‘Who is he, and what does he want?’ Julia chimed in.
‘He’s Ricardo Salvatore. He’s mega-wealthy, and his story is real rags to riches stuff. There was an article in one of the Sunday supplements about him a couple of months ago. He grew up in Naples and he was orphaned very young. But he ran away from the orphanage when he was ten years old and ran wild with a group of children who existed by stealing and begging, generally blagging a living. He’s a billionaire now, and he owns—amongst other things—three top-of-the-market exclusive luxury cruise liners. What he wants is for us to organise private parties and that kind of thing for people on these cruises at several villa venues throughout the world. He also owns the villas—and in one case the island it’s on.
‘He rang earlier, at a very bad moment. In fact, while we were still in bed at home.’ She pulled a face and then giggled. ‘Poor Nick was…well…Anyway, Nick’s just phoned to warn me that they’re on their way over here. Ricardo’s told him that before he makes a decision he wants to observe a variety of our already planned events, as a sort of unofficial extra guest.’
‘What? You’re going to let him gatecrash other people’s parties?’ Carly demanded, shocked. ‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘I can’t imagine many of our clients would refuse to have a billionaire as an extra guest!’ Lucy told her defensively. ‘Anyway, Nick has already told him it’s okay, and the thing is, Carly, it makes sense if you are the one to accompany him.’
‘Me?’
‘One of us has to go with him,’ Lucy pointed out. ‘And besides…’ She bit her lip. ‘Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’d have more in common with him than either of us, and he’ll feel more comfortable with you…’
It took Carly several seconds to catch on, and when she did she her face burned.
‘I see.’ She knew her voice was tense and edgy but she couldn’t help herself. ‘So what you’re saying is that he’s a self-made man, not out of the top drawer and not—’
‘Oh, rats. I knew you’d take it the wrong way.’ Lucy groaned. ‘Yes, he is a self-made man, Carly—and a billionaire self-made man at that—but that wasn’t what I meant! It isn’t anything to do with class! I want you to escort and accompany him because I know you’ll make a better impression on him than anyone else. Apparently he likes all that stuff you like—reading, museums, galleries. And it is desperately important that we do make a good him impression on him and secure his business.’ She paused, and then told them both, ‘I didn’t want to tell you about this, but the truth is that things haven’t being going as well as they were. We had that warehouse fire earlier in the year, which destroyed loads of our stuff…’
‘But we were insured!’ Carly protested.
Lucy shook her head.
‘No, we weren’t. Nick felt that the quotes you’d got were too high, and he asked me to hold off paying the premium until he’d checked out some other insurers,’ she told her unhappily. ‘I thought Nick had gone ahead and insured us with new insurers, but I’d got it wrong, and of course, unfortunately, the existing insurance lapsed.’
Carly frowned. Lucy looked and sounded strained and uncomfortable. She couldn’t help wondering if Lucy was trying to protect Nick by taking the blame for his negligence.
She ought to be grateful to this as yet unknown potential client for giving her the opportunity to escape—if only for a while—from her growing discomfort about the way Nick was using the business’s bank account as though it were his own private account. Since Lucy had made it clear that Nick was to have carte blanche to withdraw money from the account whenever he liked, there was no legitimate objection she could make. Nick had shrugged aside her concern about their growing overdraft by telling her that the deficit would be made good from Lucy’s trust fund, but to Carly it seemed shockingly unbusinesslike to waste money paying interest on an overdraft.
‘They’ll be here in a few minutes. God, I hope we get his business.’ Lucy yawned. ‘I am sooo tired—and we’ve got dinner with the folks tonight. How about you? Have you got anything on?’
‘Only my writing class,’ Carly answered.
‘I don’t know why you’re still going to that,’ Julia told her ruefully.
Originally they had decided to attend the writing group together, at Julia’s suggestion—mainly, Carly suspected, because Julia had been dating an up-and-coming literary novelist. But after a couple of weeks the romance had faded, and Julia had taken a period of extended leave to visit her sister in Australia, leaving Carly to attend the weekly meetings on her own.
‘Mmm…’
‘Well, it won’t hurt to miss one class, surely? Unless, of course, it’s Miss Pope’s turn to read one of her poems?’ Julia giggled.
Carly tried and failed to give her a quelling look.
‘They are pretty awful,’ she agreed, joining in her laughter.
‘What project has the Professor given you all to write about this time?’ Julia gave a small shudder. ‘It’s not litter again, is it?’
‘No,’ Carly confirmed carefully, ‘it isn’t litter. Actually it’s fantasy sex!’
It was amazing what the word sex could do, she reflected ruefully as both her friends turned to stare at her.
‘Fantasy sex?’ Lucy demanded. ‘What, you mean like…imagining sex with a fantasy man?’ She started to laugh. ‘Why?’
‘Professor Elseworth wants us to stretch our imagination and take it into a new dimension.’
‘Right now, any kind of sex is a fantasy for me,’ Julia remarked gloomily, before adding, ‘But I can’t imagine you writing about fantasy sex, Carly. I mean, you don’t actually do it at all, do you?’
Carly bared her teeth in a ferociously fake smile.
‘No, I don’t. And I won’t until I find someone worth doing it with!’
‘Well, okay—I mean, I don’t have a problem with that—but how on earth are you going to write about fantasy sex when…?’
Carly gave her a withering look.
‘I’m going to use my imagination. That is the whole point of the exercise,’ she told her with awesome dignity.
‘Rather you than me!’
‘No talking about sex during working hours,’ Lucy began mock primly, and then stopped as, to Carly’s relief, their newest recruit arrived with Lucy’s espresso.
In all honesty she would be only too happy to have an excuse to miss out on her writing class and its assignment. She certainly didn’t want to write about fantasy sex—or indeed sex of any kind. She knew there was a barrier between her and the potential enjoyment of her sexuality. But how could she ever give herself freely and openly, to a man and to love, when she could never imagine being able to reveal her emotional scars to him? How could there be true intimacy when she herself was so afraid of it? So afraid of being judged and then rejected? Didn’t events such as the one she had attended
