Following her movements, Bart sat up and reached over to grasp her fingers. “What would you like to do in ten years?”
Faye felt the power in his slender hands, and the energy of his touch radiating up her arm. How many times, she wondered, had he sealed a deal with a mere handshake?
She was alone with an extremely wealthy man who hadn’t bothered to hide his attraction for her while she continued to agonize about whether her becoming a paid social companion was morally correct.
“Faye?”
Bart calling her name brought her out of her reverie. Flashing a plastic smile, she stared up at him through her lashes. “I would like to follow your example.”
His gaze fixed on her mouth, he angled his head. “How?”
“I want to run my own marketing firm.”
“Do you have the startup capital?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. That’s why I’m working for P.S., Inc.” She’d told him a half truth. She needed his money for her brother’s appeal.
Bart was hard pressed not to laugh aloud. Faye Ogden had just walked into a trap of her own choosing. “I believe I can help you out.”
“How?”
“I want you to work exclusively for me. It will always be weekends, although there could be an occasional weekday evening. I’ve been invited to a wedding in the Cayman Islands in two weeks and I’d like you to accompany me.”
Faye was certain Bart could feel the runaway beating of the pulse in her wrists. His request for her to become his personal social companion was the solution to all of her problems.
“When are we leaving?”
Bart stared at Faye as if he was photographing her with his eyes. Her remarkable face fascinated him. “Do you have a valid passport?” She nodded. “We’ll lift off Friday evening around seven. Giuseppe will pick you up at five at your home. Will that present a problem for you?”
Faye felt a rush of excitement. Bartholomew Houghton would give her entrée into a world where she was expected to be ready to jet off to a foreign country or island at a moment’s notice. “No, it won’t.”
An expression of satisfaction filled Bart’s gaze. “I’ll contact Enid next week and give her all the particulars.” Tightening his grip on her delicate fingers, he rose to his feet, pulling Faye up with him. “Let me show you to your room, because as tempting as it may appear, sleeping outdoors is risky even in Southampton.”
Leaning against Bart to keep her balance, Faye slipped her feet into her shoes. He cupped her elbow as he led her off the patio through a set of French doors and into a two-story great room with two stone-facing fireplaces.
“Would you like to go golfing with me early tomorrow morning?”
Her eyes narrowed. “How early is early?”
“Five.” Faye stopped suddenly, causing Bart to bump into her. Tightening his grip on her arm, he steadied her. She gave him a look that spoke volumes. “You can say no without giving me an eye roll.”
Unconsciously her brow furrowed. “What?”
“You did that thing with your eyes—”
“Are you trying to say that I…I rolled my eyes?” Faye sputtered, interrupting him.
He nodded. “Yeah, that.” Much to Bart’s surprise, Faye threw back her head, baring her throat, and laughed, the husky sound sending a shiver through his body. She even had a sexy laugh. His mercurial mood changed quickly as his dark eyebrows slanted in a frown. “What’s so funny?”
Faye moved closer, a breast brushing his arm. “It’s called rolling one’s eyes.” She made a distinctive sound with her mouth. “And that’s sucking one’s teeth. Both gestures are viewed as defiance and disrespect. If my eyes said anything, it was you’ve got to be kidding.”
Bart flashed an irresistibly devastating grin before he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to get up and go with me. I should be back before nine.”
“What have you planned for Sunday and Monday?” Her query had come out in a breathless whisper.
“I didn’t plan for anything. But if you want to go somewhere, then let me know.” He’d declined an invitation for a Sunday-evening dinner cruise with an award-winning movie director because he wanted to use the time to become better acquainted with Faye. “And if there’s anything you need please let me know. I’ll have Giuseppe go to town and get it for you.”
Faye shook her head. “Thanks for offering, but I don’t think I’ll need anything.”
“I want you to feel at home this weekend. I’ve informed Mrs. Llewellyn and Jamie that they’re to see to your needs.”
“I told you that I don’t need anything, Bart.”
He winked at her. “I’m telling you this in case you change your mind.”
Bart had come to depend on Mrs. Llewellyn to keep his residences running smoothly. The dependable live-in housekeeper divided her time between Manhattan and Long Island during the summer months, while her grandson, a full-time student at the Long Island University Southampton campus, lived year-round at the house.
He slipped his arm around Faye’s waist and led her across the cavernous space and up a staircase to her suite of rooms. It’d been months since he’d requested a social companion from P.S., Inc. Those he’d chosen in the past were usually pretty; however, they were superficial, one-dimensional and a few downright silly.
However, he knew it would be different with Faye Ogden. Not only was she intelligent and articulate, but also very feminine. It was the first time he’d introduced a companion to his employees, and in two weeks it would become the first time he would travel out of the country with one.
He’d never been one to take risks with women, but this time he hoped that he’d hit the jackpot.
CHAPTER 28
A table lamp cast a soft glow in the sitting room as Enid shifted on the daybed and rested her head on Marcus’s shoulder. A soft sigh escaped her parted lips as she sought a more comfortable position.
Marcus trailed his fingertips over her bare shoulder. “Why are you so jumpy?”
“I was just wondering how my exotic jewels performed today.”
He smiled. “I suppose it really doesn’t matter, because you’ll get paid no matter how well they perform.”
Enid moved again, pushing her buttocks against his groin. “It’s not all about money, Marcus.”
His mouth replaced his fingers. “You’re wrong, Enid. That’s all it’s ever been from day one when you came up with the concept of establishing an escort service.”
“Anyone who goes into business is always concerned with the bottom line. But it goes deeper than that, darling.”
Marcus’s hand moved to her hair. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s about being successful. It’s—”
“You are successful,” Marcus insisted, interrupting her. “You were a very successful attorney and P.S., Inc. is a very successful escort service. What more do you want?”
“I need five million dollars.”
Without warning, Marcus sat up, bringing Enid up with him. He stared at her, baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Remember when I had you set up that annuity for me?”
“Yes. But what does that have to do with you and five million dollars?”
Pulling her knees to her chest, Enid wrapped her arms around her legs. “I want to set up an endowment for a new charity.”
“What!”
She shook her head and thick flaxen waves fell over her forehead. “Don’t, Marcus.”
Moving off the daybed, Marcus sat on the cool wood floor and pulled Enid down to his lap. His arms tightened around her waist. “Please don’t be that way. What charity are you talking about?”
“Habitat for Humanity.”
Pressing his mouth to her damp hair, Marcus closed his eyes. Just when he thought he understood who Enid Richards was, she changed before his eyes, leaving him confused and off balance. Enid was a wealthy woman—a very intelligent wealthy woman—who controlled every phase of her life
and her finances.
She was conservative when it came to investing her money and generous when contributing to her favorite causes. She’d admitted to him that she’d drawn up a will that included leaving the bulk of her estate to the United Negro College Fund and the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“What brought this on, darling?”
Enid turned and faced Marcus, straddling him, her love for him evident in her gaze. “The destruction left by Hurricane Katrina. When I saw televised footage of the area where I’d lived and gone to school, I felt as if someone had stabbed me.”
Cradling her head between his hands, Marcus kissed her forehead. He’d forgotten his lover was a native Louisianan. “What do you want me to do, darling?”
Enid buried her face against the side of his neck. “I need you to liquidate a few investments, then work up a projection based on our average summer contact hours.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can come up with.” He hesitated. “May I suggest something?” Easing back, she nodded. “Why don’t you host a fund-raiser before the end of the summer? You definitely know enough people with deep pockets who’d be willing to contribute to a very worthy cause.”
Throwing back her head, Enid laughed, the sensual sound sweeping over Marcus like a soft warm breeze. “You are remarkable.”
His smile matched hers. “Why, thank you, darling. I think I can help you out with a few well-heeled contributors.”
Enid kissed his smiling mouth. “Who are they?”
Tightening his arms around her body, he whispered, “I can’t tell you.” He planned to ask the record producer cousins and some of their high-profile hip-hop recording artists to come to Enid’s latest philanthropic project.
“You know I don’t like it when you keep secrets from me,” she chided. There was a hint of censure in her voice.
Bracing one hand on the floor, Marcus came to his feet, bringing Enid up with him. He hadn’t bothered to shave and the stubble of an emerging beard made his dark skin appear almost blue-black.
He dropped his arms. “I’m never going to tell you everything about me, Enid. And I don’t want to know everything about you. That would spoil the fantasy.”
A rush of color stained her face. “You think what we have, what we share with each other, is fantasy?”
“Some of it is.”
It wasn’t often Enid found herself at a loss for words, but this was one of those times. “I see.”
“No, you don’t see,” he countered. “Age difference aside, what we have is a very unconventional relationship. We’re business partners and lovers.”
“Need I remind you that we were lovers before we became business partners?”
“That’s true. But the instant we became business partners we should’ve stopped sleeping with each other, but we didn’t.”
“That’s because I don’t want to stop sleeping with you.”
“I feel the same, but how long do you think we can continue like this? Maintaining separate residences, setting up appointments to see each other. Now I live with you during the week, and you come to live with me on weekends.” He paused. “I grew up in a very stable environment that makes me conservative and somewhat parochial. I don’t do well with change or instability. I suppose that’s why I became an accountant. Numbers are submissive and they don’t lie.” Leaning over, he kissed the end of her nose. “I’m like a column of numbers, darling. You can use your head or a calculator to add me up, and the result will always be the same.”
There was a Marcus Hampton Enid loved and there was a Marcus Hampton that tested her. At the moment he’d become the latter. “You’re lecturing me and that always annoys me.”
“No, Enid. I’m being truthful.” He glanced at his watch. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to eat. If we’re still going to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Andrés Bistro we should leave now.”
Rising on tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his in a caressing motion that left him breathing heavily. “All I have to do is put on some running shoes and comb my hair.”
“I’ll wait for you downstairs.” Marcus walked out of the sitting room, into the bedroom and over to the night table on his side of the bed. Opening the drawer, he took out a small leather case with his credit cards and driver’s license, then counted out several bills from a sizable stack, pushing them into a zippered pocket of his tracksuit pants.
He left the duplex, taking the staircase to the street level. The quiet tree-lined street was teeming with couples strolling leisurely, while dog walkers stopped to chat as their dogs communicated in their own canine way.
Marcus loved warm weather, the pulsing nonstop rhythm so inherent to Manhattan and Enid Richards, but not necessarily in that order.
He hadn’t been waiting that long when Enid joined him, her pale hair concealed under a New York Mets baseball cap. She wore a lightweight sweatshirt over a tank top and a pair of faded jeans.
She was beautiful.
And she was his.
CHAPTER 29
Faye uncrossed her legs, picked up the remote and turned off one of the TV screens installed in the back of the Maybach’s headrests.
“Will you please stop fidgeting, Faye?”
Faye turned and stared at Bart; he looked nothing like the casually dressed man with whom she’d spent the past two days. This morning he wore a crisp white shirt with his initials embroidered on the left French cuff and a dark gray silk tie. He’d draped one dark gray, faint pinstriped–covered leg over the opposite knee and had put on a pair of reading glasses to read a report nestled between the covers of a leather binder.
“I’m not fidgeting,” Faye countered, not bothering to hide her frustration. She told Bart that she had to return to Manhattan in time for a breakfast meeting to present a marketing campaign for a classic Italian luxury automobile. How could she be at her office at eight-thirty when it was seven-thirty and she still was in Southampton?
Removing his glasses, Bart slipped the collapsible eyewear into a slender metal case, giving Faye a sidelong glance. He closed the portfolio, his gaze caressing her lightly made-up face before it moved lower to her feet, encased in a pair of navy blue ostrich-skin pumps.
“You’ve crossed and uncrossed your legs at least five times.”
She gave him an incredulous stare. “Crossing my legs bothers you when the television doesn’t?”
Leaning back against the white leather seat, Bart closed his eyes for several seconds. “The images on the screen aren’t half as distracting as your legs.” He smiled, his expression softening. “I would’ve asked you to turn off the TV if it had annoyed me.” He reached for the remote and pressed a button. The familiar face of a Good Morning America anchor appeared on the screen once again.
Faye stared out the side window as she mentally ran through her proposed sales pitch. The weekend that had begun with trepidation for her had been nothing short of perfection. The suite she’d been assigned in the farmhouse’s guest wing was reminiscent of those in the best hotels. Tables cradling cobalt-blue vases filled with fresh white roses and tulips filled the space with a soft floral fragrance. A utility kitchen was tucked away next to a dining area and living room with Federal-era antiques, a spacious bedroom and adjoining bath, all decorated with differing shades of blues and white: a sea of blue floral carpet, indigo-and-white patchwork quilts, Wedgwood blue-and-white fabrics covering tables and armchairs and matching footstools. A full-tester bed, covered with a sheer creamy fabric with a faint diamond pattern, had beckoned her to stay in bed long beyond her usual rising time.
She’d finally left the bed, made her way to the bathroom and spent the next three-quarters of an hour in the garden bathtub, relaxing amid the warm waters of the Jacuzzi.
By the time she walked into the kitchen she’d forgotten about her brother’s imprisonment and that she’d agreed to become an exclusive social companion for Bartholomew Houghton.
Bart turned out to be the perfect host. He’d ret
urned from his golf outing in time to join her for breakfast of huevos rancheros, a melon salad with yogurt-honey dressing and almond-currant scones while they read the Sunday Times. They’d discussed the articles when they took a leisurely walk along the beach. The remainder of the afternoon was spent swimming laps in the pool and napping on the patio; they ate dinner outdoors with the setting sun as backdrop.
True to his word, Bart hadn’t tried to get her to sleep with him. His interaction with her had become that of friend. They were able to talk about everything: sports, movies, books and even politics.
Monday was a repeat of Sunday until rain forced them indoors. After dinner, Bart popped a large bowl of microwave popcorn while she sorted through hundreds of DVDs for a movie she hadn’t seen. All of the titles were alphabetized, but there was a separate section for Best Picture Oscar winners. When she selected Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, Bart teased her, saying he thought she would’ve chosen a chick flick.
“This is as far as we go.”
Faye sat up straighter. The car had stopped and Giuseppe had gotten out and opened the rear door for her. Reaching for her handbag, she offered the driver her hand. Sitting in an open field off a narrow road sat a helicopter with the DHL Group logo emblazoned on its side. She wasn’t given time to acknowledge that her ride back to Manhattan would not be by road but by air, when Bart reached for her hand and led her toward the helicopter.
She glanced up at his impassive face. “What about my luggage?”
“Giuseppe will bring it later. He told me that you live in a building with a doorman, so he’ll leave them with whoever is on duty.”
She nodded and made her way up the steps and into the aircraft, Bart following. She sat down and buckled herself in. Bart sat beside her as the pilot shut and locked the door. Closing her eyes, she clasped her hands together and mumbled a silent prayer. She didn’t like flying but knew it was the fastest and most efficient mode of transportation.
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