The Agency by Ally O'Brien Read Free Book Online

town wanting to tell Saleema that her fiancé was a cheating bastard, but it was hard to make that message stick when the bastard was cheating with me.
    Now for my big mistake. That was still to come.
    Two months later, Evan called me in London. He was in the city and wanted to see me. Saleema wasn’t with him. I should have slammed down the phone, but I finally had a chance to slap his face and use every word in my dictionary of expletives. I could make him grovel. I could savage him. I could get my sweet revenge.
    So I met him at a pub in Bloomsbury.
    Okay, look, we all know where this is going. Again.
    I screamed at him. I slapped his face. Then I spent most of the night on top of him, under him, and braced against the wall of the lift in my apartment building. Thank God the thing is old and slow. The lift, I mean.
    Like I said, I don’t have the greatest track record of good decisions when it comes to sex.
    The next morning, I felt guilty and sick as I let the hot water of the shower pour over my head. I swore to myself I would never see him again. My resolve lasted until he joined me in the shower. But that, I promised myself, was absolutely the last time. I don’t claim to understand the power he had over me, but certain men can make you forget everything else in the world. Including your friends.
    Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only tunnel into which Evan was driving his stretch limo. Saleema found out about his numerous affairs and broke off the engagement. She cried to me about it on the phone. I felt like shit. I could have confessed then and there that I was one of his conquests, but I knew that would be the end of our relationship, and I didn’t think it would make her feel any better to know that her fiancé
and
her best friend had both betrayed her together. You can say I was just trying to cover my arse, and maybe that’s true.
    I didn’t count on Evan being cruel and vicious.
    He sent her a break-up box with the things she had left in hisapartment, but he included a little bonus. It was a beautifully carved miniature wooden tiger from Calcutta. Saleema had bought it as a present for me on her last trip to India and had given it to me in London. I had kept it in my apartment. I didn’t even notice that Evan had nicked it. Needless to say, Saleema got the message loud and clear.
    So did I.
    I don’t blame her for what she said to me. She was right. I deserved it. You can’t apologize and make something like that go away. I tried for months to make things right between us, but eventually I realized that for the first time in my life I had made a blood enemy. All the emotions between us had to go somewhere, and Saleema let them flow into hatred. Me, I don’t hate her. I feel nothing but regret. But I learned the stakes a year later when one of my best American clients dumped me and signed on with Saleema. My client was a recently divorced woman whose husband had cheated on her. Saleema made sure my client knew exactly what I had done with Evan.
    Two other clients followed that year. I really think Saleema would steal all of them if she could. However, it’s been a couple of years since anyone else has bolted to Robinson Foote, and I keep hoping that the fire of her vengeance has cooled a bit. Maybe she has other battles to fight. Maybe screwing me until I plead for mercy is lower on her list now.
    Maybe her dinner with Guy has nothing to do with me at all.
    Maybe.

7

    I WAS NOT FEELING particularly horny or carefree when I reached my father’s apartment in Mayfair. I checked voice mail and had the usual blizzard of messages, but none of them related to Guy or Dorothy. That made me feel a little better. The fact is, if Saleema had visions of using Guy to steal Dorothy away from me, she was going to have to stand in line. Loyalty goes a long way with Dorothy, and she is as committed to her relationship with me as she is to her editorial partnership with Guy. I really think I would have to commit murder