Erica Orloff: The Golden Girl

They started dancing, and as she expected, he moved very close to her.

“You’re wearing that perfume again.”

She nodded. It was Sung, and it had a hint of gardenia to it.

“You make me nuts, Maddie. When are you going to come to your senses and realize we’re perfect for each other?”

“Never, Ryan.” She leaned in close to his ear and flirtatiously nibbled at it. “We’d eat each other alive if we got together, and you know it.”

He groaned and then pulled her to him, grinding into her ever so slightly as the pulse of the music got even more erotic.

“Is that a bankbook in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me,” she purred.

“You know it’s that I’m always happy to see you.”

“Along with every other blonde in your ZIP code.”

“You delight in tormenting me, don’t you?” He planted a kiss in her neck. “You’re the only blonde I’m interested in. You know, if we got together, we wouldn’t even need a prenup. Then all the buildings we created could be called Greene & Pruitt Towers.”

“You mean Pruitt & Greene.”

“There’s that competitive spirit I love.”

A couple of minutes later, the song ended, and the DJ slid into another one, a hip-hop tune requested, as the DJ said into his microphone, by Kiki, who was now dancing on a table, along with a B-list movie actress who apparently had gotten brand-new implants. If her breasts were any higher, Maddie mused, they’d be in her neck like twin goiters.

She and Ryan sat back down with Ash. No sooner had they than gossip columnist Rubi Cho approached them. Rubi, for all the blind items and salacious tidbits she printed, was actually someone Maddie didn’t mind. She loved her sense of humor.

“What sexy blond queen of New York real estate was spotted canoodling on the dance floor with her equally sexy male counterpart?” Rubi teased, pushing her purple cat’s-eye glasses on top of her shiny black hair.

“You print it, and I’ll sue you, Cho,” Ryan growled playfully. “Come on and sit down.” He winked at her.

Maddie and Ash waved. Maddie, given how rarely she got to party, rarely made “In the Know with Rubi Cho,” but Ryan’s dalliances with supermodels and actresses and even a presidential candidate’s daughter, often made the Cho column. Maddie hated publicity—but she thought Ryan secretly liked being known as a player. He ate up attention as voraciously as he acquired real estate.

“There goes Kiki’s thong,” Rubi remarked dryly, and sure enough, the drunken heiress had now removed her thong entirely and was swinging it above her head. “She’s a class act. Bet Daddy’s real proud at how well finishing school paid off for her.”

Ryan, Ash and Maddie all laughed, and Ryan reached over to the ice bucket and refilled their champagne glasses, signaling a cocktail waitress to bring them two more glasses and another bottle of Cristal.

“This is it for me,” Maddie said. “I’m driving.”

Ryan shook his head. “I don’t get it. You must be the only woman worth a hundred million in this town who drives herself around. Your father gives you a limo and driver, why don’t you use it? You can’t tell me you like fighting cabbies for the right-of-way.”

Maddie shrugged. “I use the limo most days. It’s just…I don’t know, sometimes I like to take a drive and clear my head. I’m a damn good driver, too.” She didn’t tell the three at her table that her father had her learn to drive with the Formula One team he sponsored. She loved speed—and Jack Pruitt believed if you were going to learn to do something, you learned from the best. She took tennis lessons from the coach for the Davis Cup when she was fifteen.

On the small table where her glass rested sat her cell phone. She saw it light up and read the caller ID. Her father’s unlisted home phone flashed in digital numbers. That was odd. He rarely called her after nine. She looked at her watch. Twelve-thirty.

She lifted her phone and opened it, holding it to her ear.

“Hello?” she shouted above the nightclub din.

“Maddie?” her father shouted. “Can you hear me?”

“Not really.”

“Where are you?”

“Echo. A club.”

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out now! I can’t explain. Get out and go home, and I’ll call you there and explain.”

“But—”

“Get out, Maddie!” Click. He hung up on her.

Puzzled, Maddie closed her phone and smiled at her friends, pretending all was good. “Um…something’s come up at the office, of all things. I have to run.”

She leaned over and kissed a perturbed-looking Ash on the cheek. Ash asked, “You okay, Maddie?”

She nodded. “Work. You know how insane my schedule gets when I’ve got a deal pending.” She smiled with an assurance she didn’t feel. Then Ryan kissed her goodbye as she slid past him, his lips lingering on hers for a fraction of a second. Maddie gave Rubi a peck as she stood up, and then grabbed her purse and cell phone and made her way through the crowded club to the street outside, trying to push down the nervous feeling in her stomach. Her father was considered one of the smartest, most coolheaded and absolutely toughest CEOs in the world. He wasn’t prone to emotional reactions—or panic. Not even when the bottom fell out of the stock market years before.

As Maddie exited Echo and walked east the two blocks to her car, a paparazzi photographer snapped her picture.

“Hey, Maddie, real-estate princess, how ’bout smiling for the cameras?”

She glanced over her shoulder and gave a smile, but then a chill ran through her. As if on cue, at the photographer shouting her name, ten guys with cameras suddenly went nuts. Yes, she was well known—but she wasn’t Kiki—and she wasn’t a supermodel. So the reaction was way out of proportion to her celebrity. Four of them started in a half jog toward her.

“Any comment, Madison?”

“Yeah, what do you have to say?”

She had no idea what the hell was going on—but she was getting out of there. She broke into a half jog, regretting the four-inch heels. She could hear the footfall of the paparazzi behind her, and the click-click-click of their shutters going off rapid-fire. She felt like a stalked animal in the wild. Spotting her two-seater Jaguar a few yards up, she pulled the keys from her purse and pressed the button to unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Just a half block ahead of them, she opened the door to her car, hopped in and thanked sheer luck that left enough room around her car for her to pull from the curb in one swift movement once the keys were in the ignition. Still, the photographers snapped away as she drove off down the street.

In her rearview mirror, she could now see two photographers climb into a black Jeep Cherokee and start to pursue her.

“This is insane,” she muttered to herself. She was smart enough to know something was up, but she remained utterly in the dark about what it was. All she knew was she didn’t relish the photographers catching up to her and nearly ramming her bumper for a better shot. She’d heard of it happening—she had mourned with everyone else in the world at the loss of Princess Diana. Maddie was American royalty, and she didn’t want to end up in a crash.

The streets of New York were still busy, but certainly quieter than the bustle of midday or rush hour. She drove several blocks until she pulled onto Fifth Avenue, a shopping mecca with wide streets. She decided she would take it until she could cut over a few cross streets and take a pass through Central Park. If the lights were in her favor, she just might outrun them.

Maddie gripped the steering wheel and spun, making a light and turning toward the park. She could see in her side-view mirror that not only had the photographers not made the light—they didn’t care. They blew right through it.