Dangerous Ladies Read online

  “Feel free.” She handed him her duffel.

  The other couple shed their coats and watched curiously as her guard placed her bag on the elegantly fragile Queen Anne table against the wall and popped the latch.

  This place was beautiful. Everything was big, tall, expansive—the shining parquet floor, the Old World portraits of stiffly posed, bewigged nobles, the wood-paneled walls. As she admired the newly discovered mahogany on the curved stairway, the crystal chandelier sparkling two stories above her head, and the carved Chinese rugs, her toes curled. The house was as glamorous as Tiffany had hoped.

  She made note of the details to tell her mother—the mother she had yet to inform of her broken engagement.

  Of course, Brandi had spent the day luxuriating in a much-needed bath, massage, manicure and pedicure, spray tan, haircut and -style, the biggest shopping spree in which she’d ever indulged. . . . It was amazing how quickly one could spend seven thousand dollars when one was determined.

  Oh, and she’d spent time arguing with Kim about the execution of her plan. Kim, who’d become surprisingly stodgy when it came to her younger sister’s morals.

  Who’d had time to call Tiffany?

  The faint sound of choking brought her attention back to Jerry.

  His broad shoulders stiffened. A slow, bright red crept up his pale skin from his necktie to his receding hairline.

  Good. She hoped he was embarrassed. She understood the need for him to search her bag, but she didn’t have to like it.

  He swallowed as he lifted the brief, thin scrap of silk and lace that would cover her breasts so erotically. She knew it would; she’d tried it on in the shop, as well as the other various sheer undergarments and bits of hedonistic sleepwear.

  He tried to refrain from looking at her, but he lost the battle. His brown gaze darted over her bosom.

  He saw nothing but a woman huddled in her black London Fog. As much as she would have liked to appear swathed in a gossamer cape, she refused to go out in this godforsaken Chicago deep freeze without her heaviest coat—and even it wasn’t heavy enough.

  He pulled his hand free of the bag as if escaping some fatally baited trap. “Okay. Do you want to, um, check the bag? I mean, do you want to check it so you don’t have to carry it? You know, get a check tag so you can have it when you leave?”

  “That would be delightful.” She kept her voice pitched at that tone she’d heard her mother use so many times when she wanted a man to do something for her. “Jerry, would you take care of that for me?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled at the collar that circled his linebacker-size neck.

  “And my coat, too?” She fluttered her eyelashes, the ones with the mascara the makeup artist had promised was like tar.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  When the other guards coughed and shuffled, he realized how he’d been manipulated. Looking stern, he said, “The checkroom is right over there. . . .”

  She smiled into his eyes.

  In disgust he said, “Oh, never mind. Just give me the coat. I’ll do it.”

  She unbelted the coat. Unbuttoned it. Taking a deep breath, she slid it off her shoulders and down her arms.

  The silence in the foyer was profound.

  She looked around. Jerry’s mouth was hanging open. One black security guy had his arm braced against the wall. The other had taken a step forward. The Asian security guard was smiling as if she’d just had a vision—Brandi hadn’t realized she was a lesbian, but obviously she was. And of the Hispanic guests, the husband looked enthralled and the wife furious.

  So Mother was right. A red dress worked.

  A long, silk, sleeveless scarlet dress with, as Mr. Arturo said, “Two really elegant design features, darling, and both of them hold up the bodice.”

  Of course she was wearing underwear—a thong—and her stiletto heels, and a crystal blue bracelet and those sapphire earrings, those great sapphire earrings. But she hadn’t been absolutely sure whether she’d achieved the effect she sought.

  Until now.

  Yes, it appeared this dress, this body, and these shoes could stun every race, every economic strata, and both sexes. In any language, she called that success.

  Unfortunately none of these men were candidates for her plan.

  She’d made a list of her requirements.

  She wanted a man who was handsome, mature, rich, discreet, and most important of all, from out of town. That way, with any luck, she would never see him again.

  Even if she did, she was determined not to care. Nobody cared about their honor or their reputation anymore—witness Alan—so she sure as hell didn’t, either.

  A large arch led to a broad hall, and from beyond Brandi heard the chatter of men’s and women’s voices and the clink of glasses. She strolled through and into the reception.

  The crowded room was painted a creamy gold, with one wall of bookcases rising to the tall ceiling. A log fire blazed in the immense stone fireplace on the far wall. Large, gilt-framed mirrors reflected the beautiful people who mingled, smiling, holding champagne glasses, and posing for photos. The men were in tuxedos, the women in black and sometimes a subdued blue. She was the only one in scarlet.

  Good. Let them notice her. Let them all notice her.

  As she stood in the doorway, conversations faded first nearby, then rippling out from the epicenter that was her.

  She took a long, slow breath that allowed her breasts to swell above the low neckline and eased the breathlessness that came with knowing that she stood here alone when she should have been on the arm of her fiancé. Alone because she’d been a fool. Because she had believed she could write a grocery list of the qualities she required in a man and check them off as if he were a hothouse cucumber.

  She took another long breath and smiled, a smile that glittered and beckoned, a smile she hoped would disguise her rage and project sexual readiness to all the eligible men in the room.

  And it must have worked, for a dozen tailored suits started in her direction—then halted when Uncle Charles broke free of the crowd with his hands outstretched.

  Her smile became one of genuine pleasure, and she took his hands.

  Charles McGrath was a dapper seventy years old with a shining bald head, sagging jowls, and a glorious smile. Years of criminal law hadn’t dimmed his enthusiasm for life, and the spring in his step and his frank appreciation for beauty attracted both friends and women. He was a bit of a chauvinist—he’d been amazed that Brandi could succeed so well in law school, and then that she wanted to work after marriage. But he had gamely subdued his male protective instinct and assigned her to Vivian Pelikan, one of the nation’s foremost—and most ruthless—criminal lawyers.

  Now he spread her arms wide and looked at her with a twinkle in his brown eyes. “You are stunning. Forgive me for saying so—I know no young woman should be compared to another woman—but you’ll permit an old man a little reminiscence.”

  “Of course.” She already knew what he was going to say.

  “You remind me of the first time I saw your mother. She was eighteen and the most glorious creature I had ever seen. I would have swooped in, but I was married at the time and had foolish ideas of fidelity.”

  “Good for you.” She must have been a little fierce, for he looked taken aback. She stepped forward and pressed her cheek to his. More quietly, she said, “I mean, that’s rare these days.”

  He misunderstood. Of course he did. He didn’t know about Alan.

  “Your father’s a fool. To leave a treasure like Tiffany for another woman—” He broke off. “But none of that tonight. You do look stunning. Who would have thought when I first met you at the age of three pirouetting around your father’s office in a leotard and tutu that you would grow so tall and so beautiful?”

  “Oh, yes. Ballerina Brandi.” The memories that gave Uncle Charles such pleasure made her want to writhe. “I danced up until the time the boys complained they couldn’t lift me because I was taller than them.
” That wasn’t strictly the truth, but this was neither the time nor the place for her more truthful and bitter reminiscences.

  Uncle Charles threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Now you have the revenge. What happens to this magnificent dress if you let out your breath?”

  “Your party gets a lot more interesting.”

  “Breathe in,” he advised. “I’m too old to handle a stampede in my house. Now where’s your fiancé? I expected to see him.”

  She gave the response she’d been practicing, the one that said so much and so little. “You know he’s a resident.”

  “He’ll be sorry he missed you looking like this!”

  “He already is sorry.” A sorry, deceitful son of a bitch. “He just doesn’t know it yet.” Time to change the subject. “Uncle Charles, I haven’t been to your home before. It’s stunning!”

  “Thank you.” Uncle Charles tucked her hand into his arm and walked her into the crowd. “It’s a work in progress, but it’s so big. Most days I rattle around here all alone. I miss having a special someone in the house.”

  “I’m sorry.” She hesitated, then presumed on an old family friendship. “Perhaps it’s time to find someone else.”

  “I think you’re right. Now have you viewed my coup d’état?” He beamed and steered Brandi toward the far wall.

  Spotlights were focused on some exhibit.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You’ll see.” Uncle Charles worked his way inward, carrying Brandi along in his wake. “Excuse me.”

  “It’s gorgeous, Charles.” A contemporary of Uncle Charles’s clapped him on his shoulder.

  “Thanks, Mel,” Uncle Charles said. “I didn’t know if I was going to get it until the last minute.”

  “Wow! That was freaking wonderful. Great job, Mr. McGrath.” Eyes shining, a young woman grabbed Uncle Charles’s hand, shook it hard, then wiggled her way toward the bar.

  He looked after her and shook his head, smiling. “I have no idea who that was.”

  The crowd grew more tightly packed, the comments more numerous.

  “Beautiful exhibit, Charles.”

  “Extraordinary to see it up so close.”

  At last he and Brandi reached the front. A velvet cord held the guests back from a glass case surrounded by spotlights, and inside the case was a necklace, the kind of necklace that would make any sane woman’s heart beat more quickly.

  Brandi was very sane.

  Set in antique platinum and surrounded by white diamonds, massive in their own right, was the most immense sparkling blue stone Brandi had ever seen.

  “It doesn’t even look real,” she said in awe. “What is it?”

  “Oh, it’s real, all right,” Uncle Charles said. “That’s the largest blue diamond in the Russian royal jewels. That, my dear, is the Romanov Blaze.”

  5

  “The Romanov Blaze is part of the traveling exhibition currently on exhibit at the Chicago Museum,” Uncle Charles told an awed Brandi. “It was given to Empress Alexandra by Czar Nicholas when she told him she was pregnant with their fifth child. It’s reputed to be bad luck, and indeed, seven months later Crown Prince Alexis was born with hemophilia.”

  “Which helped bring about the fall of the royal family,” Brandi whispered.

  Everyone in the crowd was whispering as if they were in church, as if the presence of such beauty required reverence.

  The diamond’s cold beauty and dreaded curse mesmerized and beckoned.

  But four burly men who looked like Jerry stood on each corner of the exhibit, and she didn’t have a doubt that if she, or anyone here, made a move toward that jewel all hell would break loose.

  “It’s extraordinary, Charles.” A middle-aged woman in an elegant black sleeveless gown and her own glittering stones couldn’t keep her gaze off the Romanov Blaze. “How much is it worth?”

  Uncle Charles tucked his thumbs into his lapels. “Colleen, in its present incarnation, with the weight of its history behind it, it’s priceless. If it were stolen and cut into a few smaller stones, it could be worth forty million, more or less.”

  “Surely no one would cut that magnificent diamond!” Colleen protested.

  “It can’t be sold as is except to a collector, and the chances of being caught with it are too great. If it’s cut, it’s not easy to identify, and there’s a market for stones of this purity.”

  Brandi was impressed. Uncle Charles knew his stuff.

  He turned back to Brandi and lowered his voice. “Security was a bear, but at the last minute I managed to bring in enough guards to satisfy the Russians and the museum. Even with that, I had to tell the museum directors the Blaze would double the donations to support the exhibits. Those people know this stuff; I don’t know what got into them to think of refusing.”

  The grim edge to his mouth told her more clearly than his words how poorly Uncle Charles had taken their rejection, and she suspected he’d bludgeoned them with the threat that he would withdraw his support unless they yielded. This was a side of Uncle Charles she never saw, but she knew must exist.

  His guests sucked up to him. The museum and the Russians had capitulated to his demands. He was, after all, a very powerful man, and used to getting his own way.

  “Might as well leave room in front for the newcomers.” Taking Brandi’s arm, he led her out of the crowd and signaled to the man they’d met on the way in. “Brandi, have you met Mel Colvin, one of our senior partners?”

  “No, we haven’t met,” Brandi said. “But I’ve admired his work on Nolan versus Chiklas.”

  “How kind of you!” Mel smiled broadly and took her hand. “Charlie, you old rascal, is this the lady you were telling me about?”

  “No! We’ve hired Brandi to work criminal law.” Uncle Charles glared at Mel.

  “Oh. Oh! Good to meet you, young lady.” As if he’d lost interest, Mel gave her fingers a perfunctory squeeze, leaving Brandi confused by his sudden change in mood, and turned back to Uncle Charles. “But is the lady you told me about coming?”

  “Not tonight. Not yet.” Uncle Charles quickly turned Brandi to another guest, a petite, toned, attractive female in a full-length black Vera Wang knockoff. “This is Shawna Miller, McGrath and Lindoberth’s able head receptionist.”

  Shawna shook Brandi’s hand, but the chill she projected rivaled the deep freeze outside. She did not approve of Brandi. “That dress you’re wearing would be fabulous at, say, the Academy Awards!” Shawna said.

  Meaning, of course, that it was a bad choice for a charity dinner hosted by a law firm.

  But Tiffany had imparted many lessons to her unwilling daughter, including how to handle short, hostile women.

  Brandi leaned close to Shawna’s ear and in a whisper advised, “Try ABS next time. They make divine knockoffs at a reasonable price.”

  She had to give Uncle Charles credit: He recognized undercurrents when he saw them, and before Shawna could give vent to her swelling fury, he dove into the fray. “Have some champagne.” He handed Brandi a glass from a passing tray, then directed her to an attractive, older, African-American woman. “You know Vivian Pelikan.”

  “Indeed I do. It’s always an honor, Mrs. Pelikan.” Vivian Pelikan was one of the first black women to break through the glass ceiling and become a senior law partner, and she’d done it solely with sheer brilliance and drive. She wore her graying hair cropped short, and her lively brown eyes danced; she’d obviously heard the exchange between Shawna and Brandi.

  Mrs. Pelikan shook Brandi’s hand. “You’ve come just in time, Miss Michaels. We’re starting an exciting new case on Monday, and I’ve put you on the team.”

  “I look forward to that,” Brandi said. “It’s an honor to work with you.”

  “Let me introduce my husband, an architect with Humphreys and Harper.”

  “How good to meet you, Mr. Pelikan.”

  “Mr. Harper,” he corrected, but he smiled and introduced her to his partner, Mr. Humphreys, who f
it all her criteria for a lover except that a) he lived in Chicago and b) he looked like a bug-eyed frog.

  Brandi’s wild, flaming affair would be conducted with the bedroom lights blazing, and for that she needed a man who lifted weights, who had a dusting of dark hair on tanned skin, and whose chest hadn’t descended into his drawers. So she smiled, allowed Uncle Charles to mention her fiancé, and when he had moved off to welcome more arrivals, she continued to work her way deeper into the crowd, searching for the jewel of a lover hidden somewhere among the tuxedos and metrosexuals.

  She met a lot of fellow employees at the law firm. Tip Joel, Glenn Silverstein, Sanjin Patel. Sanjin had been friendly until she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in an affair with a coworker. Tip and Glenn had taken one look at her and decided she’d traded on her sexuality or her family friendship with Uncle Charles or both to get her position in the firm.

  When she went in to work, they would learn. They were men. Men like Alan. She’d crush them like bugs beneath her pointed heels.

  She moved with the ebb and flow of the pack into the next room, a large reception hall where the caterer was setting up the buffet. The huge mirrors on the walls reflected the china, the silver, the dancing motions of the waiters as they waltzed through the crowd offering hors d’oeuvres. A bar was set up in each corner, and there Brandi lingered, searching for the Man.

  She met a lot of lawyers and businessmen from across the city and the country. Something was wrong with each one. They were local, they were unattractive, and if they were handsome, then they were married. . . .

  Most of them were married, and seemed very willing to sleep with her regardless. The deceitful bastards.

  After two hours of serious searching, she found herself leaning an elbow on the bar, sipping her second glass of champagne and morosely conversing with Gwynne Durant, a junior lawyer from the firm whose physician husband was at this moment delivering a baby. Gwynne thought she and Brandi were alone for the same reason, and felt sorry for them both.

  Brandi didn’t disabuse her. Gwynne would find out the truth soon enough. Everyone would find out that Alan had been sleeping with Fawn, got her pregnant, and got married while engaged to Brandi. Brandi could hardly wait for the snickering to start.