Parisian Affair (7 page)

Over the last few months, she'd asked for
nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. And she'd reaped a king's ransom in
gifts from him. So far, so good. Her patience was paying off. But
now she was faced with a real dilemma. She wanted Princess Karima's
ring. She had to have that ring.

Kitty got out of bed and went across the
expanse of black marble floor to the closet where she kept a few
things for occasions like tonight. She wouldn't have to go back to
her apartment and change. Opening the makore wood door, she flipped
through the few dresses available and made up her mind in a flash.
The Roberto Cavalli with the shredded hem. The wild one in various
animal prints that had a neckline that plunged down to
there
. And was slit up the sides to
there
. That and
her big sable coat. The floor-length one with the hood. Very
dramatic on a cold New York evening.

Oh
, she thought with delight,
will
those stuck-up heads turn tonight! All the men will be drooling,
and the bitches will crane their awful turkey necks with their
horrible lifted faces to see the only woman who'll ever succeed in
corralling New York's most eligible bachelor into marriage. Kitty
Nguen Fleischman. The future Mrs. Hilton Whitehead
.

She didn't care if the marriage lasted ten
minutes or ten years, but pronouncing the vows was definitely on
her menu. She was determined that he was going to be hers. Long
enough to soak him for a few hundred million and garner a scrapbook
full of publicity.

I'm going to become the Princess Karima of
my da
y, she told herself with pride.
The envy of women the
world over. It takes a lot of hard work to become that kind of
legend, but I can do it.

She slipped on the twenty-five-carat
D-flawless white pear-shaped diamond that Fleischman had presented
to her as an engagement ring and looked at it in the mirror,
puckering her collagen-injected lips.
There's a lot more where
this little bauble came from,
she told her reflection
, and
I'm going to have my pick of them
.

Ram took one last look at the familiar
emerald ring, then closed the glossy catalogue from Dufour. In a
loving gesture he brushed his fingertips across its slick cover
before putting it atop the high stack of auction catalogues on the
Napoleonic Empire desk at which he sat. Unnecessarily, he placed a
heavy malachite paperweight carved in the shape of a tortoise on
top of the catalogue, and positioned it square in the middle.

At long last
, he thought joyously,
restraining the urge to shout with glee,
I can complete my work.
Work that started over thirty years ago.
His entire body was
tense, his jaw ached from clenching his teeth, and in an attempt to
relax, he lounged against the ancient leather-upholstered back of
the Louis XV chair in which he sat. He could feel his pulse racing,
and his heart seemed to pump in double time against his chest.
Taking a deep breath of the room's scented air, he took off his
gold-rimmed half-glasses, slipped them into their alligator case,
and rubbed his eyes.

He was too excited to sit still, and he
abruptly stood up and crossed the priceless eighteenth-century
Aubusson rug to one of the four pairs of French doors in his
library. They offered a view out over the gray and chilly, but
elegant, rue Elzevir on which he lived. Brushing aside a faded
bottle green silk drapery that was heavy with elaborate
passementerie, he peered out with satisfaction.

I will have all of Paris at my feet
,
he thought, surveying the distinguished eighteenth-century
hotel
particulier
opposite. Its ancient oak gates were ajar, and
beyond them he could see the formally clipped garden, now barren,
in the center of the limestone-paved motor court, and the old Comte
de Sabin's highly polished black Bentley.
The haut monde will be
begging for invitations to my soirees. Even the arrogant and
snobbish old comte and his viper-tongued comtesse across the
street
. Neighbors for many years, they had yet to acknowledge
his presence with so much as a nod.

Turning from the window, he surveyed the
library in which he stood. The carved, polished boiserie on the
walls and the matching shelves with their thousands of
leather-bound and gilt-decorated volumes glowed luxuriously beneath
the twin antique wooden chandeliers suspended from the coffered
ceiling high above. Heavily carved gilt frames surrounded early
Impressionist paintings that bespoke not only great wealth but an
appreciation of high culture and a discerning taste. There were
even two very good Jacquelines by Picasso, purchases that he'd made
in the last decade. Otherwise, the room had changed little since he
had inherited the house from Jules Levant so many years ago.

Like the rest of the seventeenth-century
hotel particulier
, the library had seen its share of the
rich and famous come and go, and, more important to Ram, a number
of the truly aristocratic.

It had been 1980 when the old man had finally
had the good sense to die—not without a helpful nudge in that
direction—and leave all of his earthly possessions to Ram. In the
ensuing years that he'd owned the magnificent house and the
venerable jewelry firm of Jules Levant, however, Ram had discovered
that despite his dark, handsome looks, his exquisite taste, his
sizable wallet, and his respectable position, he was still
considered something of a servant to the blue-blooded aristocrats
who were his principal clients.

He provided them with the world's most
magnificent jewelry, with stones that were unobtainable elsewhere
and settings that were unmatched in design and execution. They wore
his merchandise at balls and parties in their own
hotels
particuliers
or palaces, their luxurious seaside or mountaintop
summer homes, their ski chalets and yachts, and the few resorts
worthy of their presence. They provided him with little more than
their money in return. And while the monetary rewards were
considerable, Ram had an insatiable hunger for more.

He was almost never asked to one of their
soirees. Many was the Rothschild, the Bourbon, the d'Orlean,
Savoie, or Hapsburg who'd crossed his threshold to partake of his
hospitality without once reciprocating. Not to mention the less
exalted, even if far richer, habitues of international society who
had frequented his emporium and had enjoyed his home without a
backward glance. No matter that he had a great fortune, this
magnificent mansion here in Paris, the villa on the Cote d'Azur, a
string of servants, the chauffeured Rolls-Royce, the Ferrari, and
all the other accoutrements of an aristocratic lifestyle, he was
still not considered one of them.

Like Levant, he had continued the discreet
practice of buying jewelry from down-at-the-heel clients, offering
them fair prices for their treasures, and he loaned cash to the
temporarily strapped, keeping their valuables safe until they could
repay him. Initially, he had thought that these practices would
endear him to his clientele, but he quickly discovered that the
reverse was often true. Many customers harbored resentments against
him because he was privy to the shame of their impoverishment.

That would change now. For the final piece of
the puzzle he'd long needed was within his grasp at last, as were
the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be his. He would be
far richer than most of the blue bloods who had disdained him. The
objects of his obsession would no longer be able to ignore him. He
would suddenly be one of them, propelled into their world by the
one thing more important than bloodlines nowadays. Money.

For the other bidders at the auction, he knew
that the emerald would be nothing more than a trinket. An expensive
trinket, to be sure, but its intrinsic value to anyone else was
nothing in comparison with what he could extract from owning
it.

That ring will be mine
, he told
himself.
No matter what it costs. No matter the competition.
Nobody else is going to have it. Nobody
.

He strode over to his desk and picked up the
catalogue again. Flipping to her picture, he stood and gazed down
at it.

Thank you, Princess Karima
, he
thought, a smile on his lips.
And thanks be to your precious
Allah that I didn't have to murder you to get the emerald. Allah
akbar!
He emitted a derisive snort.
Allah akbar
indeed.

He replaced the catalogue atop the stack,
then put the malachite tortoise on it. He sat down at his desk and
stared off into space. He remembered the day that Princess Karima
and the famous Italian industrialist Stefano Donati had come into
Jules Levant Joaillier and purchased the ring. The memory was
vivid.

It had been in early spring while the couture
collections were being shown, and her picture had appeared in the
papers on a daily basis. She was always seated front row at the
shows—as was the industrialist's long- suffering wife—since the
princess was one of the handful of women in the world who could
still afford couture and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually on her wardrobe. Donati was obviously madly in love with
her and had recently presented her with a magnificent
hotel
particulier
decorated by Renzo Mongiardino, the world's
greatest interior designer.
Tout
Paris had talked of nothing
else.

When the lovebirds had swept into the shop,
Ram had sent an assistant to the vault, while he pulled out the
book of photographs he kept of jewelry reserved for his very
special clients. He didn't show the pictures to everyone, let alone
the jewels themselves. In fact, very few people ever got to see his
most magnificent pieces. With the emeralds, the list of clients
allowed to view them was narrowed down even further. He wanted to
know—
had
to know—the potential buyers and make certain the
jewelry would be easily traceable in the future. When he had shown
the only emerald remaining from his special cache, the ring, to
Princess Karima and Donati, they had been stunned by its dark green
beauty, despite its small inclusion.

After the sell was completed, the princess
had invited him to her new home for cocktails, a social triumph. He
had gone, hoping to ingratiate himself with the couple and gain
entree into their rarefied world. He and the princess shared an
Arab heritage after all, even if she was of royal blood, so he
reasoned that he stood a good chance of becoming an intimate of the
most talked-about couple in Europe. Little did he know that she
would take the opportunity while having cocktails to query him
about his Algerian roots, and then belittle him in front of Donati
as she might the lowliest of servants. Aside from her great beauty,
she was possessed of a great intelligence and quick wit, and being
the object of her ridicule was one of the most embarrassing and
shameful experiences of Ram's life.

The memory was as fresh in his mind as a
recently inflicted wound, but he couldn't help smiling. A poetic
irony lay in the fact that he should be able to get the emerald
because the legendary whore of Islam—for that is the way most of
Islam viewed the infidel-marrying princess—had decided to devote
her life to spiritual matters. What was more, he would make certain
that word ultimately reached the princess as to exactly who had
purchased the ring. He knew that her fury would be that of a woman
scorned.

Ram got to his feet. At a marble-topped Louis
XIV gilt console that served as a bar, he poured himself an
Armagnac, then lit a thin Dutch cigarillo. In the Louis XVI mirror
over the console, he looked at his reflection. His black hair was
tinged with the slightest silvery gray at the temples, but he
thought it only made him more distinguished. His honey skin was
barely marked with the signs of age. His dark eyes flashed
youthfully, and the musculature of his gym-toned body was evident,
even under the custom-made suit he wore. He finally tore himself
away from this picture of polished perfection and sat back down at
his desk. His mind swirled with the changes about to take place in
his life, then inevitably went back in time to the other
transactions involving the emeralds and his subsequent recovery of
the stones.

The brooch had been the first piece to find a
buyer. Costas Stephanides, a Greek of immense wealth, was a regular
customer of the shop. When he summoned Levant to Athens or one of
his Aegean Island retreats, the old man would board one of the
Greek's private jets and take a hoard of his most exquisite pieces
to Greece for the magnate's personal inspection. On one such
occasion, Jules had been ill and had sent Ram, who took with him
all of the reset emeralds. After the jet had landed in Mykonos, a
Land Rover had met him and taken him directly to the Greek's
hilltop mansion near Aghios Stephanos. From this perch overlooking
nearly all of Mykonos and five other surrounding islands, Costas
Stephanides and his mistress, the actress Marina Koutsoukou, had
selected three pieces of jewelry, among them the emerald
brooch.

'To wear on my turbans, darling,' the actress
had cooed seductively as her large dark eyes blatantly swept over
Ram's handsome body, despite her lover's watchful proximity.

When Stephanides died a short three years
later, a bitter battle over his estate ensued, and the brooch had
gone on the auction block as 'property of a lady' at Christie's.
The tempestuous actress desperately needed cash to help pay her
legal fees, but didn't want anyone to know how dire her situation
really was. Thus, the brooch was auctioned anonymously. Ram had
been the high bidder, of course, and put the brooch in the vault,
where it still remained.