The Love Letter Read Online Free PDF

put. In desperation, she raided the garden shed and found a pair of secateurs to cut through the stays. Oxygen pouring back into her lungs, she selected a red T-shirt from the washing line and dragged it over her head just in time to hear a car horn beep from the front of the house.
    Hiding the dress in the shed with the secateurs, Legs dashedback out through the gate, neatly retrieving her missing flip-flop and phone from the front garden as she bounded towards Conrad’s black Jaguar.
    His handsome face was a mask behind expensive dark glasses, but she distinctly heard a sharp intake of breath when he saw her.
    She looked down and saw that in her haste, she’d matched a pair of Ros’s pyjama bottoms that had a broken elastic waist with one of her nephew’s T-shirts which was not only far too small, but also bore the slogan ‘Gunners Forever’ across its back. Her hair was still pulled up by the jewelled scrunchy that her sister had put on her earlier and she realised her face must be puce. But such was the force of her smile – and Conrad’s need of a favour – he opened his passenger door with a gentlemanly flourish and kissed her cheek as she leaped in.
    ‘So where are you taking me?’
    Before he could answer, her phone let out a message alert.
Is Julie Ocean romantically involved with her Super?
Gordon quizzed.
    Insuperably,
she replied before switching off her phone.

Chapter 2
     
    Driving east, Conrad quickly slid the two Premier Admission tickets to Ascot’s King George Day from the dashboard and stashed them in the glove compartment.
    ‘Change of plan,’ he said smoothly, resetting the sat nav, the cricket commentary turned down discreetly on the stereo. ‘We’re having a picnic in Hyde Park.’
    ‘Heaven!’ Legs settled back contentedly and listened as he made a quick call on the hands-free to Betty Blythe’s to have a luxury picnic for two put on standby. His voice always thrilled her; that clipped authoritative tone with its under-note of the South AfricanCape. She still vividly remembered the electric current of pleasure that had run through her when he’d said in the same husky bark ‘the job is yours’, liberating her from three years as a lowly small press editorial assistant to a plum role as PA to a literary agency legend. From the start, Conrad’s charisma had glowed so brightly in her new world that, despite the engagement ring burning on her finger and the wedding band still branded on his, she’d allowed herself a few clichéd office fantasies about her boss pinning her up against the water cooler and thoroughly kissing her.
    Legs had been working at literary agency Fellows Howlett just a few weeks when the rumours reached her that her lovely new boss’s marriage was in crisis, unhitching one of London’s most long-standing literary power couples. For a fortnight, it was an open secret that Conrad slept in his office, shocked and unshaven yet still taking calls and running his authors’ lives like clockwork. He was a man who inspired devotion, and his work ethic never faltered. Without hesitation, his loyal team of colleagues closed ranks to protect him. As the newest agency recruit, Allegra was not a part of this inner circle, yet her heart had gone out to him, so driven and focused and damaged. To her shame, the water-cooler fantasies multiplied.
    Legs heard that his wife had issued divorce papers straight away, citing unreasonable behaviour, although Legs had never met anyone more truthful and fair-minded. Apparently Conrad’s children wouldn’t even talk to him at first. It must have taken him great strength and dignity, Legs thought, to pull through those first weeks with minimum rancour.
    Too proud to take the many offers of houseroom from friends and colleagues, he asked Legs to book him into a hotel. When he discovered that she’d reserved the suite that the agency traditionally only used for their grandest clients, he stormed out of his office to her desk, green eyes