I see your little visit going is like this—you two motherfuckers have one hour to tell me why you came here, why you want to destroy my chances of being with the love of my life, and why in hell I should listen to whatever it is you have up your sleeves. If you fail to convince me on any level that I should go forward with your plans, I will tell Stephen myself that you were in his house and the reasons why you came. I may be wrong, but I believe that you came here for blackmail.”
“And I believe that you’re living in Stephen and Meredith Rowe’s house,” Alex said. “Not just Stephen’s. Let’s just be correct about that.”
“For the time being, I suppose that’s true. But it won’t be when he divorces her, which he will. He told me that he will. And I believe him and I will protect him because I know what I see in his eyes when he looks at me.”
“Lust?” Alex said. “Or love?”
“You know,” she said with a little toss of her head. “We can end this right now if you’d like. I have no time for vague shades of hostility, even from the likes of the great Alexander Wenn.”
“And I don’t have any time for bullshit, Janice. So, here’s what else we can do. We can sit down on Stephen and Meredith Rowe’s lovely sofas and talk about how you can walk away with twenty million dollars cash in your pocket. That is, of course, if you give us the information we need to crush the man who doesn’t love you, who will never love you, and who also will never marry you. Because if he did love you? If he loved you the way that I love my wife? Oh, he would have dumped Meredith Rowe, just as he promised you he was going to do, say, about a year ago. Because that’s what love is, Janice. It’s sacrificing everything you have to be with the one you love most. But you already know that. You’ve already thought long and hard about that. So, you know, all of this really comes down to you. Whether we talk is your choice. Because in the end, I’ve already won.”
“And what the hell does that mean?” she said.
He reached into the front pocket of his khakis and pulled out the iPhone Tank had asked him to put there earlier. He lifted it in front of himself and showed the face of it to Janice. “I’ve been recording you,” he said. “Well, I was recording your voice through the thin material of my pants, but now I’m literally recording you. And you’ve just admitted to being in love with Stephen Rowe, that you’re living in his and his wife’s house, and that you two have been having an affair. Is that enough for me to take Rowe down? With the right press behind me, I know it is, if only because of the scandal that would ensue. But here’s the thing, Janice. I really, really hate Rowe. I can’t stand him. I want to see the man squirm, not just because he has taken my positions at Wenn, but because of certain, unforgivable things he said and did to my wife that went beyond the pale. And since I know that you’ve got the real goods on him, you’re going to have to come through with them if you want my twenty million.”
And at that, Janice Jones, who once stood so poised and ready to strike, visibly balked, but only for a moment before collecting herself and smoothing her hands down the sides of her pants. She lifted her head and studied us with new eyes. Though I knew that she’d never admit it out of pride, I could tell that she’d never seen this coming—and that we’d formally just shoved her into a corner.
“The clock’s ticking, Janice,” Alex said with his phone still trained on her. “So, what do you want to do? Come clean with us? Give us something that I can really use to bury Rowe forever? Assuming you have anything, of course—but we’ll get to that. Or are you going to be stupid and just throw that kind of money away?”
“If I tell you anything, how can I even trust that you’ll come through with the money?” she said.
“First of all, let’s be clear before we go any further. Do you have something I can use against Rowe? Something that would destroy him? Deface him? Ruin him?”
She glanced fleetingly at the phone. “Maybe.”
“Right now there are no maybes, Janice. Either you do or you don’t. Which is it? What do you have on the man who doesn’t love you? The man who’s just been stringing you along?”
When Alex said that, when the truth of his words finally managed to sink into her heart and her soul, that’s when everything changed. I could feel a shift in the air, a new tightrope of tension that hadn’t been between us before. I looked at Janice, and it was as if I could see her standing on the tip of a precipice of doubt trying to make up her mind and jump off of it.
“You wouldn’t believe what I have on him,” she blurted. “I was saving it for myself should I ever need to use it against him. So that he would be forced to divorce that bitch of a wife of his. So he would be forced to marry me.”
“And what would that be?”
She wavered for a moment before she spoke.
“I won’t ask again, Janice—your money is hanging in the balance.”
“Fine,” she said. And then, in a fit of passion and rage, she told us everything she had in her possession, which for a moment, left Alex and me speechless.
“You know that you’ll need to prove all of that to me before I hand over my money to you, right?” Alex said to her.
“I’m aware of that.”
“Good. And by the way—it will be ten million up front, and ten million more for the follow through I have in store for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll tell you in time. But first I need to know whether you can prove it.”
“I can prove it,” she said. “All of it. That’s not an issue. But if you don’t come through with that money, Wenn, and I mean all of it, I’ll come after you for illegally taping me. For trying to bribe me. For flying out here to harass me. Everything you’ve done to me is caught on that phone. So here’s the deal—if you do plan to use that recording against Stephen, it’s not only him or me who should feel cornered here. It’s also you because you’ve broken the law.”
And at that, Alex just smiled and eased back against one of the sofas. He patted the seat next to him, and with my heart hammering in my chest given the exchange I’d just witnessed, I joined him.
“Look, why don’t we all have a seat and just relax?” Alex said to Janice. “Stop looking so stressed out. You already knew your relationship was a sham, so own it. End it. Walk away from it a wealthy woman. Trust me, if you do come through, I’ll destroy this message in front of both of us. I’ll even go so far as to smash the phone into tiny bits if it’ll make you happy. Because all I want is what only you can bring, and all of us now know what that is.” He shrugged at her. “So, bring it. Or not. Your decision, but if you want my money, you need to decide now.”
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, WHEN we arrived back in the city, it was late afternoon, but Alex wasted no time in putting into action the end of Stephen Rowe.
At our apartment, he went to his office and called for an emergency board meeting to take place the following day at noon sharp.
With each board member he spoke to, including Rowe, he said that if all weren’t present at the meeting, he would have to take certain matters into his own hands, which—as he made clear—meant going to the press with information that should be kept quite. “For Wenn’s sake,” he said. “Because if this gets out, it will burn Wenn.”
That was just enticing and mysterious enough for the entire board to agree to cancel their previous engagements so that they could be there. As for Rowe, Alex gave him no time to talk. He simply delivered the news, and hung up on him.
“And now what?” I asked him.
“Right now, Rowe is in full panic mode. I guarantee you that he’s trying to reach Janice Jones as we speak. He knows this has to do with him, and he’s going to ask her if we somehow got to her. Whether she answers her phone is the big question. If she does and she decides to tell him the truth—about our offer and about flying back to New York so she can provide the evidence that will condemn him—we might be screwed.”
“Because in the end, her love for him could win out,” I said.
“That’s right. And also because he might say everything she wants to hear if she does talk with him.”
“All of this is enough to make my stomach hurt.”
He wrapped his arm around me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should have invited him to take a seat on the board. But like Janice, he won me over, too.”
“And now she’s at her apartment, presumably gathering the evidence you need to use against him. We won’t see any of it until tomorrow morning, which means that neither of us is going to sleep well tonight—if at all. What if she has second thoughts? What if she was bluffing about what she has in her possession? I can’t stand it, Alex. With the board meeting set, there’s too much on the line. You could lose this if she doesn’t come through. You’d be shamed in front of all of them—and Rowe? He’d just be allowed to gloat.”
“Look,” he said. “Let’s have dinner. And then we’ll have a drink and try to relax. Because there’s nothing either of us can do now, Jennifer. We’re just going to have to trust in her promise to come through for us. If she doesn’t, she’ll be giving up plenty.”
“But if she does, she’ll forever be losing Stephen Rowe. Which is more powerful? The man, or the money?”
“After the way Janice came after us when we first entered her apartment?” He shrugged. “I seriously don’t know.”
