than Paris Hilton’s panties.’
‘Yes, sir. Right away.’
Lise scuttled off. A few minutes later, Lottie Grainger walked in. In a simple, grey turtleneck sweater from J. Crew and Stella McCartney wool pants, with her face almost completely free of make-up, Lottie still managed to look radiant. She’s so lovely, thought Jackson, warmly. Seeing Lottie was often the highlight of Jackson’s working day. There was something pure and innocent and innately decent about her that had kept him from trying it on with her. Not that he hadn’t thought about it. The girl had no idea how fabulous her figure was, with those gazelle legs and perfect little apple breasts. But Jackson knew that if he slept with Lottie, the easy friendship between them would be gone forever. He’d wind up hurting her – Jackson could no more ‘do’ commitment than he could fly to Mars – and he didn’t want to be that guy, not with Lottie. Sasha, on the other hand, he would love to get into bed and then drop from a height. Boy did that chick have tickets on herself.
‘You wanted to see me?’
‘Yes.’ Jackson took a deep breath. Just being in Lottie’s presence seemed to calm him. ‘Sasha Miller just walked into Morgan Graham’s office and told the guy he was a prick and that she didn’t blame his wife for leaving him.’
Lottie gasped. ‘She didn’t!’
‘So I think it’s safe to say that our Goldman deal is well and truly dead.’
Lottie looked at Jackson’s clenched jaw and hunched, tension-filled shoulders and longed to walk over and touch him. I could make you better. I could make love to you so perfectly you wouldn’t stop smiling for a week.
Aloud, she said ‘You want a damage-limitation strategy?’
Jackson nodded. ‘We need to get a statement out by tomorrow morning. Something the street will swallow, before Goldman put their spin on it, or some trigger-happy equity analyst starts making shit up.’
Lottie grabbed a pen, her quick mind racing, ‘OK. This is what I suggest.’
Half an hour later, the press release was ready to go. ‘Should I send it out now?’
Jackson hesitated, looking at his watch. It was already six o’clock. He was due at the Met in half an hour, attending yet another fundraiser, this time with a stunning French girl called Pascale. She was the new face of Chanel Mademoiselle and she was new to New York, bless her.
‘No. We’ll do it in the morning. I ought to sleep on it, anyway. Do you have plans tonight?’
For a moment, Lottie’s heart soared. ‘No! Not at all, I’m free as a bird. Why?’
‘Oh, no reason,’ said Jackson. ‘You did a great job today, Lottie. Unlike some people I could mention. Go home and get some sleep. You deserve it.’
Lottie watched him leave. It was as if someone had shut off the power to the building. Or at least to her heart. She knew she wouldn’t get much sleep tonight, whether she deserved it or not. Although she suspected she’d get more than poor old Sasha. What on earth was she thinking?
Sasha sat on the couch in her poky Brooklyn apartment, eating Cherry Garcia Ben & Jerry’s out of the tub and feeling sorry for herself. On her salary, she could have afforded a much nicer place than the drab one-bedroom walk-up with its magnolia walls and dated, old-ladyish, avocado bathroom. But she preferred to invest her money in stocks, following a model she’d designed herself at Harvard. Everything was about making money, as much money as possible as fast as possible. Which was why Sasha was so disappointed with herself about today.
OK, so the guy was an arsehole who totally deserved it. But why couldn’t I have held my tongue?
As much as she longed for the day when she would set up on her own, Sasha knew that right now she was too young and too inexperienced to attract the sort of serious investors she would need to get her own business off the ground. It wasn’t about talent. It was about a proven track record. This Goldman deal would have been a major feather in her cap, a big step towards the type of experience she needed. It wasn’t just that she had angered Jackson and put her job at risk. She’d also thrown away money, and kudos. Jackson had offered her a big step up the ladder and she’d pulled out a hacksaw and cut off the crucial rung.
Depressed, she flipped on the TV. One of the many things Sasha missed about England was the television. Where was a good old BBC period drama when you needed one? Where were Judi Dench and Julia Sawalha? The only British face you saw on American screens was Simon Cowell’s, which was enough to put anyone off their Cherry Garcia ice cream. That and, of course, Theo Dexter’s.
Unable to stop herself, like a child scratching a chicken pox sore, Sasha turned on her TiVo and clicked on the latest episode of Dexter’s Universe. The show, originally based on her theory, had since morphed into a general look at space and the planets and was a huge ratings puller. Visually it was a work of art, an intergalactic version of David Attenborough’s acclaimed Planet Earth. Although of course, in place of Attenborough’s comfortable, fireside manner, there was Theo, young, impossibly handsome, energetic, funny, full of enthusiasm and joie de vivre. No wonder American women were all in love with him.
‘Astronomy is like a drug.’ Theo was talking directly to camera. ‘More than that. It’s like a love affair. For physicists like me, the universe is not just infinite. It’s infinitely beautiful. There are many times when I’ve thought I’d rather give up breathing than give up science. Because it is breathing. It is life.’
Yes, Sasha thought bitterly. And you stole my life from me.
She looked at the cheap IKEA clock on the wall. Seven o’clock. Switching off the TV she jumped off the couch. If she dressed quickly, she might just make it.
Morgan Graham was preparing to leave the office for the day. He was meeting Anna, his new Russian mistress, for dinner at Elaine’s, a prospect that would normally have put a smile on his face, however bad his work day. But today’s meeting with Jackson Dupree and the girl from Wrexall had soured his mood beyond repair.
Tall, distinguished and (he flattered himself) quite attractive in a powerful, older-man sort of way, Morgan Graham was used to having young women fall at his feet. Admittedly, he wasn’t a young stud like Jackson Dupree. But with two hundred million in the bank, a division of a hundred and fifty people reporting to him and a reputation as one of the sharpest dealmakers on Wall Street, Morgan Graham expected adulation and demanded respect. But this girl, Sasha, this child, had torn a strip off him in front of his team, as if he were some idiot she’d met at a bar! In his own office, too!
What rankled most was that the girl was extremely sexy. Morgan had always loved that dark-haired, green-eyed, Catherine Zeta-Jones look. He’d also heard rumours that she was immune to Jackson Dupree’s charms and that Jackson was secretly livid at this rejection. For months now, Morgan had nursed a fantasy of bedding Sasha Miller, purely so that he could boast he had succeeded where the legendary young Dupree had failed. He’d been going to invite Sasha out to dinner tonight, in front of Jackson, to seal the finalizing of their long-awaited joint venture. Instead, he’d been made to look a fool and a laughing stock. The jokes were already doing the rounds on the trading floor.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Graham.’
‘Then why are you disturbing me?’ Morgan Graham bit his assistant’s head off. ‘I’m going home, Kate. Whatever it is it’ll have to wait until the morning.’
‘There’s a young lady here, sir. She says it’s urgent.’
Morgan Graham frowned. If he’d told Anna once, he’d told her a thousand times. He did not like being surprised at the office. He did not want to walk home with her and talk about his day, as if they were man and wife. Morgan Graham had just got rid of a wife, his third. All he wanted from Anna was for her to keep her weight under a hundred and twenty pounds and to open her legs whenever, and wherever, he told her to.
‘May I come