The Secret Heiress (32 page)

 

 

 

 

A
riadne awoke early and went down to breakfast feeling sheepish. She was ashamed for her outburst of the previous day. Adrian Single and Angelo Coveri were already seated at the breakfast table, drinking coffee in the sunlight that streamed through the east-facing windows.

“I want to apologize for my out—” she began.

“No, no, never apologize for your behavior,” Adrian broke in. “And even then, make it sound as though you don’t mean it.”

“But good manners—”

Adrian shook his head. “Nikoletta never worries about manners.”

“I wasn’t speaking for Nikoletta,” Ariadne said, feeling misinterpreted, “but of course I know what you mean.”

“Of course,” Adrian said, “but you were perfectly in character for Nikoletta, and that’s very gratifying to see. As far as that sort of thing goes, remember, it’s like Angelo has told you. She knows all the rules, but obeys them only when she chooses to do so. There’s no way of gauging how she’ll react in any particular situation. She’s that mercurial, but it’s exactly this utter unpredictability of hers that works in our favor.”

“How so?” Ariadne asked as she sat down and poured herself some coffee.

He smiled. “Easy. Say you happen to make a mistake. Well, you just ignore it as though you’re above it all or else make a joke of it—at someone else’s expense, of course.”

Ariadne lowered her eyes. “This is so not me.”

“I’m glad it’s not. Believe me, we all are. But don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough. Also, bit by bit, over a stretch of time, you can taper off with some of the shrewishness, as if you’re mellowing. It might be because you’re maturing or because you’re in love and more generous and kind to others because of it.”

Ariadne blushed. “I don’t know—”

“That’s just an example, Ariadne,” Adrian said. “Who knows what might cause a change in someone like Nikoletta? It happens to people all the time. But that sort of change in Nikoletta’s character has to be done rather slowly, with careful calculation. Whatever you do, do not, and I repeat,
not,
make the fatal mistake of being too nice and too forgiving too fast. That would raise red flags immediately. Also, I, er—” He coughed. “I don’t know whether anyone’s let you in on a bit of information about Nikoletta that is important. . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, you see, Nikoletta is a bit of a nymphomaniac,” Adrian said. “Perhaps not clinically. I mean, a psychiatrist might not label her as one technically. Let’s just say she’s a sexual compulsive.”

“She . . .
what
?”

“She’s a sexual compulsive. Very active sexually.”

“I know what it means,” Ariadne snapped as if she’d been insulted. “But I didn’t know that it applied to my twin sister.”

“There!” Angelo clapped his hands together. “You’ve done it again. You were Nikoletta. Exactly like Nikoletta.”

Adrian smiled. “You certainly were,” he agreed.

“Great,” Ariadne said, her hands on her hips, staring at Adrian. “But can we get back to Nikoletta’s nymphomania? I find it a little disconcerting at this stage that I haven’t been told this before.”

“Yes, I’m afraid Nikoletta is rather like a vampire. She’s constantly on the prowl for new conquests to conquer and then discard. She seems especially challenged by men she can’t possess.”

“Oh, dear,” Ariadne said, thinking of Matt. Her hands fluttered nervously. “I don’t have that much sexual experience. I’m what you would call a one-man woman, I guess.”

Angelo shut his eyes. “What idiots we are,” he hissed. “We didn’t take this aspect of Nikoletta’s behavior into account.” He turned to Ariadne. “I’m so sorry, Ariadne. Please, forgive us. We should’ve given this a lot more thought.”

“Astounding, isn’t it, that we could overlook something this crucial?” Adrian said. “Even Sugar didn’t bring it up.”

Ariadne gazed at Adrian, then Angelo. “Look,” she said, her voice determined, “we’re going to have to figure something out, guys, because I’m
not
going to be screwing one man after another. In fact, I’m not going to be screwing around with anybody but”—she caught herself before she used Matt’s name—“well, whoever I want to.”

“You don’t share Niki’s views,” Adrian said, chuck-ling, “but you
sounded
like Niki. Bravo!”

“Great, but what do we do about it?” she asked.

“We’ll figure out a way around that.” Adrian smiled reassuringly. “You won’t actually have to sacrifice yourself for this cause.”

“I’m not about to ‘sacrifice’ myself, as you put it,” Ariadne snapped, “so get that through your head. The first thing I’m going to do as Nikoletta is find the love of my life.”

The two men exchanged glances. That didn’t sound like Niki. “I guess it could happen,” Adrian said hesitantly.

“It is going to happen,” Ariadne snapped, “or you can find yourself another girl.”

 

Nikoletta’s cell phone rang, and she picked it up. Checking her caller ID, she saw that it was the PI. She was anxious to hear any news he had and quickly pressed the TALK button. “Yes?”

“I don’t know exactly what these people are up to,” he said, “but it’s very odd, to say the least.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Nikoletta asked.

“I managed to get a good view into one of the rooms at the back of the house today,” he said. “The library, I’d guess they call it. It opens out onto a big slate terrace.”

“I know exactly the room you’re talking about,” Nikoletta replied. “And it’s the library. So what did you see?”

“The TV set—it’s one of those large-screen plasma jobs—is on nearly all the time,” the PI said. “I’d see the light from it, flickering at all hours. Anyway, at first I thought they were television junkies or something. Watching the damn thing all the time. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I mean, what was on the TV. You know, I concentrated on the people in the room.”

“I see,” Nikoletta said impatiently.
What’s this nonsense leading up to?
“So, what’s the point?”

“The point is, I got a good view of what was on the TV. Something, I might add, that a lot of men who call themselves pros in my field would’ve not seen.”

Jesus!
Nikoletta thought.
The jerk wants me to pat him on the back all the time.
“And?”

“And what I saw was a little shocking,” he replied. “It’s all video footage of you. That’s what they’ve got running in there night and day.”

“Me?” Nikoletta felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The mere thought that Adrian and the others were watching videos of her gave her the creeps. It was such an invasion of her privacy.

Anger welled up in her and threatened to explode in a vile, pustulous mass, but before she could respond to the PI, he went on.

“But that’s not all,” he said. “Seems to me like they’re training her. You know. Making her practice walking like you. She’ll walk back and forth across the room, again and again.”

“You actually saw that?”

“I’ve got very good binoculars, don’t forget.”

Her entire body trembled with fury. She wanted to lash out, to tear and scratch, to
kill.

“You
shit
!” she screeched.

“Look, I’m just the messenger,” he said calmly. “I’m doing this for you.”

In her rage, Nikoletta’s mind raced in a dozen different directions at once, and she found it difficult to concentrate. It was time for action, she thought. Yes. Time to put a stop to this . . .
whatever
the hell it was. This
plot
! They were definitely training a look-alike to replace her—that much was obvious.

“Anything else?” she finally asked him.

“That sums it up,” he said. “I think you get the picture.”

“I get the picture, all right,” she said. Then in a hurried voice, she added, “I’ll talk to you later.” She flipped her cell phone shut without waiting for a reply.

After she had calmed down, she sat immobile in the chair for a long time. The board of advisers, she finally decided, could be taken care of. She would have to hire the best legal team to get around her father’s will, but she would eventually be able to effect a boardroom purge, getting rid of every single one of them. In the meantime, she would make their lives a living hell. If they thought they could play hardball with her, they had failed to comprehend the extent to which she could respond in kind.

As for the impostor, she was another story. Whoever she was. She presented a different kind of danger altogether. The thought that such a person even existed—someone the board thought could actually impersonate her!—horrified Nikoletta.

She unlocked a drawer in her desk where she kept an ostrich-skin address book that contained her most private telephone numbers. No one else had access to these numbers or even knew about them. Flipping through it, she quickly found the name and number she needed. Nikoletta had met the man only once a couple of years previously. The introduction had been provided by an international arms dealer of her acquaintance in the south of France, where he often entertained at his villa in the hills above the Côte d’Azur. Yemal, the arms dealer, had taken her for a stroll at one of his legendary parties. Just the two of them, champagne glasses in hand, had chatted about business. In the privacy of a classic lavender knot garden, they came upon a man sitting alone, nursing a glass of club soda. Yemal had airily introduced him as the world’s greatest gun for hire, indicating that only a handful of people knew of his existence or could afford him. The man, in turn, had slipped her a business card on which was printed only a cell phone number.

If anybody can take out this impostor,
Nikoletta thought with satisfaction,
he can
.

But before she called him, she had to make one other call. She wanted the PI off the case. He had become a potential hazard, since he was spying on Adrian’s house in the country. Assuming the impostor stayed there for the next few days, the PI had to be out of the way.
I’ll call him first,
she thought,
and then pay him for services rendered. After he’s gone, I’ll call the assassin. He’ll take care of the imposter. Whoever she is, she won’t be a threat for long.

 

After dinner Ariadne went outside for a brief walk. She meandered around the garden and wandered over toward the swimming pool. There were no lights on in the pool house or outside around the pool, but a blue-tinted light shone from within the pool itself. As she idly stepped onto the bluestone terrace that surrounded it, she gazed into the pool’s lit depths and saw Matt swimming underwater. His motions were powerful and propelled him with a fluid grace from one end of the pool to the other in only a few strokes.

When he surfaced at the deep end, he shook his head, flinging water off his hair. He looked up at her with surprise, then smiled widely. “Are you coming in?”

“No,” she said. “I was just taking a walk and saw the light, so I thought I’d have a look.”

“Why don’t you? It’s really warm. They run the heater nearly all the time.”

“I don’t think so,” Ariadne said.

“Aw, come on,” Matt coaxed as he pushed himself up onto the terrace with his arms.

Ariadne noticed the ease with which he got out of the water and the way his biceps and triceps flexed. When he stood up, she saw that he wore a very brief blue swimsuit that clung to him. He looked so handsome, she thought. So strong and masculine and . . . sexy. He bent over and took a towel off a weathered teak chaise longue and began ruffling his hair with it.

“I don’t even have a bathing suit,” she said.

“If you feel like you have to wear one, I’m sure there’s one in the pool house that would fit you,” Matt said. “There are lots of extras for guests.” He hung the towel around his neck and walked toward her.

“Oh, okay,” she said. “I guess it could count as part of my training, since I’m not a very good swimmer.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said. “I’ll wait for you. You’ll find everything you need in the pool house.”

Ariadne went inside and discovered that the pool house had both men’s and women’s bathrooms and dressing rooms. In the women’s there were more than a dozen bathing suits to choose from. She quickly undressed and found one that fitted, a two-piece with blue and white stripes. Looking at herself in the mirror before she ventured back to the pool, she took a deep breath. She thought of the pictures she’d seen of Nikoletta in magazines and on video and decided that her body compared favorably with her sister’s. Before she could give it another thought, she went back out to the pool.

Matt’s eyes assessed her appreciatively, she noticed, but he swiftly averted his gaze. “Good. You found what you needed,” he said.

Ariadne went to the shallow end of the pool and dipped a foot in. “Wow! It is warm, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Practically like a bathtub.”

She started down the steps that led down into the pool. “Oh, this feels so good.”

Matt grinned, then went to the steps and followed her into the water.

Ariadne walked in up to her waist, then plunged into the water and dog-paddled toward the deep end. When she reached it, she turned around and faced him. “This is so great!” she said. “I don’t know why I haven’t done this before.”

“Now you can do it anytime.”

She shoved off the wall and plunged into the water again, diving under the surface. Kicking her legs and using long even strokes with her arms, she swam toward the shallow end. Oblivious to anything but the soothing water, she hit something with her hands and surfaced, gasping and sputtering water.

“You must’ve had your eyes closed,” Matt said, laughing.

“I did,” she said. She realized that she was standing directly in front of him, their bodies practically touching. She looked up at him, and Matt’s eyes met hers.

They were silent for a moment. Then he slowly leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. Ariadne trembled with excitement, and she returned his kiss. His arms encircled her, and he gently pulled her closer to him in the water, his lips on hers, then brushing tenderly against her ears and down her neck. She put her arms around him and held on, her breathing rapid, surges of sensual electricity rushing through her body. It seemed that her body had a life of its own, responding to him of its own accord.