Ficorpio
Chapter 1
The first time I ever flaunted my wealth, I had my husband to thank for the opportunity.
I was a widow, but I was also the sole beneficiary of Nathan Sinclair’s estate.
When the attorney read his will, I wept with such delicate misery that anyone might have thought my heart was breaking. My husband was dead, yet the people around me looked at me with envy.
My name is Vivian Sinclair. I met my husband, Nathan, while traveling abroad. He was fourteen years older than I was, divorced, and childless. The night before our wedding, he told me why his first marriage had ended: he was infertile.
“I can’t give you the chance to become a mother,” Nathan said. “But I can give you everything else I have.”
And he did.
Not long after we married, Nathan died of a sudden heart attack. I inherited everything.
That was how I became a wealthy widow.
An obscenely wealthy one.
Unfortunately, after Nathan’s death, rumors began to spread that I was some kind of black widow, cursed to bring death to any man I married. Though I was only in my early thirties, my romantic prospects dried up completely.
Well, the worthwhile ones did.
There were still plenty of rotten prospects. I didn’t need more than half a brain to know why those men smiled so sweetly at me. They weren’t interested in my heart. They wanted access to my bank account.
Once a person had enough money and time, though, loneliness had a way of creeping in.
Take Catherine Whitmore’s husband, for example. Richard came from old money, yet he still found time to chase one barely known actress after another. My daily routine consisted of sipping absurdly expensive afternoon tea while Catherine cursed whichever home-wrecking tramp had caught his eye that week.
Then one day, she arrived looking positively delighted.
She had consulted an expert, she told me, and every woman circling Richard had since vanished.
“What sort of expert?” I asked, taking a bite of a custom Tiffany cake. I hadn’t bought it because it tasted good. I’d bought it because it was expensive.
“A Saintess. Her Pana Tarot readings are unbelievably accurate! The very first card she drew revealed that Richard was having an affair. She immediately offered to put a stop to it, and now he comes straight home every night.”
“And how much did this miracle cost you?”
I had never cared for fortune-telling or any other mystical nonsense. As far as I was concerned, it was all designed to separate gullible people from their money. Richard’s affair interested me far less than the amount Catherine had been swindled out of to keep a husband whose attention had already wandered.
Chapter 2
“That’s the incredible part,” Catherine said. “Celeste didn’t charge me a dime at first. She said that if her solution didn’t work, she wouldn’t accept any payment. I waited more than a month, and only after I was sure Richard had broken things off with that little tramp did I send her an envelope. I gave her the diamond necklace Richard bought me too.”
“She didn’t ask for money upfront?” I raised an eyebrow. “That is interesting.”
“Vivian, why don’t you come with me tomorrow? You’ve been alone for so long since Nathan died. Isn’t it time you found out when your next romance will appear?”
Catherine was actually trying to talk me into going.
I considered it. Partly, I didn’t want to spoil her enthusiasm. Mostly, though, I wanted to see what kind of woman could promise results before accepting payment.
“All right. I’ll cancel tomorrow’s spa appointment and go with you. It isn’t as though I have anything better to do.”
We agreed to go the following afternoon in my car.
After winding through one turn after another, my Rolls-Royce stopped at the entrance to a narrow side street. It was too cramped for the car to pass, so Catherine and I got out and continued on foot.
At the very end stood a privately built house. The interior was smothered in flamboyant decorations whose meaning escaped me entirely.
A woman in her twenties sat cross-legged behind a black hardwood table, a scarf draped over her head. Before we entered, she had been staring intently into a crystal ball.
“Mrs. Whitmore,” she greeted Catherine. “And this must be the friend you told me about.”
Told her about?
Apparently, Catherine had decided long before today that I ought to be parted from some of my money too.
“Yes, this is Vivian Sinclair,” Catherine said. “Her husband died of an illness five years ago, and she’s been alone ever since. Could you read her romantic prospects?”
Her voice grew quieter with every word, as though the possibility of my having a love life were somehow scandalous.
The Saintess smiled and nodded. After glancing at me, she laid out the Pana Tarot deck and instructed me to draw three cards.
I chose three at random.
She studied them for a long time before finally looking up.
“Three months from now, you will meet a man. You may enjoy a no-strings affair with him, but you must not give him your heart.”
Was that it?
She could stare at a few cards, invent a romantic prediction, and expect to be paid? What an easy way to make money.
Chapter 3
Thoroughly unimpressed, I took several large bills from my purse and placed them on the table. Keeping my smile as polite as possible, I left without another word.
I’d have to be out of my mind to believe such nonsense.
But it wasn’t long before I was forced to eat my words.
I met Adrian Cross exactly three months after that reading.
It happened at a charity auction.
I arrived in a floor-length navy gown, wearing jewelry worth millions. As I swept into the reception hall with one hand lifting my skirt, my heel caught in the hem. I stumbled and nearly went down.
A man appeared from nowhere and caught me.
“Careful, Mrs. Sinclair.”
Adrian Cross smiled at me, his expression warm and gentle.
Plenty of men had used far flimsier excuses to ingratiate themselves with me, so I wasn’t particularly impressed. I merely thanked him and moved on.
What finally made me take notice was the staggering amount he spent once the auction began.
There was only one item in the entire catalog that interested me: a jade pendant with an opening bid of five hundred thousand dollars. Competition was fierce, and the price quickly climbed to 1.2 million.
I was still deciding whether it was worth that much when Adrian raised his paddle.
“One point five million.”
That was already a third above market value. Wealthy or not, I had no intention of wasting money on something so badly overpriced.
Adrian won the pendant. With the only piece I wanted gone, the rest of the auction lost all appeal.
I gathered my skirt and quietly slipped out through a side entrance.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, the jade pendant was delivered to the Sinclair Estate that very evening.
It came with a card bearing a heart and an invitation to dinner.
Spending that much on a woman he had only just met certainly caught my attention. And the gift was so expensive that I couldn’t comfortably accept it, yet refusing it outright seemed equally awkward.
Adrian hadn’t really spent 1.5 million dollars on a pendant.
He had spent it on the chance to have dinner with me.
Courtesy alone demanded that I accept his invitation.
But I wasn’t the sort of woman who could be won over with an extravagant gift. I had no desire to owe him anything, so I selected a painting by a celebrated artist from my private collection as a return gift.
Its taste and value both exceeded the pendant’s, though only slightly.
That was enough.
Nathan had collected the painting years ago. I had never liked it, and leaving it at home would only give it more time to gather dust.
Adrian arranged dinner at an exclusive private dining club in the city. He had reserved the entire place just for the two of us.
I knew perfectly well that the setting called for elegance and formality.
So naturally, I showed up in flats, a blouse, and tailored pants.