After Hours: Black Lace Classics Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart pounding hard enough to bust straight out of her chest, Venny sank back in the bath and felt the glorious feelings ebb away into faint disappointment. There was nothing better than coming like a train, and nothing worse than the let-down afterwards. Now she was coming down from it, she could hear Dani again, wailing away in there while Jamie pumped. To add to the chorus, she could hear her mobile too, perched on the edge of the sink where she could get to it if she needed to.
    Her arm felt weak as wet string, just like the rest of her body, when she stretched out and picked it up. ‘Yes?’
    ‘Venny?’
    Venny started to sit up, slipped, and was momentarily submerged by tangerine foam. She hauled herself up again. Spluttered and coughed. Bill bloody Thompson.
    ‘What the hell do you want?’ she asked.
    ‘To give it one more try,’ said Bill, sounding annoyingly humble. ‘Look, a partnership between us would be great, and you know it.’
    ‘No partnerships,’ said Venny. Jesus! Hadn’t they discussed all this already?
    ‘What’s that noise?’ asked Bill.
    ‘I can’t hear anything.’
    ‘It’s a sort of bumping noise.’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘And someone just screamed.’
    ‘Must be something wrong your end.’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong my end, Venny. But there’s definitely someone being shagged to death at yours.’
    ‘My flatmate,’ said Venny coldly. She was not letting this conversation be railroaded into a phone-wank. Her cunt gave a brief pulse of sensation and she squirmed in irritation. Not with Bill, that was for sure.
    ‘Sounds good,’ said Bill.
    ‘Well, I expect he’s better than you,’ said Venny cuttingly.
    There was a brief, hurt silence. ‘Look, I won’t ask again, Venny,’ said Bill.
    ‘Look, Bill.’ Venny took a deep breath. ‘I know this is hard to take, but will you do one thing for me?’
    ‘What?’ Now he sounded hopeful.
    ‘Piss off.’
    ‘You know, you really are a bitch,’ he said in a rush. ‘I can’t imagine you peeling vegetables and taking orders and washing up and—’
    Venny squinted at the phone. ‘What?’
    Of course she was useless at all that. She ran businesses. In fact, the best advice she’d ever been given was from a property developer. He’d told her that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t lay foundations or bricks or put on a ridge tile straight; his job was to hire people who could, pay them, and get paid for organising the whole bang shoot.
    It was damned good advice, and she’d followed it.
    She intended to go on following it, too.
    ‘What does that mean?’ she asked Bill.
    ‘It means I’ve spoken to the rest of your staff, and they’re not.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your staff.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘They’re not your staff anymore. They’re mine. I’m taking them with me.’
    ‘You childish bastard,’ shouted Venny. In her rage she slipped again and went down like the Titanic.

Chapter Three
    On Monday Venny hustled her way across town to get to the bank on time. By some miracle she’d swung an appointment, and lateness was not an option. As she drove, she reviewed the situation. Well, she’d been warned.
    Friends in the city had told her that the restaurant business was crazy, that she’d be better off putting her money into stocks and shares. Or stripping redundant manufacturing businesses of their assets. Or running a cathouse. Anything other than what she had done.
    She had bought the restaurant. Redecorated it, staffed it, publicised it. Sometime soon she had expected the damned place to start showing a profit so that her current cash flow difficulty would not get out of hand.
    But now her problems had got worse, not better.
    Bill leaving, and the rest of the staff – the very good staff – with him.
    And that might mean that he was going to set up somewhere else, in competition.
    She hoped not too close.
    Bill wasn’t anyone’s idea of hot competition, but sadly there was such a thing as a flooded market, however