“Hello.”
“Hello, Ilene.”
Ilene set down her glass, smiling. The call hadn’t come from Astrid Marti, but the person on the other end of the line ran a close second in importance. “Amelia. How are you?”
“I’m well, Ilene. I’m calling you because of what you said before you left.”
“What’s that?”
“You said you wanted financial security, and I can give it to you.”
All of her senses on full alert, Ilene sat up straighter. What was the woman talking about? Amelia had been good to pass the time with, but she would never consider her as a life partner. Ilene Fairchild was bisexual, not a lesbian. But she wouldn’t blow Amelia off until she heard what she was offering.
“How, Amelia?”
“I own half the island and the hotel, and I’m willing to give you half my share if you come live with me. I’ve had my lawyer draw up the papers. He can fax them to you so you can look them over.”
Ilene swallowed a laugh when she bit down on her lower lip. Amelia Wells was offering more than any man had—and that included the Belgian industrialist who’d taken her in as his ward the year she turned seventeen.
“How much are you worth?”
“Approximately twenty-two million in American dollars. And don’t forget I’m my father’s only heir.”
“Look, Amelia, it wouldn’t work. I want a baby, and you can’t give me one.”
“Please don’t say it won’t work until you see the agreement. There is a provision set aside for our children.”
Ilene grabbed her forehead, unable to believe what Amelia was telling her. “I can’t—”
“Don’t say anything until you read the agreement. Do you have access to a fax machine?”
“No.”
“Give me your address and I’ll have a courier deliver the documents to you. Read it, have your lawyer look it over, then call me.”
Ilene knew Amelia would call and haunt her unless she agreed to look at what she was proposing. “Okay, Amelia.” She gave her the address and rang off.
“Ain’t that a bitch,” she whispered. A woman was offering her what she hadn’t been able to get from a man. She wouldn’t write the beautiful island woman off until she saw the agreement.
CHAPTER 66
Faye survived her second helicopter ride without the anxiety she’d experienced the first time she’d boarded the aircraft. She’d spent the ride to Southampton staring out the window at the passing landscape while Bart sent and received e-mail and text messages on his BlackBerry. He worked even when he wasn’t at his office.
The pilot set down in an open field at the same time Giuseppe drove up in the Maybach. The driver greeted Bart with a nod and Faye with a warm smile as he opened the rear door.
Bart slipped onto the back seat beside Faye and stored the BlackBerry in a wood-grain compartment. “Don’t you need it?” she asked when he draped an arm over the back of her headrest.
He smiled at her. “No. I have a computer at the house, and if someone sends me a message I get it on the BlackBerry and the desktop.”
“Are you working or are you on vacation?”
“I think of it as a working vacation. I will be on vacation when we go to Europe. We’ve been invited to a dinner party given by one of our neighbors tonight. Do you want to go or stay home?”
Faye noticed he’d used the pronouns we and our instead of I. She lifted her shoulders under a soft pink tank top trimmed in lace. “We can go, but if it’s bootleg then we’ll bounce.”
Throwing back his head, Bart laughed loudly. His arm slipped to Faye’s shoulders, pulling her close. He could always rely on her to make him laugh. It was a gentle reminder that he should enjoy life and the fruits of his labor.
“I’ll take that.”
Bart took Faye’s overnight bag from Giuseppe’s grasp. His free hand went to the small of her back as he led her into the house and up the staircase in the opposite direction from the suite where she’d stayed during her first trip to Southampton. He felt her go stiff against his hand.
“You can stop holding your breath now. Your folks will stay in your room when they come tomorrow and you’ll have the one next to mine.”
She let out her breath. “Thank you, Bart.”
“You’re welcome, Faye,” he said in a high-pitched feminine voice.
“Keep it up.”
“And you’ll do what?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You don’t want to know.”
They walked into a sun-filled room decorated in shades of blue and white. Faye was drawn to a window seat with recessed lighting. She spun around as she’d done as a little girl. “I love it.”
Bart set her bag down next to the closet, turned and extended his arms. “Come here.” Faye raced across the space and jumped into his arms. Bart swung her around and around as objects in the room whizzed by in front of her eyes.
“Please stop!”
He continued spinning her around. “What if I don’t want to stop? What if I don’t want what we have to ever stop?”
Burying her face against the side of his neck, Faye closed her eyes. “It doesn’t have to stop, Bart.”
He stopped abruptly. “What did you say?” His voice had dropped to a breathless whisper.
Easing back, she saw his startled expression. “I said it doesn’t have to stop. Not if you don’t want it to.”
Bart lowered Faye slowly to her feet, his gaze fusing with hers. He’d waited, dreamed of this moment from the first time he saw Faye, yet he couldn’t believe she was ready to come to him of her own accord.
“I don’t want it to ever stop.”
Faye’s hands, resting on his chest, moved down and gathered fabric as she sought the warmth of his flesh under the T-shirt. Her fingers grazed his flat belly, muscles and sinew on his back.
Bart felt her heat, inhaled her scent and he was lost, lost in the delicate femininity of a woman with skin the color of caramelized sugar, a woman with short gold hair that felt like whorls of velvet, a woman with brilliant eyes that sparkled like polished citrines.
Bending slightly, he swept her weightlessly into his arms and carried her through a connecting door to his suite. Taking long strides, he placed her on the bed before closing and locking the doors. He’d wanted to make love with Faye the night before when there was just the two of them in the penthouse, but his employees knew never to enter his private space without permission.
Returning to the bed, he stood over Faye. She looked so delicate, vulnerable. He’d felt her pain when she told him of her failed marriage; he’d also felt her pain and frustration when she related the details of her brother’s arrest, incarceration and subsequent break with her father. The men she loved had hurt her—deeply. And he loved her, praying he wouldn’t hurt her, too.
He sat down, leaned over and brushed his mouth over hers. He placed tender kisses at the corners of her mouth before increasing the pressure to take full possession of her soft, full lips.
Faye was drugged by Bart’s clean and masculine scent, the warmth of his mouth on hers, the invisible pull that made her aware of him as a man, a man she wanted, a man she needed. His hands searched under her top and closed over her breasts, sending tremors of uncontrollable desire throughout her body. A shiver of awareness thrummed between her thighs. She was ready, ready for Bart, ready for whatever the future held for them.
CHAPTER 67
Bart forced himself to go slow when a rush of desire had him close to exploding. He opened a drawer in the table next to the bed and removed a condom, placing it on the pillow beside Faye’s head.
Faye glanced at the foil packet. She closed her eyes and let her senses take over as Bart removed her shoes, slacks and top at an agonizingly slow pace that set her teeth on edge. She let out a sigh of relief once he’d relieved her of her bra and panties. It was about to begin.
Bart couldn’t pull his gaze away from Faye’s nude body as he stripped off his clothes. He wa
s so in awe of her beauty, the perfection of her body that he hadn’t realized his hands were trembling uncontrollably until he attempted to put on the latex sheath. He wanted their first time together to be extraordinary; he wanted to bring Faye as much pleasure as he was certain she would offer him.
The side of the mattress dipped when he moved over her and supported his weight on his forearms. Cradling her face between his hands, Bart’s gaze searched her face, reaching into her thoughts.
“This is not going to be a hit it and quit it, Faye. I want you now, I’ll want you tomorrow, and every day thereafter. And what we’re about to share has nothing to do with…” His words trailed off.
“With you being my client,” she said, completing his statement.
He nodded. “It’s just us, you and me.” Desire darkened his eyes as he dipped his head and kissed her with all of the tenderness and passion he could summon from his heart. Her slender arms circled his neck, and Bartholomew Houghton lost himself and his heart to a woman with the power to make him forget his past and move forward to love again—unconditionally.
His rapacious tongue charted a sensual path from her mouth to her scented throat, shoulders and breasts. He lingered at her breasts, suckling until she arched off the bed. Continuing his downward exploration, he planned to taste every inch of her.
She went still, muscles tensing when his breath swept over the soft down covering her mound. Attuned to her every response, he pressed kisses to her inner thighs. What he’d intended to do to her using his mouth would come another time because he wanted Faye to feel comfortable and trust him to bring her ultimate pleasure.
Faye was filled with strange sensations that upset her balance. The hot ache between her legs increased until she felt as if she’d been immersed in an inferno from which there was no escape. Heated blood surged from her head, to her fingertips, and to her toes.
She knew from the uneven rhythm of her breathing, the runaway beating of her heart, and the soft flutters that had yielded to contractions that she was going to climax.
“Bart!” His name, torn from the back of her throat, faded away to a lingering sigh as her head thrashed on the pillow.
Bart moved up her trembling limbs and positioned himself between her legs. A sensual groan came from deep within his chest as he pushed into her body. Her hot, tight flesh closed around him and within seconds her heat was transferred to him.
Together, they found a rhythm that quickened, slowed, then increased as shivers of giddy desire and ecstasy became explosive currents that shook them from head to toe as they climaxed simultaneously.
Faye looped her arms under Bart’s shoulders and held on to him as if her next breath depended on him for her continued existence. Tears of joy leaked beneath her tightly closed eyes as she savored the aftermath of long-forgotten orgasms. She’d missed so much since she’d ended her marriage.
As Bart smiled, the fingers of his right hand traced the curve of Faye’s breasts, waist and hips. It was as if he couldn’t stop touching and kissing her. Pressing his mouth to her ear he whispered, “You were incredible.”
Faye chuckled softly. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”
Raising his head, he gave her a direct stare. “Does that mean I can expect seconds?”
She wrinkled her short nose. “I’ll think about it.”
Bart tickled her ribs and she dissolved into a paroxysm of giggles. They rolled around and around on the large bed, their antics coming to an abrupt halt when Faye nearly fell off. Bart caught her upper arm, holding her fast before she hit the floor.
His quick action sobered them both. Pulling her up to sit on his lap, he wrapped his arms around her waist. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
Bart’s passionate admission echoed Faye’s thoughts. She rested her head on his chest, her heart filled with a feeling she’d thought she would never experience again. She’d fallen in love with Bart Houghton.
CHAPTER 68
Faye stood on the wraparound porch watching her parents alight from the Maybach. Bart greeted her father with a handshake and her mother with a kiss on the cheek. Wrapping her arms around her body, she expelled a long sigh, astonished at the sense of fulfillment she felt at that moment.
Last night, Bart had called his neighbor, offering his regrets in not attending her dinner party, opting instead to stay at home. Mrs. Llewellyn had prepared a sumptuous dinner of broiled lamb rib chops, green pea fritters with a garlic cream sauce and pasta with Parmesan and Gruyère.
Hand in hand, they’d walked the beach for several miles, retraced their steps, then sat on the sand in silence, watching a magnificent sunset. Her vow to not become intimately involved with her client was shattered the first time they’d made love, and forgotten completely when they made love a second time.
Shirley Ogden spied her daughter as she came off the porch to meet her. “How are you?”
Faye pulled Shirley into a close embrace. “I’m wonderful, Mama. How was the drive?”
“It took a lot longer than I’d expected.” She gave Faye a critical look. “There’s something different about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You look different.”
“I’ve decided to let my hair grow out a little,” Faye said, running a hand over her hair.
“No, Faye Anne. It’s not your hair. It’s your face. You’re glowing.”
“If I’m glowing it’s because I’m completely relaxed.” She waved a hand. “Look at this place. There’s no hustle, bustle or traffic jams. Instead of walking out of my apartment building and getting bombarded with fumes from automobile exhaust, it’s the ocean.”
Shirley glanced briefly over her shoulder to see her husband and Bart Houghton pantomiming golf swings. Looping her arm through Faye’s, she stared at her. “He makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
Faye kept her features deceptively composed. “Yes, he does, Mama. Being with Bart makes me very, very happy. Happier than I’ve been in years.”
Shirley clamped her jaw tight and stared over Faye’s shoulder. “I want you to be careful, baby girl.”
“I don’t understand you, Mama. I meet a man who makes me happy and you tell me to be careful.”
Shirley met her penetrating gaze. “Just be careful,” she repeated in a low tone with Bart and Craig’s approach.
Bart hadn’t noticed Faye’s strained expression when he said, “Faye, please show your mother to her room where she may want to relax or freshen up while Craig and I go into town to pick up a couple of cases of beer.”
She flashed a hollow smile. “Sure. Come on, Mama.”
Shirley followed Faye into the house, staring up at a two-story great room. “This place would swallow our house.”
“I believe it measures about six thousand square feet.”
“Why one person needs a house this big astounds me.”
Faye led her mother up the staircase. “He’s not the only one who lives here. His housekeeper’s son stays here year-round.”
“That’s only two people. I suppose rich people have to do something with their money.”
Faye decided it was not the time to try and convince her mother that whatever motivated Bart to purchase a vacation home with enough square footage for a family of six to move around comfortably without bumping into one another wasn’t so critical that it should elicit a debate. And she wondered how Shirley would react to his Manhattan address, where his penthouse was made up of the three top floors of the Olympic Towers.
“You and Daddy are in here,” she said, walking into the suite. Giuseppe had brought up their overnight bags.
Shirley moved past the utility kitchen and into the living/dining room. “It’s beautiful.”
“The bathroom is to your left just outside the bedroom. I’ll leave you to get settled in while I go down and find out what Mrs. Llewellyn has planned for dinner.”
“Who’s Mrs. Llewellyn?” Shirley asked.
“Sh
e’s the cook and also the housekeeper.”
Shirley glanced at the watch on her wrist. “What time is dinner?”
Faye looked at her own watch. It was after two. “We’ll probably eat around six. Why?”
“That’s good, because I want to sit out and relax a while.”
“I’ll see you downstairs.”
Closing the door, Faye walked the length of the hallway, unable to stop thinking about her mother’s baseless warning. There was no need for her to be careful because she had no intention of ever letting Bart know the depth of her feelings for him; and if he wanted more, then she would be forced to remind him of their business arrangement: she was a social companion and he was her client.
CHAPTER 69
Enid sat with Astrid, going over a checklist of guests for an upcoming political fund-raiser. She’d sent out invitations to all the clients she knew whose party affiliation matched that of the judge running for reelection.
“Are all of my exotic jewels attending?” she asked Astrid.
The booker scanned the list. “Yes. Alana Gardner replied affirmative, and so did Ilene Fairchild. Bartholomew declined because of a prior engagement but wants Faye Ogden to give the judge his contribution.”
Enid smiled. “Good. Please set it up so they go in the same car. And I also want Tricia, Heather and Kristin to arrive together.” She paused as Astrid jotted down the instructions in her notebook. “Bettina will travel with Sonya—no, not Sonya. She’s a little too temperamental to be with Bettina for more than twenty minutes. Have Sonya go with Lareina.”
Lareina was a stunning young Russian woman with a sullen attitude that had men bending over backward to make her laugh. And when she did they were more than willing to shower her with expensive gifts that made her laugh even more because she viewed her middle-aged clients as little boys who craved attention and instant gratification.
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