Initially, Marcus had thought the man much too old for Faye, but after seeing them together he realized they were a striking couple. Both were fashionably dressed, quite tanned and, from the way they were smiling, obviously got along well. The two couples exchanged polite nods as they passed one another.
Verbal acknowledgment between clients and social companions was not an option because P.S., Inc.’s ongoing success was based on the utmost discretion.
Marcus escorted Enid to where their driver waited to take them across town for a concert at Lincoln Center. “Your exotic jewel looks wonderful.”
Enid nodded. “She looks happy.”
His fingers tightened on her waist. “Don’t tell me you’re matchmaking, darling.”
“You know I’d never advocate a companion falling in love with a client. That would be bad for business.”
“Do you ever stop thinking about business?” he teased.
“Of course I do,” Enid countered.
“When is that, Enid?”
There came a prolonged pause before she said, “Whenever you make love to me.”
Marcus smiled. “I rest my case, Counselor.”
CHAPTER 44
Ilene straddled a chair with a delicate stainless-steel frame, a profusion of sea foam–green silk flowing around the ties encircling her slender ankles in a pair of matching stilettos; she lifted her hair off her shoulders and stared directly into the photographer’s lens, forcing a smile. She’d learned quickly to give her clients her undivided attention. After all, that was what she was being paid very well to do.
“Lift your chin a little to your right, Ilene,” Stephen Jacobsen crooned as he got off three more frames in quick succession. “That’s it, baby.”
He lowered his camera but couldn’t pull his gaze away from the woman on the chair. Although he’d found Ilene Fairchild a little thin for his personal taste, as an artist he appreciated the perfect dimensions of her slender body. Besides, his camera would add the extra pounds that would make her spectacular looking in print.
“Would you mind joining me for dinner?”
Ilene wanted to say no, not because she was exhausted, and not because she wanted to go home and get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport for a flight to a private island in the Caribbean. Working as a social companion was like being on a runaway train. She’d been working nonstop, every night with a different man from a different country.
She’d likened modeling to a roller-coaster ride, up, down, around and around, speeding up, slowing until it came to a complete stop. But times had changed, because she was no longer on every designer’s wish list to model their creations. That aside, she had yet to be relegated to over-the-hill or has-been status. If Stephen Jacobsen had asked to photograph her, then her supermodel standing was still bankable.
Stephen’s photographs were first exhibited at a Greenwich Village gallery at the tender age of twenty-two, and over the next two decades art critics compared his genius to that of Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus. Then without warning, forty-two-year-old Stephen packed away his cameras and lenses and opened his own gallery, becoming a preeminent collector of black-and-white photos.
Ilene flashed her dimpled smile. “I can stay for an hour.”
“Why the rush, beautiful?”
Rising to her feet, she shook her head, the fall of hair settling around her shoulders. “I have to go home, pack and grab a few hours of sleep before I head out early tomorrow morning. I have a 7:00 a.m. flight out of Kennedy.”
Stephen set his camera on a nearby table and closed the distance between them. He stared at the catlike eyes staring back at him. He hadn’t lied when he called her beautiful because she was. Ilene Fairchild was more than beautiful—her face was perfect.
“I have something that will make you feel good, Ilene.” A hint of a smile tilted the corners of his mouth upward. Reaching into a pocket of his jeans, he took out a tiny bottle filled with a white powder. “It will make you forget about sleeping.”
Ilene’s impassive expression didn’t change. She knew Stephen was talking about snorting coke. “I don’t do drugs, Stephen,” she lied smoothly.
He traced the contour of her cheek with his free hand. “That’s not what I heard.” His voice had taken on a crooning quality, his gaze inching from her mouth to the soft swell of flesh rising and falling above a demibra.
Ilene did not drop her gaze. “Whoever said that was a liar.”
“Come on, baby. Try it.”
Her delicate jaw tightened. “No. And even if I wanted to I can’t. Enid Richards conducts random drug testing, and if I come up dirty then I’m out of a job.”
Stephen’s hand dropped. “You believe working for Enid is a job?”
Bending over, Ilene untied the satin ties around her ankles and stepped out of the stilettos. “It pays the bills, Stephen.” Then she took off the dress, leaving it on the chair. Clad only in a bra and thong panties, she reached for her jeans and tank top.
“I’ll pay your bills.”
“That’s not enough,” she said, zipping her jeans at the same time she pushed her bare feet into zebra-print mules.
“What more would you want?”
Ilene pulled the T-shirt over her head, flipped her hair, then reached for a hobo purse that had been a gift from her Nigerian client. “Marriage, Stephen. I want to settle down, become a wife and a mother.”
“You want to ruin that body with stretch marks?”
“It’s not about my body anymore, Stephen. It’s all about me, what I want for me and my future. I want someone to love me for me, and not because I have a marketable face and body. I want financial security so that I don’t have to fill up on tuna when I want caviar. And I want to grow old with someone who I know will be there for me in sickness and in health, in the good and the bad times. Am I asking for too much?”
“No, Ilene, you’re not. It’s just that I can’t give you what you want.”
Ilene brushed a kiss over his bearded cheek. “That’s okay, lovey,” she said in her best Cockney accent. “I hope this means we can still do business together.”
Stephen nodded. “Of course.”
He returned the tiny bottle to his pocket, crossed his arms over his chest and watched Ilene Fairchild strut out of his loft as if she were wearing a Valentino gown instead of a pair of faded hip-hugging jeans and a tank top.
CHAPTER 45
Ilene lay on a blanket on the fine white sand on Pine Cay under the fronds of a palm tree, eyes closed. She’d left New York earlier that morning on a commercial jet. She’d been content to deal with the crowds waiting to get on the 757 aircraft because of her first-class standing. After landing at Miami International she was met by a man holding up a sign with her name who’d escorted her to a charter flight to Grand Turk. From there she’d boarded a catamaran for the private island of Pine Cay.
She was scheduled to spend a week in the Turks and Caicos as a guest of a trio of businessmen who were purported to be members of a larger group who controlled the White House irrespective of the president’s party affiliation. Astrid had informed her that her hosts were celebrating the success of a film they’d financed that had grossed more than half a billion in box-office receipts in less than three months. The action sci-fi flick was estimated to surpass Titanic, the all-time, top-grossing American movie.
Ilene could care less how much the movie backers made. Their success had become her success. She would earn a cool forty thousand for an all-expenses-paid vacation to a private island hideaway that was a virtual Garden of Eden. Pine Cay’s peaceful atmosphere was preserved because of a no-automobile rule. The normal mode of locomotion was either by bicycle, golf cart or on foot. She planned to take a tour of the eight-hundred-acre island at another time. Right now all she wanted to do was relax.
“Don’t you think you would be more comfortable in your room?”
Ilene opened her eyes to find a woman standing over her, recognizing her as the hotel owne
r’s daughter. A profusion of black curly hair framed a rosewood-brown, heart-shaped face.
“Thanks for asking, but I’m good here.”
“If you need anything, anything at all, I’m here for you.”
“Thank you again.”
Ilene wanted to ask the woman, whose name tag identified her as Amelia, why would she make herself available to fetch for hotel guests when there was a full staff made up of a bell captain, concierge, kitchen, housekeeping and maintenance personnel.
Amelia smiled, nodding. “You’re most welcome, Miss Fairchild.”
Ilene closed her eyes, not opening them again until someone shook her gently. “Miss Fairchild. Dinner will be served within half an hour.” It was Amelia, again hovering above her.
Rousing from what had become the best sleep she’d had in ages, Ilene stood up and headed toward the plantation house–style hotel and her room. Private bungalows, several hundred feet from the hotel and occupied by those hosting the week-long festivities, were ablaze with light in the encroaching darkness.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Ilene made her way down to the beach in a flowered bikini with a matching sarong. She’d braided her hair into a single plait that fell down her ramrod-straight spine. She was more than fifteen minutes late, but her tardiness was carefully orchestrated to make for a more dramatic entrance. She recognized the faces of several Hollywood power brokers but not their names until she was formally introduced to them.
Again, as with all of her former clients, none had come with their wives. How, she thought, was she to find a husband if her clients were already married? What she refused to be was a kept woman—again.
Like the diva she believed she’d become, Ilene handed out air kisses like a monarch acknowledging her adoring subjects. She was seated next to Demetrious Reyniak, the son of an immigrant Armenian businessman who’d made a small fortune in the commodities market. Demetrious had become a very wealthy man in his own right when he bought government leases to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. A waif-thin actress with oversize fake breasts that made her look as if she would fall on her face at a moment’s notice clung to Demetrious’s arm as if he were her lifeline. And from the way his right hand caressed her bare back and hips, it was obvious they were more than acquainted with each other.
But, for Ilene it was different. She’d come to Pine Cay to enjoy herself and not to sleep with any of the fifteen men in attendance. More than half were close to sixty, all were married and, even if they hadn’t been married, none were her type. She’d lived with a man much older than her at one time in her life; however, the arrangement had proven beneficial to the seventeen-year-old girl from the Mississippi Delta who up until that time had existed in a world of poverty from which, at her tender age, there was no escape.
She recognized an A-list heartthrob actor who’d come to the island with his partner, a very pretty young man who doubled as his manservant. A director who was touted by Variety as the next Spielberg was accompanied by one of his daughters. Why the man wanted to expose his adolescent daughter to an environment where depravity was certain to be the rule rather than the exception was beyond Ilene.
It wasn’t until hours later, after platters of jumbo prawns with accompanying piquant dipping sauces, and broiled and fried fish, fresh and roasted vegetables, and tropical fruits indigenous to the region were consumed and washed down with libations from an open bar that Ilene discovered the girl wasn’t the daughter but the latest in a string of young girls who were paid to sleep with the director.
Dessert was served in two bowls: one filled with cocaine and the other with colorfully wrapped condoms. A small silver plate, a tiny silver spoon and a straw were also placed on the table in front of each dinner guest.
Less than twenty-four hours before, Ilene had turned down Stephen Jacobsen’s invitation to indulge, but something made her throw caution to the wind to top off a sumptuous meal with a high she couldn’t get from marijuana or alcohol. After all, she was on a private island with people who had as much, maybe even more, to lose if the word leaked out that they were snorting cocaine.
She inhaled the white powder and within seconds she was somewhere else, sailing high above the ocean, high enough to touch the clouds. The setting sun had turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of the most awesome colors in the spectrum.
Music blared from hidden speakers and Demetrious eased her up to dance with him. She found herself in his arms, his hands undoing the clasp on her suit top, and she was unable to stop him. The top fell to the sand, followed by her sarong, and finally her bikini bottom. When she opened her eyes it was to find everyone naked and gyrating to the driving rhythms that made her want to whirl faster and faster like the dervishes she’d seen in Greece.
It didn’t matter that she was kissed on the mouth, breasts and groped between the legs. All she knew was that it felt good and that she didn’t want it to stop. Laughing uncontrollably, she stumbled and fell backward, the soft sand cushioning her fall. Ilene closed her eyes, smiling when she felt something warm and rough between her thighs. It wasn’t someone’s hot breath but the profusion of hair on her belly that prompted her to see who lay between her legs. It was Amelia.
Her dark eyes sparkled in the remaining daylight. “Come with me to my room,” she said in British-accented English.
Ilene was too high to protest. Rising from the sand, she followed Amelia around the side of the hotel to a door that led directly into her private suite.
They shared a shower, splashing water on each other like children. Their playing stopped when they took time to dry the other, then hand in hand they made their way to a king-size bed. Ilene couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept with a woman, but when Amelia made love to her it was if the other women never existed. Her mouth and hands worked their magic and for the first time in a very long time Ilene experienced multiple orgasms.
Hours later they made love again; this time it was Ilene’s turn to bring Amelia to climax before they fell asleep, limbs entwined and in each other’s arms.
CHAPTER 46
Alana sat in her therapist’s office staring at the potted plants lining the bookcase. She’d already used twenty minutes of her fifty-minute session, and other than greeting the woman, she hadn’t been able to say anything.
“I had a disturbing dream last night.”
“What was it about, Alana?”
She looked at the woman dressed in a conservative navy blue suit, white blouse and functional black pumps. She’d been coming to Dr. Marilyn Novak for three years, and the psychoanalyst affected the same hairstyle and always wore a conservative suit and white blouse. Her piercing light blue eyes were the only color in an otherwise unnaturally pale face. Summer or winter, her complexion retained the same pallor.
A chill shook Alana as she closed her eyes. “I was running through a tunnel looking for Calvin.”
“Did you know he was inside the tunnel?”
Alana opened her eyes. She shook her head. “No. I just assumed he was on the other side because he told me to wait there for him.”
Dr. Novak paused. “Did you find him, Alana?”
“No. I came out the other side, but I couldn’t find him.”
“What did you do?”
“I walked around for a while, then went back the way I’d come.”
“What was on the other side of the tunnel? Who did you see?” the psychologist asked.
Alana’s brows drew together in an agonized expression. “I really don’t know. I suppose there were people, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.”
“Was it dark or light on the other side?”
“It was light and warm. The sun was shining because I noticed the difference in temperature as soon as I left the tunnel.”
“How long has it been since you’ve spoken to Calvin?”
“Six weeks.”
“You decided not to call him?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Alana?”
“Because he promised he would call me.”
Dr. Novak leaned forward. “What are you going to do if he doesn’t call?”
Crossing her arms under her breasts, Alana bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t know.”
“You’re going to have to decide whether you want to continue this relationship. And if you choose to end it then you’re going to have to be the one to contact Calvin to let him know, otherwise you’re going to spend the next five months in an indeterminate state wherein you’re not going to be able to move forward.”
“What if I do call him, and he gives me the excuse that he’s been too busy to call? What do I say?”
“I can’t tell you what to say, Alana. But what I want is for you to be aware that your fiancé will not be the same person who lived with you before he left the States.”
Alana nodded. “That’s what frightens me.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what happened before my father walked out on us.”
“Don’t you mean on your mother?”
“No, Dr. Novak. Not only did he desert his common-law wife, but also his children. It didn’t matter that we were adults—he still walked out of our lives. Several months before Daddy left I knew something was wrong because he’d stopped talking to my mother. It was like he was hiding something, and in the end we found out that he’d been sneaking around with another woman whom he’d gotten pregnant. So, when a man stops talking I interpret that to mean he’s hiding something.”
Alana clamped her jaw tight and stared at the therapist, silently daring her to challenge her. There were times when Calvin failed to come home after a gig that she told herself that he was with another woman, but something wouldn’t permit her to believe it unless she had absolute proof. Now she wasn’t so certain.
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