"Why give it to me?" Margot asked him. For some reason, she felt frightened rather than pleased.
James Blascoe shrugged. "What will happen to it, if you don't wear it? Wear it tonight. Wear it every night."
"Hi, Margot!" called her secretary, Denise, as she passed close by. "Don't forget the Perry meeting, eight-thirty on the button!"
Margot looked up at James Blascoe, but he was standing against the sun and his face was masked in shadow. She hesitated for a moment, and then she said, "I'd better go," and pushed her way through the revolving door, leaving James Blascoe standing outside, watching her intently, his features distorted by the curved glass.
In the elevator, she felt as if she were being compressed. Breathless, squashed, tightly surrounded by people who were determined to press the life out of her. By the time the chime rang for the thirty-sixth floor, she was shivering, as if she had contracted the flu, and when she reached her office she stood with her back pressed to the door, taking deep breaths, wondering if she were terrified or aroused, or both.
That night she was taken to see Les Misirables by Dominic Bross, the record producer, whom she had met while working on the Bross Records account. Dominic was fifty-five, gray-haired, handsome, talkative, opinionated, and Margot wouldn't have dreamed of going to bed with him in a million years. However, she always enjoyed his company, and he always behaved like a perfect gentleman.
Halfway through the second act, Dominic leaned over to Margot and whispered, "Do you smell something?"
Margot sniffed. All she could smell was the musky Isabey perfume which James Blascoe had given her. Once it had warmed on her skin, it had started to give off the deepest, most sensuous fragrance that she had ever experienced. Maybe it had been wrong of her to accept it, but it was something erotic and very special, something that made her head spin.
"I don't know," Dominic complained. "It smells like something died."
James Blascoe was waiting by her apartment door when she returned from her dinner with Dominic. She was tired and quite angry. For some reason Dominic had been unusually hurried and offhand, and he hadn't even accepted her invitation to come up for coffee. Finding James Blascoe at her door didn't make her feel very much better.
"Well, well," she said, taking out her key. "I'm surprised Leland let you in to the building."
"Oh, you know me." James Blascoe smiled. "Bribery and corruption are second nature to me."
"I'm not going to invite you in," Margot told him. "I've had a totally terrible evening, and all I'm going to do is take a bath and get some sleep."
"I'm sorry," James Blascoe told her. "I quite understand, and I won't intrude. But I wanted to give you this."
He reached into his inside pocket and took out a long black jewelry case. Before Margot could protest, he had opened it up and shown her what lay inside. It was a shimmering diamond necklace, so bright that it was almost magical, seven diamond festoons attached to ten diamond-encrusted bows.
"This is absurd," Margot protested, although it was hard for her to keep her eyes off the necklace. It was absolutely the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.
James Blascoe slowly smiled. It was like somebody slowly drawing a spoon through an open jar of molasses. "Traditionally, this necklace was supposed to have been part of the ransom offered by Catherine the Great to the Sultan of Turkey."
"Well, who does it belong to now?" asked Margot. The diamonds shone in tiny pinpricks of light across her cheeks.
"Now," James Blascoe said, with utter simplicity, "now, it belongs to you."
Margot lifted her eyes away from the necklace. "Mr. Blascoe, this is ridiculous. I'm not a whore."
"Did I ever suggest that you were? Take it. It's a gift. I want nothing in return."
"You really want nothing?" Margot challenged him.
"Take it," he said. "I want you to have the finest of everything. That's all. I have no other ambition."
There was an unblinking look of command in his eyes. Margot knew that the jinn-flower brooch and the Isabey perfume had been one thing. But if she accepted this necklace, no matter how much James Blascoe protested that he wanted nothing at all, she would be beholden to him. It was probably worth over a hundred thousand dollars. It was certainly exquisite: the kind of jewelry which most women can never even dream of owning.
"Why me?" she whispered.
"Why not?" he replied, with the faintest shrug.
"No, tell me," she insisted. "Why me?"
He was silent for a disturbingly long time. Then he touched the crescent-shaped scar on his cheek with his fingertip, stroking it and stroking it, and said, "There are some people in this world who have been overfavored. The brightest and the best. God has given them everything. Looks, brilliance, wealth. And then — as if in a kind of madness of overgenerosity — He has given them even more."
He hesitated for a while, with the side of his mouth lifted by an enigmatic, self-satisfied smile. "You are one of those people, that's all. Now, please… accept the necklace."
"No," said her mouth. What am I doing? said her mind. But her hand reached out and took it.
Two days later, at a cocktail thrash at the Plaza Hotel for Overmeyer & Cranston, one of their biggest clients, Margot decided to take a risk and wear the necklace for the first time. She matched it with a simple electric-blue cocktail dress and wore the simplest of diamond-stud earrings.
The party was already noisy with laughter and conversation when Margot arrived. She smiled and waved to O & C's president George Demaris and then to Dick Manzi of NBC. However, she was surprised when both of them frowned at her and gave her only a half-hearted wave in return; she was even more surprised when the cocktail waiter stared at her in what could only be described as dumbstruck astonishment.
She took a glass of champagne and challenged him. "Something wrong?"
"Oh, no, no. Nothing's wrong, ma'am."
A few moments later, however, Walter Rutter angled his way across the room toward her and took her arm and tugged her almost immediately to the side of the buffet table.
"Margot? What's with the necklace? You can't wear something like that here!"
"What do you mean, Walter? This necklace is worth a fortune! It was part of the ransom that Catherine the Great gave to the Sultan of Turkey!"
Walter narrowed his crow's-footed eyes and stared at Margot for a long time. Margot defiantly stared back at him.
"Catherine the Great gave that necklace to the Sultan of Turkey?" Walter said. He sounded short of breath.
Margot nodded. "A very dear friend gave it to me."
"I'm sorry," Walter told her. He was obviously choosing his words carefully. "But — if it's worth a fortune — maybe this is not quite the place to wear it. You know, for the sake of security. Maybe we should ask the management to lock it in the safe for a while."
Margot fingered the necklace in disappointment. "You really think so?"
Walter laid a fatherly arm around her bare shoulders. "Yes, Margot. I really think so." Then he sniffed, and looked around, and said, "Those fish canapes sure smell strong. I hope nobody goes down with food poisoning."
The next morning, James Blascoe was waiting for Margot in the foyer of Rutter Blane Rutter, with a large gift-wrapped box in his hands. Black shiny paper, a black shiny bow.
"Mr. Blascoe," she said, emphatically, before he could open his mouth, "this really has to stop. You can't go on giving me all of these ridiculously expensive gifts."
He thought for a moment, lowered his eyes. "Supposing I were to tell you that I loved you, beyond all reason?"
"Mr. Blascoe —»
"Please, call me James. And, please, take this gift. It's an original Fortuny evening dress, made for the Comtesse de la Ronce, one of the wealthiest women in France, in 1927. The only person in the world who could possibly wear it is you."