Lipstick Jungle

Victory rolled her eyes. “Okay,” she said cautiously. “Are you sure?”

“This time we are sure,” Ellen said reassuringly. There was the sound of a small scuffle, and then Lyne Bennett himself came on the line. “Hey kiddo, where are you?” he asked. “Get your ass over here to Seventy-second Street.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Victory said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

She hung up and looked at the driver. “That was Ellen,” she said. “We’re supposed to go to Seventy-second Street after all.”

She sat back in the seat. Really! It was too much. Why couldn’t the man make a decision and stick to it? Apparently he owned two back-to-back town houses that ran the length of an entire block, from Seventy-second Street to Seventy-third Street, and he lived on the Seventy-third Street side and had his offices on Seventy-second Street. All afternoon, Ellen had been calling her, first to tell her that Lyne wanted to meet in his residence, then that he had changed his mind and wanted to meet at the office. Then he wanted to meet at the Whitney Museum instead. Now he had changed his mind again and wanted to meet at the office.

It was a not-very-subtle way of saying that his time was more valuable than hers, she thought.

The car came to a stop, and the driver got out to open her door. Victory was too quick for him, however, and she let herself out, standing on the sidewalk and looking up at Lyne’s building. It was somewhat of a monstrosity, built of white marble with a small turret jutting out the side. She swore she saw a woman’s face in the window, peering out anxiously.

And then the face was gone.

For a moment, she hesitated. This really was going to be a waste of time. She didn’t even know Lyne Bennett, but already she didn’t like him. “Call Ellen right now and tell her you changed your mind,” a voice in her head urged her. “What’s he going to do? Get pissed off and ruin your business?”

But then a heavy, wrought-iron gate with spikes on the top opened, and a burly man wearing a suit and a headset in his ear came walking toward her with the menacing stride of the overly developed. Victory thought he walked like he had a poop in his pants.

“Here to see Mr. Bennett?” he asked.

“Yes . . .”

“Come with me,” he said.

“Do you greet all of his visitors this way?” she asked.

“Yeah, we do,” he said as he ushered her inside.

* * *

“WHADDYA MEAN, IS SHE pretty? Of course she’s pretty. She’s gorgeous,” Lyne Bennett said, glancing at Victory as he yapped into the receiver. He was sitting on a brown suede swivel chair, smoking a cigar as he casually rested a heavy English lace-up shoe on top of his desk as if he had all day and she wasn’t sitting there waiting for him. The office was done up in some decorator’s idea of the ultimate gentleman’s library, with paneled walls, bookcases, an Oriental rug, and a large enameled cigar ashtray from Dunhill. Victory was perched uncomfortably on a small French armchair covered in a leopard-print fabric. She smiled gamely.

How much longer was she going to have to endure this scene? She’d walked into Lyne’s office at least three minutes earlier and he was still talking. Maybe she should just leave.

“She’s sitting right here,” Lyne said into the phone. “Her name’s Victory Ford. That’s right,” he nodded, giving Victory a wink. “The fashion designer. Uh huh. She is a beautiful woman.” Lyne put his hand over the phone. “Tanner Cole knows exactly who you are and he approves. Here,” he said, holding out the phone. “Say hi to him. Give him a thrill. He hasn’t been doing too well lately in the romance department.”

Victory sighed and stood up, talking the phone from his hand. This was all so juvenile! She hated it when people did this, forcing you talk on the phone to someone you didn’t know. Even if they were movie stars. “Hello,” she said into the receiver.

“Don’t let him give you a hard time,” Tanner Cole’s voice cooed in her ear.

“I won’t,” she said, looking at Lyne. “And if he does, I’ll just have to date you instead.” Lyne grabbed the phone out of her hand with pretend outrage.

“D’ya hear that?” he demanded, giving Victory a smile. His teeth, Victory noted, were large and blazingly white. “She said maybe she should date you instead. She obviously doesn’t know about the size of your pee-pee.”

Victory sighed and sat back down in the chair. She looked pointedly at her watch, thinking about what a show-off Lyne was. It was kind of pathetic. But maybe he was insecure. It was hard to believe, but possible. Insecurity was probably the impetus that had driven him to make a billion dollars in the first place. She looked around the office and caught sight of three whimsical ink drawings—Alexander Calders, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lyne had probably engineered this whole scene to impress her, making sure that he was on the phone with his good buddy Tanner Cole when Ellen showed her in.

She recrossed her legs. At least he felt the need to make an effort, she thought. And she suddenly felt a little bit sorry for him.

“Okay, dude, I’ll see you tomorrow night. Fucking Yankees,” he shouted, getting off the phone. It was baseball season. Lyne, no doubt, had a private box at Yankee Stadium.

She just hoped he wasn’t going to talk about sports all night.

“How are you?” he asked, as if he’d finally realized she was in the room. He stood up and came out from behind his desk, taking her hands and squeezing them and leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. “You look great,” he murmured.

“Thank you,” Victory said coldly.

“No, I mean it,” he said, not letting go of her hand. “I’m so glad you agreed to do this.”