LITMIR.BIZ

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doorman flagged a cab.

      “Sixty-third off Lexington,” Nicolo told the driver.

      He was meeting friends at the Eastside Club. The three of them had agreed, via e-mail yesterday, on the benefits of a quick workout, especially since both Nicolo and Damian had just flown in.

      Private planes or not, a man felt his muscles tighten after a seemingly interminable international flight.

      Then they’d go somewhere quiet for dinner and catch up on old times. He was looking forward to that. He, Damian and Lucas had known each other forever. For thirteen years, ever since they’d met at a pub just off the Yale campus, three eighteen-year-old kids from three different parts of the world, all of them wondering how in hell they’d survive in this strange country.

      Survive? They’d flourished. And formed a tight friendship. They saw each other less frequently now, thanks to their individual business interests, but they were still best pals.

      And still single, which was exactly how they all wanted it. In fact, they always began the evening with the same toast.

      “Life,” Lucas would say solemnly, “is short.”

      “And marriage,” Damian would add even more solemnly, “is forever.”

      The last part of the toast was left to Nicolo.

      “And freedom,” he’d say dramatically, “freedom, gentlemen, is everything!”

      He was smiling as his cab pulled up in front of the Eastside Club. It was housed in what had once been a block of nineteenth-century brownstones that had been gutted, completely made over and combined into one structure.

      A very exclusive health club.

      The Eastside didn’t advertise. No plaque or sign identified it to passersby. Membership was by invitation only, reserved for those who valued privacy and could afford the steep fees that guaranteed it.

      For all that, the club was completely lacking in pretension. There were no trendy exercise gadgets, no bouncy music, and the only part of the gym with a mirrored wall was the free-weight area so that you could check your reflection to see if you were lifting properly.

      What there were, in addition to the weights, were punching bags, a pool and a banked indoor track.

      Best of all, the Eastside was for men only.

      Women were a distraction. Besides, Nicolo thought as he inserted his key card in the front door lock, it was a relief to get away from them for a while.

      He had enough women to deal with in his life. Too many, he sometimes thought, when ending a relationship led to tears. He was, he’d heard whispered, “an excellent catch.” He scoffed at that but to himself, he admitted it was probably true.

      Why not be honest?

      “Good evening, Mr. Barbieri. Nice to see you again, sir.”

      “Jack,” Nicolo said amiably. He signed in and headed for the locker room.

      He had money. A private jet. Cars. He owned a ski lodge in Aspen, an oceanfront estate on Mustique, a pied-a-terre in Paris and, of course, there was the palazzo in Rome, the one that had supposedly come to the Barbieri family through Julius Caesar.

      That was what his great-grandmother had always claimed.

      Nicolo thought it more likely it had come to them through a thief in Caesar’s time, but he’d never contradicted her. He’d loved the old woman as he’d never loved anyone else. He’d always been grateful he’d made his first million and restored the ancient but decrepit Palazzo di Barbieri before she’d died.

      Her pleasure had brought joy to his heart.

      He’d liked making her happy. In fact, he liked making most women happy.

      It was only when their demands became unreasonable, when they began to talk of The Future, of The Importance of Settling Down—and he could almost actually feel the physical weight they put into the phrase when it tumbled from their lips—that Nicolo knew that Making Them Happy wasn’t as important as Not Making a Commitment.

      No way. Not him. Not yet.

      For an evening? Of course. A week? Yes. Even a month. Two months. Hell, he wasn’t the kind of man to jump from bed to bed…

      What would the woman in the black suede coat be like in bed? A honey-maned tigress? Or an ice queen?

      Not that he gave a damn. It was simply a matter of intellectual curiosity.

      He liked women who enjoyed their femininity. Enjoyed being appreciated by a man.

      Nicolo hung his things in his locker.

      It didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out that the tigress was not such a woman. Although, in the bed of the right man, perhaps she could be.

      The mane of hair. The delicate oval face. The amazing eyes, that tender mouth. And, yes, he’d felt its tenderness even in that brush of his lips against hers…

       Fantastico.

      Hell. He was giving himself a hard-on over a woman who’d insulted him, who he would never see again. He didn’t want to think about her or any woman. Not this weekend. No distractions. No sex. Like an athlete, he believed in abstinence before going mano a mano.

      He needed to focus on Monday’s meeting.

      Nicolo pulled on gray cotton running shorts, a sleeveless, ancient Yale sweatshirt and a pair of Nikes.

      A hard, sweaty workout was just what he needed.

      The gym was almost empty. Well, it was Saturday night. Only one other guy was in the vast room, pounding around the track with the lonely intensity of the dedicated runner.

      Damian.

      Nicolo grinned, trotted over and fell in alongside him.

      “Any slower,” he said, picking up the pace, “we’d be walking. You getting too old to run fast?”

      Damian, who at thirty-one was exactly the same age as Nicolo, shot him a deadpan look.

      “I’ll call the paramedics when you collapse.”

      “Big talk.”

      “A hundred bucks says I can beat you.”

      “Twenty times around?”

      “Forty,” Nicolo said, and shot away.

      Moments later, they finished in a dead heat and turned to each other, breathing hard and grinning from ear to ear.

      “How’s Rome?” Damian said.

      “How’s Athens?”

      The men’s grins widened and they clasped each other in a bear hug. “Man,” Damian said, “you’re a sweaty bastard.”

      “You’re not exactly an ad for GQ.”

      “How was your flight?”

      Nicolo took a couple of towels from a stand beside the track and tossed one to Damian.

      “Fine. Some weather just before we landed, but nothing much. Yours?”

      “The same,” Damian said, wiping his face. “I really like this little Learjet I bought.”

      “Little,” Nicolo said, laughing.

      “Well, it’s still not as big as yours.”

      “Mine’s always going to be bigger than yours, Aristedes.”

      “You wish.”

      It was an old line of banter and made them grin again.

      “So,” Nicolo said, “where’s Lucas?”

      “We’re meeting him in—” Damian looked at his watch. “In two hours.”

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