While I waited for Klein to contact me about Ben's arrest, Ike asked me for a favor. I agreed, without knowing what the favor was, but knowing that I'd deny him nothing.
"I want a meeting of the people who hold interest in the Miramar." I nodded. "I want you to be there, and I want to tell them that you hold a controlling interest." My eyes widened, knowing that Ike meant Meg was going to find out just how little her fifteen percent mattered with my controlling interest. "I'll be right beside you, Liz, but I want her to understand, as much as Vera has to, that YOU are the one I want. And Meg sees things in-"
"Terms of money, and control," I finished for him. "Alright, when?"
When, I learned, was two days later, but he had good news for me as well. "Vera agreed to the divorce, she was a little surprised by the additions you wanted added." I smirked. "She asked," he took a deep breath and took my hands in his. "If she could talk to you, alone." My smirk dropped and I must have gone pale because he was shaking his head and trying to calm my nerves. "Only if you agree, Liz, she isn't demanding, and you don't have to-"
"Yes I do," I breathed. "I do, Ike. I owe her that much." Closing my eyes, I breathed deep and easily, as Mimi had told me to. "Could you arrange for her to-" I considered when I wanted to meet with her. Should I try it before the meeting, or after? "Tomorrow?" I thought clearing the slate with Vera should happen before Meg gets her own warning. "Not here, though," opening my eyes I looked around the penthouse. "This was hers, Ike, and I'd rather not rub my new position in her face."
"How about if she meets you in the Atlantis before it opens?" Like I'd met Arthur for the first time, I smiled. "You'd still be in the hotel, but you'd be in a more neutral spot." I nodded, agreeing to the logic of if. He kissed me softly and was smiling as he pulled back. "I'll call her now, and then-" his eyes darkened. "Bed."
We'd had dinner. Ike told me that my meeting for the morning was set, and I noticed that Lauren's face dropped.
"First, before bed, do you want to show me your bedroom?" I asked her and she smiled. "Did you get a chance to look at the magazines your dad mentioned?" She nodded. "Let's go, and you can tell me what you have in mind." Ike kissed both of us, settling in on the patio for a cigar while we girls chatted.
Lauren's room looked like a princess' room should and I smiled. A princess that was much younger, though, and I could understand her longing for something fresh. She had me take a seat on her bed and sat next to me with the magazine she told me had the best ideas she could find.
We talked about colors, and patterns, giggling as she told me she wasn't interested in the pinup teenie bopper boy posters that the pictures in the magazine showed. She had more sophisticated taste than I think Ike, or Vera for that matter had suspected and I was nodding more than I was offering suggestions. I promised her that, as long as my morning meeting went well, we'd go shopping afterward and she surprised me again.
"Vera won't be as mean as you think, Liz." I stared down at her. "She's more angry that she didn't get to make the move to leave first, I think, than she is that it ended." I almost asked why she thought that, but stopped. Lauren shouldn't be put in the middle of our mess. "Just know that she doesn't hate you, she envies you." I dropped a kiss on her forehead and told her goodnight. I left Lauren's room wondering how she knew that Vera had wanted to leave Ike, but afraid to ask, and I thought it was unfair to ask her. She had enough loss, let's not add her trust or affection for me to the list.
I leaned against the doorway leading to the patio and watched Ike enjoying his cigar. His tie was loose, the top buttons of his shirt undone, and he looked relaxed. Biting my lip, the waves crashing below us, I enjoyed the light breeze that felt so rare to me in Miami. My eyes closed, so I didn't see him stand, but I felt the heat of him, I could smell the hint of tobacco from his cigar, and then his hands were cupping my face.
"Liz?" Opening my eyes, I looked up at him, thinking that Ike in the moonlight was like a masterpiece that should be hung in the Louvre. His sharp lines were softened. His eyes shadowed, his lips in sharp relief. I drank him in as I once drank those martinis he teased me about, thinking that a man like Ike was worth more than his weight in gold. "You're looking at me like you've never seen me before." His voice was so quiet that the waves almost stole it.
"I haven't seen you, not like this," my hands moved, sliding up his chest, to the first still fastened button on his shirt. Licking my lips, I wanted, no I needed, to see him bare in the moonlight. My fingers worked fast, the last button freed, and then I was pushing his shirt from his body, not nearly as roughly as I might have in our room. I was right, of course, seeing Ike bared, even if it was only his chest so far, was a sight I needed to see. My hands fell to his waistband, and then working as quickly, but just as carefully, I freed him from those as well. His boxers slid down next, and then he kicked himself free of both, seeming to finally understand what I wanted. "Step back, Ike." I bit my lip again, seeing the moon highlight all my favorite parts of him, and feeling far thirstier than I ever had.
"Come here," again a breath, and I fought to hear it and then comply. Stepping carefully over his pile of clothing, I met his hands, feverish against my skin as he worked as fast and careful to take off the clothes he'd redressed me in after my meeting with Klein and his bodily praise that came after. Soon I was as bare as he was, with only the moon, waves, and soft breeze touching us. He swallowed hard, the moonlight caught the movement and then his hands reached for me.
We made love on the balcony of the penthouse, after he promised that Lauren's room didn't have a clear view of where we were. And it was one of the most magical moments of our relationship so far, and when I told him that, he promised me that it wouldn't be the last one.
