Deal With the Devil--3 Book Box Set

‘Thank you, Charles.’

Carly had no time to do more than smile her own gratitude at Ricardo’s chauffeur before a smartly uniformed flight steward was escorting her up the steps to the waiting private jet, whilst Ricardo paused to speak with its captain—his captain, Carly realised.

She had often heard Lucy marvelling about the luxury of travelling in the private jets owned by some of their more wealthy clients, but this would be the first time she had experienced it for herself.

The interior of the jet had more resemblance to a modern apartment than to any aeroplane Carly had flown in. A colour scheme of off-white and cool grey set off the black leather upholstery of the sofas, and the steward discreetly indicated to her that both a bedroom and a separate shower room lay to the rear of the sitting area.

‘The galley is behind the cockpit, and there is another lavatory there as well—’ He broke off from his explanations, to say formally, ‘Good morning, sir.’

Carly turned round to see Ricardo standing in the open doorway.

‘Morning, Eddie. How are Sally and the new baby?’

There was a genuine warmth in his voice that touched a painful nerve within Carly’s heart.

‘They’re both fine. Sally was over the moon that you flew her folks here for the birth. She was resigned to them not being able to be there.’

Ricardo shrugged, and changed the subject. ‘Phil says that we’re going to have a good flight, both to Nice and on to New York.’ He turned to Carly. ‘I’ve got some work I need to attend to, but feel free to ask Eddie for anything you need.’

‘If you would like to sit down here, madam, until we’ve taken off?’ Eddie suggested politely to her, indicating a space on one of the sofas.

Obediently, Carly went and sat down.

‘Perhaps I could get you a glass of champagne?’ the steward said, once he had shown Carly how to use her seatbelt, and explained to her how to access the power and telephone lines for her laptop should she wish to use it. ‘We’ve got a very nice Cristal.’

Carly couldn’t help it. She gave a small shudder. ‘Water will be fine,’ she told him emphatically.

From his own seat at a desk on the other side of the cabin, Ricardo frowned. Why had she refused champagne? She certainly hadn’t been having any qualms about drinking it the night he had seen her in CoralPink.

Thanking Eddie for her water, Carly unzipped her own laptop. Ricardo wasn’t the only one who had work to do. Five minutes later, as the jet taxied down the runway, Carly was deeply engrossed in reading her e-mails—but not so deeply that she wasn’t acutely aware of Ricardo’s presence.

She couldn’t forget the disturbing effect those fleeting seconds of physical intimacy in the car had had on her. Her stomach muscles clenched immediately, as though in rejection of the response she had felt, her mouth going dry.

Eddie had said the jet had a fully equipped bedroom…The ache inside her sharpened and tightened and then started to spread.

The jet lifted off the tarmac and Carly held her breath, willing herself not to think about Ricardo.

‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about certain aspects of the way Prêt a Party’s business works.’

Dutifully Carly put aside the list she was studying. Ricardo was, after all, a potential client.

‘Were I to commission Prêt a Party to organise an event for me, who would be responsible for establishing the cost of everything involved?’

‘I would,’ Carly answered him promptly.

‘And would you do that by sourcing suppliers yourself? Or does someone else—Lucy, for instance—source suppliers?’

‘Normally I would source them. We’ve been in business for long enough now to have established a core of suppliers we use on a regular basis. However, sometimes a client will specify that they want to use a specific caterer, or florist, or musician. When that happens we either negotiate with them on the client’s behalf or, if the client prefers, they negotiate with them themselves. If they opt to do that then we ask that the clients also make themselves responsible for paying the supplier’s bill. When we’re in charge of suppliers’ estimates and invoices we know exactly what their charges will be—that isn’t always the case if the client has commissioned a supplier.’

‘Presumably you obtain good discounts from your regular suppliers?’

‘Of course, and we pass them on to our clients via our costings for their events. But discount isn’t the main criteria we apply when selecting suppliers. Quality, reliability, exclusivity are often more important to our clients than cut-price deals.’

‘What do you do when potential suppliers offer to make it worth your while to select them?’

Carly couldn’t look at him, and she could feel her face starting to burn. Since Nick had joined the business she had received several such approaches from suppliers, who had insisted that Nick had promised them work. Nick himself had tried to pressure her into using them, but Carly had refused to do so. She knew that Lucy would never have authorised such dishonest business practices, but she hadn’t felt able to tell her friend what her husband was doing because she didn’t want to hurt her. And she certainly couldn’t tell Ricardo—a potential client—about them.

‘We…I…I make it plain to them that that we don’t take bribes and that they are wasting their time,’ she hedged, uncomfortably aware that she was not being totally honest.

Ricardo looked at her, but she was refusing to look back at him, her body language reflecting both her guilt and the lie she had just told him.

Backhanders from suppliers would add a very sizeable ‘bonus’ to Carly’s salary, Ricardo thought grimly.

It surprised him that she wasn’t making more use of the fact that they were alone and in the intimate surroundings of the jet in order to let him know that she was available. And did that disappoint him? He shrugged the thought aside. Hardly. He had simply assumed that she would want to showcase her skills for his benefit.

He recognised the discreet little come-ons that women like her were so adept at giving, such as leaning close to him whilst pretending to show him something, so that he could breathe in her perfume—which he had not as yet been able to identify other than to be aware that it suited her. A good quality signature perfume? Custom blended? Expensive! Blended exclusively for her? Very expensive! By one of the top three perfum-iers? Very expensive—and paid for by a very rich and very doting man!

At least she had not had a boob job. He had been aware of that the moment she’d fallen against him. But she was wearing a bra, a plain, seamless, no-nonsense tee shirt bra. Unusual for a woman out to snare a man, surely? And unnecessary, in view of the excellence of the shape and firmness Mother Nature had generously given her.

Had she leaned over him now, he would have lifted his hand to caress her breast and even, had he felt so inclined, pushed aside her tee shirt and bra and explored the shape and texture of her naked breast, both with his fingers and his lips.

He found himself wondering idly if

her grooming regime went as far as a Brazilian wax. He personally wasn’t enamoured of the look, although he knew of men who insisted not just on a Brazilian but that their lovers go for the full Hollywood ‘everything-off’ wax. He personally preferred something a bit more natural, a bit more sensual. And she had such thick, luxuriant, clean and shiny hair—the kind that made him want to reach out and touch it. He moved uncomfortably as he tried to change the direction of his thoughts.

‘We’ll be landing in a few minutes.’

Carly smiled at the steward and put away her papers. She would be rather glad to get off the plane, although not because she was afraid of flying—at least not in the non-sexual sense. There she was again! Thinking about sex.

And all because…Because what? Because secretly she wanted to have sex with Ricardo? Chance would be a fine thing, she mocked herself. But if she were to be given the chance…

The first thing Carly noticed as they came out of the airport was the small group of beggars—children, not adults—clustered pathetically together whilst people ignored them. Thin and dirty, wearing shabby torn clothes, they stood out amongst the seething mass of people to-ing and fro-ing, and yet everyone was acting as though they simply did not exist. The smallest of them was barely old enough to walk.

Ricardo had gone to collect his valet parked rental car, telling her to wait where she was.

She had noticed a sandwich shop on her way out of the airport, and now, impetuously, she came to a swift decision. Wasn’t the golden rule to give food rather than money because money might be taken from them? Dragging her case behind her, she hurried back to the sandwich bar.

The children watched her approach without interest. Their pinched faces and emotionally dead eyes wrenched at her heart. When she handed them the food, small claw-like hands snatched it from her.

‘Euros,’ the older children demanded sullenly, but she shook her head.

She could see people looking disapprovingly at her, no doubt thinking she was encouraging them to beg.

Her mobile was ringing. Carly felt a familiar sense of anxiety and despair twist her stomach when she saw that the caller was her adoptive mother—she could never think of her as anything other than that, and she was, she knew, bound to her adoptive parents by guilt and duty rather than love. Guilt because she did not love them, and because she was alive whilst their own flesh and blood daughter was dead.