not worthy, and ultimately to rejection. And she had learned very young just how much that hurt.
Her game plan for her life involved focusing on emotional and financial security: building her career, enjoying the company of her friends, ultimately travelling—if she could afford to do so—but always ensuring that she never made the mistake of falling in love.
She had decided that she was only going to have a sexual relationship if she met a man she wanted physically with intense passion and hunger—a man with whom she knew she could share the heights of physical pleasure in a relationship that carried no health risks. A serial male sexual predator was not an option. And at the same time she would also have to feel one hundred per cent confident that she would never be at risk of becoming emotionally involved with him. Add to that the fact that she wasn’t even actively looking for this paragon, and it seemed a pretty foregone conclusion that she was likely to remain a virgin indefinitely.
Not that the prospect bothered her.
CHAPTER TWO
‘AND you’re sure my requirements won’t be a problem for you, Nick? I know you don’t have a large staff,’ Ricardo said blandly.
‘Absolutely not. Lucy said that Carly jumped at the chance. In fact she begged for it.’ Nick laughed. ‘And I don’t suppose anyone can blame her. After all, when you’ve been used to the best of everything all your life and suddenly it isn’t available any more, and you’re a decent-looking woman, I suppose you’re bound to look forward to spending time with a rich man.’
‘She’s looking for a rich husband?’
Nick grinned.
‘Who said anything about marriage? Anyway, come up to the office and I can introduce you to her.’
‘I think you said earlier that she is your wife’s partner?’
‘Employee. The three of them—Lucy, Julia and Carly—were at school together. Neither Julia nor Carly have put any money into the business, though.’
‘So financially the partnership is—’
‘Just me and Lucy,’ Nick informed him.
‘Carly normally does all the financial and administrative stuff, but to be honest I don’t think she’s up to the job. You’d be doing me a favour by taking her off my hands for a week or two, so that I can get the financial side of things sorted out properly. Lucy’s a loyal little soul, and devoted to her friends—you know the type, all breeding and no brains.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t want to say too much to her. Anyway, having Carly with you won’t be too much of a hardship—she’s a good-looker, and obliging too, if you know what I mean—especially if you treat her generously. Like I said, Carly has her head screwed on.’
‘Are you speaking from personal experience?’ Ricardo asked him dryly.
‘What? Hell, no. I’m a married man. But let’s just say she let me know that it was available if I wanted it,’ Nick boasted.
He was well aware that Carly didn’t like him, and it amused him to think of what he was setting her up for. Discrediting her wouldn’t do him any harm in other ways either, he congratulated himself. For one thing she wouldn’t be able to go tittle-tattling to Lucy.
‘Carly is very good at getting other people to pay her bills for her—as both Lucy and Julia already know. She’s even managed to blag a rent-free room in Julia’s flat. If she can’t find a rich man to finance her, then the lifestyle that working for Prêt a Party gives her is the next best thing. All that first-class travel and accommodation provided by the clients, plus getting to mingle with their guests.’ He winked at Ricardo. ‘Ideal for her type of woman. Once I’ve introduced you, I’ll get her to go through the list of our upcoming events with you so that you can cherry pick the ones you want to attend.’
‘Excellent.’ Inwardly, Ricardo decided that Nick sounded more like a pimp than a businessman. Or in this business did the two go hand in hand?
They had reached Prêt a Party’s office, and Nick pushed open the door for him.
‘Ah, there’s Carly,’ he announced. ‘I’ll call her over.’
There was no way she could pretend not to be aware of Nick’s summons, Carly had to acknowledge reluctantly, and she walked towards him. She was wearing her normal office uniform of jeans and a tee shirt—the jeans snugly encased the slender length of her legs but irritatingly, the tee shirt skimming the curves of her breasts had pulled free of the low waistband of her jeans. It was a familiar hazard when one was almost five foot ten tall, give or take one eighth of an inch, and it exposed the flat golden flesh of her taut stomach. Whenever she could, Carly ran—mostly on her own, but sometimes with a group of fellow amateur runners—and her body had a sensuous grace of which she herself was totally unaware.
Long thick hair, honey-brown, with natural highlights, swung past her shoulders as she walked calmly towards Nick—and then missed a step as she saw the man standing to one side of him.
If she were in the market for a man—sex-wise, that was, because she would not want one for any other reason—then this was definitely a man she would want. She could feel the power of his sexuality from here; she could breathe it in almost. And it was very heady stuff. Far more potent than any champagne, she thought dizzily.
A vulnerable woman—which, of course, she was not—would find it almost impossible to resist such a man. He was a living, breathing lure for the whole female sex. Except for her. She had exempted herself from such dangers.
Ricardo frowned in immediate recognition as he watched her walking towards them and coldly came to two very separate decisions.
The first was that he intended to have her in his bed, and the second was that she embodied everything he most disliked about her class and type.
She was stunningly beautiful and irritatingly confident. And he already knew from listening to Nick that she was a woman who judged a man by his wallet and how much she could extract from it. A gold-digger, in other words.
‘Hello, gorgeous. Let me introduce you to Ricardo—oh, and by the way, Mike Lucas rang me to tell me how much he enjoyed your company last night,’ Nick told Carly, as he put his arm round her shoulders and drew her close to his side.
Pulling herself free, Carly extended her hand to Ricardo and smiled at him with genuine pleasure. After all, he was going to be releasing her from the unpleasantness of Nick’s unwanted company.
Well, she certainly didn’t believe in wasting any time, Ricardo thought cynically as he took the hand Carly had extended and shook it firmly.
‘Ricardo wants to have a look at our upcoming events so that he can decide which ones he wants to attend. You can use my office, Carly,’ Nick told her benignly.
His office? Carly had to look away. ‘His office’, as he called it had, until he had come onto the scene, been her office. In fact it still was her office, she reflected, since she was the only one who did any work in it. Nick’s only appearances in it were when he came in to ask her to countersign another cheque.
Carly smiled as she led the way to the small sectioned-off cubicle where she worked. Ricardo had lost count of the number of women who had smiled at him the way Carly was doing right now—with warmth and promise—especially
