by Susan Lewis
‘Weeebang!’ Aleks cried, landing his egg neatly on the pristine white collar of Marina’s new dress.
Max braced himself as Marina’s face turned red with rage, then dropping the letter he was holding, he scooped her on to his lap as her temper suddenly deflated and she burst into tears.
‘Sssh, there, there,’ he comforted her, bouncing her up and down on his knee and stroking her long dark hair. ‘It’s nothing to cry about.’
‘But he’s ruined my dress, Daddy,’ she sobbed, ‘and it’s my best dress.’
‘It’ll wash off, honey,’ Max soothed, knowing that all Marina’s dresses fell into the category of ‘best’.
‘I don’t want to wash it off. I want it to be new. I hate you!’ she cried savagely, trying to kick her brother.
‘Hey there,’ Max said, swinging her legs out of the way. ‘Aleks, say sorry to your sister.’
‘Sowwy,’ Aleks said, not looking in the least bit contrite.
‘Smack him, Daddy,’ Marina demanded.
‘What about . . . I tickle you instead,’ Max responded, tickling her sides and making her laugh.
‘No, Daddy,’ she giggled. ‘No, I don’t like it. Daddy!’
‘Me too, Daddy,’ Aleks shouted, climbing swiftly on to the seat of his chair and launching himself bodily into the affray.
‘Ow, he hurt me,’ Marina complained, as Aleks landed on Max’s shoulders and inadvertently trod on his sister’s head.
Laughing, Max tumbled Aleks down from his shoulders and grabbing them one under each arm, ran out of the open patio windows towards the giant fountain at the centre of the courtyard, where he threatened to dump them if they didn’t make friends immediately.
Shrieking with laughter and clinging to him as if their lives depended on it, they promised they were friends, that they would never, ever argue again and that they loved each other more than anyone else in the world.
‘Daddy?’ Aleks said, as Max carried them back into the breakfast room.
‘Yes?’
‘I want to wee.’
Even as Max looked down at the darkening stain on Aleks’s shorts he could feel the damp warmth spreading over his arm. ‘Marina, quick, honey,’ he said, setting them both on the ground, ‘run and get Aleks’s potty.’
‘I don’t know where it is,’ she protested.
‘Then go ask Mrs Clay. Quickly now.’
‘What about my dress, Daddy?’ she said. ‘What are we going to do about my dress?’
‘Marina! Go do as you’re told!’ he said sharply.
Immediately Marina’s bottom lip started to tremble and closing his eyes in exasperation Max hugged her to him. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to shout. Don’t cry now. Come on, there’s nothing to cry about.’
‘I want my mommy!’ Marina wailed. ‘Nobody loves me. I want my mommy!’
‘Sssh,’ Max murmured, kissing her hair and thinking of his own mother rather than have to deal with any unwanted images of Carolyn.
‘Mommy!’ Marina sobbed.
‘Mommy!’ Aleks joined in.
‘Hey, come on now,’ Max said, kneeling in front of them and trying to comfort them. ‘It’s going to be all right . . .’
‘You don’t love me!’ Marina said accusingly. ‘You love Aleks.’
‘I love you both, honey,’ Max said gently.
‘Can I help at all, sir?’
Max looked up to find Mrs Clay, the children’s Scottish nanny, coming into the room. ‘Ah,’ he said with a grimace of relief. ‘Aleks flicked egg on Marina’s dress and . . .’
‘And it’s my best dress,’ Marina cut in heatedly, ‘and now he’s made it all horrible and I’ll never be able to wear it again.’
‘Oh, now, let me see there,’ Mrs Clay said, peering down her nose at the collar. ‘Looks like a job for Mary Poppins to me.’
Marina’s eyes grew round. ‘Mary Poppins!’ she gasped. ‘Can you do magic, Mrs Clay?’
‘After a fashion, dear,’ Mrs Clay responded, ‘after a fashion. And what about you, young man?’ she went on, turning to Aleks. ‘Shall we get you cleaned up too while we’re at it?’
‘I told Daddy I did wees,’ he informed her proudly, reaching up to take her hand.
‘Did you now?’ she remarked drolly.
‘Yes, I did,’ he said earnestly. Then cheerfully added, ‘Daddy didn’t do wees.’
Mrs Clay’s sharp green eyes moved to Max as she chuckled. ‘Well there’s a mercy,’ she remarked. ‘Now, are you going to give Daddy a hug before we go off?’
Smiling, Max kissed and hugged them and was about to return to his perusal of the morning mail when a buzzer sounded in the hall announcing someone’s arrival at the gates. A moment later Leo, the butler, came into the room.
‘Mr Remmick and Mr Zamoyski are on their way up the drive,’ he said stiffly.
‘Thank you, Leo,’ Max replied. Maurice Remmick and Ellis Zamoyski weren’t anyone with whom he needed to stand on ceremony – in fact, as his right-hand men and possibly most trusted friends, they would be astounded if Max were even to consider taking himself off upstairs to shower, shave and dress on their account.
‘All that’s missing is the chunks of gold, the pot belly and a couple of bikinied broads,’ Zamoyski joked as he and Remmick strode into the breakfast room to find Max in a black towelling robe, his bare feet propped up on an empty chair and an untidy stack of mail spilling over his plate.
Max raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you have breakfast yet?’ he said. ‘Coffee? I’ll get fresh sent in.’
‘Where’re the kids?’ Maurice asked, noticing the debris around the table.
‘Upstairs changing,’ Max answered, slapping Ellis’s hand away as he made a grab for Max’s coffee.
‘Mrs Clay working out, is she?’ Ellis asked.
‘So far so good. And yes, I still intend to take care of the kids myself as much as I can; yes, I know I need help, which is why I let you talk me into Mrs Clay; and no, I haven’t seen the papers this morning.’
Maurice grinned. ‘That predictable, huh?’ he said. ‘We’ll have to do something about sharpening up our act. I think you should look at the papers though, Max.’
The ones that count I look at,’ Max responded, tearing open another letter. The ones you’re talking about, I don’t look at.’
‘Today I think you should,’ Maurice persisted. ‘There’s a lot of speculation . . .’
‘There’s always speculation, Maurice, but there’ll never be another trial. It’s history. So let’s change the subject, why don’t we?’
‘Don’t you care what they’re saying about you?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you care what’s happening to the stock?’
‘Get real, Maurice.’
‘You’re not as rich as you think you are, Max.’
‘Correction. I’m as rich as I know I am.’
The word from New York is you’re losing your grip, Max,’ Ellis warned. ‘The forecast for this year is way down . . .’
‘Save it, Ellis,’ Max interrupted. ‘You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know and everything’s in hand. So, tell me something I need to know.’
Zamoyski glanced at Remmick, his pale, feathery lashes dropping over his blue eyes as he waited for Remmick to hand over the report they’d both read before coming here. It had arrived on Remmick’s E-mail overnight, backing up the photographs that had been wired over from Johannesburg earlier in the day. It was a fact of life that nothing was ever as straightforward as it was expected to be, so neither Remmick nor Zamoyski had expressed much surprise when they had discovered that complications were arising in an area where there ought to have been none. Both were interested to see, however, what Max would make of it.
Waiting for Leo to set down a pot of steaming fresh coffee, Maurice slanted his eyes in Max’s direction. Maurice was a good-looking man with a full head of silvery white hair and a per-manent tan. He was Max’s senior by five years, had worked for t
he Romanovs for over twenty years and was godfather to both Max’s kids. His wife, Deon, was godmother. Next to Max’s children and Galina Casimir, the Remmicks were probably closer to Max than anyone, but even after all the years of knowing him Maurice was aware that there were facets of Max’s extremely complex character that remained as much of a mystery to him now as what had happened on that fateful night Max’s wife had got herself shot. Of course Maurice knew the story Max had given, and was perfectly aware of why the DA had dropped the charge, though whether the truth had been told was another matter altogether, for the only people present in the New York house that night had been Max and his wife.
It had been a rocky marriage right from the start, but a man in Max’s position didn’t get a New York society princess pregnant and walk out on his responsibilities – at least not when the princess’s father was State Senator Harry Strominscki. The enforced union of the Romanov and Strominscki families had been the cause of the only major falling out Maurice had ever witnessed between Max and his beloved grandfather. The old guy had been so god-damned mad he had threatened to cut Max off and force him to change his name. Of course, no one ever really took the threat seriously; after all, Carolyn Strominscki could hardly be considered an unsuitable match, and it was well known that the old man’s life revolved around his grandson. But Mikhail Romanov had never made any secret of the fact that he wanted Max to marry the old Countess’s granddaughter, Galina Casimir, and the fact that Max had screwed up had been a crushing blow from which the old man had never quite recovered. What he’d have to say now about the way Max’s marriage had reached such an abrupt conclusion nine years down the line was anyone’s guess, but it was Maurice’s that the old man, unlike the rest of the world, would never, even for a moment, have countenanced the possibility that his grandson was guilty.
However, those less smitten by Max knew that not only was his guilt a possibility, it was a very definite probability, since Carolyn’s hysterical and frequently public threats to reveal things about her husband that would make ‘any decent-minded person sick to their stomach’, as well as regularly declaring that she was going to divorce him and deny him the right to his children, provided him at the very least with a plausible motive for effecting an early introduction to her Maker. But if he had pulled the trigger, and there didn’t seem much doubt that he had, then he’d sure as hell gotten away with it. And though Deon was of the opinion that no one who loved his kids the way Max did could ever harm anyone, Maurice, though he never for a moment doubted Max’s devotion to his kids, wasn’t quite so naive as his wife.
As the door closed behind Leo, Maurice reached out for the coffee pot and began to pour. ‘We’ve got some news on Rhiannon Edwardes,’ he said to Max.
Max frowned and looked up from the letter he was reading. ‘Who?’ he said.
Maurice reached down to his briefcase and pulling out a brown envelope passed it over. ‘The British TV producer,’ he explained. ‘Rhiannon Edwardes.’
Max nodded as he remembered and pushing aside the rest of his mail he emptied the envelope on to the table. ‘I take it this is her?’ he remarked, picking up a set of ten by eights and flipping quickly through the first three or four.
‘That’s her,’ Maurice confirmed.
Max’s expression was unreadable as he slowed down his perusal and reached out for his coffee. He made no comment until he reached a naked shot of Rhiannon in some kind of outdoor shower with a man. ‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded, throwing the photograph on the table. ‘And how did you manage to come by these shots? I don’t recall asking for any.’
‘She’s under investigation,’ Ellis told him.
Max frowned. ‘Police?’ he said.
‘Private.’
‘Do we know why?’ Max asked.
‘Not yet. But we do know there’s a PI following her around South Africa and that said PI, who took these shots, is in Theo Straussen’s pay.’
Max’s eyebrows went up. ‘Theo Straussen,’ he repeated, looking down at the nude photograph again. ‘What’s Straussen’s problem that he’s having her checked out?’ he said.
‘We’re still working on that,’ Ellis answered.
Max eyed him for a moment, then pursing his lips he tossed the photograph back on the table and picked up the two-page report. ‘I’ll call Theo myself,’ he said, scanning the document. ‘So, did we learn anything new about her?’ he asked.
‘Not really,’ Maurice answered. ‘Everything’s the way we heard it. Mother fourteen years dead. Father remarried, living in a suburb of Bristol, England. No love relationships to speak of after Phillip Chambers until this guy here. His name’s Oliver Maguire. He’s a Brit, a diamond dealer, and there, I believe, we have our connection to the Straussens.’
Max’s face darkened and it was a while before he spoke again. ‘Do we know if Galina’s tried contacting Rhiannon yet?’ he asked.
‘There’s nothing to say she has,’ Ellis answered.
‘But she will,’ Max added, almost to himself. He looked at his watch: just after ten o’clock. ‘What time’s the meeting this morning?’ he asked.
‘Eleven,’ Maurice answered.
‘Then I guess I’d better go make myself decent,’ Max said, getting to his feet. The photographs of Rhiannon were still on the table in front of him and pausing for a moment he looked down at them again. Once again it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but even if Maurice or Ellis was inclined to ask, which neither was, the abrupt sound of Max’s mobile phone would have cut them off. Reaching across the table, Maurice flicked it open and answered it.
‘Sure, Maribeth, he’s right here,’ he said. ‘I’ll pass you over.’
On hearing Maribeth’s name Max’s eyes narrowed as a quick spasm of impatience tightened his mouth. ‘Maribeth,’ he said into the receiver. ‘What news?’
‘I’m fine, Max,’ she replied. ‘How are you?’
‘Very droll,’ he responded.
‘I take it Galina didn’t get there yet?’ she said.
‘Not yet.’
‘Then she’ll be on her way. I thought I’d better ring and warn you. I’ve managed to pull it off. She’s going to be the face for the Conspiracy cosmetics range from here into the new millennium.’
‘So who do I congratulate,’ he said, ‘you or Galina?’
‘I guess both of us,’ Maribeth chuckled. ‘But Galina more than me.’
Max’s smile was wry. ‘OK, I’ll remember that when she gets here.’ He paused. ‘So you think this is going to work out?’ he said.
‘You know I do. OK, it’s a risk, but not a big one and I need her, Max. Yes, I know, there are plenty of beautiful women out there, but Galina’s got something special. Well, you of all people know that, but providing we keep a close eye on her I can’t see how any of us can fail here.’
‘If it works,’ Max muttered, ‘it could be the answer to all our prayers. But I got to tell you, Maribeth, I’m amazed you got it past Harman. I take it you did tell him about the risks, because if you didn’t, there’s no deal going . . .’
‘I told him,’ Maribeth cut in. ‘And providing you’re prepared to handle the security, he’s happy to have her on board. Hell, Max, the man knows a winner when he sees one and . . .’
‘OK, spare me the rest,’ he interrupted. ‘You got my commitment to security. How much are you paying her?’
Maribeth paused. ‘The publicity’s gonna say five, but I couldn’t get Harman past two,’ she confessed.
‘Reassure me that the missing noun is million,’ he said.
Maribeth laughed. ‘I guess that’s her arriving now,’ she said, as the sound of the door buzzer echoed down the line.
‘I guess you could be right,’ Max replied. ‘When are you making the announcement?’
‘We’ve called a press conference for Friday at noon.’ Again Maribeth hesitated. ‘Do you plan on being there?’
‘I’ll let you know.’ As Max clicked off the phone Leo came la
boriously into the room to announce that Miss Galina Casimir was on her way up the drive.
Both Maurice and Ellis were looking at Max. ‘She got the contract,’ Maurice stated.
‘She got it,’ Max confirmed.
‘Holy shit,’ Ellis murmured in astonishment. ‘I never thought they’d go for it.’
‘I have to be honest, nor did I,’ Max responded. ‘But try acting surprised – and pleased – when she breaks the news, huh?’
Hearing a car pull up outside he pushed the photographs of Rhiannon across the table towards Maurice, who quickly whisked them into his briefcase. Then hearing Galina’s footsteps running across the hall Max turned to greet her.
‘Max!’ she cried, bursting into the room. ‘Oh, darling,’ she laughed, when he feigned surprise at seeing her, ‘don’t pretend you didn’t know I was coming; Leo’s bound to have told you. And don’t pretend either that you haven’t heard already, I know Maribeth will have called you . . . But isn’t it marvellous! Isn’t it just wonderful? Are you happy for me, darling? I’m so excited! They chose me! Out of all the thousands they looked at, they chose me! And you’ll never guess how much the contract’s worth . . . Five million dollars, Max, and that’s just for starters . . .’
‘Come here,’ he laughed, pulling her into his arms.
Her dazzling lavender-blue eyes were bright with an almost childlike happiness as they gazed laughingly up into his and as he swung her round, his hard, powerful body seeming to engulf her slender limbs and the tousled blackness of his hair making her own white-blonde crop shine like a halo by comparison, Ellis and Maurice got awkwardly to their feet, ready to offer their own congratulations.
As she turned to them Maurice felt as though something inside him were unravelling. She was the most gorgeous creature he had ever laid eyes on and even after all this time of knowing her there were still occasions when the sheer radiance of her could erase all coherent thought from his mind. Her features were as fresh as a New England spring, her almond-shaped eyes were many shades of blue and fringed with thick, glossy dark lashes and brows; her skin was a natural bronze and satiny smooth; her cheeks were moulded by the perfect sculpture of their bones; her nose was long and straight, the nostrils flaring their aristocratic lineage and her flawless red lips masked a smile that was even more luminous than the dazzling blonde hair that feathered around her face.
