Read Online Second Skin by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eric Van Lustbader
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battling Bad Clams and continuing Dom’s business partnership with Mikio Okami.
Serenissima’s offices were low-key and elegant. Colors of toast and burned rose predominated. The furniture in the reception area was actually comfortable – Margarite had insisted on it. The walls were dominated by enormous glossy blowups of the internationally renowned model she and Rich had chosen to be their sole figurehead. She had been with them from the beginning and had given the product line an instant recognition and cachet. Like Lancôme, they had decided to ignore fashion trends. One year the zaftig look was in among models, the next year the waif was all the rage. None of this mattered to Serenissima, whose net profits soared 25 percent per year.
Rich was waiting for her in the conference room, a sconced, heavily curtained rectangle softened by floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the Old World cornices and moldings she had had put up. The room was dominated by a highly polished teak table in the shape of a boomerang, behind which was a long credenza on which stood a Braun coffeemaker and cappuccino machine, twin carafes of ice water, a bottle of sambuca. Behind its carved teak doors lay a small fridge and well-stocked minipantry. You never knew. Experience had taught them that when they got into a brainstorming session it could go all day and well into the night.
Rich sprang up as she arrived through the double pocket doors. She took a last look at her bodyguard as he took up station just outside the boardroom. She hoped a day would come when he or someone like him would not be a necessity.
‘Bella, it’s been so long!’ Rich opened his arms and embraced her, kissing her warmly on both cheeks in the European style. ‘I was getting worried about you. It was like you had fallen off the ends of the earth. I got so tired of speaking to your answering machine I blew a raspberry at it!’
‘I know,’ Margarite said, laughing. ‘I heard it last night when I got home.’ She disengaged herself. ‘I’m sorry I’ve left you in the lurch, but –’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, putting up his hands. ‘You’ve had a helluva time with Francie.’
This was the cover story she had chosen because, like all the best lies, it contained more than a grain of truth. Her teenage daughter, Francine, caught in the middle of Margarite and Tony D.’s abusive relationship, had become depressed and bulimic. Francie’s encounter with Lew Croaker, the ex-NYC cop and Nicholas Linnear’s best friend, seemed to have turned her around. Her deep-seated rage at her parents still existed, but Croaker’s influence had shaken it from the dark recesses of her subconscious. Francie loved Croaker with an absolute devotion that sometimes made Margarite jealous. She might love Lew – a sad, ironic love, since Lew’s overdeveloped sense of right and wrong was immutable – but his harmonious relationship with her daughter was sometimes so maddening that she cried herself to sleep. How she longed to have a normal, loving relationship with Francie. She wondered whether that might ever be possible.
‘She’s better. Rich, really,’ she said, sitting down in the chair he had pulled out for her.
Rich Cooper was a dapper-looking man. He was fluent in all the Romance languages and was currently breezing through his Japanese lessons. He had a certain adaptability to different cultures and mind-sets that others sometimes mistook for glibness. But to underestimate him was to give him an advantage he would exploit to its fullest. He was in his early forties but his unruly sandy hair and quick blue eyes gave him a boyish air. He was small and compact and possessed of a seemingly inexhaustible nervous energy. He was the only man she knew who could spend five days working the Milan couture show, fly off to Tokyo, then jet to Paris for a week and return to the office ready to work. His favorite thing was to travel, to meet new faces and win them over to his
Serenissima’s offices were low-key and elegant. Colors of toast and burned rose predominated. The furniture in the reception area was actually comfortable – Margarite had insisted on it. The walls were dominated by enormous glossy blowups of the internationally renowned model she and Rich had chosen to be their sole figurehead. She had been with them from the beginning and had given the product line an instant recognition and cachet. Like Lancôme, they had decided to ignore fashion trends. One year the zaftig look was in among models, the next year the waif was all the rage. None of this mattered to Serenissima, whose net profits soared 25 percent per year.
Rich was waiting for her in the conference room, a sconced, heavily curtained rectangle softened by floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the Old World cornices and moldings she had had put up. The room was dominated by a highly polished teak table in the shape of a boomerang, behind which was a long credenza on which stood a Braun coffeemaker and cappuccino machine, twin carafes of ice water, a bottle of sambuca. Behind its carved teak doors lay a small fridge and well-stocked minipantry. You never knew. Experience had taught them that when they got into a brainstorming session it could go all day and well into the night.
Rich sprang up as she arrived through the double pocket doors. She took a last look at her bodyguard as he took up station just outside the boardroom. She hoped a day would come when he or someone like him would not be a necessity.
‘Bella, it’s been so long!’ Rich opened his arms and embraced her, kissing her warmly on both cheeks in the European style. ‘I was getting worried about you. It was like you had fallen off the ends of the earth. I got so tired of speaking to your answering machine I blew a raspberry at it!’
‘I know,’ Margarite said, laughing. ‘I heard it last night when I got home.’ She disengaged herself. ‘I’m sorry I’ve left you in the lurch, but –’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, putting up his hands. ‘You’ve had a helluva time with Francie.’
This was the cover story she had chosen because, like all the best lies, it contained more than a grain of truth. Her teenage daughter, Francine, caught in the middle of Margarite and Tony D.’s abusive relationship, had become depressed and bulimic. Francie’s encounter with Lew Croaker, the ex-NYC cop and Nicholas Linnear’s best friend, seemed to have turned her around. Her deep-seated rage at her parents still existed, but Croaker’s influence had shaken it from the dark recesses of her subconscious. Francie loved Croaker with an absolute devotion that sometimes made Margarite jealous. She might love Lew – a sad, ironic love, since Lew’s overdeveloped sense of right and wrong was immutable – but his harmonious relationship with her daughter was sometimes so maddening that she cried herself to sleep. How she longed to have a normal, loving relationship with Francie. She wondered whether that might ever be possible.
‘She’s better. Rich, really,’ she said, sitting down in the chair he had pulled out for her.
Rich Cooper was a dapper-looking man. He was fluent in all the Romance languages and was currently breezing through his Japanese lessons. He had a certain adaptability to different cultures and mind-sets that others sometimes mistook for glibness. But to underestimate him was to give him an advantage he would exploit to its fullest. He was in his early forties but his unruly sandy hair and quick blue eyes gave him a boyish air. He was small and compact and possessed of a seemingly inexhaustible nervous energy. He was the only man she knew who could spend five days working the Milan couture show, fly off to Tokyo, then jet to Paris for a week and return to the office ready to work. His favorite thing was to travel, to meet new faces and win them over to his
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