Hilton slowly eased over onto his side, and Kitty, knowing that he liked being inside her, moved with him, clamping her thighs together to keep his cock firmly implanted where it was.
'That was so great,' he said, stroking the length of her arm.
Her black eyes glittered. 'It... it always is . . . with you,' she rasped, her breath still short. 'Never has a man . . . made me as happy as you do . . . Hilton. Never.'
He smiled and kissed her, wondering at the same time if what she said had as much as an ounce of truth in it. He had no doubts about his sexual prowess, but in his experience most of the women he had known for more than a few weeks had wanted a lot more from him than sex. A hell of a lot more.
Kitty was an enigma to him, however, impossible to read thus far. That she enjoyed their sex, he had no doubts. But did she want more from him? It had been six months—a long time for him to date the same woman— and he still hadn't made up his mind. She had asked for nothing during those months. Nothing.
At times she seemed like a spoiled, spaced-out hedonist, lavishing attention on her body, clothes, makeup, diet, and shopping. She was sharp, but if she had any interest in intellectual pursuits, he wasn't aware of it.
Hilton knew that she didn't really need his money, although that wasn't necessarily a criterion for judgment. After all, there were women—and men—who couldn't have enough, no matter how much they had. Kitty, who'd grown up like him, in relative poverty, was comfortably fixed now. She had a few million conservatively invested and a luxuriously decorated apartment in a modern high-rise building nearby, thanks to a very short marriage and quick divorce from a much older film producer she'd met at the annual film festival in Cannes.
Hilton wanted to believe what Kitty had told him because he liked her, admired her even. She was what the French call a tordue, a woman who's had to fight for everything. He supposed that was one of the reasons he was drawn to her . . . aside from her magnificent body, of course.
He hugged her, and she responded with a sweet kiss. 'Are you getting hungry?' he asked.
She nodded. 'Ravenous,' she said. 'You know that sex always makes me hungry.'
'Just like me,' he said. 'Willie and Boyce are on vacation, and I didn't get anybody to come in while they're gone. Should we go out and get something really good? Or we could stay piled up in bed and order in?'
She looked thoughtful for a moment. 'Let's go to Swifty's,' she said at last. 'The food's okay, not great, but it'll be fun to make all those society snobs drool over us.'
He grinned. 'I'm game,' he said. He knew how much she loved showing off her body, her clothes, and him. While he kept a fairly low profile and cared nothing for being a part of New York or international high society—a factor that made him all the more mysterious and alluring to those social titans he avoided—he was enormously rich, handsome, and available, and thus couldn't entirely avoid the scrutiny of the gossip columnists or the glaring flashbulbs of the paparazzi.
'I'm going to shower off,' he said. 'You want to join me?'
'I'd better use the other bathroom,' she said, poking his chest with a pointed finger, 'or we'll never get to the restaurant.'
He grinned again. 'I'll only be a minute.'
He kissed her and slid out of bed, heading into the big black marble and mirrored bathroom with its gold fittings.
When she heard the blast of the shower, Kitty retrieved the jewelry catalogue from the floor and flipped through it until she found the emerald ring again. She studied it closely, her black eyes darting from the ring to the estimate. When she'd had her fill, she placed the catalogue on the bedside table and heaved a sigh.
She looked toward the bathroom that Hilton was using. Maybe, she thought, I can get Hilton to spring for it. He could certainly afford it. But would he do it? She wasn't sure. She was reluctant to risk whatever future she might have with him by making what he might consider unnecessarily expensive demands on him now. And an emerald ring— Princess Karima's or not—was nothing compared with what she could have if she succeeded in landing Hilton Whitehead as husband number two.
Over the last few months, she'd asked for nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. And she'd reaped a king's ransom in gifts from him. So far, so good. Her patience was paying off. But now she was faced with a real dilemma. She wanted Princess Karima's ring. She had to have that ring.
Kitty got out of bed and went across the expanse of black marble floor to the closet where she kept a few things for occasions like tonight. She wouldn't have to go back to her apartment and change. Opening the makore wood door, she flipped through the few dresses available and made up her mind in a flash. The Roberto Cavalli with the shredded hem. The wild one in various animal prints that had a neckline that plunged down to there. And was slit up the sides to there. That and her big sable coat. The floor-length one with the hood. Very dramatic on a cold New York evening.
Oh, she thought with delight, will those stuck-up heads turn tonight! All the men will be drooling, and the bitches will crane their awful turkey necks with their horrible lifted faces to see the only woman who'll ever succeed in corralling New York's most eligible bachelor into marriage. Kitty Nguen Fleischman. The future Mrs. Hilton Whitehead.
She didn't care if the marriage lasted ten minutes or ten years, but pronouncing the vows was definitely on her menu. She was determined that he was going to be hers. Long enough to soak him for a few hundred million and garner a scrapbook full of publicity.
I'm going to become the Princess Karima of my day, she told herself with pride. The envy of women the world over. It takes a lot of hard work to become that kind of legend, but I can do it.
She slipped on the twenty-five-carat D-flawless white pear-shaped diamond that Fleischman had presented to her as an engagement ring and looked at it in the mirror, puckering her collagen-injected lips. There's a lot more where this little bauble came from, she told her reflection, and I'm going to have my pick of them.
CHAPTER 3
Ram took one last look at the familiar emerald ring, then closed the glossy catalogue from Dufour. In a loving gesture he brushed his fingertips across its slick cover before putting it atop the high stack of auction catalogues on the Napoleonic Empire desk at which he sat. Unnecessarily, he placed a heavy malachite paperweight carved in the shape of a tortoise on top of the catalogue, and positioned it square in the middle.
At long last, he thought joyously, restraining the urge to shout with glee, I can complete my work. Work that started over thirty years ago. His entire body was tense, his jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and in an attempt to relax, he lounged against the ancient leather-upholstered back of the Louis XV chair in which he sat. He could feel his pulse racing, and his heart seemed to pump in double time against his chest. Taking a deep breath of the room's scented air, he took off his gold-rimmed half-glasses, slipped them into their alligator case, and rubbed his eyes.
He was too excited to sit still, and he abruptly stood up and crossed the priceless eighteenth-century Aubusson rug to one of the four pairs of French doors in his library. They offered a view out over the gray and chilly, but elegant, rue Elzevir on which he lived. Brushing aside a faded bottle green silk drapery that was heavy with elaborate passementerie, he peered out with satisfaction.
I will have all of Paris at my feet, he thought, surveying the distinguished eighteenth-century hotel particulier opposite. Its ancient oak gates were ajar, and beyond them he could see the formally clipped garden, now barren, in the center of the limestone-paved motor court, and the old Comte de Sabin's highly polished black Bentley. The haut monde will be begging for invitations to my soirees. Even the arrogant and snobbish old comte and his viper-tongued comtesse across the street. Neighbors for many years, they had yet to acknowledge his presence with so much as a nod.
Turning from the window, he surveyed the library in which he stood. The carved, polished boiserie on the walls and the matching shelves with their thousands of leather-bound and gilt-decorated volumes glowed l
uxuriously beneath the twin antique wooden chandeliers suspended from the coffered ceiling high above. Heavily carved gilt frames surrounded early Impressionist paintings that bespoke not only great wealth but an appreciation of high culture and a discerning taste. There were even two very good Jacquelines by Picasso, purchases that he'd made in the last decade. Otherwise, the room had changed little since he had inherited the house from Jules Levant so many years ago.
Like the rest of the seventeenth-century hotel particulier, the library had seen its share of the rich and famous come and go, and, more important to Ram, a number of the truly aristocratic.
It had been 1980 when the old man had finally had the good sense to die—not without a helpful nudge in that direction—and leave all of his earthly possessions to Ram. In the ensuing years that he'd owned the magnificent house and the venerable jewelry firm of Jules Levant, however, Ram had discovered that despite his dark, handsome looks, his exquisite taste, his sizable wallet, and his respectable position, he was still considered something of a servant to the blue-blooded aristocrats who were his principal clients.
He provided them with the world's most magnificent jewelry, with stones that were unobtainable elsewhere and settings that were unmatched in design and execution. They wore his merchandise at balls and parties in their own hotels particuliers or palaces, their luxurious seaside or mountaintop summer homes, their ski chalets and yachts, and the few resorts worthy of their presence. They provided him with little more than their money in return. And while the monetary rewards were considerable, Ram had an insatiable hunger for more.
He was almost never asked to one of their soirees. Many was the Rothschild, the Bourbon, the d'Orlean, Savoie, or Hapsburg who'd crossed his threshold to partake of his hospitality without once reciprocating. Not to mention the less exalted, even if far richer, habitues of international society who had frequented his emporium and had enjoyed his home without a backward glance. No matter that he had a great fortune, this magnificent mansion here in Paris, the villa on the Cote d'Azur, a string of servants, the chauffeured Rolls-Royce, the Ferrari, and all the other accoutrements of an aristocratic lifestyle, he was still not considered one of them.
Like Levant, he had continued the discreet practice of buying jewelry from down-at-the-heel clients, offering them fair prices for their treasures, and he loaned cash to the temporarily strapped, keeping their valuables safe until they could repay him. Initially, he had thought that these practices would endear him to his clientele, but he quickly discovered that the reverse was often true. Many customers harbored resentments against him because he was privy to the shame of their impoverishment.
That would change now. For the final piece of the puzzle he'd long needed was within his grasp at last, as were the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be his. He would be far richer than most of the blue bloods who had disdained him. The objects of his obsession would no longer be able to ignore him. He would suddenly be one of them, propelled into their world by the one thing more important than bloodlines nowadays. Money.
For the other bidders at the auction, he knew that the emerald would be nothing more than a trinket. An expensive trinket, to be sure, but its intrinsic value to anyone else was nothing in comparison with what he could extract from owning it.
That ring will be mine, he told himself. No matter what it costs. No matter the competition. Nobody else is going to have it. Nobody.
He strode over to his desk and picked up the catalogue again. Flipping to her picture, he stood and gazed down at it.
Thank you, Princess Karima, he thought, a smile on his lips. And thanks be to your precious Allah that I didn't have to murder you to get the emerald. Allah akbar! He emitted a derisive snort. Allah akbar indeed.
He replaced the catalogue atop the stack, then put the malachite tortoise on it. He sat down at his desk and stared off into space. He remembered the day that Princess Karima and the famous Italian industrialist Stefano Donati had come into Jules Levant Joaillier and purchased the ring. The memory was vivid.
It had been in early spring while the couture collections were being shown, and her picture had appeared in the papers on a daily basis. She was always seated front row at the shows—as was the industrialist's long- suffering wife—since the princess was one of the handful of women in the world who could still afford couture and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on her wardrobe. Donati was obviously madly in love with her and had recently presented her with a magnificent hotel particulier decorated by Renzo Mongiardino, the world's greatest interior designer. Tout Paris had talked of nothing else.
When the lovebirds had swept into the shop, Ram had sent an assistant to the vault, while he pulled out the book of photographs he kept of jewelry reserved for his very special clients. He didn't show the pictures to everyone, let alone the jewels themselves. In fact, very few people ever got to see his most magnificent pieces. With the emeralds, the list of clients allowed to view them was narrowed down even further. He wanted to know—had to know—the potential buyers and make certain the jewelry would be easily traceable in the future. When he had shown the only emerald remaining from his special cache, the ring, to Princess Karima and Donati, they had been stunned by its dark green beauty, despite its small inclusion.
After the sell was completed, the princess had invited him to her new home for cocktails, a social triumph. He had gone, hoping to ingratiate himself with the couple and gain entree into their rarefied world. He and the princess shared an Arab heritage after all, even if she was of royal blood, so he reasoned that he stood a good chance of becoming an intimate of the most talked-about couple in Europe. Little did he know that she would take the opportunity while having cocktails to query him about his Algerian roots, and then belittle him in front of Donati as she might the lowliest of servants. Aside from her great beauty, she was possessed of a great intelligence and quick wit, and being the object of her ridicule was one of the most embarrassing and shameful experiences of Ram's life.
The memory was as fresh in his mind as a recently inflicted wound, but he couldn't help smiling. A poetic irony lay in the fact that he should be able to get the emerald because the legendary whore of Islam—for that is the way most of Islam viewed the infidel-marrying princess—had decided to devote her life to spiritual matters. What was more, he would make certain that word ultimately reached the princess as to exactly who had purchased the ring. He knew that her fury would be that of a woman scorned.
Ram got to his feet. At a marble-topped Louis XIV gilt console that served as a bar, he poured himself an Armagnac, then lit a thin Dutch cigarillo. In the Louis XVI mirror over the console, he looked at his reflection. His black hair was tinged with the slightest silvery gray at the temples, but he thought it only made him more distinguished. His honey skin was barely marked with the signs of age. His dark eyes flashed youthfully, and the musculature of his gym-toned body was evident, even under the custom-made suit he wore. He finally tore himself away from this picture of polished perfection and sat back down at his desk. His mind swirled with the changes about to take place in his life, then inevitably went back in time to the other transactions involving the emeralds and his subsequent recovery of the stones.
The brooch had been the first piece to find a buyer. Costas Stephanides, a Greek of immense wealth, was a regular customer of the shop. When he summoned Levant to Athens or one of his Aegean Island retreats, the old man would board one of the Greek's private jets and take a hoard of his most exquisite pieces to Greece for the magnate's personal inspection. On one such occasion, Jules had been ill and had sent Ram, who took with him all of the reset emeralds. After the jet had landed in Mykonos, a Land Rover had met him and taken him directly to the Greek's hilltop mansion near Aghios Stephanos. From this perch overlooking nearly all of Mykonos and five other surrounding islands, Costas Stephanides and his mistress, the actress Marina Koutsoukou, had selected three pieces of jewelry, among them the emerald brooch.
'T
o wear on my turbans, darling,' the actress had cooed seductively as her large dark eyes blatantly swept over Ram's handsome body, despite her lover's watchful proximity.
When Stephanides died a short three years later, a bitter battle over his estate ensued, and the brooch had gone on the auction block as 'property of a lady' at Christie's. The tempestuous actress desperately needed cash to help pay her legal fees, but didn't want anyone to know how dire her situation really was. Thus, the brooch was auctioned anonymously. Ram had been the high bidder, of course, and put the brooch in the vault, where it still remained.
The bracelet had been bought by an Argentinian general for his beautiful wife, Dorisita. 'It's the same green as in my new Givenchy dinner suit,' his flame-haired wife had pronounced. Sadly, Dorisita was to have it in her possession for less than two years. The dictatorship in which her husband served an important role was overthrown by another junta, and the general and Dorisita barely managed to escape to their high-rise penthouse on Brickell Avenue in Miami. The luxurious apartment was a considerable comedown from their baroque mansion in Buenos Aires and the 180,000-acre estancia where they'd raised cattle and bred polo ponies in the country. But they had their lives at least, unlike the thousands of the general's victims whose blood he had shed in his native country. Cash was in relatively short supply, however, and the general contacted Sotheby's and sent the bracelet to auction. Secrecy was essential in this case, too, and the bracelet was sold as 'property of a lady,' as the brooch had been at Christie's. The ever watchful Ram recognized the bracelet immediately and was the high bidder at auction. Thus, the bracelet was stowed away in the vault, where it shared a small compartment with the brooch.
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