Lipstick Jungle

Well, Nico thought. Apparently they had no idea the Yanks were about to lose.

She carried the paper to the weight bench and sat down on the end, holding it away from her in order to read the caption. Her eyesight was going—an inevitable reality of passing your fortieth birthday—and she could just make out the words: “Love Match,” and below, “The Yankees may have lost, but that doesn’t seem to bother billionaire Lyne Bennett and fashion designer Victory Ford. The two have been spotted all over Manhattan together . . .”

How had this happened? The last time she’d talked to Victory was Friday morning, and she said she’d had a great time with Lyne Bennett, but not in the way you would think. In fact, she said she doubted that she’d be hearing from Lyne Bennett again. Nico studied the picture more carefully. Victory certainly looked like she was having a good time. Nico shook her head, thinking about how her friends constantly managed to amaze and astound her.

* * *

WHAT HAPPENED WAS THAT Lyne Bennett kind of fell in love with Victory, and Victory with him.

Okay, “in love” was far too strong a word for it, Victory thought. But it could have been the beginning of “in love.” The warm, fuzzy, affectionate feeling you had for a man when you suddenly discovered that you liked him, that he was okay or even better than okay, that he was possibly extraordinary. It was a Christmassy feeling. Cozy on the inside, and all pretty and glittery on the outside.

“I’ll just be downstairs. So if you need anything, come down. Or call Robert,” Lyne said. Robert was the butler, one of five live-in staff members, which included two bodyguards, a maid, and a cook. He leaned over to give her a kiss. She turned her face up and slipped her hand around the back of his neck, feeling the closely shaven skin against her palm. “I need to make some phone calls,” she murmured. “So don’t worry about me.”

“That’s something I know I don’t need to do,” he said, kissing her

more insistently so that she fell back against the bed. After a minute she pushed him away. “You don’t want to be late. For George,” she said.

“Hell. That little bastard can wait. It’s my court.” In the next second, he got up, however. He was an obligation freak, just like her, she thought; he hated not doing what he said he’d do. “See you in an hour.”

“Have a good time,” she said. Lyne, she noted, looked particularly cute this morning, dressed in a white warm-up suit and tennis shoes. He was going to play squash with another billionaire, George Paxton, on the squash court that was apparently located somewhere in the back of the house. She waved, feeling like a wife waving her husband off to work.

She snuggled back down under the covers and looked around. She would get up in a minute. But God, Lyne Bennett’s bed was comfortable. The sheets were so soft, and behind her back were three king-sized pillows that were like falling into a cloud. The sheets and duvet were all white, of course, the carpeting was white, the heavy silk draperies were white, and the furniture was Biedermeier—real Biedermeier, the kind you could only find in Europe or at a Sotheby’s auction—as opposed to the imitation Biedermeier you found in the antiques district in the Village. The Biedermeier alone was probably worth half a million dollars. But those sheets!

Why was it that only really rich people had sheets like these? She had gone to what she thought was the most expensive linens store on Madison Avenue—Pratesi—and paid a thousand dollars for a set of sheets (actually, five hundred, they were on half-price sale), and they still weren’t as soft as these. Lyne’s sheets were the difference between being a millionaire and a billionaire, she thought, and a reminder that no matter how successful you thought you were, there was always someone who had more.

Oh, but who cared? she thought. Lyne might technically have more money, but she was a woman of the world, who had made a name for herself and had her own business and her own interesting life. She didn’t need Lyne, or his money or his sheets, for that matter. But that was what made being with Lyne fun. He was an asshole, but an entertaining one. And letting her head sink back into the pillows (which rose up on either side of her head, nearly suffocating her in down), she went over the events of the past few days.

She’d started fighting with Lyne as soon as the car pulled away from the curb on the night of that nearly disastrous first date. “Do you think it’s really necessary to make your assistant (she deliberately avoided the word “secretary”) carry your champagne bottle down to the car?” she asked.

“Why should she mind?” he asked, popping the cork. “She’s the best-paid secretary in New York. She loves me.”

“Only because she has to. And why do you make her arrange your dates? Why don’t you call yourself?” Victory knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care. Lyne had made her sit there while he finished his phone call to Tanner Cole, and that was more rude.

“Well . . .” Lyne said, pouring champagne into a glass that was resting in a polished wooden cup holder in the middle of the backseat, “My time is worth about five thousand dollars a minute. I’m not saying you’re not worth it, but if I called you and you turned me down, it would cost me close to twenty thousand dollars.”

“Surely you can afford that,” she said disdainfully.

“It’s not what I can afford, it’s what I want to afford,” he said with a grin. She smiled back cynically. Lyne was attractive, but he had a smile like a shark.

“That’s the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard for avoiding rejection,” she said. She decided that she would show up at the Whitney with him, and then she would go home. He couldn’t force her to go to dinner.

“But I didn’t get rejected,” he said.

“You will.”

“Are you really angry because I had Ellen call you for a date?” he asked. At least he had the decency to look perplexed.

“No,” she said. “I’m really angry because you made me sit there while you finished your phone conversation with Tanner Cole.”

“So you expect me to jump off the phone every time you walk into a room?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Unless I happen to be on the phone myself. In which case, it’s okay.”

She looked at him, wondering how he was going to take this. Would he throw her out of the car? If he did, she wouldn’t mind. But he didn’t appear to be taking her the least bit seriously. His phone suddenly rang, and he held it up, squinting at the number. “So you’re not going to let me take this call from the president of Brazil?” he asked.

She smiled coldly. “When you’re with me, the president of Brazil can wait.”

“Whatever you say,” he said, hitting the clear button.