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'And would you do that by sourcing suppliers your self? 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, some times 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, re liability, 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 sup pliers, 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 authorized 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 size able '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 recognized 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 perfumers? 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 enamored 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 lesh and blood daughter was dead.
Fenella had made her life a misery when they were growing up together, and her death from a drugs over dose had not been the shock to her that it had been to her parents—how could it, in view of the number of times Fenella had turned up at her lat either to beg or harangue her into giving her money to fund her habit? And of course when they were growing up Fenella had been the loved and valued one, whilst she... Automatically she clamped down on her thoughts. She was an adult now, not a child.
It took her several minutes to find out what was wrong. Her adoptive parents had run up a bill of several thousand pounds for which they were past the stage of final demands and warnings and which they could not now repay. How could they have spent so much? Carly felt slightly sick. She did some mental arithmetic and heaved a small sigh of relief. She had just about enough in her own accounts to cover it.
'Don't worry—I'll sort everything out,' she promised, fighting not to feel upset at the thought of such a large sum of money—to her—being wasted. Ending the call, she turned towards her case, her eyes widening as she stared in disbelief at the empty space where it should have been.
Carly was trying desperately not to give in to her panic as she saw Ricardo striding imperiously towards her.
'The car's this way.'
Somehow or other he had relieved her of both her laptop and her hand luggage.
'Where's your case?'
Her mouth went dry with panic.
'I...er... It's gone,' she told him uncomfortably, well aware that she probably only had herself to blame, and that her act of charity had badly backfired on her.
'Gone?'
'Yes. I think someone must have stolen it.' Ricardo absorbed her none too subtle message cyni cally. Managing to 'lose' her luggage was certainly a dramatic start to setting him up to replenish her ward robe. What had she done with it? Put it in a left luggage locker?
'So now you don't have any clothes to wear?' he offered helpfully. He would play along with her for now, if o
nly to see her modus operandi in action.
Carly exhaled shakily, relieved that he was taking it so well.
'No—nothing apart from what I'm wearing.' And, thanks to that desperate phone call she had just received, she wouldn't be able to afford to replace what she had lost either, she realized with growing dismay.
'Annoying, I know. But at least you'll be able to claim on your insurance policy later,' he told her dispassionately, and then watched her. He had to admit that she was very good—that small indrawn breath, that tiny betraying licker of her eyelashes, which demanded a response. 'You are insured, I trust?'
'I do have insurance,' Carly agreed.
But it was not the kind of insurance that would enable her to replace her carefully chosen designer wardrobe, she realized dispiritedly.
'So there isn't any problem, is there?' Ricardo offered smoothly. 'After all, you are in one of the best places in the world for female retail therapy, aren't you?'
'I'm sure it's certainly one of the most expensive,' Carly agreed wryly.
'I'd better find a police station and report it, I suppose.'
Ricardo listened appreciatively. She was very good. 'I doubt that would do any good. You can report it by phone later from the villa, if you wish.'
He was impatient to leave and she was holding him up, Carly realized at his crisp words. And he was a potential client.
So what did she do now? She couldn't keep her promise to her adoptive parents, to whom she needed to transfer the money quickly, and replenish her ward robe. None of her small 'for her old age' investments could be realized quickly, and she was loath to put a further charge on the business by asking Lucy for money to replace clothes she was responsible for losing—especially since they had emptied the budget and cash low was problematic.
This was not a good time to remember the lecture she had delivered to both Jules and Lucy about how they should follow her example and refuse to possess any credit cards.
She had a few hundred euros in cash—petty cash and personal spending money—probably about enough to buy herself some new knickers, she acknowledged derisively.
