Free The Secret Heiress by Judith Gould Page A

having a good time?” he asked.
    “I think so,” Honor said. “Certainly all of Niki’s friends seem to be having a great time.”
    “It’s a great party, Adrian,” Sugar said, looking about. “It’s beautiful. All the lights and candles. The fountains. Everything.”
    “You must be exhausted,” Honor said, looking at him. “You’ve been in the air almost constantly for days. Belarus. New York to Scotland and back. Then here.”
    “I’m fine,” he said with a smile. “I always catch a few winks in flight.” In fact, what his sister had said was true. He was very tired, but not for the reasons she thought. He’d made a side trip up to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, where Williams College was located.
    Suddenly the air was rent with the blasts of trumpets.
    As the music stopped, a large gilt platform, a canopied lit, held aloft by young muscle-bound men dressed in tiny gold thongs, appeared on the terrace at the far end of the pool. The trumpets blared again, as if announcing the arrival of a reigning queen. The crowd began applauding loudly and shouting the monarch’s name:
    “Niki! Niki! Niki!”
    Surrounded by votive lights, Niki was draped atop the gilt platform on golden cushions. Her face was heavily made up, and she wore a small, secretive smile, as if she alone held the keys to a kingdom. The trumpets sounded again, and the young men began to walk down the steps that led to the terrace surrounding the pool. Niki threw an arm aloft as if bestowing a blessing upon her loyal subjects. The crowd roared with approval, their shouts and claps growing more gleeful. Her bearers began slowly carrying her around the pool in order for all of her friends to get a close glimpse of her. Her diaphanous gold gown wafted in the breeze, and the diamonds that she wore in her hair, around her neck, and on her ears and wrists and fingers sparkled in the candlelight.
    “My God,” Honor murmured, gazing at Niki’s outfit. Fluttery silk “fish scales” of gold clustered strategically at her crotch and nipples, but otherwise the diaphanous fabric left nothing to the imagination. “She’s practically naked.”
    “But not quite,” Adrian said, humoring her.
    “She’s dazzling,” Yves Carre said appreciatively. “Absolutely dazzling.”
    “She’s scandalous,” Angelo Coveri muttered under his breath.
    “Get over it, Angelo,” Sugar said. “She’s a beautiful young woman with a perfect body. Why not show it off? Besides, about ninety percent of this crowd sunbathes in the nude, so what’s the big deal? She’s wearing more now than most of the men and women here have worn all day on the beach.”
    From her perch above the crowd, Niki’s smile widened from time to time when she passed a particularly close friend. She elegantly lowered one hand to allow a few of the more aggressive men to kiss it as the procession made its way around the pool. Suddenly she noticed Bianca Coveri and a man just ahead in the crowd. He must be her date, Niki reasoned, because one of his lean muscular arms was draped across her shoulders. Bianca, she knew, was not the type to get that cozy with someone she’d just met at a party. As her lit drew alongside Bianca and Frans, Niki stared at him openly.
    My, my, she thought. That long blond hair and those intense baby blues. And the body! They’d obviously had a workout on the dance floor, because he’d stripped off his shirt and his muscular chest with its perfect pecs glistened with sweat. Her eyes traveled down to his outstanding abs and on down, beneath his navel, where she saw that he wore tight white pants that held promise.
    Why, Bianca! she thought. You’ve brought me the perfect birthday present.
    “You look ravishing, Niki,” Bianca shouted above the noise of the crowd.
    Niki’s gaze shifted to Bianca, and she smiled widely. “Thank you, darling,” she said, forming a kiss with her puckered red lips.
    The lit moved on, and Bianca squeezed Frans’s hand in