her on the lips.
‘I’ll take care of her,’ Mara said, visualizing an innocent young graduate who’d gaze up to her new mentor. In fact, Mara had had to look up to Tawhnee, who was at least five nine in her bare feet. She was an object of sin in a dress and during the five days Mara mentored her, not a single man – from client to colleague – could set eyes on Tawhnee without their jaw dropping open.
‘It’s sex appeal, that’s what it is. Raw bloody sex appeal,’ Mara told Cici, her flatmate.
‘So? You’re not the Hunchback of Notre Dame yourself,’ snapped back Cici. ‘She’s nothing but a kid.’
‘You are not getting the picture,’ Mara said. ‘This girl is Playboy fabulous. I have no idea why she wants to work for us. She could earn a fortune if she headed to a go-go bar.’
‘She might want to make money from her mind,’ Cici pointed out loftily. ‘You’re labelling her. I was reading a thing on the Web about how beautiful women aren’t taken seriously and other women are jealous of them.’ Cici loved the Internet and had to be hauled away from her laptop late at night to get some zeds.
‘True. I’m being a cow,’ Mara said, sighing. ‘I’ll try harder.’
She didn’t have to. Tawhnee was suddenly and mysteriously whisked away to work with Jack.
He was director of operations. It was unusual for such a lowly trainee to be working with Jack, but as he said himself: ‘She needs to get to grips with this side of the business. What film should we go to see tonight? You pick. We’ve gone to loads of films I’ve picked. It’s your choice.’
In retrospect, she’d been very trusting. All the ‘let’s go and see a film’ and ‘shall we have dinner out’ had kept her fears at bay. Her boyfriend was being ultra-attentive, therefore there was no way he could be lusting after Tawhnee, even if every other man in the office was.
Like, hello!
And then it was too late.
Mara was under her desk, trying to find her favourite purple pen when two of the guys came into the office after an auction.
‘Lucky bastard,’ said one. ‘I wouldn’t mind doing the tango with Tawhnee.’
‘Yeah, Jack’s always had a way with the girls. I thought Mara had settled him down, but a leopard—’
‘—doesn’t change his spots,’ agreed the other one.
‘And she’s hot. An über babe.’
‘Mara’s lovely and she’s great fun but not—’
‘Yeah, not in Tawhnee’s league. Who is, right? Don’t get me wrong, Mara’s cute and she can look sexy, it has to be said, but she wears all those mad old clothes and she is short. Basically, compared to Tawhnee, she’s …’
‘Yeah, ordinary. While, Tawhnee, phew! She’s so hot, she’s on fire.’
‘Yeah, spot on. Tawhnee’s a Ferrari, isn’t she, and Mara … Well, she’s not, is she?’
Under the desk, Mara wanted to dig a hole so deep that she came out in another country. Another planet, even. She stayed where she was for a few moments, like an animal frozen in pain. It was hard to know what hurt most. The realization that Jack was indeed cheating on her with Tawhnee, or the knowledge that the men she worked with and lunched with and joked with saw her simply as an ordinary but occasionally sexy girl who liked ‘mad old clothes’. All those times she’d thought she’d pulled it off and camouflaged herself successfully into something different – something chic, elegant, stylish – with her fabulous vintage outfits, she’d been wrong.
Talent, kindness, laughing at their bad jokes … none of it meant anything compared to being tall, slim and hot. She was ordinary beside the Ferrari that was Tawhnee.
She waited till the phone rang to crawl out the other side where a handy filing cabinet hid her, and ran from the room to find Jack.
He was in his office alone, eyes focusing on his mobile, texting. At the door, Mara stared at him and wondered if she’d been nothing more than a diverting, wait-till-the-Ferrari-comes-along girl for him too.
He’d said he loved her, loved her shape, her petiteness; he’d called her his pocket Venus, and said he hated skinny women who nibbled on celery.
‘You grab life with both hands,’ he’d murmured when they were lying in bed after the first time they made love.
‘And I eat it!’ said Mara triumphantly, wriggling on top of him to nuzzle his neck. She’d never met anyone who shared her sensuality until she’d found him. They were so well matched in many ways, but none so much as when they were in bed.
For the first time in her life, Mara Wilson had met a man who loved her as she was – with the wild, red curls, an even wilder dress sense and an hourglass body, albeit a short one. Jack adored her 1950s clothes fetish. He told her she looked fantastic in fitted angora sweaters and tight skirts worn with red lippie, Betty Boop high shoes and eyeliner applied with a sexy little flick.
And all the while he probably thought she was ordinary too. She was his ordinary fling while he waited for something better to come along.
‘Yes?’ he said now, without looking up from his phone.
Mara said nothing and Jack finally flicked a gaze at the door.
‘Oh, hi, it’s you.’
Swiftly, he pressed a couple of buttons, deleting or getting out of whatever text he’d been writing, Mara realized. He smiled guiltily at her and that’s when she knew for sure. It took one look at his face to know the truth.
‘Is it true?’ she asked. ‘About you and Tawhnee?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said feebly.
‘Sorry? Is that the best you can do, Jack?’ she asked quietly. She wouldn’t shout. Not here. She would leave with dignity.
‘I wanted to tell you for ages,’ he insisted.
‘Why didn’t you?’
He shrugged.
Mara felt curiously numb. This must be shock, she thought.
‘I’ve got a headache. I’m going home now.
‘Of course,’ Jack said. ‘Take tomorrow too. Er, headaches can really get you down …’
She left and grabbed her things from her desk. The guys were chatting.
‘Hi, Mara, what’s up?’ said the one who’d called her ordinary.
She looked at him through the haze of numbness, then stumbled from the room.
Cici had volunteered to go with Mara to the wedding.
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll look totally sad if I come with you. No offence, but coming with a female friend is like wearing a badge that says I’m a loser who couldn’t get a date. Brad Pitt is about the only man I could bring and not look like a sad cow.’
‘OK then, but promise me you’ll dance like there’s nobody watching,’ Cici added.
‘Isn’t that the advice from a fridge magnet?’ Mara demanded.
‘Fridge magnets can be very clever,’ her friend replied. ‘A clean kitchen is the sign of a boring person, and all that.’
‘True.’
There was a pause.
‘I always danced like there was nobody watching,’ Mara said mournfully. ‘Jack loved that about me. He said I was a free spirit. Although not as free as Tawhnee.’
‘She was obviously free with everything, from her favours to her skirt lengths,’ Cici said caustically.
Mara