“I thought that was me.” Oliver smiled.
“I haven’t talked about him because I didn’t know exactly what to say,” Alex said. “It’s a strange thing with him, nothing serious. He’s married.”
“Not good.”
“I never planned on having a serious relationship with him,” Alex explained. “When I met him, I told myself that it would be fine to go out every once in a while and have some fun. Besides that, he knows many important people, and I thought that I could benefit in some way.”
Oliver was no longer sleepy. He looked at her with his full attention.
“I admit that I was flattered by his interest in me,” Alex continued. “He once reserved an entire restaurant for us. We flew in his private jet to see a boxing match in Las Vegas and to the Academy Awards. It was totally crazy and exciting.”
“He wanted to impress you.” Oliver put on his glasses.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what he wanted to do.”
“And why were you so mad at him tonight?”
“Because he stood me up three weekends in a row while I sat at home waiting for his phone calls.”
“Aha. And when you were really mad and hurt, I came along.”
“You ran me over with your bicycle,” Alex reminded him and smiled. “But that night it became clear to me that I didn’t feel anything for him. It was simply exciting to be with him. An excursion into high society.”
“Great.” Oliver acted unimpressed and sat up in bed. “But how could this man—for whom you supposedly have no feelings—make you so angry that you went after two men just to let off some steam? Wouldn’t you have to feel something for him to get so angry?”
Alex looked at him in bewilderment. Was he mad at her now?
“Would it have been better not to say anything?”
“You show up here at two thirty in the morning, have sex with me, and then you tell me about another guy,” replied Oliver. “What should I make of that?”
“Okay, then I won’t say another word.”
She smiled and stretched out her hand toward him.
“Does this Park Avenue guy also have a name?”
“Yes. I’m pretty sure that you’ve heard it before. His name is Sergio Vitali.”
“Holy shit!” Oliver suddenly threw back the blanket with a jerk. He fished for his boxers and jumped up. He turned on the light switch and left the bedroom. Confused, Alex squinted into the bright light. She got up and followed him into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. Oliver turned around quickly. There was no trace of a smile on his face, and his gray eyes were ice cold.
“It would be better if you got dressed now and left,” he said, opening the refrigerator door. Alex instantly regretted her honesty, because she felt true affection for Oliver. She didn’t understand what had made him so angry.
“Leave!” he repeated, not looking at her. “I’m better off if I forget you as quickly as possible.”
His voice sounded bitter.
“You can’t just throw me out like this,” Alex began timidly. “Just because I—”
It was very important for her to stay in his good graces. She didn’t want to leave now with such hard feelings between them. Oliver slammed the refrigerator door and turned around. Alex was frightened when she saw the angry glint in his eyes. What had set him off?
“You’ve breached my trust,” he snarled.
Alex stared at him without understanding.
“I promised not to mention any of those monstrosities at LMI that I uncovered over the past months and years. I accepted the fact that you didn’t want to know anything detrimental about your employer, hoping that you’d recognize it yourself one day, and preferably before it’s too late. I really started to like you. Not in a million years would I have thought that you could be involved with Vitali!”
Alex was taken aback and swallowed hard.
“I’ve formed a pretty comprehensive opinion about this guy over the past few years because I kept stumbling across his name over and over again during my research. This man has his fingers in almost every criminal business in this city. Among other things, he’s a shareholder of LMI. His entire empire is built upon blood and crime. He’s an unscrupulous and brutal gangster. I just can’t associate with people like that. It’s a cruel twist of fate that I would end up in bed with a woman who lets him fuck her!”
His brutal frankness hit Alex like a slap in the face.
“What a shame, Alex, it’s really a shame.” Oliver let himself sink onto the kitchen chair. He looked at her with a mixture of pity and disgust. “I really thought that you were different. But you’re apparently just another one of those women who close their eyes and ears to reality, driven by pathological ambition.”
She was shocked by the coldness of his words.
“None of this is true,” she responded. “Sergio has nothing to do with LMI.”
“Are you kidding me, or are you really that naive?” Oliver shook his head and burst out laughing, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “He sits on the board of directors!”
“Yes, I know, but he sits on a dozen boards. I would know if he had something to do with LMI’s business,” Alex whispered, perplexed. “He would have told me!”
“Unbelievable,” said Oliver, more to himself than to Alex. “I’ve banged a gangster’s whore!”
This left Alex speechless for a moment. Gangster’s whore! How outrageous! Hot anger rose within her.
“How dare you!” she screamed, and tears sprang into her eyes. “Who do you think you are to judge other people so harshly?”
“Incidentally, this is a free country, and I can judge whomever I please.”
He stood up and pushed past her.
“I wish you the best of luck,” he said and opened the front door. “Go to your Mafia lover! If you keep on like this, you’ll be on LMI’s board in no time. I hope that it’s worth your investment. Good-bye.”
“Can I get dressed first?”
Oliver didn’t respond. He seemed to have lost all interest in her. Alex’s blood hissed in her ears. She let her tears run freely only after she had closed the apartment door behind her. Oliver’s cold contempt and hurtful words stung like salt in a wound. The sky reddened to the east as she stumbled along the street, blinded by tears and bewilderment. A gangster’s whore! The insult echoed in her ears, and she cried angry tears of desperation and humiliation. Why did she always end up with the wrong men? First Sergio, who stood her up, and now this! The tears stopped, and a paralyzing chill took hold of her. The clicking of her high heels on the pavement echoed in the empty streets, and she felt more miserable with every step. Oliver’s reaction had struck a sore point she preferred not to think about. She had managed to mentally block any speculations about Sergio’s connections to the underworld she saw in the press. She had refused to listen to Oliver’s accusations against LMI. But Alex suddenly realized that she couldn’t ignore these signals any longer. She realized how lonely she was. She had no one to talk to, no one to trust. Her whole world started to crumble before her eyes. Her certainty that what she was doing was right had just vanished.
Three hours later, Alex was at her desk with swollen eyes and a pitch-black cup of coffee. The week ahead promised to be very exciting. A hostile takeover battle involving merger negotiations between the country’s two leading waste management companies was coming to a head. For weeks, United Waste Disposal had been defending itself to the best of its ability against Waste Management’s advances. Alex observed this attentively and called Fred W. Watkins, CEO of A&R Resources, to suggest he step in as a white knight. Watkins, who’d met Alex a couple of months ago through Sergio, was more than excited by this proposal. A&R Resources was a highly specialized company that primarily handled military waste disposal, but Alex found out Watkins was looking to diversify his business in order to expand. Without hesitation, Watkins hired Alex and LMI to work on the acquisition of United Waste Disposal; as a result, she was now involved in this hard-fought takeover battle.