For All the Wrong Reasons

by Louise Bagshawe

  She took a cab home, and determined to wash her hair, dress and go out. Maybe she’d call Felicity, the only one who was still talking to her. This was meant to be the city that never slept. There had to be a million fun things for a young woman with money to do.

  Almost as soon as she walked through the door, the phone rang. Diana half jumped out of her skin; the phone never rang in her apartment these days. She had gone from the queen of the city to a Trappist monk in one fell swoop. She picked it up, her heart racing. Maybe, at last, Ernie had seen the light.

  “Hello?” a soft voice said. “Diana?”

  She felt an intense stab of disappointment. It wasn’t her husband, it wasn’t even Natasha or Jodie. It was only Claire Bryant.

  “Hi Claire,” she replied.

  “Diana, where have you been?” Her friend sounded cross, which was unlike her. “When you hide out, you really hide out. I’ve spent weeks trying to find you. In the end I had to call Felicity Metson, and pry it out of her.”

  Diana felt slightly guilty. Why hadn’t she called Claire? It was true that Claire had made her feel foolish for thinking of work as the ultimate four-letter word, but Claire had always been there for her, when they talked. Her other so-called friends had bailed out when her husband did, except Felicity, of course. But Claire had actually made the effort to find her.

  “To be honest, I wanted to be on my own for a little while. Ernie and I are having some … slight troubles.”

  “Slight troubles? I heard it was worse than that.” Claire paused. “Look, can I give you some totally unwanted advice?”

  Diana sat down on her bed. “Go ahead.”

  “You have to see a lawyer and you have to go home. If he’s cheating, who knows what the girlfriend is trying to get out of him? Why should you be living in a cramped one-bedroom apartment when you are the wife? Go and see him, don’t stand on your pride. And get a good lawyer, just in case.”

  A lawyer!

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Diana protested. “Ernie just needs to see he can’t treat me this way. When he asks me home, I’ll come.”

  “I hope it won’t, but you can’t leave it all up to him. Look, take this number down. These are my lawyers, and they’re very good.”

  “But I thought everything was great between you and Josh.”

  “It is, but I was in the Girl Scouts. Be prepared, you know. And keep in touch. I’m here for you.”

  Diana hung up and was brushing her hair, thoughtfully, up to its normal state of glossy suppleness when the bell rang.

  She opened the door.

  “Ms. Diana Foxton?” Steve Santuro asked.

  He blinked once or twice. Steve served papers all day long—divorce papers, court summonses, notices telling people they were being sued. America was the litigation capital of the world, and Manhattan was the litigation capital of America. Steve made a great living, so he put up with the oaths and curses, the drunken husbands getting nailed for child support, the fat wives getting the elbow. But he’d never served papers on a chick like this.

  She was wearing a simple pink cotton dress with little puffy peasant sleeves, and a scoop-neck that revealed high, lovely collarbones and golden skin. She had a thick gold bangle around one wrist, high slides in her hair, long legs, and curves that would make a blind man see. Goddamn, Santuro thought. Her hair was blond and shiny and it looked like it came straight out of a shampoo ad. Any second he expected her to toss it from side to side for the cameras. Her breasts in that thing! Steve felt himself bead with a light sweat. They were soft and fighting to get out of that little blouse. They even looked natural. What woman these days actually stuck with her own tits?

  “Mrs. Ernest Foxton,” the vision corrected him.

  Ernest Foxton was a damn fool, whoever he was, Steve thought. Perhaps he was gay. Letting go of a peach like this? What a sexy accent, too. He loved the way those Brit chicks spoke.

  “Uh. Yeah. Mrs. Foxton, right.” Steve blushed and wanted to get out of there. “I, like, have a delivery for you. Could you sign?”

  “Of course,” she said. She smiled with bright white teeth and carefully wrote her name on his board. “What is it? Flowers?”

  “No ma’am. I’m afraid not.” Steve went the color of a ripe tomato. “It’s some legal stuff.”

  He thrust the papers forward awkwardly.

  Diana didn’t understand. She took the papers and flipped them over. She read the lettering on top. Carter & Carter, Solicitors, Grays’ Inn, London. What the hell was this?

  “What is this about?” she demanded imperiously.

  The spotty little delivery boy cringed and mumbled something about it all being in there.

  “Have a good evening, ma’am,” he said, and bolted.

  *

  The cab plunged and weaved through the New York traffic like a swallow, ducking in and out of lanes, running lights, blasting the horn. Diana sat in the back, oblivious to the noise and the crowd of people. She was furious to the point where she could see nothing but her white-hot anger. Who the hell did Ernie think he was, exactly? Divorce? Divorce her, after seven months? As if she had done something wrong, when he was the one fucking that little hooker in his office in front of everybody. She had been the perfect wife and this was how he repaid her. She was Diana Foxton, and she was not the kind of girl you could use up and throw away like a rag doll!

  The joint account had nearly a million dollars in it. First thing tomorrow, she would go straight to Tiffany’s and buy herself some serious jewelry. It was the least Ernie could do. All this time she had been waiting for his apology, to put this unpleasantness behind her, and instead, he’d been doing—this!

  He had the gall to offer her a lousy quarter of a million dollars? He was worth ten times that much! He sat in the apartment Diana had selected, in the rooms Diana had designed, on the couch Diana had dug out at great expense and effort, and he offered her peanuts for a quickie divorce?

  I’ll show him, she thought, curling her small fist. I’ll show him what he can expect from a woman like me.

  The cab screeched to a halt outside her apartment building. What a blessed relief it was to be pulling up to home, to a decent address! Her so-called friends had never been afraid to visit her here. When she’d finished with Ernie, she’d start with them. Diana had visions of the wonderful parties she would throw for a completely new set, from which Natasha and Jodie and that bunch of hags would most definitely be excluded.

  She threw a twenty down on the seat in front and told the psychotic cabby to keep the change. He didn’t argue; Americans never thought there was such a thing as too much money. The cab disappeared in a screech of rubber, and Diana strode into the lobby, ignoring the deferential crawling of the doorman and receptionist, and rode the elevator all the way up to their penthouse. The attendant opened his mouth a couple of times, but closed it again after she shot him a look. Good. She really couldn’t be bothered with the opinions of the little people right now.

  The doors hissed open and Diana marched out into her stone-floored lobby. There was the sound of low, murmuring voices. Ernie obviously had guests. Well, too damn bad. If ever there was an excuse for a scene, this was it.

  She brushed aside the greetings of Consuela and Paula and marched into the drawing room.

  Ernie was sitting there, with his arm draped over Felicity Metson. He looked up.

  “What are you doing in my apartment?” he said.

  *

  Michael moved a large paw through the air, grabbing at Iris. Her breasts were bouncing in that way he loved. Wedged deep inside her, he thrust to the rhythm of his blood. He was muscular and covered with sweat, the way he always got when he fucked. Her ass was resting up against his knees, it was too bony for him, but she wasn’t bad. She liked to reach behind him and cup his balls feather-light with those soft fingers as she rode him. Her blond hair moved over her face and trailed across her tits. She was grinding at him energetically, but she kept talking, which
aggravated him. He found it hard to get off when she was distracting him like this.

  “A—million—dollars,” Iris grunted. “Oh! Oh! And I bet it’s just the beginning, too.”

  Michael plunged back and forth, angling his cock in the way she loved. “Shut up, honey.”

  “You’re a genius,” Iris breathed. Her skin was mottling, and he saw her nipples all purple and full with blood. “I always knew you wouldn’t stay poor. I knew you weren’t a loser.”

  Some part of his brain registered her talking, but it was nothing to worry about now. His whole world was the sweet thickness of her wet pussy clamping around him, in and out, involuntarily gripping him. “Just shut up, OK? Shut up.”

  “But—it’s—so exciting,” Iris babbled. “A millionaire!”

  Michael growled low in his throat. If she wouldn’t shut up, he would shut her up. He lifted her up by her scrawny hipbones, and tilted her slim body backward on his knees, thrusting his cock deep inside her. Yes, he could feel the nubby head of it against the wall of her, that yielding, melting spot which turned any woman crazy. She groaned and tried to buck away from him. Often at first, the sensation was so strong they couldn’t take it. Mercilessly he held her in position, and shut his eyes, and thrust and thrust, and now she was gasping and sobbing and shuddering on top of him. He felt her pulse, her groin muscles in spasm around him, contracting in and out, in and out, violently, as he milked her. His orgasm started and he felt his balls shrink small and tight with the pressure, and ruthlessly he kept at it even as she subsided. His world exploded and the release came, so that he wasn’t even aware of her or her cries, or anything other than the tightness and pleasure of his cock pumping into her.

  Michael breathed in, hard, and came out of his stupor. The white-hot pleasure of riding Iris dissipated like mist on a bathroom mirror now that he was done. He lifted her gently and rolled across the bed.

  She was gasping and whimpering. “Oh, Michael, that was incredible. That was so incredible.”

  He eyed her. She wasn’t so groomed now, she was reddened and perspiring, and her hair was plastered to her angular face. He saw his thumbs had left small white marks around her waist. Her nipples were still up and full, pointing out at him like angry missiles.

  “What did you mean that I wasn’t a loser?” he asked softly.

  She shrugged, breathing heavily. “What I said. I had faith in you. I knew you would make money, that you wouldn’t stay a loser, living in this dump, you know, no car.”

  Michael looked at her expressionlessly. “And what if I hadn’t gotten that bonus?”

  Iris stood up and stretched her heated, slender body. Now, that he was denuded of his lust, Michael considered her more critically. She needed to eat more, for sure, and do some squats. She needed a bigger butt. It was annoying to have all those sharp angles digging into him when he was trying to fuck her.

  Iris padded across the room and reached for a large towel, wrapping herself daintily up in it, like he hadn’t seen everything she had to offer from every angle.

  “Really.” She drew a hand through her hair, tugging it back. “Why make problems where they don’t exist? I make way more than you do, but I knew that wouldn’t last.” She moved toward the bathroom. She didn’t like anybody to see her looking less than perfect. “The point is, you did make this bonus, and you’re going places, so we don’t really have any problems.”

  Smiling coyly, she blew him a kiss and tiptoed into the bathroom. Iris tiptoed all over the apartment when her shoes were off. Michael assumed that for her it represented nature’s high heels. She was a high-maintenance girl, all the way down the line. They didn’t really have any problems, huh? Think again, baby. He stood wearily and thought about the mechanics of dumping yet another girlfriend. Another gold-digger. Did a girl think it was attractive to be told you were now acceptable because you’d made a million bucks? Were all girls like this? He was drained from sex, too tired to think about it now. Iris would shower, then he would shower and fall straight into bed. Tomorrow night they would have their talk. He was going places, but it would be without her.

  Michael lay on his futon and regarded the high towers of Wall Street right outside his window. The moon was rising in the sky, and so was he. Tomorrow he would go to Ernie Foxton and accept the checks for himself and his staff.

  He was a millionaire. He had made it. It was one of the sweetest moments of his life.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The alarm buzzed in her ear. Diana reached out and hit it with one weary hand. She’d been awake for hours. There was too much to think about for her to get any sleep, and she had to be into the office at eight this morning.

  She lifted herself out of her lumpy bed and looked at the gray, muggy dawn that was breaking over Manhattan. Uptown, up high in her penthouse, where the air was clearer and the park was green in the sunshine, that two-faced bitch Felicity Metson was sleeping in her bed, with her husband. Diana groaned. Oh, she must have looked ridiculous last night, standing there dumb as a rock, her mouth open like a dying flounder on the beach.

  She beat herself up for her stupidity. When her other friends had melted away like the San Francisco morning mist, she had counted on Felicity. She should have known something was up. Diana looked around her clean, functional, soulless apartment with loathing. Fee had wanted her in here and out of Central Park West asap—to keep the coast clear for herself.

  Claire had been right about the scheming mistress. Only the mistress in question wasn’t Mira Chen. It was her best friend.

  “Of course I was your friend, darling.” The image of Felicity, smiling smugly like a crocodile about to swallow a fish, swum back into her mind. “I was your friend and Ernie’s friend, too. You made such a ridiculous fuss and a spectacle of him. Clearly he wasn’t the right man for you. I’m just helping you get closure on the process you started.”

  “I started it? I fucked Mira Chen?”

  “It wasn’t only Mira.” Oh, the satisfied look on Ernie’s face as he’d come out with that one. “You knew the score when you married me, you stuck-up cow. You’re so frigid, you forced me into it.”

  Diana had stood and gazed from one to the other. She imagined Felicity laughing, giving a blow by blow account to Natasha, Jodie and the others. Probably she had been doing that all along. She imagined the married women, sitting on the best banquettes at the Russian Tea Room, talking about Mira and Ernie, and the scene at the apartment, and her low-class living quarters, and laughing, their champagne flutes clinking. She couldn’t move. It was like being in one of those nightmares where her feet were stuck to the ground with superglue.

  “You bastard,” she whispered.

  Ernie gave a braying laugh. “You bastard,” he mimicked. “Is that the best you can do, love? You’ve seen my offer, have you? Our lawyer says you haven’t got a prayer. Check it out; we’ve been together barely seven months, and you walked out.”

  “Because you were cheating,” Diana said. Her tongue seemed stuck in her throat. “I’ll sue, here in America. You won’t have a dime left.”

  Ernie laughed at her. It was amazing, Diana thought, how she’d managed to blind herself. She’d thought he loved her. “I don’t think so, babes. I’ve filed for divorce in England, and you took a job over here, you moved out, no phone call, nothing. By the way, don’t bother trying to empty the joint account. I’ve already done it.”

  “What?” she gasped. She steadied herself on the ottoman sofa that she’d scouted out after months of trying at the Amsterdam fine antiques fair last year.

  Ernie waved one thin hand condescendingly at her. “Don’t worry. You got ten grand left in there. Can’t see my ex-wife on the streets. People might talk. Should tide you over. Plus two fifty for being a good girl.”

  “But I’m your wife,” Diana said. She blinked back the tears, she so badly wanted not to cry in front of Felicity, that smug, aggravating bitch, but she had no choice.

  “Not for long,” Ernie said, smirking.


  Diana had howled in misery and stumbled back into the lobby. As she stepped into the elevator, the sound of barely muted giggling from Felicity had greeted her, rising up like the hideous bubbling of a cauldron. She had ridden down to the lobby with tears streaming down her face, and the elevator attendant had been reduced to studying his shoes very carefully, making her, Diana, invisible as a lurching drunk on a bus.

  Mercifully the cabby who had taken her home—she had no wish to be told by Richard he couldn’t drive her anymore—didn’t ask any questions, either. This was New York, and misery was common. People minded their own business here.

  Diana shook her head, to get rid of the memories. This was real. This utter nightmare, it was real. She had checked last night, and this morning she couldn’t even afford her rent for more than a couple of months. Ernie was determined to cast her off, to make a beggar of her. She was suddenly, pathetically grateful for the grinding routine of her job.

  Determined to make the best of it, Diana regarded her tired reflection in the mirror? She was a pro at beauty. She had time to take care of those dark shadows, to wash her hair, to put on her best stuff, to douse herself with her bottle of Joy—the most expensive scent in the world. No matter how bad things got, she still had her beauty.

  I always relied on it, Diana told herself, and I still can now.

  *

  Diana turned up at the office at five to eight. She was wearing one of her sexiest business suits, a camel cotton, tailored suit with a sharply cut jacket that emphasized the flare of her breasts and bottom, and the dainty narrowness of her waist. Her face was a muted, glowing palette of berry and bronze color, the concealers had erased the shadows, and she wore her hair up, neatly, in a French chignon. Defiantly, her engagement and wedding rings still glittered on her left hand. A fragrant cloud of scent hung about her, if you dared to get close enough. The sheerest Woolford hose and butterscotch Patrick Cox heels completed the look.