The end of the song left a trickle of sweat making its way down Leon’s temple, and he discreetly wiped it away with his handkerchief. Violet looked as cool as she always did, but he knew she was tired.
Over at their table, he saw that Hugh was still seated, looking for all the world like a vulture waiting for something to die. It was time to leave the dance floor and face a different kind of music.
As Leon approached the table with Violet, he shot Hugh a warning glance to vacate his seat. True to form, Hugh ignored him and made a point of waiting to stand up until Leon had started his introductions.
“Violet, please meet Hugh Steffans,” Leon said. Reluctantly, he added, “My partner.” It pained him to lend his credibility to a loser like Hugh. “Hugh, this is Violet Wilson.”
Violet nodded cordially and extended her hand. Hugh shook hands with her. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Wilson,” he said, emphasizing her last name.
If Hugh had kissed her hand, Leon would have decked him.
Leon seated Violet, made his way to the opposite side of the table, and took the seat that his partner had vacated. He left it up to Hugh to pull up his own chair.
Chapter 12
Violet was enjoying the reception. Leon had been correct when he told her that there was no one there she had any interest in talking to, and the dinner had been unremarkable. But the salsa music had made her toes tingle as soon as the band started up. When Leon asked her to dance, she thought for a moment that she had died and gone to heaven.
Growing up, Violet had been expected to learn to dance. She had taken ballet and tap starting at the age of five. By thirteen she had been taught the full gamut of ballroom dances, from the waltz to the jitterbug to the tango, but her favorite was the merengue. At the exclusive prep school for girls she had attended during her high school years, she had learned important subjects like math, science, figure drawing, and how to twirl on the dance floor at dizzying speed while wearing high heels.
As Leon spun her expertly around the floor and executed impossibly intricate moves with their interlocked arms, she smiled inwardly. She should have guessed that Leon would be a good dancer. The French had their priorities straight.
She was pleased when Leon asked her for a second dance, but by the end she noticed she had missed a few steps. She was getting tired. One more merengue would run the risk of twisting an ankle in her three and a half inch heels. She was relieved when Leon led her off the dance floor, dabbing at his temple with his handkerchief.
A bald, florid man of about forty-five was sitting in Leon’s seat at their table. She noticed that Leon’s manner was stiff and cold as he introduced the man as Hugh Steffans, his partner.
Hugh shook her hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Wilson.” His hand was unpleasantly damp and sweaty, and he said her last name with an annoyingly familiar air, as if he already knew her family intimately.
Violet was surprised that Leon would choose to associate with someone like Hugh, who was as rumpled and nervous as Leon was cool and smooth. She intended to ask Leon some questions about their business relationship as soon as she could, but she doubted he would give her a straight answer. He hadn’t bothered to so far, and tonight he had looked nervous ever since Hugh showed up. Nervousness was out of character for Leon.
She shrugged it off. She was dressed up in after-five wear, and her date was the best looking man in the ballroom. She had been having fun and she intended to keep having fun.
Hugh pulled up a chair and zeroed in on her. “So, Violet, has Leon told you that we’re stock traders?”
“Yes,” Violet said. Sort of, she thought to herself.
“I don’t suppose you have any interest in the market?”
“Not really.”
“That’s too bad,” Hugh said. “Everyone should play the market. It’s so easy now with discount brokerages and online trading. You really should try it, Violet.”
He said her name with an annoying familiarity that reminded her of the time one of Tim’s friends had hit on her at a party while Tim was off talking to God knows who.
Leon still hadn’t said a single word directly to Hugh. Violet glanced at his face. She couldn’t tell if Leon was angry, nervous, or both, but she took his facial expression as a cue and decided not to engage Hugh. Sooner or later he would get bored and leave them alone.
Hugh noted Violet’s empty glass. “Leon, my man,” he said. “Your lady friend’s drink is in need of a refresher.” He nodded in the direction of the bar.
Violet caught on immediately to what Hugh had in mind and shook her head at Leon. “I’m fine, really,” she said.
Leon stayed in his seat and didn’t look at his partner.
Beads of sweat had formed on Hugh’s shiny forehead. After several minutes of awkward silence at the table, Hugh rose and left without so much as saying, “excuse me.”
Violet watched as the rotund little man stalked off into the crowd. Turning to Leon, she was about to ask him what that was all about.
Leon interrupted before she could say anything. “Another dance, Violet?”
“Sure,” Violet said without much enthusiasm. This was going to be another example of Leon’s inscrutability regarding information she had a right to know. It was getting old.
The dance number was a tango. Violet put the unpleasant encounter with Hugh out of her mind and lost herself in the dramatic mock courtship of the dance steps. It was impossible to have a bad time as long as there was a dance floor and a good band.
The band took a break. Back at their table, Leon excused himself. “I will only be gone a moment,” he said. Violet watched as he strode swiftly toward the men’s room, almost breaking into a trot at the end.
Within seconds, Hugh had appeared out of nowhere and was standing next to the table.
“Leon’s being bull-headed tonight,” the little man said. “Like I was saying, you really should get into the market. I just got a tip that Amixa Corp is about to take a huge crap. Call your family and share the happy news.”
Violet’s eyes narrowed. She knew what insider trading was. “The only call I’m going to make about you is to the SEC.”
Hugh smirked at her. “You’re a cute little package. I’d like to give you a jingle sometime after Leon goes back to France. What’s your phone number?”
Violet looked directly at him. “Go back to your pig parlor and get yourself cleaned up,” she said coldly. She got up from the table and headed for the ladies room.
Back at the table she found Leon standing near their table and scanning the ballroom. “Where have you been?” he asked.
Violet was annoyed with him for reasons too numerous to count at the moment. “The little girls’ room.” She took a deep breath. “You’d better keep a closer eye on your wing man before he gets both of you in hot water.”
“I’m sorry about Hugh,” Leon said, but didn’t elaborate.
Violet’s mind was spinning with the implications of what Hugh had just told her, but she was in no shape to sort them out right away.
“Leon, anytime you want to leave is fine with me,” she said.
Leon took out his phone. “I’ll have the car brought up immediately.”
He put his arm around her shoulder on the ride back to the hotel. Violet’s first instinct was to move closer to him and enjoy the warmth of his embrace, but she ordered herself not to.
Hugh had ruined the evening, no two ways about that. If only that were all he had ruined. In one devastating sentence, he had torn Violet’s trust in Leon into a million little pieces. Things between them could never be the same.
“Mon cherie,” she heard Leon whisper in her ear, tightening his arm around her. His deep, rich voice with its French accent still set her body on fire, but her mind was now detached. Violet felt paralyzed.
She had a decision to make. If she did nothing, the town car would drop them off at the hotel. Leon would escort her up to the suite, take her hand, and lead her into the master bedroom. He wo
uld kiss her. Her black velvet dress would come off over her head, leaving her wearing only the lacy black bra and panties she wore beneath it. Leon would strip them from her, and she would step out of her high heels as he removed his tux. His erection would be hard even before he undressed. Violet felt a flash of desire stream through her own sex at the thought of his.
Or she could part from him at the curb in front of the hotel, hail a cab, go home to her empty apartment, and never see him again.
Neither choice would change the facts one bit. It was what it was.
Violet put her head on Leon’s shoulder and let him kiss her. Just for tonight, she thought, I’ll pretend nothing bad has happened.
Chapter 12
“I don’t understand, Violet,” Leon said. “I am so sorry that Hugh was rude to you last night. I should have stayed closer to you and kept him away.”
He paced back and forth, bare-chested in Violet’s private room in the suite, wearing only the low-slung blue jeans he had quickly put on when he opened his eyes and saw her already dressed and quietly exiting through the door of the master bedroom.
Again he had the sudden urge for a cigarette.
“That isn’t the problem, Leon,” Violet said, throwing her things into her two big wheeled suitcases. “I know how to deal with men like Hugh. I’ve been dealing with them my entire life.”
She packed the black velvet dress she had worn yesterday evening into a garment bag and zipped it up. Leon shuddered as he remembered last night, when he had slipped that same dress up over her head so he could drink in the sight of her creamy skin. Underneath the dress she had worn a lacy black bra and panties. When he recalled the sight of her, standing nearly nude before him in her high heels, he felt a shock of pain and pleasure in his groin.
“The problem,” Violet continued,” is that I don’t know how to deal with a man like you.” She zipped both suitcases and fastened their straps.
“And what kind of man is that?” Leon inquired, stepping closer to her.
“A man who lies to make himself seem like a saint.”
“Violet, don’t go.” Leon caught her wrist in his hand. She tried to jerk it away, but he held on tightly.
“Let go of me,” Violet said coldly. “I know how to make a scene. You won’t like it.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Leon said. “The police would be called. Your family would not approve.”
Violet twisted her wrist out of his grasp and backed away from him. Her enormous blue eyes smoldered with anger. “What do you care about my family? If you had your way, you’d have us all sent to prison, our entire fortune scattered to the four winds, the laughingstock of the press. Don’t you try to pretend you give a crap about my family!”
Leon stood in the center of the room, breathing hard. He felt helpless. Of course she was right. He had done his job – reluctantly, but he had done it.
“All right,” he said wearily. “May I at least help you with your bags?”
“No. I’ve already called for a bellhop.”
Leon’s mood sunk even further, if that were possible. Under normal circumstances, Violet’s manners were perfect, but just now she had simply told him no. Not “no thank you.” Just no.
“Won’t you need help when you get to your apartment?” he asked.
“I can handle things fine at my place. I have a doorman.”
There was a knock at the private entrance to Violet’s room. “Bellhop,” a voice said.
“Violet, I can’t understand why you won’t let me help you,” Leon pleaded.
“No way am I showing you where I live.” She shot him an icy look and opened the door for the bellman.
Then she was gone.
***
Violet stepped out of her cab and arranged for the doorman to have her two big suitcases brought up to her apartment. It was the second time this week that she had to lug those suitcases around after unpleasant conversations with men, and it was getting old.
Outside it was still the morning rush hour, but inside the building it was quiet. She let herself into her apartment and emptied out the suitcases on her bed.
Her heart was pounding as she hung up the black velvet dress. Hugh was definitely doing insider trading. The only question was whether Leon was in on it and had tried to involve her in the fraud.
The reception the night before had taken an unpleasant turn, but Violet forced herself to recall all of the details anyway. Hugh had doggedly tried to get rid of Leon before giving her the tip about selling Amixa stock before it crashed. Maybe Leon didn’t know what his partner was doing.
On the other hand, maybe it was a setup. Maybe Leon’s job had been to look clean and win her confidence so she would let her guard down. Then it was Hugh’s job to slink in and do the dirty work.
If that was the case, then they were both well suited for their roles, Violet thought. She spied the pot of Daphne eyeshadow still sitting on her vanity and almost burst into tears.
She needed to talk to someone. Amelia was out of the question. She was well known on Wall Street, and Zetta Holdings, the brokerage she had set up with Max, had earned top-ten ratings and ruffled the feathers of its competitors. Violet would do nothing to jeopardize Amelia’s reputation. She didn’t want her sister to get anywhere near this.
In fact, the minute she told anyone with the slightest connection to the market, she herself would be an accomplice.
She had to call Max. He had kept the Zetta Corporation out of the stock market, instead keeping the family business’s investments in the private equities market, where the real money was. He was a silent partner in Zetta Holdings, letting Amelia manage the day to day operations of the brokerage.
Max would know what to do, and he knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Violet punched up her brother’s private cell phone number on her speed dial, smiling briefly. The Wilson siblings had played Batman when they were growing up. Max, who had always insisted on hogging the lead role for himself, called this cell line the Bat Phone. It was for family members only, and he would always answer it or return voice mails within five minutes, no matter where he was or whom he was with.
Max answered immediately. “Vi, what’s up?”
“Somebody gave me an insider stock tip at a tech reception at the Edison last night and told me to tell the family,” she blurted out. “What should I do about it?”
Max immediately went into CEO mode. “You didn’t call Amelia, did you?” he asked sharply.
“Absolutely not. I know a couple of things about business.”
“I know you do,” Max reassured her. “Just making sure. OK, slow down and tell me the story from the beginning. Do not under any circumstances tell me the name of the stock.”
Violet paused to gather her thoughts. So much had happened since the last time she had seen Max at their parents’ house upstate for brunch last Sunday.
“Well, I’ve been dating this French guy…” she started.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Max said. “What about Tim?”
“Tim is history.” Violet decided not to explain. It wasn’t relevant.
“Hear, hear,” Max said caustically. He had never liked Tim, not one bit. “Never mind. Tell me more about monsieur.”
“Leon Girard. Handsome. Charming. The whole enchilada,” Violet said. “Told me he works in the finance industry but weaseled out of giving me more information.”
“Never a good sign,” Max said. “He must be very handsome and charming, then.”
“He is. His sister’s name is Colette. She has contacts on the Paris runways and offered to promote my work.”
“Oh, I see.”
Violet almost laughed out loud. Max was a bit shaky in the romance department, or had been until he’d gotten engaged to Amy, but because Colette had offered Violet a business advantage, he understood immediately.
“Leon introduced me to his supposed ‘business partner’ at the IPO reception last night. Nasty little American guy named Hugh Ste
ffans who slithered up and whispered the tip in my ear while Leon was in the men’s room.”
“Obviously monsieur was the wing man,” Max remarked.
“That’s what I thought at first,” Violet said. “But he really didn’t want to leave me alone with the tipster.”
“That’s odd,” Max said. “Might have been a ruse. Do you think the sister is in on it?”
Violet felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t considered that. If Leon had told Colette to construct a bogus story about promoting her design work, then he was even more evil than she had first suspected. She had made the right decision to break up with him.
“I don’t know. But why are these people bothering me?” she asked.
“You’re easier to get to than me or Amelia,” Max said. “I’m sorry, sis. It goes with the territory of being a Wilson.”
Violet nodded, not trusting her voice.
“OK, here’s the deal,” Max said. “You’re in the clear as long as you never breathe a word of this to anyone else again, ever. You don’t trade, so you’re not obligated to report this guy Hugh, or whatever his name is.”
“I won’t,” Violet said.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission would love to learn all about him, I’m sure,” Max continued. “But you’d have to answer questions, and it would surely get out in the papers. The public loves it when somebody sticks it to the wealthy. Zetta Holdings is squeaky clean and it’s in all of our best interests to keep it that way, if you get my drift.”
“Yes I do,” Violet replied. As much as she would have liked to see slimy little Hugh sent to federal prison, it wasn’t worth the risk to her family, whom she loved more than life.
Besides, Leon might also face charges in the European Union. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Part of her wanted to see him sent to a French prison for the rest of his life. Another part of her wanted the whole story to be a bad joke.
The memory of Leon’s expert hands caressing her flesh in bed last night flashed through her mind. So much was at stake.
A Deceptive Attraction: The Wilsons, Book 3 Page 7
