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“Really, chérie, you shouldn’t lie to me. Do you think I don’t know about the empty bottles your maid finds hidden in the bottom of the wastebasket?”
There were no empty bottles. This was his way of threatening her to make certain she did his bidding. She remembered the pictures of the sanitarium he’d shown her, a collection of ugly gray buildings in the most remote part of the Swiss Alps. “What do you want from me, Alexi?”
“You are a stupid woman. A stupid, helpless woman. I cannot imagine why I ever loved you.” A small muscle ticked near his temple. “I’m sending you away,” he said abruptly.
A chill shot through her. The ugly gray buildings sat like great cold stones in the snow. She thought of the pills hidden away in the bottom of her old jewelry box.
All the rebels were dead now.
He crossed his legs and took a sip from his drink. “The sight of you depresses me. I do not wish to have you near me any longer.”
Death from the pills would be painless. It wouldn’t be like the suffocating salt water that had closed over Natalie’s head or the terrible pain Jimmy had felt when he died. She’d simply go to bed and drift into endless sleep.
The hard Russian eyes of Alexi Savagar sliced through the layers of her skin like a razor. “I am sending you to New York,” he said. “What you do once you are there no longer concerns me.”
Baby Resurrected
Chapter 21
The bronze satin gown hugged her body with its high neck, bare arms, and slashed skirt. She wanted to part her hair in the middle and wear it in a low Spanish knot like a flamenco dancer, but Michel wouldn’t let her. “That big streaky mane is the Glitter Baby’s trademark. For tonight, you have to wear it down.”
Fleur had just moved into her living quarters at the townhouse, but Michel ordered her to dress at the apartment where Kissy could supervise. Her former roommate stuck her head in the bedroom. “The limo’s outside.”
“Wish me luck,” Fleur said.
“Not so fast.” Kissy turned Fleur toward the mirror. “Look at yourself.”
“Come on, Kissy, I don’t have time—”
“Stop squirming and look in the mirror.”
Fleur glanced at her reflection. The gown was exquisite. Instead of deemphasizing her height, Michel’s lean design accentuated it. The diagonal slash of skirt started at mid-thigh and crossed over her body, offering tantalizing glimpses of long legs through the filmy black point d’esprit flounce that filled the space.
Slowly she lifted her eyes. In a few weeks, she’d be twenty-six, and her face had a new maturity. She catalogued her separate parts—the wide-spaced green eyes, the marking-pen brows, the mouth that spread all over—and then, for an instant, it all came together, and her face finally seemed to belong to her.
The moment passed, the impression faded, and she turned away. “Just shows what a fabulous dress and good makeup will do.”
Kissy looked disappointed. “You never see yourself.”
“Don’t be silly.” She picked up her purse and dashed downstairs to the limousine. Just before she got in, she looked up at the window and saw Michel and Kissy standing there watching her. She gave them her very cockiest grin. The Glitter Baby was back.
What she hadn’t counted on was Belinda.
Adelaide Abrams slowly dropped her hand from Fleur’s arm and nodded toward the doorway of the Orlani Gallery where Belinda stood wrapped in golden sable, as fragile and beautiful as a butterfly. Fleur fought to control the whirlwind of emotions spinning inside her. She took one deep breath and then another as Belinda approached. Fleur hadn’t seen her mother for six years, and she felt as if she were shattering into a thousand ice-cold pieces.
Belinda extended one hand and pressed the other to the bodice of her dress as if she were touching something hidden there. “People are watching, darling. For appearances, at least.”
“I don’t play to the crowd anymore.” Fleur turned her back and walked away from the scent of Shalimar, from the sight of delicately etched lines, like the veins of an autumn leaf, crinkling the corners of her mother’s blue eyes.
As she made her way across the gallery, she smiled automatically and exchanged a few words here and there with people she recognized. She even managed a short interview with the reporter from Harper’s. But all the time she wondered why it had to happen tonight. How had Belinda known the Glitter Baby would be reappearing?
Kissy and Michel were scheduled to arrive soon. Their appearance was the point of all this, and Belinda’s presence had thrown it all off balance.
“Fleur Savagar?” A young man dressed in black stopped in front of her and held out a long florist’s box. “A delivery for you.”
Adelaide Abrams appeared at her side like magic. “An admirer?”
“I don’t know.” Fleur flipped open the box and pushed aside the nest of tissue paper. Lying beneath were a dozen long-stemmed white roses…She lifted her head and looked across the gallery. She locked eyes with Belinda and slowly pulled one of the roses from the box.
