Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (31 page)

“He has a point,”
Anastassios said.

She turned to her
husband.
 
“Mario?”

He was standing across
the room in a dark blue suit.
 
“I
can see both sides.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“Oh, you’re a big help.”

“I think you’ll do what’s
best.”

Zack positioned the
brochure in her arms so it didn’t look too obvious.
 
“I don’t know.
 
That will go everywhere.
 
You can’t buy that kind of publicity.”

“Actually, Leana can,”
Anastassios said.
 

When Mario wheeled her
out of the hospital, a black patch covering her eye, it was without the
brochure.
 
Her head was clear and
she knew that Michael was right.
 
When they wrote about this, the hotel would be mentioned.
 
Another consideration was that the
caliber of people she was trying to attract to The Park would see straight
through what she was doing and they’d consider it cheap.
 
They’d have none of it.
 
She’d have fallen in their estimation.

It wasn’t lost on her
that, years ago, when she was still living with her parents, she would have
held the brochure out of defiance because she knew it would have looked
ridiculous—and that it would have angered her father.
 
But now Leana was a businesswoman, a
role she took seriously.
 
With a
smile on her face, she greeted the reporters with a wave before getting out of
the chair and turning to look at the hospital.
 
For a moment, she was filled with an
overwhelming sense of gratitude for how they’d helped her.
 
Impulsively, she blew a kiss at it.

At that moment, all
around her, dozens of cameras flashed.

What the press captured
were images of a grateful patient whose eyesight had been restored when the
odds were against it ever happening.
 
Within hours, the images had gone viral on blogs, websites, and
television news and entertainment shows.
 
By the next morning, they had appeared in newspapers.

And
Leana Redman, freshly married into the De Cicco crime family, had become a
household name for a host of reasons.
  

BOOK
TWO

CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE

Leana wasted no time
getting back to work, but before she planned her day, she needed to settle some
business with her father.
 

When she returned home
from the hospital the day before, Michael called to fill her in on his
conversation with George.
 
He wanted
to share it with her privately—not in front of the group gathered in her
hospital room.
 
And certainly not on
what turned out to be her wedding day.

“So, that’s why he didn’t
come to visit me?” Leana said.
 

“Apparently.”

“I can’t say that I blame
him.
 
I could have stopped in to
check on him when he was in the hospital—I was, after all, in a room of
my own just down the hall from his.
 
But I didn’t.
 
At that point,
after all that had happened, I wanted out of there and out of the country with
Mario.
 
But let’s face it—I
did it out of spite.
 
I could have
made sure that he was going to be all right before I disappeared, but I
didn’t.”

“Well, haven’t you grown
up.”

“Somebody has to.”

“How are you feeling
today?”

“Grateful.
 
My eye hurts, but that’s natural after
having a piece of glass wedged into it, and then the surgery.”

“Have you learned
anything about who might have done it?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is,
Michael.”

“Is Sean going to be with
you today?”

“Sean’s my new best
friend.”

“You’re taking this
awfully lightly.”

“I just sound as if I
am.
 
Am I scared about what’s going
on?
 
Of course, I am.
 
Am I going to let it stop me from moving
forward?
 
No.
 
Will I take precautions to protect
myself?
 
Absolutely.
 
Which brings us back to Sean.
 
From now on, he goes where I go.”

“Have you heard from
Mario’s father?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think you will?”

“Mario’s meeting with his
brothers today.
 
We’ll see what comes
from that.
 
Apparently, if Antonio
is angry, which I’m pretty sure he is after being left out of our impromptu
ceremony, they’ll be able to reason with him and calm him down.
 
Do I believe that?
 
No.
 
Do I care?
 
Not a bit.”

She told him about
Antonio’s trip to the hospital.

“He expects you to become
a fifties monster?”

“Raising and burping
babies.
 
That’s what women are good
for when it comes to Antonio De Cicco.”

“You know, you are part
of the family now.
 
Are you sure you
want to cross him?”

“What I’m sure about is
that I’m going to live my life.”

“Sometimes, I worry.
 
Mario is a great guy.
 
I like him a lot.
 
But he comes with baggage.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I’m not insulting him,
Leana.
 
It’s his family I worry
about.
 
They’re unpredictable.
 
I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Physically?”

“That’s right.”

“What would they do to
me?”

“The question you need to
ask yourself is how far they would go to get Mario back.”

*
 
*
 
*

She called her father at
home.

“Are you available this
morning?”

“I have several
meetings.
 
What about this
afternoon?”

“It’s five o’clock.
 
Your meetings generally begin at eight,
unless you’ve suddenly become more ambitious and are starting them
earlier.
 
Why don’t we meet at
seven?
 
If you still want me on the
Columbus Circle project, I need to understand the scope of what you want from
me, which I assume goes beyond keeping Pepper in line.”

“Actually, Pepper has
come around over the past few days.
 
She’s been doing great work and the crew tells me she’s been less
abrasive.
 
I’m hearing better
reports about her behavior now.”

“Did you tell her that
she’d be working with me?”

“I did.”

“And she started to
behave after you told her?”

“She did.”

“And you don’t see a
connection there?”

There was a silence.

“I’ll see you in my
office at seven,” George said.

*
 
*
 
*

This time when she
arrived at Redman International, the man behind the front desk looked up from
his newspaper with recognition square on his face.
 
This was not the man who had asked her
to show him her ID before.
 
It was another
man, and he smiled as she crossed the room toward her with Sean at her side.

“Let me get my ID,” she
said, reaching into her bag.

“There’s no need for
that, Miss Redman,” he said.
 
“I’d
recognize you anywhere.
 
And I’m
glad to hear that you’re on the mend.
 
Mr. Redman is expecting you.
 
You can use one of the elevators behind me.”

“This is Sean Scott, my
head of security.”

“You’re both welcome.”

She thanked him and
entered the elevator.
 
When the
doors closed, she checked herself in the mirrors surrounding her.
 
She was wearing a red suit, her dark
hair was pulled away from her face and she’d done nothing to conceal the
bruising around her eye—she had applied her makeup around it, but not
over it.
 
The patch covered some of
the discoloration, but not all of it, which is how she wanted it.
 

Leana wanted her father
to have a good look at what had happened to her.

“Do you mind waiting
outside my father’s office, Sean?
 
This probably will get ugly.”

“Outside is fine, Miss
Redman.
 
If it gets too ugly, just
let me know.”

“You mean, you’d protect
me from my father?”

“Protecting you is my
job.”

She smiled sideways at
him and saw, beneath his stony expression, a flicker of humor in his eyes.

“Then you might just hear
from me.
 
Make sure your gun is
drawn.
 
I’ll want theatrics.”

*
 
*
 
*

She found her father in
his office.
 
The door was open, but
she knocked before entering.
 
Sean
stood to one side.
 
“It’s seven,”
she called into the room.
 
“Are you
ready for me?”

George looked up at her
from where he was seated at his desk.
 
Though he tried not to react when he saw the patch and the bruises, his
gaze fixed on them before he asked her to sit in one of the chairs opposite
him.

“I made coffee—”

“I’m fine.
 
And frankly, I’m busy.
 
Let’s talk about what you expect of me
on the job.
 
For starters, what
would Celina be doing?”

“What Pepper is doing
now.
 
Overseeing the work.
 
Monitoring the final touches of
construction.
 
Being available to
answer questions.
 
Going over
concepts with the real estate firm we hired to sell the apartments.
 
And everything in between.”

“Sounds like she has her
hands full.”

“She has this project,
the hotel and the new office complex I’m building on Madison.
 
And today, I’m giving her another
project, which I can’t talk about now because the deal won’t be sealed until
later today.
 
Hopefully at noon.”

Leana couldn’t still a
spark of jealousy that Pepper already knew what it was.
 
But she didn’t let it show.
 
“How can Pepper be available to answer
questions when she’s stretched so thin?”

“She can’t.
 
That’s the problem.”

“I thought the problem
also had to do with her attitude.”

“That seems to have
straightened itself out.”

“So you’ve said and for
reasons I’ve previously noted.
 
But
I’d be careful.
 
That’s one girl who
won’t change her spots.”

“You seem to have changed
yours.”

“I had no choice.
 
True, Harold left me a great deal of
money.
 
But it’s just me out there
with no safety net.
 
I’m running on
pure instinct.
 
Pepper has you
behind her.”

“In all fairness, you do
have the help of your investors.”

“Who are busy investing
in other deals.
 
They expect me to
handle this on my own with weekly briefings, not hourly phone calls filled with
panic and woe.
 
I changed because I
had no choice.
 
Pepper changed this
week because she’s scared shitless of me coming on site.”

“Pepper isn’t afraid of
anything or anyone, Leana.”

“I wonder if that’s
true.
 
For instance, say
she
got shot at a week ago and almost lost her eyesight.
 
Would that frighten her?
 
Would the idea that she’s being targeted
frighten her?
 
Would she be able to
get out of bed the first day her doctor gave her the green light to return to
work?
 
Or would she be cool
throughout all of it, unafraid of what lurked around the next corner?”