The Agency by Ally O'Brien Read Free Book Online Page A

before Dorothy looked for another agent; and even if she did, her first stop would undoubtedly be with Cosima and the team at Bardwright, or my friend Sally Harlingford, who have all been very good to her. I just don’t see Dorothy agreeing to bolt to a new agent and a new agency at the same time.
    Still, if that is Saleema’s plan, let her dream.
    I was early, so I got the flat ready for Darcy. I put on Nina Simone. I lit fragrant candles. I moved the champagne that Emma had ordered to an ice bucket in the living room. My nerves werestill jangled, so I opened the bottle and poured myself a glass. Something about the bubbles soothes me. I undid another button on my shirt. I touched my skin with a damp fingertip.
    Okay, I was a little horny. And getting more so as the clock neared eleven. Darcy makes me very homologous. Even so, I was nervous about seeing him tonight. Saleema felt like a ghost, reminding me of past mistakes. You’d think I would have learned my lesson with Evan and become exceptionally cautious about dating men with outside commitments. You’d be wrong.
    Darcy is married.
    It’s a long story.
    I can tell you all the reasons why his marriage is hollow and why we are so good together, and you can tell me why none of those things matter. You’re probably right, but I don’t care. It’s not like I can blame this one on fate or say it was an accident. After all, I didn’t know Evan was engaged to Saleema when I slept with him. Not the first time, anyway. With Darcy, however, I marched into sin with my eyes wide open. Yes, yes, and my legs, too. That goes without saying. I knew what I was doing, and the little voice inside that said I was a fool was drowned out by the other voice that screamed, “Yes! Harder! Right there! Oh, God!”
    I sipped my champagne. I stared out the windows of the flat, which had a view over the nearby roofs toward Green Park. I have this fantasy of being invited to dinner at Buck House someday, and when I meet Liz, after I curtsy, I ask her to do her Helen Mirren impression for me. The fact that I have a fantasy like this tells me that I am not the kind of person who will ever be invited to dinner with the queen.
    Actually, I blame Liz for my affair. Eighteen months ago, I was on my usual 14 bus around midday, expecting it to sail past Hyde Park Corner and continue toward Piccadilly Circus, where I have a brisk ten-minute walk to my office near Trafalgar Square. That day, however, HRH was hosting a diplomatic luncheon at the palace, and it was my bad luck to arrive at the Corner just as a line of flag-waving limousines began to parade down Park Lane. Apparently,the risk of assassination of the prime ministers of Abkhazia and Tuvalu is sufficient to shut down London buses. I could have dashed into the Tube easily enough, but as it happens, it was a stunning late fall day, warm and sunny, with color in all the trees, and I was right across the street from Hyde Park. I decided the office could wait. Fifteen minutes later, I was seated on a bench by the Serpentine, licking up a soft-serve ice cream cone with a Cadbury Flake, watching the lovers in their pedal boats, and indulging one of my guilty pleasures, namely the latest jet-setting, bodice-ripping, caviar-eating novel by Jilly Cooper.
    And that was where I met Darcy.
    I knew who he was, of course, and he knew who I was. We had exchanged pleasantries at parties. A little smiling. A little flirting. Nothing more than that. We had never really talked. I don’t know why it was different this time, except that it was one of those rare days when London feels like paradise, and he was walking his little seven-year-old Westie, and I love Westies. I could have spent hours rubbing his tummy.
    I mean the dog.
    We sat on the bench in Hyde Park and talked. And talked. And talked. I forgot all about the office. His dog nuzzled in the grass. The sun got lower. It got cooler, and he took off his anorak and let me drape it over my shoulders. I