“Wait up,” he said on impulse as they turned away. “You two want in on some fun?”
Frick blinked. “Ah, yes, sir.”
“Call my assistant tomorrow morning. She’ll put you in touch with the Condi-Food analysts and they’ll find you a little slice of the deal to work on. Don’t worry about your boss. I’ll call Harry and tell him you’re going to come play with me for a while.”
As their eyes bugged as if they’d been goosed by a pair of pliers, Sean smiled. Man, he remembered what that felt like. To be young and green and desperate to be given a shot at the big time…and have a door opened.
The thank-yous from them started to roll fast as marbles on a bare floor. “No problem,” Sean said, then narrowed his eyes. “Just stay tight and use your brains and everything will be fine.”
He turned his attention to Elena. She looked very beautiful tonight, dressed in a red sheath with her hair up high on her head. Rubies glowed from her neck and her earlobes.
“Sean,” she said with her lovely accent, “I have a favor to ask you.”
“What, baby?” As she smiled, he had to imagine that no one ever called herbaby . She was a descendent of the Medicis and as rich as her ancestors had been back in the Middle Ages. The thing was, though, in spite of her bloodline and her money, she was a very nice person. They’d met years ago and had shared an immediate, mutual respect.
“Excuse me,” one of the photographers cut in. “May I take a picture?”
Sean flipped into social mode, gathering Elena against him and staring into the lens. There was a flash, a thank-you from the guy, and then he and Elena went back to their conversation.
“What kind of favor do you need?” Sean asked.
“An escort to the Hall Foundation Gala.”
Oh, okay, he knew what this was all about. Her recent marital separation had been messy and public and had involved infidelity on her husband’s side. To top it off, the guy was trying to suck tens of millions of dollars out of her in the divorce…despite the fact that he was still with the masseuse he’d gotten pregnant.
The details of the split had been written up in Vanity Fair and New York Magazine, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Everyone on the A-list circuit was talking about what had happened and not with kindness. They were whispering that Elena had gone out and bought herself a younger man then hadn’t been able to keep him. And that he’d wandered because she couldn’t have children. And that Elena was a cold fish.
Sean didn’t know about the kids part, but he was certain that she’d been passionately in love with her husband when they’d gotten married. Too bad everyone else seemed to have forgotten that.
God, Manhattan could be a very cold place even if you lived in a penthouse on Park Avenue with perfectly good heating and ventilation. All it took was for your private life to become the scandal du jour and you became fodder, not friend. And gossip was like chum to the social sharks, sure to attract a frenzy.
If Elena didn’t show up at the Hall Foundation Gala? She’d look as if she were weak and that would only incite the harping more. But if she arrived at the event with him, she’d appear strong and desirable.
He reached out and took her hand. “I’m there for you. One hundred percent.”
She positively sagged with relief. “Thank you. This has been a very difficult time.”
He pulled her forward and tucked her into his body as a friend or a brother would, for comfort. “You don’t worry about a thing.”
When his phone started to ring in his breast pocket, he took it out. The 617 area code made him frown because he didn’t recognize the rest of the caller’s number.
“I’ll let you take that,” Elena said, kissing him on the cheek. “And seriously, Sean…thank you.”
“Don’t go, baby. This’ll just take a sec.” He accepted the call. “Yeah?”
The pause that followed was broken by the wail of an ambulance siren. Then a female voice said, “Sean O’Banyon?”
“Who is this and how did you get this number?”
“My name is Elizabeth Bond. I got it from your voice mail. I’m…I’m so very sorry to tell you this…but your father has passed.”
All at once, the sounds of the party drained away. The patter of talk, the winding chords of the chamber orchestra, the trilling laughter of a woman nearby—all of it disappeared as if someone had thrown a thick blanket over everything. And then the sight of the 150 people before him fogged out until he was alone in the vast room.
In fact, the very fabric of reality disintegrated until it seemed as if the world had become an intangible dreamscape and him a formless vapor: he couldn’t feel the floor under his feet or the phone in his palm or the weight of his body. Nor could he remember what he was doing in this room full of crystal chandeliers and too much perfume.
“When?” The heavy word came out of his mouth without benefit of conscious thought.
“Less than an hour ago. He suffered a second heart attack.”
“When was the first?”
“Six days ago.”
“Six days ago?” he asked in an utterly level tone.
There was a hesitation, as if the woman on the other end was unsure what his mental state was. Funny, that made two of them.
She cleared her throat. “Immediately following his first, he was taken by ambulance here to Mass General, and though he was revived, the damage to his heart muscle was extensive. Following an angiogram, it was revealed that he had multiple blockages, but he was not stable enough for surgery.”
Dimly, Sean heard the sound of ice tinkling in a glass and he looked down. His hand was shaking so badly his Tanqueray and tonic might as well have been in a blender. He leaned to the side and put the drink down on a table.
“What happens to him now?” he asked, shoving his hand in his pocket.
“He will be held here at Mass General until the family makes arrangements.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “Mr. O’Banyon? Will you be making arrangements? Um…hello?”
“Yes, I will. I’ll fly up tonight. What do I need to do once I’m at the hospital?” As she proceeded to tell him who to call and where to go at MGH, he wasn’t tracking. The only thing that stuck was that he could phone the general information number if he needed help or had further questions.
“I’m very sorry,” the woman said and she obviously meant it. There was true sorrow in her voice. “I…”
“Are you a nurse?”
“Yes, I am. But your father wasn’t a patient of mine. He was—”
“Thank you for calling me. If you’ll excuse me, I need to make some calls. Goodbye.”
He hung up and stared at his phone. Obviously his father had listed him as next of kin, which explained how the woman had gotten the number.
“Sean? Is everything all right?”
He glanced at Elena. It took a moment or two for him to recognize her, but eventually her worried mahogany eyes got through to him. “My father is dead.”
As she gasped and put her hand on his arm, a booming voice barreled through the crowd at them. “Sean O’Banyon, as I live and breathe!”
Sean turned to see the owner of a shipping conglomerate lumbering over like a bear through the woods. The man was as ungainly as the mega-ton freight haulers he put out on the oceans and he had the mouth of a longshoreman. In typical Manhattan fashion, he was welcome here tonight only because he’d given five million dollars to the cause.
“I’ll handle him,” Elena whispered. “You, go now.”
Sean nodded and took off, heading for the back exit while trying to dodge all the people who wanted things from him. As he fought through the crowd, he felt as if he couldn’t breathe and a curious panic set in.
When he finally burst outside through a fire door, he had to lean down and put his hands on his knees. Drawing the sultry summer air down his throat and into his lungs only made the suffocation worse and he wrenched at his tie.
Dead. His father was dead.
He and his brothers were finally free.