The Ninety Days of Genevieve by Lucinda Carrington Read Free Book Online Page B

latest hot gossip, are you?'
    'I don't have time to gossip,' Genevieve said, rather untruthfully. 'Who's this Jade Chalfont, then? A collector?'
    'No, no,' Ricky shook his head. 'A businesswoman, like you. Very tough, very glamorous.' He paused. 'Lucci's latest recruit.'
    That did interest Genevieve. She sat up straight and stared at Ricky, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. Lucd's were a new agency. Equal in size to Barringtons, they were also equally ambitious. Genevieve knew very well that Lucci's had been trying to tempt a couple of designers from the art department. So far Barringtons staff had remained loyal, but Lucci's poaching tactics had not exactly endeared them to Genevieve's colleagues.
    'She bought your pictures professionally?' she asked. 'What 7 s Lucci's latest project? Condoms?'
    'She bought them privately,' Ricky said. 'For a friend. A male friend.'
    'I hope you got a good price for them.'
    'Oh, I did.' Ricky Croft stood up. Genevieve knew instinctively that he had something else to tell her. The real reason why he had started the conversation with her in the first place. 'She told me she wanted them as a gift. For James Sinclair.'
    So he knows a woman who works in advertising, Genevieve thought as she toyed with her coffee and tried to watch the morning news. And it just happens to be someone who works for Lucci. Ifs coincidence. If James Sinclair wanted Lucci to handle his account he wouldn't have come to us, would he?
    Would he? Irritably she jabbed the remote at the screen and cancelled the picture. Jade Chalfont? What kind of a woman was she? What kind of a woman bought erotic pictures for a friend? Genevieve knew the answer to that. An ambitious woman. A woman who knew Sinclair's tastes. A woman who was willing to fulfil them.
    An ex-girlfriend? A current girlfriend? For some reason the idea made her angry. She knew she was being unreasonable. There was no reason why Sinclair should not see other women. Perhaps he had ninety-day agreements with several of them? Perhaps that was why he had not contacted her? He was too busy satisfying his harem of women with fancy names who bought him unusual gifts.
    How did he treat them, these shiny career women named after jewels? Did he wine and dine them, build up the sexual tension until they were panting for his touch? Did he take them home and lash their wrists together with silk scarves, or leather straps, or maybe silver chains? And move his hands over their bodies, and then his mouth? Suddenly she felt jealous. Absurdly jealous of these make-believe women she imagined him servicing. Get a hold of yourself, you stupid woman, she thought. He's a business client. Start getting serious and you'll get hurt.
    But the daydreams would not go away. She remembered exactly how he had touched her and excited her, the way his fingers had teased her into a climax. The way his mouth had felt on her skin. She remembered it, and yet the pictures in her mind were of Sinclair and another woman, a woman with large breasts and flowing hair, and long, slim model's legs. The kind of woman, she realised, that David Carshaw had implied Sinclair would like.
    She had never imagined a man she found attractive with another woman before, and the fantasy, though making her jealous, she had to admit also excited her. It was as if she was experiencing his love-making and watching it at the same time. Very stimulating. But she knew that if this mental picture show became a fact, she would not like it at all.
    The buzz of the telephone startled her. She reached out for it, hoping it was Sinclair. The sound of his voice was just what she needed at that moment. It would disperse the fantasies and bring her back to reality.
    'Hallo, big sister.'
    Genevieve had been so sure it would be Sinclair on the phone that for a moment she had to reorganise her thoughts.
    'Sis?' Her brother Philip sounded anxious. 'Are you there?'
    'Of course I am,' she said.
    'Thought I'd catch you before you