Free Swimming with Sharks by Nele Neuhaus Page A

sparkled with admiration, and then she giggled quietly. “You really went after those two crooks! Weren’t you scared at all?”
    “Everything happened so fast that I didn’t have any time to think about it,” Alex admitted. She briefly thought about her raging anger at Sergio and her entire situation, which she’d unleashed against those two men. But she decided not to mention her dark thoughts to these cultivated people. It was better to let them think of her as the noble rescuer.
    “My wife and I would like to thank you for your courageous and selfless intervention, in any case.” Trevor sat down next to his wife, and they held hands.
    “We’ll tell Nick all about it,” Madeleine said. “He’ll be shocked because he works so hard for safety in this city. And then something like this happens, to me of all people!”
    “Mayor Nick Kostidis and his wife Mary are close friends of ours,” Trevor explained. “Pardon my rudeness, Alex, but in all this excitement I forgot your last name.”
    “Sontheim. Alex Sontheim.”
    “Ah.” He leaned forward and looked at her with renewed interest. “Yes, of course! Alex Sontheim. This evening’s event was organized by your employer, after all. I’ve heard a great deal about you. You have a remarkable reputation on Wall Street.”
    “Thank you very much.” Alex smiled humbly. She enjoyed that even Manhattan’s Department Store King knew her name. If he was a friend of the mayor, she realized that he couldn’t possibly be a friend of Sergio.
    “Wall Street?” Madeleine asked in astonishment. “Do you work at the stock exchange?”
    “No, an investment bank,” Alex responded. “I’m the head of the mergers and acquisitions department at LMI.”
    “How fascinating!” Madeleine exclaimed.
    “It’s nothing to write home about.” Alex shrugged her shoulders.
    “It certainly is.” Madeleine looked at her with curious eyes. “I always thought that just men were involved in that business. Somehow I had a completely different image of investment bankers.”
    “And I thought that all opera singers look like Montserrat Caballé,” Alex countered with a smile, which finally broke the ice. They liked each other straightaway. All three of them laughed, and Trevor poured another round of cognac.

     
    It was two thirty in the morning. Alex glanced at her watch and was amazed to realize how late it was. Trevor insisted on having his chauffeur drive Alex home. She gratefully accepted this offer after the Downeys made her promise to get together again. Alex sat in the back of the limousine and stared out the window in contemplation. The past three hours that she had spent with the Downeys showed her with great clarity what was missing in her life. She had never before wasted a single thought on marriage and friendship because her career was always more important, but she had felt lonely many times during the past few months. She had no real friends in her life. She no longer had any idea at all what she really wanted, which was a strange and oppressive feeling. On an impulse, Alex asked the chauffeur to drive her to Barrow Street. She hoped that Oliver was at home and wouldn’t be angry with her for showing up at his place in the middle of the night. It took a while before he came to the intercom half asleep.
    “It’s me, Alex,” she said. “Sorry that I’m waking you this late, but can you let me in?”
    If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He answered the door in his boxer shorts and smiled with sleepy eyes. Without saying a word, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. His skin was warm and smelled slightly like sweat. Suddenly she was overcome with thedesire for him on the spot, to be as intimate as Madeleine and Trevor. They fumbled their way to his bed and made love tenderly.
    “And now you can tell me everything,” Oliver said as they rested side by side, holding each other tightly, pleasantly exhausted. Alex barely mentioned the event