One Spoonful of Trouble (Felicity Bell Book 1) (14 page)

And then there were his competitors. Corporate sharks are a very competitive breed, and when one shark, especially one who looks like a halibut, manages to make a success of himself and land his face on the cover of Time Magazine, other sharks will stop at nothing to tear him down.

And so it was that Falcone had gradually developed an iron front which protected him from the worst of the verbal and other abuses hurled at him.

As a rule, he never opened his own letters. His secretary Suzy Boom dealt with all of that. Or rather the secretaries Mrs. Boom employed on his behalf. They enjoyed reading abuse about their boss, and he enjoyed not having to be faced with it.

Because of this and his extreme wealth, Falcone had often been dubbed Iron Man by the media. How wrong they were. One thing did penetrate his armor, and that was his family. First there was this business about his son trying to destroy his reputation, and then there was Charlene breaking off her engagement with Bomer Calypso.

One of his oldest and dearest friends, Grover Calypso and he had long shared the dream that one day their families would be united by more than the bond of friendship. As time went on, that hope had seemed a pipe dream, as both Charlene and Bomer had adopted quite a strong aversion to commitment.

While Bomer had whooped it up in New York’s best establishments, and had provided the tabloids with a nice income stream, Charlene had gone on to date some of the world’s most eligible bachelors, but without any intention to change her Facebook relationship status. She had developed the cardinal rule never to allow any acquaintanceship to pass beyond the third date, and had stuck to it.

It had seemed like something of a miracle, therefore, when somehow, somewhere, sometime—he didn’t know where, he didn’t know when—the two had started dating and hadn’t stopped since.

The moment the fourth date had rolled around, he and Grover had exchanged excited text messages. And on the occasion of the fifth date, they’d even dared hope against hope that their dream would finally come true.

When the engagement had been announced, champagne had flowed, and for the first time in years, Falcone had actually shed a tear. Since everyone had assumed he was one of those medical anomalies who don’t possess tear ducts, this had taken even his closest relatives by surprise.

And now this. A curt text by his daughter, announcing her engagement was at an end, and the wedding, which had promised to be the social occasion of the season, was off!

He’d been on his way to Long Island when the message came in, and he’d almost landed his Lamborghini in a ditch. Oh, God, he lamented. What had he done to deserve this? Well, he knew the answer to that, of course. For years he’d been so busy building his empire that he’d fatally neglected his family. Charlene hadn’t even known she had a dad until she turned three, having always figured that Nanny Velma who had been raising her was her mother, and Velma’s husband Fred—coincidentally Falcone’s gardener—her dad.

While Charlene was growing up, Falcone had been jetting the globe, or confined to his office expanding his empire.

And then there was Rick. He’d been a surprise gift from his first wife. The young man had often remarked he’d been quite surprised that his father wasn’t the wizened butler he spent so much quality time with, but the sour-faced man who dropped by once or twice a year to hand him an FAO Schwarz gift card.

Like his first marriage, his second had run its course, but Falcone wasn’t the kind of man to be thrown off his game by two failures, and had gone on to marry again, yet again, and then once more. The third, fourth and fifth Mrs. Falcones hadn’t borne him any children, and now at an age where his fortunes were secure, and a man starts thinking about his legacy, he’d belatedly realized he should perhaps have paid a little more attention to his offspring.

When reaching out to Rick, this had proved disastrous. The young man, having adopted his mother’s surname, seemed to have developed some sort of aversion to his father, and had gone out of his way to tear him down, even going so far as to launch a personal vendetta in the New York Chronicle, and gearing up for a series of scathing articles denouncing the well-known billionaire.

And then there was Charlene. He’d managed to make up for the years of neglect by showering her with gifts and everything her little heart desired, and had grown quite fond of the young woman.

Now if only he could marry her off to young Bomer, his deepest wish would be fulfilled.

He rolled into Happy Bays, his mind a whirlwind of emotion, and decided that he needed to tackle this thing one errant child at a time. First he needed to stop Rick once and for all, and then he could start thinking about Charlene, and convince his infernal daughter that Bomer was the right guy for her after all, if only because his last name was Calypso.

CHAPTER 30

“You’re Falcone’s son. And you only mention this now?” She was feeling that Rick was holding all the cards, and occasionally allowed her a small peek at his hand, before whisking them out of reach again.

“I’ve never told this to anyone, and have asked my father not to mention the fact either, so you’re pretty much the first person ever to learn about this.”

This sobered her a good deal. “You mean it’s a secret?”

“Not a secret, per se. More like one of those family skeletons. The kind you want to leave in the closet and never take out.”

“But if you’re Falcone’s son, then why—”

“Am I dead set on exposing him as a fraud, a cheat and a scoundrel? Good question.”

“I thought so,” she said, well pleased. She was starting to think like a reporter, she felt. Pretty soon she would be grilling POTUS about what he and FLOTUS had for dinner last night.

“Well…”

They’d arrived at
Casa di Amore
, the love nest that Bomer’s father had once built, and Felicity said, “Don’t tell me. It’s a long story, and we just ran out of time, right?”

“Well, it
is
a long story.” He turned to her, and fixed her with a lively stare, his blue eyes boring into her. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

Her eyebrows rose, and so did the corners of her mouth. “I would love to,” she said before her critical mind had the chance to kick in. “And then you will tell me all about this secret son business?”

“I promise that I will spill all my secrets, as long as you spill yours.”

She snorted. “I have no secrets to spill, I’m afraid. My life is…” She was going to say ‘boring’ but managed to restrain herself. “…an open book.”

“Well, it’s a book I would love to read,” he said earnestly.

For a prize-winning reporter he didn’t stint on the clichés, and it encouraged her. If even the prize-winning reporters of the world were allowed to make a linguistic boo-boo, she had nothing to fear.

“Only if you’ll read my next article and critique it,” she added quite reasonably. Striking while the waffle iron was hot was a Bell family motto.

He smiled. “I promise.”

They stared at each other for a bit, then finally Rick said, “I promise I will go easy on you.”

The moment the words had left his mouth, his cheeks reddened and he looked away. If he hadn’t, he would have noticed that Felicity was blushing too. It hadn’t escaped her attention that the atmosphere in the van had hotted up considerably, and that the butterflies were flitting merrily about in her stomach.

At that moment, her long-cherished beliefs about men and women were nothing but a distant memory, and there flitted before her mind’s eye the appealing prospect of being clasped in Rick Dawson’s arms, being kissed by Rick Dawson, and even being wildly and passionately made love to by Rick Dawson.

Perhaps a good thing for her, then, that Rick Dawson opened the van door, and after a brief grin stepped from the vehicle and walked up to
Casa di Amore
.

She was still staring after him when she realized her mouth was ajar. Not an appealing sight. She closed it with a click and, putting the van in gear, drove away from the house, feeling as if the skies had suddenly opened and a fleet of angels with harpsichords had fluttered down, strewing rose petals in their wake.

It took her a while to put a name to the strange sensation she was experiencing. It was love, she was quite sure of it, and it took her by surprise. Having never experienced the elusive emotion before, she was surprised to find it both sweet and achingly painful, like a loose tooth that you can’t help worry with the tip of your tongue.

Rick’s handsome features filled her mind, and she thought how ironic it was that love would finally enter her life in the form of the man she’d despised, then had despised even more, before falling for him like a ton of bricks.

Wasn’t it always like this, though? Just when you think something can’t be further removed from your grasp, and you decide to give up, it suddenly falls into your lap with a soft thud and smiles up at you, gives you a cheeky wink, and says, “Didn’t see that coming now did you?”

No, she definitely hadn’t, but now that love had come to town, she planned to make the most of it. And with a mind filled with possible outfits to wear, makeup to apply, hairstyles to try out, and clever comebacks to practice, she stomped her foot on the accelerator, and headed straight into Happy Bays.

She needed to find Alice and she needed to find her now. She couldn’t pull this off without her best friend giving her moral and logistical support. And she knew just where to find her.

Parking in front of Charlie’s Funeral Delight, she stepped from the van and headed inside.

CHAPTER 31

There is much to be said for a refreshing drive in the country, especially when living in a city as congested as New York. And yet all Chazz Falcone could think about when he arrived at
Casa di Vitae
, his home in Happy Bays, was how to approach this family business that had been preying on his mind all through the drive over.

He wandered through the house, a perfect copy of his friend Grover’s
Casa di Amore
, and opened the sliding doors looking out across the North Atlantic. As he lowered his bulk onto a bench on the patio, he heaved a weary sigh. He rarely came down here, the last three of his wives preferring to spend their holidays in more popular spots like St. Barths, the Maldives or Saint-Tropez in the summer and Aspen or Davos in winter. But he’d recently divorced Mrs. Falcone the fifth, and suddenly felt a strong urge to make this place his home.

He’d been gradually slowing down lately, entrusting the various CEOs of his companies with more and more of the day-to-day duties, and finding himself with more leisure time on his hands as a consequence. So he’d been thinking about taking up his old hobby again. To throw out a line and then peacefully sit back and wait for the fish to bite had been the joy of his younger years, long before another, more time-consuming hobby had captured his imagination: that of collecting greenbacks.

And he sat there, tranquility stealing over him, when his phone rang. Picking up, he saw that it was his friend.

“Grover.”

His friend’s gravelly voice assaulted his eardrum. “What’s all this nonsense about Charlene breaking off the engagement?”

“It isn’t nonsense. She broke it off all right.”

“I know. But why?”

“Probably some lover’s tiff.”

“Tell her to get over it.”

“I can’t. She won’t listen to me.”

“I’ll have a word with Bomer. Perhaps he can enlighten us.”

Whether Bomer was capable of enlightening anyone was a point of contention, but Falcone disconnected and returned to his musings on the quiet life. Before long, Grover was back with more news from the front line.

“Chazz.”

He held the phone away from his ear this time. “What gives?”

“I talked to the boy and he gibbered on and on about some misunderstanding. Apparently he decided to lay low in Rick’s apartment.”

“Rick?”

“Your son. Remember him?”

How could he not? “What did he do a stupid thing like that for?”

“He said he needed peace and quiet to finish this project I’ve handed him.”

“Oh, right.” Falcone had felt from the start that to hand that idiot Bomer a project of such importance was an obvious sign that Grover was getting weak in the head. Even though the young wastrel had managed to pull himself together over the course of his recent engagement, that still didn’t change the fact that the boy was an intellectual prawn. Charming enough, but not much going on as far as brains was concerned. Not that he’d ever mentioned the fact to Grover.

“He was working on his project when Charlene breezed in.”

“What was she doing at Rick’s place?”

“Apparently Bomer had been playing hide and seek, dodging her phone calls, and she didn’t like it.”

“I can imagine.” Charlene was the kind of woman whose calls you dodged at your peril.

“So she decided to talk to Rick, seeing as he and Bomer have always been pals. Imagine her surprise when instead of a friend she found a fiancé. She immediately jumped to the conclusion he had about a dozen girls tucked away.”

“And had he?”

“Had he what?”

“A dozen girls tucked away?”

“No, he hadn’t. At least that’s what he tells me. Of course with Bomer you never know.”

“Messy business.”

“Very. So I decided to do the sensible thing and call Rick.”

Falcone rose from his chair so quickly he was hit by a dizzy spell and forced to sit down again. “You what?”

“I talked to Rick. What else could I do? He’s the only one who will give it to me straight. You know Rick is not a liar.”

“I know,” he said, clutching his head. Whatever his faults, Rick was a paragon of honesty, one of the many points of contention between father and son. Whereas Falcone felt you can’t make a success of yourself in life without bending a few rules, Rick had always been a stickler for sincerity. “And what’s the verdict?”

“Apparently Bomer really did ask him to lend his apartment so he could work on his project. And as far as Rick knows, there are no other women in the picture. Looks like the boy turned his life around when he fell for Charlene.”