Her cheeks prickled. “Doesn’t matter what the circumstances are, how nice a room I might be in—I’m being held against my will. I don’t have a choice. I’m not a free agent.”
“Well, you mostly are, you know. So long as you don’t try to leave my care, there isn’t all that much that I’d have to stop you from doing.”
“What about going home?”
“We maybe could stop by there on the way back. I’d have to ask Mr. Agostini.”
“But I couldn’t stay.”
“Well, if you made a point of it, I’d have to ask Mr. Agostini, but I wouldn’t expect so. You’re being ‘held,’ as you say, in pretty relaxed conditions, but I think the point of it is that your father’s going to be cooperative while Mr. Agostini keeps a hold of you.”
He smiled. “If we were to let you go back and be captive at home, as it were, then old Mr. Grace might be forgiven for maybe losing sight of the fact that Pierce Agostini was holding something over him. Do you see? Did I make too much of a stew out of that?”
“No, I understand you perfectly. So, I’m not free.”
“No, in the strictest sense of it, it’s true that you’re not free and you are being held a hostage. And at this moment, it’s me who’s doing the holding. Will we go shopping now?”
~~
Calhoun checked them out of the hotel and drove her to a shiny mall. Set around the swirling white marble walkways were the usual Old Navy, Gap, River Island, and Banana Republic. On the upper floors were Armani Exchange, Gucci, and Hermes.
“A lot of ladies like Primark or maybe H&M, I believe.” Calhoun had a gleam in his eye and she knew he was kidding.
“Sure they do,” she said. On the store directory, Princess had spotted a name that she remembered from the day before. “This lady would like to start at Burberry.”
Having him follow her into the shops and then stand, waiting patiently to pay for her choices and carry the bags, brought another set of confusing sensations.
As she picked her way through dresses and underwear, Princess caught the glances of other girls shopping. The fact that Calhoun followed her, waited for her, attended her, and guarded her provoked interest. Admiration, even. For a moment, she thought, If they only knew.
Two local girls nudged each other as they watched her across the racks, two girls about her own age, girls out shopping for clothes on a regular weekday morning. She considered what Calhoun said back in the hotel. If they knew her circumstances, would they sympathize, or would they offer to trade places with her?
The first print dress that caught her eye was brighter than the one she had on. Lighter in color and more of a contrast with her Doc Martens. It was waisted with a belt and made of a lustrous silk, too.
With a couple more from the rack and two button-fronted plaid dresses, she got an approving nod from the assistant by the door to the changing cubicles. In the changing room mirror, Princess couldn’t tell if it was her or if the silk prints made her look tougher than usual. Somehow worldlier.
That took back her to wondering again about last night and her whole insides turned over. How can I not know? There must be something, some clue somewhere. She knew she had to resist panic, whatever it took. She turned to see the dress in another angle.
She had brought four dresses into the changing room and she scooped up the other three, along with her own dress she had taken off. On the way to the cash desk, she passed the rack and collected another two plaid dresses in different colors and told the clerk, “I’ll have all of these.”
The eyes of the redhead and the blonde who had watched her sparkled, and the blonde pressed her lips between her teeth as she looked from Princess to Calhoun and back.
When he’d paid and grabbed the bags, Calhoun said, “Will you be needing anything else now, Miss?”
Princess lifted her chin. “Yes, I will. First, I need to take a look in Wolford or Rigby & Peller.” The inspiration had been to shock him, but Princess felt another, deeper motive at work inside her.
Calhoun’s phone rang. From his face as he looked at it, she knew that it was Pierce calling.
Agostini called Princess in the SUV. Seeing her on the laptop screen in the backseat of his car he said, “Nice dress. From the bags, it looks like you managed to get quite a lot of shopping done.”
In the loose silk print, she looked like a country music star. Maybe the big-brimmed black hat had something to do with it. Princess was not a conventional beauty. She always seemed to have a natural look, like she didn’t use any makeup or even take too much trouble over her hair, but each time he saw her, she looked better to him.
She said, “I don’t think I made much of a dent in your finances, Mr. Agostini.”
“Not for lack of trying, from the look of it.”
Even sulky, with her arms folded, her knees crossed, and her toe kicking, Agostini wanted to grab hold of her. He couldn’t stop his mind replaying how her body felt across his thighs when they were in the Bentley, when he held her by his elevator at Park Place Pinnacle. Or when he carried her, kicking and yelling, out of Hotsteppa’s.
She could see his smile—at least, she would have if she ever once dragged her eyes from the window and looked at the screen.
Still facing the window, she said, “What time did you leave?”
“What?”
“The hotel. This morning, what time did you leave?”
“About six-thirty.” His brow darkened. “Why do you care?”
“I just wondered. I wondered why you left me, left Calhoun and me behind. In the hotel.”
He frowned. “I thought you could use the sleep. After a day like yesterday.”
“I still have your jacket.” She asked it like it was a question that ought to lead somewhere. Truly there were ways in which all women were baffling. He couldn’t think why she wouldn’t still have it.
“Did you want to hold on to it, like a keepsake or something?”
“Isn’t there something you want to say to me?” she said, still not looking at the screen.
“Sure there is. Princess.” He brightened. “I’ve got renovations underway in Hotsteppa’s, all in preparation for the big event. It’s all coming together.”
Her lips tightened. Her toe kicked a little faster, and whatever was out the window, she peered even harder at it. There was a pause before she said, “The club doesn’t need renovating.”
He smiled. “You’ll have to allow your new owner to be the judge of that.”
“You aren’t my owner, Mr. Agostini, new or otherwise.” Her eyes were still fixed on the side window of the car.
“You know what I mean.”
“I think I do. That’s exactly what worries me.”
“You’ve nothing to worry about, except for planning our launch event next week.”
“Launching the club?”
“No,” he told her, “we’re launching a financial instrument.”
“A what?” She sounded pissed.
“You don’t need to think about what it is that we’re launching. I’ve got that well in hand. You just concentrate on getting what we need in place for the event.”
“If I don’t know what we’re aiming to launch, Mr. Agostini, how will I know what we need?”
“Okay, here’s what it is. It’s going to be an invitation-only event, for the very cream of the financial circles. The richest and most powerful investors. Them and some girls. You should probably be in charge of recruiting the girls.”
He leaned forward, closer to the screen. The look in her eye had changed, but he couldn’t see exactly how. He watched as she gently bounced on his buttery leather.
She didn’t turn her head from the window to speak. “You assume that all of the most important and powerful investors are men?”
“I don’t assume it, Princess.” He lifted the legal pad. “I’m looking down the list of them right now. They all have men’s names.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “So, there we have it.
”
“Only a select few of the select few will be invited, and only a handful of those will actually make the cut. It has to feel like a major event.”
“Are you going to send me that guest list?”
“I’ll give you a copy ahead of the night. A lot of them will be club members already, so you’ll know them, and I definitely want your insights. We need a world-class DJ.”
She still looked like she was mad as hell about something, but he was starting to think that he would just have to get used to that and let it wash over him. She said, “That’s going to be pretty difficult.”
“Why? New York is full of superstar DJs, isn’t it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Usually. The Miami conference is this month and DJs from the whole world will be there. No amount of money will get any of the top names away from that party.”
Her look told him that he hadn’t the first clue about DJs. Whatever she told him, he would have to believe it. Pierce narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t want to spend all that much on a guy to put some mp3s together. How hard is it?”
In no hurry, she drew breath. “Much harder than you imagine. Obviously.”
He brightened. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. You obviously know plenty about it. This is where you get to earn your keep.”
“My keep?!” Now Princess faced the screen. Her eyes blazed. Even his laptop screen showed the smoldering heat in her face. She said, “Do I have to remind you that I’m being held hostage? My keep is the most basic responsibility you have as my captor.” And she sat back. On the bench of his Chrysler, between the big shopping bags.
It was a cliché, but she really was gorgeous when she was mad. Even on the little computer screen. He’d heard that said endlessly about women, but he hadn’t ever thought it before. He said, “I should get a badge made up.”
“What?”
“ ‘Hi, I’m Pierce, and I’ll be your captor this week.’ I should draw up a customer survey. ‘Would you recommend Pierce Agostini to your friends-slash-colleagues as a captor?’ ”
“You think you’re pretty clever, don’t you?”
He thought about that. “I guess I do, kinda. It’s probably a failing.” His cellphone rang. “Okay, gotta go. I guess you’ll be a couple hours on the road. You’ll be stopping to collect Dino before you get back to Manhattan. See you when you get back.”
It was all coming together beautifully.
Princess fumed after he hung up. Not a word about leaving this morning, no “sorry I didn’t leave a note.” She folded her arms tight and stared out the window. Other than asking him directly, she could see no way to find out what happened. If anything. Happened.
She clenched her teeth, crossing her arms and legs even more tightly. Staring outside through the window, she hunted for something to fix on, any focus for her concentration. Anything to stop her from wondering.
“Calhoun, how long have you worked for Mr. Agostini?”
He was slow to answer. “We go back quite a few years, Miss, I can tell you.”
“What kind of a man would you say he was?”
An even longer pause before he said, “I’d say he’s the kind of a man that’s employing me, Miss.”
She wasn’t going to get too far with that approach.
“Calhoun, could we stop by Hotsteppa’s on the way back?”
“I’m not sure that would be such a great idea, Miss.”
“Why?”
“Well, I think there’s a lot of contractors about the place. Could be a bit messy. And we wouldn’t want to be getting in their way.”
She was about to snap back and say, I’ll be the judge of what “we” want, but she really needed an ally and Calhoun was the only available candidate. Work with what you’ve got.
“Tell me about when you came over from Ireland.”
She saw his eyes in the mirror, sparkling with a look that said, Well, it wasn’t yesterday. But, amiably, he answered, “There seemed to be a lot of money all over in the nineteen nineties. Ireland wasn’t only green from the grass. European money was what we thought it was.” He spoke like he was telling a tale to a child. That was okay—Princess was happy to listen to him talk for a while.
“Turned out we were all a little bit green, too. Most of what looked like money was actually debt. A lot of people got into a lot of trouble, through no fault of their own.” He described a financial boom, followed by a massive crash. His own part seemed to be in providing what he called, “Services of a personal nature. Usually in support of account management.”
She frowned. “You make it sound like sex work.”
“There often was a physical component to the work. Not normally as enjoyable for the subjects, though. The ‘service users,’ as you might say.”
Princess thought that she was catching his drift. “Did they all survive?”
He paused. “I don’t know if it’s really something that you want to be asking questions about, Miss. Around people like Mr. Agostini, and others like myself and Callaghan, I’d suggest you put a little collar and leash of restraint on your quite natural curiosity, Miss.”
His voice and his expression in the mirror were light and pleasant, but his message was plain.
The view of Pennsylvania through the window improved very little over the next hour or so. It did nothing to take Princess’ mind off the question that she was trying so hard to avoid. She tried looking at it in other ways.
What if she had? What if last night, half or two-thirds of the way down that tequila bottle, she’d got all the way down, underneath his fine suit… Oh!
No, she couldn’t let her mind wander off that way. Quickly she turned to, what if she hadn’t? As soon as the thought formed, a sag of disappointment slackened her stomach. She felt an almost tearful loss.
Her mind fled again to the view. It was still completely dull. She had an image of herself on a rock, climbing higher as the tide came in. Slipping. Holding on as hard as she could. And slipping as the water rose. Lapped higher. Nearer. Like it would drink her.
There was a noise like a bell and the screen in the back of the seat in front of her lit up again. It was Pierce. When his face appeared on the screen, midway to looking up, her insides buzzed and crackled.
Tiny shudders and quivers rocked along the strands of nerve in her arms and her legs. The electric charge emanated from a hollow howl in her core and burst up from her stomach. An ache between her thighs radiated to her hard, sore breasts.
She couldn’t say whether the explosions were fireworks or the start of a war. All she knew was that she was fighting for control of herself. And she wasn’t winning.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you all right?”
She felt a chill. “Yes. I’m fine. Of course I am.”
A frown darkened his brow. “We need a cocktail created especially for the night. Something special and memorable. A signature mix.”
“Yes.” That was all she could manage while she collected her thoughts.
She knew the club, she knew the clientele, she had good contacts and she knew the business. She would make a phenomenal success of his launch, whatever it was. Exceed his expectations, and use that as a bargaining chip.
Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance Page 9
