Stone Barrington 06-11

all my stuff?” Dino asked Mary Ann.
    “Everything’s in the trunk,” she replied. “I ironed your boxer shorts, too.” She winked at Dolce. “They love it when you iron their underwear.”
    “I’ll remember that,” Dolce laughed.
    “Gladys,” Dino said into the phone, “I’m off. You’ve got the number in Venice if anything really important comes up, otherwise I don’t want to know, got that? Good. Take care.” He hung up. “Okay, I’m cut loose,” he said to the others. “What kind of jet we going in, Dolce? I hate those little ones; this better be a G-Four or better.”
    “Wait and see,” Dolce said smugly.

    They drove onto the tarmac at Atlantic Aviation at Teterboro Airport, across the Hudson in New Jersey, and up to an airplane that dwarfed everything on the ramp.
    “Holy shit!” Dino said as they got out of the limousine. “What the fuck is this?”
    “It’s a BBJ,” Dolce replied, grabbing her jewelry box and cosmetics case from the backseat. The others took their hand luggage from the trunk.
    “Sounds like a sandwich.”
    “A Boeing Business Jet, the biggest thing in the corporate skies.”
    Hank Esposito, who ran Atlantic Aviation, was at the airplane’s stair door to greet them. “You’re fueled for maximum range,” he said. “You could make it to Tokyo, if you wanted.”
    “Not a bad idea,” Dino said, boarding the airplane.
    “ Dino …” Stone warned.
    Esposito helped the chauffeur stow the luggage into a forward area of the interior.
    The party stepped into a cabin that looked like the living room of a New York City town house.
    Stone was flabbergasted. “Where’s the fireplace and the grand piano?” he asked.
    An Armani-clad stewardess took their hand luggage and showed them through the airplane. Besides the big cabin, there was a conference room and, behind that, two sleeping cabins, each with its own bathroom.
    Dino shook his head. “The wages of sin,” he said under his breath, avoiding Stone’s glance.
    As if from a great distance, there was the sound of jet engines revving, and almost imperceptibly, the big airplane began to move.

Two

    S OMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC, STONE STIRRED IN his sleep and turned over, bringing his chest against Dolce’s naked back. He reached over her and cupped a breast in his hand, resting his cheek on the back of her neck. With thumb and forefinger, he lightly caressed the nipple.
    At that moment, a chime sounded and the soft voice of the stewardess spoke. “Ms. Bianchi, we’re two hours from our destination. If you and your party would like breakfast, it will be ready in half an hour.”
    “I think we’re going to be late for breakfast,” Stone breathed into Dolce’s ear.
    She turned over, put her feet on the floor, and stood up. “No, we’re not,” she said.
    “You mean you’re spurning your intended?”
    “I mean I’ve decided to be a virgin until we’re married.”
    “Isn’t it a little late for that?”
    “I can start over whenever I like,” she said, “and I’ve just started over.”
    Shortly, they joined Dino and Mary Ann at the breakfast table. Scrambled eggs and smoked Italian bacon were set before them.
    “That was the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had on an airplane,” Dino admitted.
    “We didn’t sleep all that much,” Mary Ann rejoined, poking him in the ribs.
    Stone indicated the large moving map at the front of the cabin. “We’re just crossing the Portuguese coast,” he said. “Nice tailwind; we’re doing over six hundred miles an hour.”
    The moving map dissolved, and CNN International appeared on the screen.
    “Turn that off,” Dolce said to the stewardess. “I don’t need news for a while.
    The stewardess pressed a button, and Vivaldi came softly over hidden speakers. “Better?” she asked.
    “Perfect,” Dolce said. She turned to Stone and the others. “I have a little announcement,” she said.
    “Shoot,” Stone replied.
    “Papa is giving us the Manhattan town house for a wedding present.”
    Stone stopped eating. His fiancée was referring to a double-width brick-and-granite mansion in the East Sixties that Eduardo Bianchi had built. He took Dolce’s hand. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I can’t accept that. It’s very generous of Eduardo, but I already have a house, and we’ll be living there.”
    “Don’t I have any say in where we live?” Dolce asked.
    “You’ve never asked me very much about my background,” Stone said, “so it’s time I