few members missing this weekend.’
Amazing what a few ‘have you heard?’ whispers in the right ears could achieve. Doubt was a powerful thing—destructive, flammable—and Nic had lit the torch with a flourish, sat back and watched it spread like wildfire.
Narciso shrugged, as if the thought of being a member of a club that was morally corrupt was water sluicing off a duck’s back.
‘The club might’ve had shady beginnings, but even my father and his cronies say the place is clean as a whistle now. You and I personally know several members, and all of them have made billions from mutually beneficial business deals, so I doubt any of it is true. Rumours are generally fairy stories born from petty jealousy or spoken from the mouths of people who have an ulterior motive.’
Very true, that. But the fact that Nic had numerous ulterior motives was something he kept to himself.
‘Still, I want to meet him.’ What he wanted, he realised, was back-up if something went wrong tonight. If he conveniently disappeared he wanted Narciso to know where he was headed.
‘Why? What could you possibly want with Zeus?’
To bring his world crumbling down around his ears. To make him suffer as his parents had—as he had and as his grandfather had.
That old man, whom he loved so dearly, was the only family he had left. The man who’d harangued and railed at him to stand tall, who had propped him up as he’d learned how to walk again when Nic would rather have died in the same bloodbath as his parents.
‘Is there something you want to tell me, Nic?’
Yes. The shock of it made him recoil, push back in his seat until he could feel the knotted gold silk poke through his shirt and agitate his skin. Problem being he didn’t want Narciso dragged into the epicentre of a storm of which he was the creator.
‘Not particularly.’
Mouth pursed, his friend nodded grudgingly. ‘And how do you intend to meet the mysterious, reclusive, notorious Zeus?’
Nic tossed back another mouthful of vodka as his gaze flickered to the petite q he’d been wooing since he’d arrived the night before. There she was, standing near the doors, unobtrusive as always, yet only a hand-motion away. All it had taken was one look into her heavy-lashed slumberous gaze and he’d thought, Piece of cake.
One romantic midnight stroll along the beach and he’d had a thumbprint lifted from her champagne flute. One lingering caress of his hand round her waist and he’d slipped the high-security access card from the folds of her red sheath. What remained was one promise of seduction in her suite that he’d fail to keep and would ensure she was gone from his side.
Narciso followed his line of sight and huffed out a breath. ‘Should’ve known a woman would be involved. I like your style, Carvalho, even if I do think that vodka you drink has pickled your brain.’
Nic laughed, riding high on the narcotic mix of anticipation and exhilaration lacing his veins. That was until he looked into his friend’s eyes and the mirth died in his throat.
What would Narciso and their buddy Ryzard think of him when Nic whipped the Q Virtus rug from beneath their feet? When he lost them the chance of schmoozing with the world’s most powerful men, creating contacts and thriving on the deals that cultivated their already vast wealth. They would understand, wouldn’t they? Narciso was the closest thing to a best friend he’d ever had and Ryzard was a good man. Surely he was doing them a favour of sorts—he knew what Zeus was capable of; they hadn’t a clue.
‘Speaking of rumours,’ Narciso murmured, in a tone that made Nic’s guts twist into an apprehensive knot. ‘I hear Goldsmith made you an offer.’
He practically choked on his vodka. ‘How do you know that?’
Narciso looked at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. ‘Do you honestly think Goldsmith could keep the possibility of the mighty Nicandro Carvalho, an unequalled dominant force in real estate, becoming his son-in-law a secret for one second? He told my father. Who told me. And I told him that Goldsmith is delusional.’
Nic checked an impatient sigh. This was the last thing he wanted to discuss. Except his silence pulled the air taut, pinching Narciso’s brow and turning his smart mouth into a scowl.
‘Do not tell me you are seriously considering marrying Eloisa Goldsmith.’
No. Maybe. ‘I am considering it, yes.’
‘You’ve got to be joking, Nic!’
‘Keep your voice down! Just because you’ve been blinded by good sex and emotion—ah, sorry—I mean to say just because you’ve found everlasting bliss,’ he muttered, with no small amount of sarcasm, ‘it doesn’t mean I want to sign my own death warrant. A business marriage is perfect for me.’
‘You’re as jaded as I was. Heaven help you if you meet a woman strong enough to smash your kneecaps and drop you at her feet.’
‘If that ever happens, my friend, I’ll buy you a gold pig.’
Narciso shook his head. ‘Eloisa Goldsmith. You’re insane.’
‘What I am is late for a rendezvous.’ He downed the last of his drink as he bolted upright, the lock of his knees thrusting his chair backwards with an emphatic scrape.
‘Why would you even consider it? She’s a country mouse—you’ll be bored within a week.’
Exactly. He could never fall in love with her and he’d have a sweet, gentle, caring woman to be the mother of his children. As to the why—there was only one reason Nic would walk down the aisle at twenty-nine years old. The final goal in his grand slam.
Santos Diamonds.
The business phenomenon that had taken generations to build: his great-grandfather’s love affair, his avô’s pride and joy, the legacy Goldsmith would only gift to Nic along with his daughter’s hand.
He wasn’t enamoured of the idea, but he’d promised himself he’d consider it while he whisked up a vengeful hurricane for Zeus to flounder within. So consider it he would. If only for Avô to see Santos Diamonds back where it belonged. It was the least he could do for the old man.
‘I will be content. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with pleasure.’
The pleasure of the ultimate revenge.
* * *
PRIVATE. NO ENTRY.
Blood humming with a lethal combination of exhilaration and eagerness, Nic swiped his nifty keypad over the high-access security panel. While he’d loathed those early days in New York when he’d been lured to the streets of Brooklyn, he’d met some interesting if a smidgeon degenerate characters walking on the more dangerous side of life, who had always been willing to teach him a trick or two.
Still, his heart slammed about in his chest like a pinball machine until the fingerprint recognition flashed green and he was standing in Zeus’s inner sanctum.
Moroccan-style ironwork lanterns cast eerie shadows down the long corridor and painted the white stucco walls
