like this.
Sure enough, within sixty seconds, Tommy's phone jumped to life. He allowed himself a single, gold-toothed smile.
Thank you. Your employment is now terminated. I will wire the rest of the money to your Bahamanian account first thing Monday morning. Good-bye, Mr. King.
Tommy wondered briefly what would happen now. Would Lexi wait ten years for the guy to get out - assuming he lived that long - before taking her revenge? Or would she consider a decade taking it up the ass in a Thai jail punishment enough?
Whatever. It wasn't his problem anymore.
Good-bye, Ms. Templeton.
Good riddance.
Six blocks from Lexi's apartment, Max was having dinner at home with his mother.
"What's the matter, darling? You look tense."
Six feet of gleaming mahogany separated Eve from her son. The table was laid formally, as usual, with full silver service. A Cordon Bleu cook prepared all Eve's meals, taking care to keep her daily calorie intake below eighteen hundred. Keith may have stolen her face decades ago, but even now, at fifty-five, Eve was vain enough to obsessively maintain her trim figure. Unable to go to restaurants for fear of being photographed, she tried to make meals at home as luxurious and pleasurable as possible. She dressed for dinner, and expected Max to do the same. Tonight she was wearing a full-length jade-green evening dress with a high neck and deep V that plunged down her back, almost to the start of her buttocks. It was a young woman's dress, but Eve could carry it off.
"It's nothing." Max forced a smile.
Eve examined her son's handsome face, its predatory, sensual features accentuated by the stark black of his tuxedo.
He's breathtaking. Not an ounce of his father in him. But how could a son of mine be such a terrible liar?
"I don't think it's nothing, Max. Tell me what's wrong."
Max hesitated. "It's Lexi. We had a team meeting today. She kept trying to shoot me down."
Eve's scarred, stretched eyelids narrowed. "Go on."
"She's got August Sandford eating out of her palm. I'm sure Jim Bruton wants to screw her, too." Max shook his head. "At first I thought the board was just humoring her with this internship. But now I'm not so sure. She wants the chairmanship as much as I do. She's smart."
"She's deaf, Max." Eve's voice dripped with disdain. "Are you telling me you can't outwit a girl who slurs her words like a drunk? Like a retard?"
"Of course not, Mother. I - "
"She's a slut! She's a joke!" Rancor poured out of Eve like pus from a boil. "Falling out of nightclubs at five every morning with her skirt pulled up around her hips."
This wasn't exactly true. Lexi might be promiscuous, and she might enjoy a party or twenty, but she was very conscious of her public image. Not that Max was about to argue. He loathed his cousin every bit as much as Eve did. The fact that he wanted her sexually only made his loathing stronger. Lexi was all that stood between him and Kruger-Brent. Between him and his mother's love. Lexi was trying to take Eve away from him. She was ruining everything.
Eve raged on. "You're not a man. You're a queer like your cousin Robbie. Like your father."
"No! I'm nothing like Keith."
"You don't have the balls to run that company."
"Mother, I do. I - "
"What exactly was today's meeting about?"
Max told Eve about his proposal to siphon more money into the Internet division, and Lexi's objections. Eve sat silently for a few moments.
"All right," she said at last, pushing aside her plate. "This is what we do."
Harry Wilder was on his third glass of claret at the golf club bar when the steward tapped him on the shoulder.
"Telephone call for you, sir."
"For me?"
He wasn't expecting any business calls. It was Saturday. His wife, Kiki, was shopping with friends and besides, she never rang the club. Perhaps something terrible had happened? One of the grandchildren?
"You can take it in the library."
Harry Wilder hurried into the deserted, oak-paneled room trying not to let his imagination get the better of him. Kiki was always telling him not to be such a worrywart. Professor Panic, that was her pet name for him.
"Hello?"
"I know about Lionel."
The voice was unfamiliar. Harry wasn't even certain if it was male or female.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Lionel Jakes. I know."
Harry Wilder felt his mouth go dry. His tongue began to swell.
"Who is this?"
"Don't tell me you've forgotten, Harry? Lovely Lionel? The way his cock felt in your mouth? The taste of