But who was she to mock other people’s security blanket habits? Ever since she could remember she had saved: pennies, and then her allowance…comfort money. Not that it was bringing her much comfort now. Thanks to the needs of her adopted parents, her bank account was permanently empty.
‘…and a weight round your neck that no one should have,’ she heard Jules telling her protectively.
Ignoring her comment, Carly said, ‘I wish I could have stayed for a bit longer. I felt guilty leaving them.’
‘You felt guilty? That’s crazy. Carly, you don’t owe them anything. When I think of what they did to you!’
‘You mean like giving me a first-class education?’ Carly offered her quietly.
It was at times like this that she recognised the huge gap that existed between herself and the other two. Despite their shared education, they had been born worlds apart.
‘You’ve had to pay for it,’ Julia told her protectively.
Carly made no response. After all it was true—but not in the way that Julia had meant. The payment she found unbearable was the knowledge that she was destined always to be an outsider, someone who did not quite fit in—anywhere.
Julia gave her another hug.
Pretty, brunette Julia, and gentle, tender-hearted blonde Lucy—Carly had envied them both, just as she had envied all the other girls at school: girls who knew beyond any kind of doubt that they were taking their rightful place in their own world. Unlike her. She had known she had no right to be there in that alien, wealthy environment. Everything about her had screamed out that she did not and could not fit in. She had felt so out of place—a fraud, a pauper, a charity case, someone whose life had been bought! And, of course, very quickly everyone had known just why she had come to be there.
‘Sometimes I wonder what on earth I’m doing in this business.’ Lucy exhaled as she came to join them.
‘Only sometimes?’ Carly teased her.
Lucy grinned.
‘We’ve got a major client scenario about to take place. Nick is on his way over with him right now.’
Carly looked away discreetly as she saw a small shadow touch Julia’s eyes. It had been Julia who had introduced Nick to Lucy, and sometimes Carly wondered if Nick, with his flashy pseudo-charm which she found so unappealing, hadn’t perhaps made Julia as vulnerable to him as Lucy had been. Was she being overly cynical in worrying that Nick had married Lucy more for her trust fund and her family’s social position and wealth than because he had genuinely fallen in love with her? For Lucy’s sake she hoped it was the latter, but it had all happened so quickly—too quickly, Carly felt. And now here was Nick, a man she didn’t like or trust, taking a very prominent role in the business.
‘How major?’ Carly asked.
‘Jules, call over one of the girls, will you?’ Lucy begged. ‘I’m dying for an espresso! Absolutely huge. Apparently he knows Marcus—and you can imagine how I feel about that!’
Marcus Canning was Lucy’s bête noir: a family friend who was also one of her trustees and who, against Lucy’s wishes, had insisted on being kept fully informed of every aspect of the business before he would agree to Lucy investing her trust fund money in it. Personally, Carly thought that Marcus Canning, with his well-known reputation for astute financial dealings, was a good person for them to have on board, and she had felt both proud and pleased when he had praised her at their last financial meeting for the way she was running the administrative and financial side of the business.
‘And, of course, if he does commission us then we’re going to make a bomb!’ she heard Lucy announcing enthusiastically.
‘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 d
ating 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?’