Authors: Rebecca Chance
Victoria had her own way in almost everything as far as her
marriage went. Which meant that on the rare occasions when
Jeremy put his foot down, he exerted a lot of power. Highlysophisticated at picking her battles, she knew that right now,
this was one she couldn’t win.
Inwardly, she sighed again as they went out of the kitchen,
Jeremy pausing, conscientiously, to turn off every light.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘But the usual rules apply.’
‘Oh, of course,’ Jeremy said eagerly. ‘I wouldn’t dream of
changing anything.’
He padded after her like a loyal dog, up the stairs to the first
floor, which was an entire, interlinked, suite of rooms; the
master bedroom at the back, with a small bathroom for Jeremy
and a large bathroom on the other side for Victoria, out of
which a corridor with velvet-lined shelves for bags and shoes
led to her equally large dressing room.
‘I’m so excited,’ he burbled. ‘I can’t
wait
for you to get pregnant! That’s partly why I want a townhouse, with a garden. I
know in Manhattan we won’t have much of a garden, but still,
somewhere for the baby to play as it gets bigger . . . Maybe
we should get a puppy too – what do you think? Wouldn’t
that be lovely?’
‘My God, Jeremy.’ Victoria unfastened her earrings and
dropped them into their silk-lined drawer in her dressing-table.
‘You sound like my mother sometimes.’
But her husband was already in the bedroom, taking the
decorative pillows off the bed and placing them on the chaiselongue. Whether he heard her or not, one of the secrets to
their successful marriage was Jeremy’s ability to ignore
Victoria’s snappishness.
‘Hopefully we can manage two, one after the other,’ he said
happily. ‘I’d love a boy and a girl, of course, but it won’t matter
really, as long as they’re happy and healthy . . . Or twins! That
would be wonderful!’
Victoria undressed, put away her clothes, set her shoes on
their section of shelf, dropped her Myla bra and knickers into
the handwash-only section of the pull-out laundry basket,
slipped on a peach Jenny Packham silk nightdress, and walked
back into the bedroom.
‘I was thinking, when the baby’s born, I might take paternity
leave and look after it – what do you think?’ Jeremy said. ‘I
know you’ll be wanting to get straight back to work, and I don’t
like the idea of leaving our child with a nanny all day long.’
Victoria laughed. ‘Why not just give up work completely
and be its nanny full-time?’ she suggested satirically. ‘We
won’t need your income any more, not with what Jacob’ll be
paying me.’
Jeremy’s eyes lit up even more. ‘Do you know, I think I’d
love that.’
His wife grimaced. ‘I didn’t actually mean it,’ she said.
‘Honestly, Jeremy, you should have known I was joking.’
‘But many a true word is said in jest,’ Jeremy said. He was
sitting on his side of the bed, waiting for her, his pyjamas still
on. ‘Wouldn’t it be a fantastic idea?’
Victoria started to snap at him, then caught herself just as
she was about to bite his head off.
‘You know,’ she said slowly, ‘that might not actually be the
worst idea in the world. It would look awfully good in the
press. I’m going to be in the public eye non-stop now, and
image is so important these days. Working wife, house-husband
raising the children . . . what a modern couple we’d be.’
She tapped her foot on the carpet. ‘Remind me to give
Katharine a ring about it,’ she said, crossing the room. ‘I’ll go
over it with her.’
Katharine Walsh was the PR dynamo who managed the
Dupleix Corporation’s British interests, a slim blonde with
skirts as high as her heels and a business brain as sharp as the
tailoring of her black Miu Miu mini-dresses. She was one of
the very few women Victoria considered her equal.
‘Katharine!’ Jeremy said rather crossly. ‘Sometimes I feel
you listen to bloody Katharine more than you do to me.’
Of course I do, Victoria thought, as she sank onto the bed
and opened the drawer of her bedside table.
You may be a
maths genius, but Katharine’s a publicity one. Far more useful
.
Victoria was perfectly well aware that one of the reasons Jacob
had been amenable to expediting her new job offer was that
Katharine, a long-term ally, had been so effective at publicising
the success Victoria had made of lifting
UK Style
out of its
doldrums. Katharine had promoted Victoria as the reigning
magazine queen of London, setting her up so effectively that it
would seem only natural that Jacob would enthrone her as the
Queen of Manhattan sooner rather than later.
But then Victoria pulled out from the drawer her favourite
sex toy, the finger tickler, and as she slid it onto the middle
finger of her right hand and pulled up the hem of her nightdress, Jeremy made a soft, contented sound and settled back
against the headboard to watch, his brief grumpiness entirely
forgotten. Victoria reached for the lube, squeezing sticky clear
droplets onto the pink ribbed plastic on her finger. She lay
back on the pillows, spreading her legs. She was entirely
smooth, having lasered every single pubic hair away years ago.
It had been painful, but by far the most efficient, time-saving
method, and had been totally worth it; she never had to bother
with a waxing appointment again.
And Jeremy loved it, too. Not that his wishes had formed
part of her decision. But Jeremy was a born voyeur, and her
smooth, hairless mound made it very easy for him to take in
every detail of the spectacle as Victoria switched on the battery,
spread her pink, swollen lower lips with her left hand, and slid
the tickler between them, her hips starting to pump against it
immediately in conditioned response.
Her eyes closed, her tongue moistened her mouth. The battery
hummed away, and Jeremy was humming too, a steady, happy
sound, as he undid the button on his pyjama bottoms and pulled
out his cock. It was already hardening at the sight of Victoria’s
spread legs, pulled up at the knees, her pelvis tilting against the
buzz of the deep pink toy, one hand between her legs, working on
herself, while the other one gripped her breast, squeezing it
convulsively through the thin silk of the nightgown.
‘Fuck,’ she moaned. ‘Yes, fuck it, fuck it, yes, like that, shit,
this is just what I fucking want . . . Yes, do it, fuck me, fuck me
hard till I come like a bloody train – yeah, Jesus God, yeah, like
that, fuck my cunt, fuck it and come so bloody hard, I’m going
to come so bloody hard . . . aaah . . .’
She screamed as the first wave of orgasm hit her, her hips
bucking frantically.
‘Yes!’ she yelled. ‘Yes, fucking give it to me, you bloody
bastard! Oh God, yes, I’m going to fucking come again!’
Her finger was still working frantically, tracing circles, stroking up and down, flicking herself expertly with the ridges of
the tickler, sending her into one spasm of pleasure after another.
The hand on her breast pulled away the silk of the nightdress,
finding her bare skin, playing with her small pink nipple. Her
head thrashed from side to side, her blonde hair falling over
her face, her lips parted, a flush spreading over her neck and
down to her breasts. She was utterly absorbed in what she was
doing, a stream of swear words flooding out from her parted
lips, giving herself completely to the sensations streaming
through her, her pelvis pounding away against the hand
between her legs.
Jeremy’s cock was stiff, its head swollen and red, his hand
sliding up and down its shaft, slippery with his own spit. His
humming was louder now that Victoria was swearing noisily
enough to cover any sounds he was making; he worked away
at himself, scooting down the bed to get an even better view,
knowing that Victoria was too lost in her own pleasure to
notice what he was doing. Greedily, he stared at her spread
legs, the dark pink plastic sex toy throbbing busily below the
smooth pale skin of her mound of Venus.
‘Shit, I’m coming so bloody fucking hard – yeah! God, there
it fucking is, yeah!’ she yelled.
Victoria bucked almost off the mattress, panting with her
orgasm, her face and throat pink, long wails of pleasure pouring from her lips. Jeremy was at the foot of the bed now, his
cock filling his hand as he took in the erotic spectacle of
Victoria, legs splayed wide, utterly selfish in her complete
abandonment to her own satisfaction. He could have watched
her for hours, no matter what torture it was to him to wait
until she was finished before he came himself; because he
would never have dreamed of coming until she had finished,
never allow himself release until Victoria had finally collapsed.
Finally, her hands fell limply from where they had been
caressing her body, tumbling to her sides. She gasped a series
of slow breaths, her heart beginning to slow back to normal,
her mouth moist and soft, and her eyelids flickered open.
Jeremy’s heart pounded, his cock throbbing desperately in his
hand, begging for the words of release.
‘Right, you can do it now,’ Victoria commanded. ‘Make it
quick.’
He needed no more encouragement; swiftly, he was kneeling over her, sliding between her legs, pulling them up around
him, in her with one long stroke, groaning at how wet she was.
‘You feel so good,’ he mumbled. ‘So tight, so wet . . .’
Oh, do shut up, Victoria thought, but she was too exhausted
by her mammoth orgasm session to even manage to mumble
the words. Jeremy was well-trained. In a few short pumps, he
was coming himself, his hips jerking frantically as he moaned:
‘Oh Vicky, it feels so good . . . Oh Vicky, darling, I’m coming
inside you . . .’
He collapsed on top of his wife’s smooth, slender body for
the few blissful seconds she allowed him before she said into
his curly hair, ‘All right, you’ve had your fun. Get off now. And
clean me up. God, the mess on the bedspread! We should have
put a towel down.’
‘Oh God! Right, sorry.’ Jeremy levered himself off her,
moving slowly, his penis still red and swollen. ‘I’ll just get some
tissues—’
‘And the wet wipes.’
‘Oh, darling, really? I mean, if we’re trying to get you pregnant, I don’t think wet wipes are a good idea.’
‘Shit!’ Victoria said crossly. ‘This whole getting-pregnant
process is such a bore. All right, no wet wipes, but hurry up
and clean me. I’m exhausted, and I have to be up in five hours.’
She stretched her arms out, luxuriating in the gesture, in the
extreme content sweeping through her entire body. The release
was exquisite. Every muscle felt deliciously loosened, every
nerve in her body was soothed. Her husband bustled back
with a handful of tissues, wiping her down with great care, and
even as he tugged down the hem of her nightdress, she felt
herself drifting off to sleep.
I can’t wait to get to New York
, she thought drowsily.
Back
where I belong, at the centre of the universe. I’m going to rule that
city with a rod of iron
.
And that’s the biggest turn-on of all
.
creams of denial and rage resounded down the stark white
corridors of
US Style
’s New York office, screams so loud
and piercing that if its occupants had been able to open the
windows, anyone below, on Third Avenue, would have winced
and looked up to the thirty-first floor of the Lipstick Building,
asking themselves if someone high up there was torturing a
cat. Every single employee shivered in fear and discreetly
covered their ears.
Every employee, that is, but one. As all her fellow
Stylites
cowered at the sound of the axe falling on their boss, the fashion director of the magazine continued flicking through the
rack of embellished Michael Kors T-shirts that she had called
in for a shoot, her hand perfectly steady as she clicked one
hanger against another, discarding five, six, seven, eventually
extracting a khaki silk top with elaborate beaded epaulettes
and studying it with an expression of extreme seriousness
before, finally, sliding it to one side for further consideration. It
was as if the background of hysterical screaming simply did
not exist. She had been back from Morocco for three days now
– plenty of time to prepare herself for this latest upheaval.
Mireille Grenier had been
Style
’s fashion director for over
twenty years, and she was still as beautiful as she had been when
she first started at the magazine. Her bone structure was exquisite, her elegance timeless, even though the clear white light
flooding through the windows of her corner office, high up
above the city, illuminated the lines on her forehead, the crows’
feet fanning out from her eyes, the half-moon creases bracketing
her wide mouth which demonstrated that Mireille was a stranger
to Botox. The hollows under her high cheekbones were slightly
sunken; she hadn’t chosen to inject fillers into them, plumping
them up like so many actresses and models in their forties had
done. She had once been a ballerina at the Paris Opéra, and ever
since then, she had worn her hair in the same style, drawn back
smoothly into a high bun which emphasised that marvellous
bone structure. The hair, once black, was now threaded with
silver, one thicker white streak at her hairline flowing back into
the bun, wrapping through it dramatically.
Cinnamon, Mireille’s assistant, scampered into her boss’s
office, eyes so large with panic that the whites were clearly
visible all the way round the irises. She was gasping for breath,
even though all she had done was run down the length of the
corridor. Mireille, who had executed the famous thirty-two
fouetté turns across the length of the stage as Odette/Odile in
Swan Lake
many times in her professional career, had ridden
an over-excited stallion over the Moroccan desert for thirty
minutes to calm him down and dismounted without betraying
a sign of physical exertion, raised her finely plucked eyebrows
at the lack of control exhibited by her assistant.
‘Compose yourself,
s’il vous plâit
,’ she said, selecting another
silk T-shirt for inspection.
‘But Mireille, it’s Jennifer – she’s in her office with Jacob.’ A
lock of Cinnamon’s carefully pinned hair had come down,
tumbling onto her shoulder. ‘Can’t you hear?’ She flapped her
arms like a deranged goose batting its wings. ‘Zarina says
Jacob’s
firing
her!’
Jennifer was wailing now, banshee howls of misery.
Something crashed, far down the corridor in the editor’s office.
‘I just went to listen at the door,’ Cinnamon persisted,
clearly frustrated that her boss seemed not to be grasping the
gravity of the situation. ‘She’s totally freaking out – she isn’t
even screaming words. It’s just, like,
No, No, No, No, No
.’
‘Then,’ Mireille said, placing the second T-shirt next to the
first one she had chosen, ‘one could fairly say that your interpretation of the situation is correct,
non
? Jacob is indeed
terminating her employment here.’
Cinnamon sagged visibly against the jamb of Mireille’s
office door, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
‘But Mireille,’ she whispered. ‘Jennifer sounds like she’s
having a nervous breakdown – and Zarina says that Jennifer’s
got a four-year contract, and she’s only been editor for two
years – and Jacob’s in there with her, and it sounds like she’s
throwing
things.’
‘
Et alors
?’ Mireile shrugged. ‘Jacob is much larger than
Jennifer. He will call Security if he thinks he is in genuine
danger. This is nothing to do with me or you. You must learn a
sense of perspective.’
Cinnamon’s lips parted, but no more words would come
out; she gulped in air, trying to calm herself down.
‘Go back to your desk and finish calling in those earrings I
need from Boucheron,’ Mireille instructed.
Cinnamon started to peel herself off the door jamb, the
spindly heels of her D&G boots wobbling as they took her
full weight.
‘But—’ she started.
‘You have learned nothing,’ Mireille sighed on a long outbreath. ‘I am very disappointed in you. All the training I have
tried to give you has been wasted. You are frightened for your
job, correct?’
Cinnamon nodded mutely, eyes wide again.
‘I have been here to see three editors come and go, if we
count Jennifer – which I think we safely can,’ Mireille added
wryly, listening to the howls coming from the woman’s prized
corner office. ‘Jennifer and I were in accord, but scarcely
friends. Why should her being fired impact on my job,
hein
?’
She regarded Cinnamon with a clear dark gaze. Cinnamon
dropped her head, embarrassed.
‘Now,’ Mireille continued, ‘you should know that Jacob was
in London the day before yesterday, having dinner with
Victoria Glossop. You are friends with Zarina, you should have
ascertained that. You must always gather all the information
you can. And you will not remember when Victoria was a
fashion editor here, but you must surely have heard the stories
about her. She is very ambitious, very confident. You know, of
course, that
UK Style
has just posted its highest-ever ad sales
and circulation figures?’
Cinnamon shook her head. Mireille clicked her tongue
against the roof of her mouth, annoyed now.
‘Oh, you girls! You think working here is all about your
boots and your bracelets and whether you can meet a rich
husband at the parties! I am so bored with you.’
‘Mireille,’ Cinnamon pleaded, panicking now. ‘I’m sorry –
I’ve been working so hard on getting those Balenciaga
balldresses over from Paris—’
‘The earrings, please,’ Mireille said, cutting her off. ‘By this
afternoon. If Jennifer is leaving, that is all the more reason for
us to work hard. And smooth your hair,
s’il vous plâit
. You are
in a mess. It is not pretty.’
Mireille pivoted on her toe with the perfect posture of the
prima ballerina she had once been, turning towards the windows,
a third T-shirt in her hand, dismissing her assistant. Looking at
her boss’s slender shoulders, Cinnamon choked back a sob of
discouragement as she obeyed Mireille’s instructions.
A shame
, Mireille thought as she examined the colour of
the T-shirt, holding it up to see it in full daylight; no, it was
taupe, and she wanted sand. She hung it back on the rail.