LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I’ll call Sue Olsen, ask her out for lunch as an apology for the mess on Saturday night. Restaurant of her choice. Promise to write out a cheque for the damages bill there and then. Butter her up. Piece of cake. As you well know, I am the best salesman in the business.’

      ‘What about her company policy?’

      ‘I’ll find a loophole. Trust me.’

      Nick expelled a deep sigh. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘You won’t put her further offside?’

      Leon laughed. ‘That feisty little redhead wasn’t offside. She was making hay while the sun shone. A dyed-in-the-wool opportunist, like me. In fact, I’ll enjoy having lunch with her. I have the feeling Miss Olsen and I speak the same language.’

      ‘Okay. Just don’t slip up, Leon. This is really important to me.’

      ‘No problem, Nick, I swear. Just shovel those wings off your desk and get to work while I …’

      ‘I’m still going to fix them. If you’d send Sharon along …’

      Leon ungritted his teeth enough to bite out, ‘Okay. But don’t take up too much office time on it. It’s bad business getting secretaries to do personal jobs, Nick, and you’ve got a full schedule, too.’

      ‘I just want to ask her advice,’ he insisted.

      ‘Fine! Speak to you later.’

      Leon went off fuming.

       Women!

      He’d got rid of Tanya Wells for good, only to be loaded with another festering problem. There was black irony for you. A fairy princess was supposed to remove trouble not make it. He should have hired a doll, not a real woman. Big mistake, Leon, he castigated himself. Though there was one bright spot.

      A very feisty little redhead.

      Cute, too.

      He wouldn’t mind having lunch with Sue Olsen at all.

      Yes, that was definitely a bright spot.

      Barbie was still trying to mend the broken wand when the Drop Dead Deliveries telephone rang. She frowned at it. Sue had gone off to lunch with Leon Webster, assured of getting the damages cheque, while she was supposed to deal personally with any bookings that came in. Except Barbie didn’t like answering the revenge phone, as she thought of it. Why couldn’t it have been the Party Poppers one?

      ‘Business is business,’ she muttered, putting the wand down with a resigned sigh.

      Feeling very, very ambivalent about revenge after the cataclysmic meeting with Nick Armstrong, she reluctantly lifted the receiver and pulled an order pad and pen within easy reach.

      ‘Drop Dead Deliveries,’ she stated flatly, unable to project Sue’s enthusiasm. ‘How may I help you?’

      ‘I want you to deliver a dozen dead roses to a guy named Nick Armstrong at Multi-Media Promotions.’

      Barbie’s heart flipped.

      Was this the black-haired witch who had attacked them with the wand and smashed her wings?

      ‘Your name please?’ she asked.

      ‘Tanya Wells.’

      Tanya! No mistake about that. Even the voice was putting her teeth on edge—like chalk screeching on a blackboard.

      ‘And I want you to write just one word on the card—Loser!’

      ‘You don’t want to add your name?’

      ‘He’ll know who it’s from,’ came the venomous retort. ‘And before we go any further I want to know when you can deliver. It has to be today and the sooner the better.’

      The demanding tone raised Barbie’s hackles. This was definitely a woman who wanted—and expected—to get everything her own way. Nevertheless, a paying customer was entitled to the service they paid for.

      ‘Just a moment while I check,’ she said with surface calm, hiding the maelstrom of thoughts the other woman stirred.

      Loser! Well, she had tickets on herself that Barbie would never have given her, but maybe Tanya Wells had reason to believe Nick valued his relationship with her. If he did, he’d certainly been a fool to act as he had at his birthday party. On the other hand, maybe all women had only one value for him, and he thought he’d found another candidate to fulfil that requirement better than Tanya. Was that why he was so hot for Barbie’s name and address?

      ‘Well? When can you get the dead roses to him?’ Angry impatience.

      ‘Possibly three o’clock,’ Barbie temporised, feeling distinctly negative about obliging Tanya Wells with anything.

      ‘Can’t you do it earlier?’

      Not if Sue did the job. But what if she went herself? Dressed in a black suit with her hair tucked up under a hat, dark glasses on … the image she’d present would be a far cry from the fairy princess that had taken Nick’s fancy on Saturday night. And if he did somehow recognise her, she could deliver a double whammy of rejection. Serve him right for playing fast and loose!

      At least he hadn’t identified her as Barbie Lamb, so she felt safe about that. No humiliating trip down memory lane would eventuate from this. And it would be … interesting … just to see him again, in his workplace.

      Temptation was a terrible, terrible thing.

      ‘We could manage two o’clock if that suits.’ It was almost twelve now. She needed time to get dressed …

      ‘Perfect! That should screw up his precious work this afternoon.’

      Again Barbie frowned. Tanya Wells was a malicious piece of goods and it didn’t sit well, being a partner to her wishes. Yet how could she judge what had actually gone on between her and Nick? Maybe she had just cause … if he was a shallow rat!

      ‘May I have your credit card details, Miss Wells?’

      Barbie completed the transaction, her mind moving into a ferment over the wisdom of taking this job. Nick’s calls to Party Poppers proved he wanted to see her again, but he didn’t know who she was and Barbie found herself totally churned up over what his response would be if he found out. A sexy fantasy was one thing, reality quite another.

      She’d certainly found out what it was like to be kissed by him—with lustful desire. And she couldn’t deny she’d felt swamped by lustful desire herself. But undoubtedly it had been no more than a highly heated moment, generated by volatile emotions on both sides. His angry outburst about not caring if Tanya took a flying leap off the Harbour Bridge surely pointed to their having been at odds before Barbie had appeared on the scene as a fairy princess.

      Revenge …

      For all she knew, Nick himself might have been taking vengeance on Tanya for something the black-haired witch had done!

      Barbie stared at the order sheet she had just written out.

      Maybe she shouldn’t go.

      Sue could do it when she came back from her lunch with Leon Webster. So what if the delivery was a bit late …

      No!

      She wanted to see Nick for herself, in the cold light of day! Sue was right about finishing this … this hangover from the past. Saturday night was supposed to have achieved that purpose, yet when he’d kissed her … somehow it had just made everything worse, stirring up what she had wanted to put behind her. It would be different today.

      Best to go and make absolutely certain there was nothing about Nick Armstrong that was worth harbouring in her memory.

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