Not For Sale
Autore
Sandra Marton
Letto da
18,8K
Capitoli
12
CHAPTER ONE
LUCAS VIEIRA was mad as hell.
His day had not gone well. Not gone well? Lucas almost laughed.
An understatement.
His day had been chaos. Now, it was rapidly turning into catastrophe.
It had started with a mug of burned coffee. Lucas had not even known there could be such a thing until his P.A.—his very temporary P.A.—had brewed a pot of something black, hot and oily and poured him a cup of it.
One taste, and he’d shoved the thing aside, flipped open his cell phone to check his messages and found one from the same fool of a reporter who’d been badgering him for an interview the past two weeks. How had the man gotten his number? It was private, as was the rest of Lucas’s life.
Lucas cherished his privacy.
He avoided the press. He traveled by private jet. His two-level penthouse on Fifth Avenue was accessible only via private elevator. His estate on the ocean, in the Hamptons, was walled; the Caribbean island he’d bought last year was festooned with No Trespassing signs.
Lucas Vieira, Man of Mystery, some wag had once called him. Not exactly true. There were times Lucas couldn’t avoid cameras and microphones and questions. He was a multibillionaire, and that stirred interest.
He was also a man who had risen to the top in a profession where lineage and background had significant meaning…
And he had neither.
Or, rather, he did—but not the kind Wall Street generally preferred. Not the kind he would discuss, either. The only questions he would ever consider were those that concerned the public face of Vieira Financial. As for how Vieira Financial had come to be such a powerhouse, how Lucas had come to be such a success at thirty-three…
He had tired of being asked, so he’d finally offered a response in a recent interview.
“Success,” he’d said, in his somewhat husky, lightly accented voice, “success is when preparation meets opportunity.”
“That’s it?” the interviewer had said.
“That’s it,” Lucas had replied, and he’d unclipped the tiny mike from the lapel of his navy wool Savile Row suit jacket, risen to his feet, walked past the cameras and out of the studio.
What he would never add was that to reach that point, a man could permit nothing, absolutely nothing, to get in his way.
Lucas frowned, swung his leather chair away from his massive Brazilian rosewood desk and stared blindly out the wall of glass that overlooked midtown Manhattan.
Which brought him directly back to today, and how in God’s name was he going to keep to that credo?
There had to be a way.
He had learned the importance of letting nothing come between a man and his goals years ago when he was a boy of seven, a dirty, half-starved menino de rua—a kid living on the streets of Rio. He picked tourists’ pockets, stole whatever he could, ate out of restaurant trash bins, slept in alleys and parks, although you didn’t really sleep when you had to be alert to every sound, every footfall.
There was no way out.
Brazil was a country of extremes. There were the incredibly rich who lived in homes that defied description, and the incredibly poor, the favelados, who eked out an existence in the favelas, the shanty towns, that clung to Rio’s hillsides. Lucas was not even one of them. He was nothing. He was vermin. And what seven-year-old could change that?
All he had was his mother. And then, one night, a man she’d brought home took a look at Lucas, trying to make himself invisible in the corner of their cardboard shack, and said forget it, he was not going to pay good money to lie with a puta while her kid watched.
The next day, Lucas’s mother walked him to the dirty streets of Copacabana, told him to be a good boy and left him there.
He never saw her again.
Lucas learned to survive. To keep moving, to run when the cops showed up because they’d as soon beat the crap out of you as not. Then, one night, somebody yelled, “Bichos!” but Lucas couldn’t run. He was sick, half-delirious with fever, dehydrated after vomiting up what little was in his belly.
He was doomed.
Except, he wasn’t.
On that night, his life changed forever.
Some do-gooding social worker was with the police. Who knew why? It didn’t matter. What did matter was that she took him to a storefront that housed one of the few organizations that saw street children as human. There, they pumped him full of antibiotics, gave him fruit juice to drink and, when he could keep that down, food. They cleaned him up, cut his hair, dressed him in clothes that didn’t fit, but who gave a damn?
The clothes were free of lice. That was what mattered. Lucas wasn’t stupid. In fact, he was bright. He’d taught himself to read, to do math. Now, he attacked the books they gave him, observed how others behaved, learned to speak properly, to remember to wash his hands and brush his teeth, to say obrigado and por favor.
And he learned to smile.
That was the hardest thing. Smiling was not a part of who he was, but he did it.
Weeks passed, months, and then there was another miracle. A North American couple showed up, talked with him for a little while—by then, Lucas had picked up passable English from one of his teachers—and the next thing he knew, they took him to a place called New Jersey and said he was now their son.
He should have known it wouldn’t last.
Lucas had cleaned up nicely. He looked cute. Black hair, green eyes, golden skin. He smelled good. He spoke well. Inside, though, the boy who trusted no one was still in charge. He hated being told what to do and the New Jersey couple believed children should be told what to do, every minute of every hour of every day.
Things deteriorated rapidly.
He was not grateful, his would-be father said, and tried to beat gratitude into him. His heart was owned by demons, his would-be mother said, and demanded he seek salvation on his knees.
Eventually, they said he would never be any good. On his tenth birthday, they drove him to a hulking gray building and handed him over to Child Services.
Lucas spent the next eight years going from foster home to foster home. One or two were okay but most of them… Even now, as an adult, his fists knotted when he thought back to some of what he and others had endured. The last place was so terrible that at midnight on the day he turned eighteen, he’d tossed the few things he owned into a pillowcase, slung it over his shoulder and walked out.
But he had learned what would become the single most important lesson of his life.
He knew precisely what he wanted.
Respect. That was it, in a word. And he knew, too, that respect came when a man had power. And money. He wanted both.
He worked hard, picked crops in New Jersey fields during the summer, did whatever manual labor he could find during the winter. He got his GED—his General Educational Diploma—because he had never stopped reading and reading led to learning. He enrolled in a community college, sat through classes when he was exhausted and desperate for sleep. Add a helping of socially acceptable good manners, clothes that fit the long, leanly muscled body of the man he had become, and the way to the top suddenly seemed possible.
More than possible. It was achievable.
At thirty-three, Lucas Vieira had it all.
Almost.
Almost, he thought grimly, on this day that had started with bad coffee and an inept secretary, and he had no one to blame but himself.
Anger surged through him and he shot to his feet and paced the length of his big office.
A bad sign, that uncharacteristic show of fury. Learning to contain one’s emotions was also necessary for success. Still, it wasn’t as bad as his having missed the signs of his current mistress’s unrealistic reading of what she’d called a relationship.
When he’d thought about it at all, he’d called it an affair.
Whatever it had been, he was on the verge of disaster.
He was going to lose buying Leonid Rostov’s twenty billion dollar corporation. And the deal was close, tantalizingly close to finalization…
Everybody wanted the Rostov holdings but Lucas wanted them more. Adding them to his already formidable empire would validate everything he had worked so hard to become.
A few months ago, when word got out that Rostov might be selling, that he was coming to New York, Lucas had taken a gamble. He had not sent Rostov letters or proposals. He had not phoned the man’s Moscow office. Instead, he’d sent Rostov a box of Havana cigars—every photo of the Russian showed him with a cigar in his teeth—and a business card. Across the back he’d written, Dinner in New York next Saturday, 8:00 p.m., the Palace Hotel.
Rostov had swallowed the bait.
They’d had a leisurely meal in a private room. There was no talk of business. Lucas knew Rostov was sizing him up. Rostov ate heartily and drank the same way, Lucas ate sparingly and made each drink last. At the end of the night, Rostov slapped him on the back and invited him to Moscow.
Now, after endless flying back and forth, negotiating through translators—Rostov’s English was chancy but how could Lucas fault it when his Russian began with zdravstvuj—hello—and ended with dasvidaniya?
Now, Rostov was in New York again.
“We have one more meal, Luke-ahs, one bottle of vodka—and then I will make you happy man.”
Only one problem.
Rostov was bringing his wife.
Ilana Rostov had joined them the last time Lucas was in Moscow. She had a beautiful if surgically altered face; diamond earrings dangled like Bolshoi chandeliers from her ears. She moved in a cloud of choking perfume and she was fluent in English; she’d served as her husband’s translator that night.
She’d also had her hand buried in Lucas’s lap beneath the deep hem of a crisply starched tablecloth.
Somehow, Lucas had made it through the meal, the translator he’d hired for the evening oblivious, Rostov oblivious, only Lucas and Ilana Rostov aware of what was happening. He had barely escaped with his dignity, never mind anything else, intact.
And Rostov was bringing her with him tonight.
“No translators,” he’d said firmly. “Translators are functionaries of the state, da? You can, of course, bring a voman. But for talking, my Ilana will take care of you as good as she will take care of me.”
Lucas had almost laughed. And he could laugh this time, because he had an ace up his sleeve.
Her name was Elin Jansson. Elin, born in Finland, spoke flawless Russian. She was a model; she was Lucas’s current mistress. She would be his date, his translator…
And his protection against Ilana Rostov.
Lucas groaned, went to the window wall behind his desk and pressed his forehead against the cool glass.
It had all seemed so simple. He should have known better. Life was never simple, and today had proved it.
“Mr. Vieira?”
Lucas swung around. His temporary P.A. smiled nervously from the doorway. She was young and she made lousy coffee but far worse, no matter what he did to make her feel comfortable, she remained half-terrified of him. Right now, she looked as if one strong gust of wind might blow her over.
And well she should look exactly that way, he thought grimly. He had left orders that he was not to be disturbed.
“What is it, Denise?”
“It’s Elise. Sir.” The girl swallowed dryly. “I knocked but you didn’t—” She swallowed again. “Mr. Rostov called. I told him you were unavailable, just the way you said. And he said to tell you that he and Mrs. Rostov might be a few minutes late to meet you and—”
Her voice trailed off.
“You’ve told me,” Lucas said crisply. “Is there anything else?”
“I just—I just wondered if—if I should phone the restaurant and—and tell them there’ll be only three for dinner.””
Merda! This was going from bad to impossible. Did the entire world know what had happened?
“Did I ask you to do that?”
“No, sir. I just thought—”
“Don’t think. Just do what you’re told.” The girl’s face collapsed. Hell. So much for controlling his emotions. “Denise. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“It’s Elise,” she said in a wobbly voice. “And you don’t owe me an apology, sir. I just—I mean, I know you’re upset…”
“I am not upset,” Lucas said, forcing a smile the way he’d done when he was a boy. “Why would I be upset?”
“Well—well, Miss Jansson—when she was here a little while ago—” Another gulping swallow. “Mr. Gordon was at my desk. And we couldn’t help but hear—I mean, I couldn’t stop Miss Jansson from going by me and then, once she got inside your office…”
“So,” Lucas said, through his teeth, “I had an audience.” He attempted a smile but suspected it was more a grimace. “What about everyone on the other floors? Were they in attendance, too?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Vieira, sir. I could ask around, if that’s what—”
“What I want,” Lucas said, “is that you never mention this again. To me or anyone else. Is that clear?”
The girl nodded.
Mental note, Lucas thought dryly. Offer to quadruple regular P.A.’s salary when she returns from vacation if she swears never to leave her desk again barring death, disease, or God forbid, marriage.
“It is, sir, and I want you to know how sorry I am that you and Miss Jansson—”
“Go back to your desk,” Lucas snapped. “And do not interrupt me again or you’ll find yourself at HR, collecting your final check. Understood?”
Apparently, it was. Denise, Elise, whoever in hell she was, slunk off, shutting the door behind her. Lucas glared at it for a couple of seconds. Then he sank into the chair behind his desk, tilted it back and stared at the ceiling.
Wonderful. In a couple of hours, he’d be meeting with a man who spoke little English and a woman who only wanted to get her hands inside his fly. He had no translator, and now his private life was the topic of discussion among his employees.
Why wouldn’t it be?
Elin had made one hell of a scene, storming in, demanding to know about “that blonde bimbo” as she tossed a photo on his desk. It had appeared online, on some gossip site, she said. One look and Lucas knew it was a Photoshopped miracle but done so carelessly that the “bimbo”—an actress, the text said—seemed to hover next to him, her feet a few inches off the ground.
He’d looked up, already smiling, a second away from telling Elin exactly that. Then he’d looked at her icy eyes, the grim set of her mouth, and inconsequential annoyances suddenly began to add up.
Elin’s little makeup bag, left in a vanity drawer. The jeans, shirt, and sneakers left in his closet. So she could get out of a cab at her place at seven in the morning, she’d purred, without raising eyebrows.
Stupid, he’d thought, worse than stupid! Elin didn’t care about raising eyebrows. Besides, half the women in Manhattan got out of cabs in the early morning, still dressed as they’d been the prior night.
And maybe the most obvious part of that lie was that he could count on one hand the number of times Elin, or any other woman, had slept in his bed the entire night.
He wasn’t into that. Sex was sex; sleep was sleep. You did one with a woman. You did the other alone.
“You think it’s funny that you sneaked around? That you cheated on me?” Elin had slapped her hands on her hips. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”
That did it.
Lucas had risen to his feet. Elin was tall but at six-three, he towered over her.
“I do not cheat,” he’d said coldly. “I do not sneak. And I do not explain myself. To you or anyone else.”
She had grown very still. Progress, he’d thought, and he’d gone on, calmly, to remind her of how things were between them. That they were having an affair and it was enjoyable, but—
She’d screamed something at him. In Finnish, but still, he could tell what she’d said was not complimentary.
A second later, she was gone.
No big thing. That was what he’d thought. In fact, it was long past time they said goodbye to each other…
And then, reality had come rushing in.
The dinner. Leonid Rostov. His wife. For one wild second, Lucas had imagined going after Elin and asking if this meant she wasn’t going to go with him tonight…
He stalked to the built-in rosewood cabinet across the room, bypassed Denise-Elise’s witch’s brew, opened a sliding door and took out a thin Baccarat highball glass and a bottle of Macallan single malt Scotch.
It was all his fault. He should have known better than to mix business with pleasure but it had seemed perfect. A beautiful, sophisticated woman who would know which fork to use even as she translated Russian into English and English into Russian. Where in hell could a man find a woman like that at the eleventh hour, even in New—
“M-M-Mr. Vieira?”
“Damnit,” Lucas snarled, and swung toward the door. His P.A. was trembling. Beside her stood, hell, Jack Gordon. Lucas had hired him a year ago. Gordon was bright and innovative. Still, there were times Lucas wondered if there was more to Gordon than met the eye.
Or maybe less.
Lucas jerked his head. Denise-Elise stepped back and closed the door, and Lucas turned an icy look on Gordon.
“This had better be good.”
Gordon blanched but he held his ground. Lucas had to admire him for that.
“Sir. Lucas. I think, when you hear what I have to say—”
“Say it and then get out of here.”
Gordon took a breath. “This isn’t easy…” He took another breath. “I know what happened. You and the Jansson woman… Wait a minute, okay? I’m not here to talk about that.”
“You damned well better not be.”
“She was supposed to go with you tonight. To that meeting,” Gordon said hurriedly. “You mentioned it Monday morning, how Rostov didn’t want real translators, so he’d talk through his wife and you—”
“Get to the point.”
“Sir. I know someone who’s fluent in Russian.”
“Perhaps you weren’t listening to everything I said on Monday,” Lucas said with icy precision. “Rostov refuses to have anyone he thinks of as a functionary present tonight. He says that’s what official translators are, and perhaps they are, in his world, but what it comes down to is—”
“Dani can pretend to be your date.”
Lucas’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think I can fool our Russian friend into thinking I’ve suddenly decided to go in for boys.”
“Dani’s a girl, sir. A gorgeous girl. She’s smart, too. And she speaks Russian.”
Lucas felt a flare of hope. Then he faced reality. A girl, sight unseen? For an evening as important as this? No way. For all he knew, he’d be compounding what was already a mess into a disaster.
“Forget it.”
“Sir, it would work.”
Lucas shook his head. “It’s clever, Jack, but this is a twenty billion dollar deal. I can’t run the risk of this woman screwing things.”
Gordon laughed. Lucas’s eyes narrowed to emerald slits.
“Did I say something amusing?”
“No, no, of course not. Look, I’ve know Dani for years. She’s exactly what you need for a situation like this.”
“And if I were foolish enough to say yes to your suggestion, she would do this because…?”
“Like I said. We’re old friends. She’d do it as a favor to me.”
A muscle flickered in Lucas’s jaw. A twenty billion dollar deal, hinging on a man who drank too much vodka, a woman who had more limbs and libido than an octopus and a woman he’d never met?
Impossible.
And impossible to pass up.
“All right,” he said sharply. “Call her.”
Jack Gordon’s eyebrows rose. “You mean it?”
“Isn’t that what this conversation was all about? Call her. Tell her—”
“Dani. Dani Sinclair.”
“Dani. Tell her I’ll pick her up at seven-thirty. Where does she live?”
“She’ll meet you,” Jack said quickly.
“The lobby of the Palace. Eight o’clock sharp. No. Make it ten of the hour.” That way, he’d have time to hand the Sinclair woman cab fare and get rid of her if she turned out to be totally wrong for the job. “Tell her to dress appropriately.” He paused. “She can do that, can’t she?”
“She’ll dress appropriately, sir.”
“And, of course, make it clear I’ll pay her for her time. Say, one thousand dollars for the evening.”
He could see Gordon all but swallowing another laugh. Yes, Lucas thought coldly, why wouldn’t he find his employer’s predicament amusing? If this worked, he could take credit for saving Lucas’s corporate ass. But oh, if it didn’t…
“That sounds fine, sir.” Gordon held out his hand. “Good luck.”
Lucas looked at the outstretched hand, fought back a sense of repugnance he knew was foolish and accepted the handshake.
Jack Gordon hurried back to his own office before he pulled out his cell and hit a speed dial digit.
“Dani. Baby, have I got a deal for you!”
He explained as quickly as possible; Dani Sinclair was not one for long conversations but then, that wasn’t what men paid her for. When he’d finished, he heard the slow exhalation of her breath.
“So, let me get this straight. You told some guy—”
“Not just some guy, baby. Lucas Vieira. The Lucas Vieira. The guy with more money than God.”
“You told him I’d give him a date?”
“Yeah. Only, not that kind of date. This is dinner with Vieira, a Russian guy and the guy’s wife. You need to act like you and Vieira are a thing. And you need to translate.” Jack laughed softly. “I guess taking a degree in Cyrillic languages was a good idea after all.”
“I’m taking my Master’s,” Dani Sinclair said, “and a girl has to think about her future.” She paused. “How much did you say he’ll pay?”
“A thousand.”
Dani laughed. “Did you forget my going rate, Jack? It’s ten thousand for the evening.”
“Baby, we go way back. Elementary school. Middle school. High school.”
“Fine. I’ll give you a special discount. Five thousand.”
“Jeez. For a meal?”
“And, of course, my usual fee if your Mr. Vieira wants anything else.”
Jack Gordon rubbed the top of his head. “If he wants more, you can negotiate the fee yourself.”
Dani chuckled. “Jack, you wily fox. You haven’t told him about me. What, you want him to be shocked?”
“I want him to owe me,” Jack Gordon said, his tone suddenly cold. “And he will, no matter how this goes.”
“Charming. Okay, so when does this happen?”
“I thought I told you. Tonight. The Palace lobby. Ten minutes of eight.”
“Oh, but I…” Dani fell silent. Five K to eat a fancy meal, talk some Russian and in between, pretend she was the date of Lucas Vieira, the gorgeous, sexy, take-no-prisoners Wall Street tough guy. And a minimum of ten K if he ended up wanting to prolong the evening.
So tempting. If only she could do it. Trouble was, she already had a date for tonight, with a Texas oilman who came through the city once a month like clockwork.
There had to be a way…
“Dani?”
And there was. She could clear, say, forty-five hundred without doing a thing besides making a phone call.
“Yes,” she said briskly. “Fine. The lobby, the Palace, ten of eight.”
She disconnected, checked her cell’s contact list and hit a button. A female voice answered on the third ring, sounding breathless and a little rushed.
“Caroline? It’s Dani. Dani, from the Chekhov seminar? Listen, sweetie, I have a translating job that I don’t have time to take and I thought, right away, of you.”
Caroline Hamilton used a hip to shut the door of her Hell’s Kitchen walk-up, then tucked her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder, shifted the grocery bags she held so she could free a hand and secure the door’s three locks.
Dani from the Chekhov seminar? Caroline tried to picture her as she made her way across the six feet of floor space to what her landlord insisted was a kitchen. Yes, okay. Dani, a fellow Master of Arts student in Russian and Slavic Studies. Tall, stunning, dressed in the latest designer stuff. They’d never spoken except to say “hi” and “see you next time,” and to exchange numbers in case one needed to check with the other about an assignment.
“Caroline? You still there?”
“I’m here.” Caroline eased the grocery bags onto the counter, took a Lean Cuisine from one, worked at opening the little tear strip on the box while still keeping the phone at her ear. “A translating job, you said?”
“That’s right. An unusual one. It involves dinner.”
Caroline’s belly rumbled. She had passed on lunch. No time, less money. The phone slipped as she finally got the container from the package. She grabbed it before it hit the Formica counter.
“…as the pretend G.F. of a rich guy.”
“What?” Caroline said, reading the directions. Three minutes on high, peel back the liner, stir, another minute and a half—
“I said, it’s dinner. You meet this hotshot business guy at the Palace Hotel and you pretend you’re his girlfriend. See, there’s another couple and they speak Russian. Your guy doesn’t, so you’ll translate for him.”
Caroline put the Lean Cuisine into the nuker, shrugged off her jacket, pushed her thick, straight-as-a-stick mane of no-real-color hair back from her face, blew strands of it out of her hazel eyes.
“Why would I pretend I’m his girlfriend?”
“You just would,” Dani said, “that’s all.”
Caroline punched in the three minutes. “Thanks but I’ll pass. I mean, it sounds, well, weird.”
“One hundred bucks.”
“Dani, look…”
“Two hundred. And that meal. Then the night’s over, you go home with two hundred dollars in your jeans. Except,” she added hurriedly, “except, of course, you can’t wear jeans.”
“Well, that’s that, then. I definitely don’t have—”
“I’m a size six. You?”
“A six. But—”
“Size seven shoes, right?”
Caroline sank onto the rickety wooden stool that graced the counter. “Right. But honestly—”
“Three hundred,” Dani said briskly. “And I’m on my way. A dress. Shoes. Makeup. Think of what fun this will be.”
All Caroline could think of was three hundred dollars. You didn’t need to be a linguist to translate that into a piece of next month’s rent.
“Caroline! I need your address. We’re running out of time here.”
Caroline gave it. Told herself to ignore the prickly feeling dancing down her spine, told herself that same thing again, two hours later, when Dani spun her toward the mirror and she saw…
“Cinderella,” Dani said, laughing at Caroline’s shocked expression. “Hey, one last thing, okay? Let this guy think you’re me. See, the friend who set this up thinks I’m gonna do the date, I mean, be the date, and it’s easier all around if we keep it that way.”
Caroline looked at her reflection again. Dani’s fifty-dollar-a-bottle conditioner had taken her hair from no-color to pale gold. Her hazel eyes glittered, thanks to the light sparkle of gold shadow on her lids. Her cheekbones and mouth were a delicate pink and her dress… Cobwebs. Slinky black cobwebs that showed more leg than she’d ever shown except in shorts or a swimsuit. And on her feet, gold sandals, their heels so high she wondered if she’d be able to walk.
She didn’t look like herself anymore, and something about that terrified her.
“Dani. I don’t—I can’t—”
“You’re meeting him in half an hour.”
“No, really, it just feels wrong. To lie, to pretend I’m you, that I’m this Luke Vieira’s girlfriend—”
“Lucas,” Dani said impatiently. “Lucas Vieira. Okay. Five hundred.”
Caroline stared at her. “Five hundred dollars?”
“We’re running out of time. What’s it gonna be? Yes or no?”
Caroline swallowed hard. And said the only thing she could.
She said, “Yes.”
