The Importance of Being Emma Read Online Free PDF

there’s my mock-up brought to life.’
    Behind me, Philip let out a long sigh. ‘Beauty, class and brains.’
    So that was it, he’d fallen for Harriet! Beauty she certainly had. Class I could give her. Brains? He was taking a flyer there, but I put it down to the delusions of a man already in love.
    I turned to him with a mischievous grin. ‘You were going to tell me about your real-life Victoria.’
    He went bright red. ‘I’m sure you can guess who she is, it must be obvious to someone as intelligent as you.’
    ‘ I have a pretty good idea,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Anyway, I’d better go and start my research proposal. It’s good to know you’re onside, I may need some help with the costings.’
    His eyes gleamed. ‘I’ve got a standard cost-benefit analysis spreadsheet we could use, quite complicated, but I’m more than happy to go through it with you. How about this afternoon?’
    I knew he just wanted an excuse to come and see Harriet. ‘OK, we can at least have an initial chat so that I know what sort of detail you’ll need. Ask Harriet to check my diary.’
    I smiled as I left them together in the boardroom; it looked as though my next matchmaking project was underway.
    Mark was in my office, looking out of the window. I couldn’t see his face, but his hands were behind his back and he was fidgeting with his watch, always a sign he was worried.
    No wonder; Izzy had told me all about Tamara and his carefree expat lifestyle in India. Now he was stuck on his own for six months in Highbury, where the old biddy mafia tracked your every move and the highlight of the social calendar was Batty’s Charity Bridge Drive.
    I touched his sleeve. ‘Mark.’
    He spun round and gave me a long, serious look. ‘Mouse. I mean Emma. Sorry, I was miles away.’
    ‘ Listen, why don’t you come for dinner tomorrow night? We can catch up properly and you can terrify Dad with tales of Delhi belly. Shall we say seven o’clock? It’ll be just like old times.’
    He hesitated and for a moment I thought he was going to refuse.
    Then he said simply, ‘Sounds great.’
     

Chapter Two
     
    ~~MARK~~
    ‘ It’ll be just like old times.’
    ‘ Sounds great.’
    I should have added, ‘Except everything’s changed.’
    I wasn’t against change as much as Henry, but I did like to keep things in their separate compartments. Of course, some things were the same as before. Henry. Mary. Highbury Foods, at least until Emma started whipping it into God knows what shape.
    But she’d changed. She’d climbed out of her old compartment, the slightly grubby one labelled ‘Mouse’, filled with silly jokes and endless games of Monopoly, into a totally inappropriate one. The one labelled ‘Sex’, dark with desire and velvet-padded to stifle sounds of pleasure. The one I usually kept locked when not in use.
    Now I wished I hadn’t agreed so readily to Henry’s request to mentor her. Never mind; I’d simply open up a new compartment, ‘Masochism’. I was sure I could handle it.
    Then, as I rifled through my briefcase for my non-executive director contract, I found her photo.
    I don’t know why I didn’t hand the magazine back to Mary and have done with it. Maybe I thought the article might come in handy for the mentoring. But why didn’t I file it with my Highbury Foods papers? Instead, I found myself tearing it out, taking it home and looking at it far more than was good for me.
    The next day Father and I went to Donwell Organics for a detailed handover. I knew standing in as Managing Director would be a sharp contrast to my role in India. Out there I had a free rein, because Father believed in empowerment rather than a more traditional command and control approach; here, it was more a case of maintaining the status quo until his return.
    We’d reckoned without my stepmother Saffron, however; she was like her name – brightly coloured, horribly expensive and best in small doses. Her first phone call came at five past