Insatiable

Chapter Thirty-four

5:00 P.M. EST, Friday, April 16

910 Park Avenue

New York, New York

Meena, after carefully scoping out the lobby of her building, realized it was countess-free and made a dash for the elevator.

She couldn’t believe it. She had actually made it past the doorman-not Pradip, thankfully, as he wasn’t on duty-and to the elevator without running into her neighbor. This week had been such a roller coaster-plummeting from best to worst to best again-that she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from moment to moment. Right now, she appeared to be on another upswing.

Except that, just as the elevator doors were about to shut, a too-familiar, heavily diamond-ringed hand appeared to keep them from closing all the way.

And then Meena heard Mary Lou’s southern-accented voice cry, “Yoo-hoo! Meena?”

The door opened to reveal the countess standing there, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, wearing a peach-colored suit with a matching picture hat and holding several armfuls of shopping bags from Bergdorf Goodman.

“Oh,” Meena said. She could hardly hide her disappointment. She was glad she’d cinched her trench coat so tightly. Maybe Mary Lou wouldn’t notice she was still wearing last night’s little black dress. “Hi, Mary Lou.”

“Well, look at you,” Mary Lou cried. “Aren’t you looking rosy cheeked and pretty as a picture? You know, I was just thinking about you. I saw your brother Jon leaving earlier and asked how you were and he said he didn’t know, that he hadn’t seen you yet today.”

Meena made a mental note to kill Jon when he got home from BAO with Jack Bauer. “Oh, uh…,” she said intelligently. She wished the elevator floor would drop open and allow both of them to plummet to their deaths.

No such luck, however. The door closed, and they began the long ascent to the eleventh floor.

“So you liked the prince?” Mary Lou asked completely unnecessarily.

Meena would have thought it was obvious she liked him since she’d clearly spent the night with him. “Oh,” she said, giving up. What was the point? She was in love with Lucien Antonescu. The whole world was going to find out soon enough if they kept seeing each other. “I liked him, all right.” Did that sound too needy?

“I’m so glad,” Mary Lou said, beaming. “I knew you would. Isn’t he good looking? And nice. I just think he’s so nice.”

Then Mary Lou, of all people, looked worried that she’d said the wrong thing. “But not too nice, you know?” Mary Lou added. “I mean, he’s no pushover. I’ve seen him do things-well, they’d make your hair curl, let me tell you.”

Meena raised her eyebrows. She had no idea what the countess could be talking about.

“Oh, never mind me. Emil says I have a tendency to run my mouth. I just meant Lucien is a real man’s man, if you know what I mean.”

Meena knew exactly what she meant. She had the chafing to prove it.

Meena realized this little girl-talk might be a good opportunity to learn a thing or two about the prince. They had only six floors left though, so she figured she’d better hurry it up.

“I thought there was a little something…melancholic about him,” Meena said.

“Melancholic?” Mary Lou looked as if she wasn’t sure what the word meant.

“Yeah,” Meena said. She knew she had to tread carefully. She didn’t want to say anything that might send the countess yapping to Lucien, saying Meena had been talking about him behind his back. She needed to be subtle. But not too subtle. God, she’d forgotten how hard it was to be in love! “Like something might have happened to him…maybe in his childhood…that might have made him sad?”

“Oh,” Mary Lou said, rising to the bait like a champ. “You bet. His dad was a real monster. But his mother! Couldn’t have asked for a lovelier woman. A living saint. I never met them, mind you; they passed away before my time. This is just what Emil told me. But anyway, yes, his father-”

“Did he used to beat him?” Meena asked, dropping her voice even though they were alone on the elevator.

“Yes,” Mary Lou whispered back. “From what I hear.”

Meena’s heart wrenched for Lucien as she recalled his expression in the museum as they’d stood looking at the portrait of Vlad Tepes. What did it mean, she wondered, that he was so interested in a national hero who’d treated his sons the way Lucien’s own father had apparently treated him?

And no wonder he hated the show 24. It must have brought back horrible childhood memories.

The poor man! It was amazing how far he’d come in the world since his obviously traumatic beginnings.

“So what do you two have planned for tonight?” Mary Lou wanted to know. “Don’t tell me he hasn’t asked you. It’s Friday night!”

Meena felt herself blushing. She really was going to have to get over this blushing thing where the prince was concerned if they were going to be an item, at least for however long he was in town. “We’re going to the symphony,” she said.

“The Philharmonic?” Mary Lou shrieked. “Oh, how great! I got him those seats, you know. I mean, they’ve been sold out for months. But I know someone who knows someone. I’m so glad you’re going with him; it will be good for you both. You two have so much in common, you don’t even know. You both work way too hard. And you both need to relax a little, take some time off to actually enjoy life. That’s why I thought you’d be such a good couple. Now,” Mary Lou said as the elevator reached the eleventh floor and the doors opened, “you have to borrow this vintage Givenchy of mine for tonight; it will look like a knockout on you. I know I’m a little bit bigger than you, but I didn’t used to be, believe it or not.”

Meena opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t need to borrow anything to wear, but Mary Lou wouldn’t hear of it. There was no putting her off. She dragged Meena into her apartment and then her walk-in closet (which was as large as Meena’s bedroom) and dithered around in there until she found the dress she was looking for-an admittedly gorgeous vintage Givenchy cocktail dress, covered all over in hand-sewn ebony crystals that caught the light and shimmered like black diamonds.

“You’ll need to wear a slip with it,” Mary Lou said critically, holding the dress up to the lights that shone above the mirror of her built-in dressing table. “I forgot how sheer it is. Do you have a slip?”

At the sight of the gorgeous dress, Meena forgot all her protests. She was going to look fantastic in it. Even if she knew Lucien was going to be more interested in how she looked out of it.

“I do,” she said. She had a black slip she’d bought to wear beneath the dress she’d worn as Leisha’s maid of honor.

She didn’t know what was happening to her. She was turning as girly as a teenager getting ready for her junior prom. She had never spent this much time discussing clothes.

Love. It had to be love.

“Don’t worry about hurrying to return it,” Mary Lou said, walking Meena to the front door. “Keep it as long as you want. I’m glad someone’s finally getting to enjoy it after all these years. You know, I don’t think I’ve worn that thing since the sixties.”

Meena laughed. “You mean when you were a fetus?”

“Wait, did I say since the sixties?” Mary Lou laid a beringed hand on her chest and laughed. “I meant it was made in the sixties. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Thanks, Mary Lou,” Meena said. She really did feel grateful to the older woman. Some of the antipathy she’d harbored lately toward her was starting to ebb away. “And thanks for introducing me to Lucien. He really is…well, what you said. Very nice.”

This was the understatement of the decade.

“Oh, hon,” Mary Lou said, leaning down to kiss Meena on the cheek. Meena caught a strong whiff of the countess’s perfume. “I’m so happy for you. You don’t even know. I just knew it would all work out between you two the minute I saw your eyes meet across the room last night. It was almost like you’d met before or something.”

Meena swallowed back her almost instinctual Oh, but we had. “Thank you, Mary Lou,” she said again, the dress tucked over her arm. “I…just thanks.”

She had to flee across the hallway before the sudden pricking of tears she felt at the corners of her eyes overflowed. What was the matter with her? She was never this emotional about anything. Well, except what was going on with Leisha and the baby. And her job, of course.

Oh, God, her job. She had to sit down and get to work on her proposal for the Romanian vampire-hunting prince who was going to kill Shoshona’s vampire and end up as Cheryl’s love interest. If she didn’t finish it by Monday, she knew there’d be no hope of the story line ever being accepted. Once Maximillian Cabrera won over viewers’ hearts, she’d never be able to convince Fran and Stan-let alone the network and CDI, which was obviously investing a lot into this whole vampire thing-to kill him off.

What was it about Stefan Dominic that rubbed her the wrong way? The moment she’d seen him standing there by the elevators Meena had known-just known-that she’d seen him before.

And not, as Shoshona had suggested, out with Shoshona.

No, Meena knew Stefan Dominic from somewhere else.

And not somewhere good.

Unlocking her door, Meena let herself into her apartment, which was mercifully empty. Jon was still out fetching Jack Bauer. Meena almost sagged with relief to be alone, at least for a little while. Hanging her bag and coat on the hooks by the door and throwing her keys into the tray she kept on the table, she went to place Mary Lou’s dress carefully in her closet.

Then she changed into her “writing clothes” (a pair of leggings and one of Jon’s old sweatshirts), grabbed her laptop, pushed up her sleeves, and curled up in her favorite comfy armchair to work.

And just sat there, staring at the empty screen.

How was she supposed to work when all she could think about was Lucien?

She’d have thought this would have helped her creative process, since she was writing about him. At least in theory.

But instead of writing, she could only sit there and remember the possessiveness with which Lucien had snatched her up and kissed her the night before…the way he’d seemed almost to devour her, even his dark-eyed gaze consuming her every time he’d looked down at her before kissing her, again and again…the taste of wine on his lips.

And then she’d recall the paths those strangely cool lips had traced across her skin as he’d dragged his mouth from her high round breasts, to her rib cage, to the soft curve of her belly; the way his hands had molded and pressed and squeezed her skin, silently demanding things she was more than willing to give because he, in turn, was so giving; the way he’d cradled her against him afterward, as if he’d been afraid she might slip away from him in the night.

How could she think about anything else? Her skin still felt singed in all the places he’d touched it.

She was kidding herself if she thought she was going to get any writing done. She Googled him instead and read about the books he’d written (she’d have ordered the books, but they were all in Romanian). She was still reading about him when she noticed the time, swore, and jumped up, rushing to the bedroom. She had to start getting ready if she was going to look absolutely stunning and still get to the Upper West Side in time to meet him.

She was adding a last layer of lipstick when the door opened and Jon came in with Jack Bauer.

“Why are you so dressed up?” he asked, leaning down to let the dog off his leash.

“My date with Lucien,” she said. “Remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said.

The dog ran up to Meena excitedly, ready to throw himself against her knees. She jumped up onto the couch, not wanting her pantyhose ruined.

“No,” she said, firmly. “Down.”

Jack Bauer looked confused and disappointed.

“Jon, can you feed him or something?” she asked him. “He’s-”

It was right then that the buzzer to the apartment’s intercom sounded, startling Meena half out of her skin. She leapt off the couch and reached for the receiver.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Hey, Miss Harper,” Roger, the day doorman, said. Pradip still hadn’t come on duty. “Delivery for you.”

Meena, bewildered, said, “I didn’t order anything.” She looked at Jon. “Did you order something?”

He shrugged. “Like what? I just got here.”

“We didn’t order anything,” Meena said into the receiver.

“You didn’t?” Roger sounded as bewildered as she did. “It’s a messenger. With a big box from Bergdorf Goodman.”

“Oh,” Meena said. Maybe something Mary Lou had ordered, mistakenly addressed to her apartment instead. “Well, send him up, I guess.”

“Will do, Miss Harper,” Roger said, and hung up.

“What did you order from Bergdorf Goodman?” Jon asked after Meena, too, had hung up. “I thought we were broke.”

“We are,” Meena said, going to her purse for a tip for the delivery guy. “And I didn’t order anything.”

“Then where’d you get that dress?” Jon asked. “I never saw it before.”

“Mary Lou lent it to me,” Meena muttered.

“What was that?”

“Mary Lou loaned it to me,” Meena said more loudly.

Jon hooted. “Wow,” he said. “Aren’t you two chummy? What are you gals going to be doing next? Going for mani-pedis together? Tea at the Plaza?”

“Shut up,” Meena said. “She’s not so bad.”

“Well, this is a change of pace,” Jon said. “Lately you’ve been going out of your way to avoid her. I guess a roll in the sack with a prince gives you a whole different outlook on life, huh? Suddenly your snooty neighbors with the summer castle aren’t so bad after all.”

“Seriously,” Meena said, going to the door to unlock it. “Shut up.”

“How much you think that thing set her back? Three grand?”

“No,” Meena said. “It’s vintage. From the sixties.”

“Well,” Jon said, “it does look good on you. I’m not kidding. Lucien is going to pass out when he sees you. You look like a princess.”

Meena beamed. Her brother rarely paid her compliments on her looks, so this one meant a lot.

Especially since she’d been having such a strange week.

“Aw, Jon,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Thanks so much.” She moved toward him to give him a hug.

“Whoa,” Jon said, hugging her back. “What’s going on? I just said you looked nice, that’s all. What’s with the waterworks?”

Fortunately at that moment there was a knock at the door, and Meena, hastily releasing him and wiping her eyes-worried her mascara was running-went to open it as Jack Bauer barked at her heels, excited that there was a visitor.

A man in a beige windbreaker and a baseball cap, holding a huge black box with a gold ribbon around it, asked, “Meena Harper?”

“That’s me,” she said, and took the box, slipping him the five-dollar bill she was holding.

“Thanks,” he said, and headed back to the elevator.

“Um,” Meena said as he stood there, waiting for the car.

“Yeah?” He looked back at her inquiringly.

“Nothing,” Meena said, and started to close the door. Then she had second thoughts, opened it again, and said, “Just…look out for pepperoni pizza, okay?”

The deliveryman stared at her, uncomprehending. “Okay.”

Meena smiled and closed the door. Then she brought the package inside the apartment, Jack Bauer tripping after her.

“What?” Jon said. “Cholesterol?”

“Choking,” Meena said. She set the box down on the dining room table. “But maybe he won’t now, if he’s careful. Who could this be from?” It definitely had her name on it, not the countess’s.

She untied the gold ribbon and lifted the lid off the box. It was filled with white tissue paper. She parted the folds, then caught her breath…

The leather tote with the jewel-encrusted dragon slinking down the side.

In ruby red.

“It’s the bag,” Meena breathed, holding it in one hand and reaching out to stroke each individual crystal with the other.

“What bag?” Jon asked.

“The bag,” Meena said, feeling as if all the wind had been knocked from her. “The bag I’ve always wanted. In exactly the right color. Shoshona has it in aquamarine. But the aquamarine is ugly. The ruby is perfect. Just perfect. Oh, Jon. It’s so beautiful.”

She wanted to cry all over again. She had never seen anything as gorgeous.

“Well, I didn’t get it for you,” Jon said. He began to paw through the tissue in the box. “Who did? Is there a note or something?”

“He got it for me,” Meena said, not looking away from the bag. “I know he did.”

Only how had he known? She’d never told him. They’d never discussed anything as ridiculous as Meena’s inappropriate lust for a Marc Jacobs bag with a crystal dragon slinking down the front, that she could-by the way-never have afforded.

“Who’s he?” Jon wanted to know, pawing harder. “Lucien? Prince Charming? Is that the cutting edge in morning-after gifts these days? Purses?”

“It’s a tote,” Meena said, opening it to see that the messenger bag strap could be exchanged for an elegant gold chain for evening wear or, alternately, a slim leather strap for more formal business events. “Not a purse.”

“Oh, of course it is,” Jon said, pulling a silver envelope from the depths of the box. “Here’s a note.”

The envelope had the word Meena written across it in elegant, slightly old-fashioned handwriting that she instantly recognized as Lucien’s, although she’d never actually seen his writing.

“What’s Mr. Big Pants got to say for himself?” Jon asked crabbily. Meena supposed he was jealous because he’d never gotten anything as tasteful and elegant for any of his ex-girlfriends. She thought she recalled his having bought one of them a bracelet at Tiffany once, only to have her break up with him when she found out he’d bought the exact same bracelet for their mother for Christmas.

Meena put the bag down and ran a nail beneath the fold of the envelope. She pulled out a piece of ivory stationery.

My darling Meena, he’d written.

She smiled. She’d never been called my darling by anyone before.

Every moment away from you feels like time spent in a sort of cell. I can think of nothing, dream of nothing, but you. Unfortunately, I will have to remain in my self-inflicted prison a bit longer, since work will keep me from meeting you tonight. I can’t seem to find a way to avoid this…however, I hope this gift will make up for my unforgivable behavior. I saw this and thought of you, and St. George. You have slain the dragon.

Until we meet again, I am your Lucien

Meena read the note once and then another time.

Then her eyes filled, once more, with tears. “He’s not coming,” she said to no one in particular.

Jon stared at her. “Wait…you mean to the concert tonight?”

She nodded, not looking at him. She let the note flutter to the floor.

“He’s not coming,” she said again.

Then she turned and walked over to the armchair where she’d been curled up a little while earlier, not writing, and collapsed into it, the tulle skirt of Mary Lou’s Givenchy dress puffing up all around her.

Jon bent to pick up the note.

“Wait,” he said. “Are you crying?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Meena said miserably, lifting her knees and hugging them to her chest.

“Well, don’t cry all over the countess’s dress,” Jon advised her. “She’ll probably make you pay for the dry cleaning.” He read the note. “‘You have slain the dragon’? What the hell does that mean? How big is this guy’s dick, anyway?”

Meena dropped her forehead down onto her knees and started to cry. “Don’t be coarse,” she said.

“Holy crap,” she heard her brother say in some alarm. “Don’t cry, Meen. I know you’ve had a bad week, but he’s not breaking up with you. He’s just got to work. He’ll probably see you tomorrow. I mean, for Christ’s sake. He sent you a really nice note. And a purse.”

“It’s not a purse, it’s a tote. And that’s just it,” Meena said, lifting her tear-stained face. “I never told him.”

“You never told him what?” Jon asked, coming to sit on the arm of the chair after he’d pushed some of the tulle out of the way.

“I never told him about it,” Meena said. “I’ve been wanting that purse-I mean tote-forever. But we can’t afford it. And I never told him. It’s like…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It’s like he read my mind.”

Jon raised his eyebrows. “Well,” he said drily. “I could see how that would be upsetting for someone who’s been doing just that to people for fifteen years or so herself.”

“Shut up,” Meena said, unable to keep from laughing a little.

“No,” Jon said. “Really. It must be a real blow to your ego to have to admit there might be someone else out there who can do what you do. Oh, wait…no, never mind. The prince can’t tell when people are going to die. He just has the psychic ability to know what handbag his girlfriend secretly lusts after.”

Meena reached up to wipe her eyes. “You’re not funny,” she said.

“Then why are you laughing?” he asked.

“Okay,” Meena said with a sigh. “Maybe I overreacted. But it’s pretty weird. You have to admit.”

“I think the fact that you spent the night having sex with a prince is pretty weird,” Jon said. “But who am I to judge? So, since you’re going to be home tonight…Chinese food and a DVD?”

Meena smiled. She still felt shaken.

Shaken to her core, actually.

But it was good to have Jon around to ground her.

“Sounds good,” she said.

“Great.” Jon gave her knee a pat through some of the tulle. “I’ll walk over to the video store and pick something out. As a compromise, I’ll get something with a romance where stuff also gets blown up. Moo shu sound good? I’ll get garlic chicken, too, for a change. Come on, Jack.” He slapped his thigh, and Jack Bauer, delighted, scrambled after him as he walked toward the wall for the dog’s leash. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

Meena, smiling-though still a little shakily-got up from the armchair and, after Jon and her dog had gone, unzipped Mary Lou’s dress, stepped out of it, and hung it carefully back on the hanger in her closet. She would, she supposed, get some other chance to wear it. It wasn’t such a terrible thing.

She picked up the note Lucien had written to her and read it again. It made her smile and made her heart beat a little faster.

You have slain the dragon. She didn’t understand what it meant either.

But she liked it.

She decided to take another shower and wash off all the makeup she’d put on-not to mention the perfume. No sense wasting it on Jon. She’d wiggled out of her pantyhose and was padding barefoot over to the bathroom to turn the water on and take off her sexy black slip and panties-she definitely wasn’t suffering through those all night if she didn’t have to-when the buzzer on the intercom rang again.

What was this? Grand Central?

She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello, Miss Harper,” Roger said. “Delivery.”

“Again?” Meena said. “I didn’t order anything, Roger.”

“I know, Miss Harper,” Roger said. “These are flowers. From Mr. Antonescu, the deliveryman says. Not Mr. Antonescu in 11A, but your friend Mr. Antonescu. You know, from the party last night.”

Meena smiled. So much for keeping the doormen in the building from knowing everything about her personal life. “Send him up, Roger,” she said, and put down the receiver.

Flowers and the bag? Lucien already had her heart. He didn’t have to keep trying to win it.

She went to her purse and looked in her wallet for a tip for the flower deliveryman. She didn’t have any small bills left. She’d have to see if the flower guy had any change.

You have slain the dragon.

What did it mean?

Before she had a chance to slip on a robe, Meena heard a sound outside her door. She looked out the peephole. There they were. Red roses. A huge bouquet of them.

Her heart swelled. He was crazy. And too extravagant.

Yes, he was a prince.

But this was too much.

Meena unlocked the door and opened it a crack.

“Thanks so much,” she said to the flower deliveryman. “Do you have change for a ten?”

That was when he lowered the roses away from his face.

And Meena, for the first time in her life, knew that she was the one about to die.