Read Online Amanda's Young Men by Madeline Moore - Free Book Online

a mineral water with lemon wedge. Apparently, she had a memory inside that fluffy head of hers. The way the girl swished in, she was begging to be looked at.
    ‘New skirt?’ Amanda asked.
    ‘Do you like it?’
    It was in grey flannel, fitted and a few inches longer than Nola usually wore, but with a six-inch slit up each side. Amanda thought that perhaps it was some sort of homage to the skirts she herself wore.
    ‘Very nice,’ she said, and meant it. The girl had remarkably attractive legs.
    Nola reddened with pleasure. ‘I’m so glad you like it, Ms Garland. You always dress so nice, so it’s a real compliment.’ Her face clouded. ‘You’re really nice, and smart, too. Not at all like I expected Rog – Mr Garland’s wife to be …’ She dried up.
    ‘How did you picture me?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’d seen pictures of you, of course, but I thought you’d be dumb. Self-centred and dumb. But what did I know?’ Now that she’d started talking again, the poor pink-haired girl clearly couldn’t stop. She babbled on, ‘If I’d known you were so great, I never would’ve …’
    ‘Never would have what?’
    ‘Nothing.’ Nola stood frozen to the spot. ‘I have to go,’ she finally mumbled, and retreated much more clumsily than she’d entered.
    Amanda grinned. Hm! That was very close to an apology for screwing Roger, an apology Amanda had a mind to accept. She was starting to like the little upstart. Nola of the pink hair had had the nerve to imagine
her
, Mrs Roger Garland, as dumb. It amused Amanda. And it couldn’t have been Nola in that motel room. Amanda had checked the time sheets. Nola had been behind her desk that morning. It seemed that Roger had fooled around with a number of women and girls. Nola couldn’t be entirely blamed for Roger’s unfaithfulness.
    She opened the locked drawer and fingered the bag of gold charms. Roger had been a complicated man, clearly in love with her yet happily unfaithful. Or perhaps all men were like that.
    Maybe it had been power that had made him cheat. Amanda had happily seduced both Trevor, the building’s security guard, and Rupert, her own employee, directly or indirectly –
and
she planned to screw this Paul Carter, a young man she hadn’t even met yet. Any of them might have a girlfriend or a wife. Roger’s death had certainly liberated her, if its having turned her into a conscienceless libertine counted.
    It was three o’clock when Dumphries, a suitably dumpy little man with a wart between his eyes and a comb-over, bustled into her office. ‘What happened to my Pat?’
    ‘I fired her.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘She was obnoxious.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Sit down. I want to talk to you.’
    ‘But – Pat …’
    ‘We can discuss her later … if it’s still relevant.’
    The tone of her voice deflated him, and he sank into a visitors’ chair. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Style number F 102340.’
    He frowned. ‘Women’s black oxford with a good solid built-in arch support. From Ogilvy & Fitch. Excellent shoe.’
    ‘How many pairs have we bought so far this year?’ Amanda asked the question in a silky voice.
    ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to check.’
    ‘I already did. Just short of two thousand pairs.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘And how many pairs have we sold?’
    ‘That’s not my department.’
    ‘Purchasing isn’t concerned about sales? Interesting. Very well, I’ll tell you. One hundred and eighty-three pairs, as of close of business last week.’
    ‘As I said, it’s a good shoe. We must be stockpiling. It’s the sort of shoe that’s never out of style.’
    ‘Or in it,’ Amanda purred. ‘And last year, we –
you
– bought just over three thousand pairs. We sold fewer than four hundred. At this rate, in ten more years it’ll be the only shoe we stock.’
    Dumphries crossed his arms. ‘I don’t make purchasing decisions. Ms Sharpe decides what we buy.’
    ‘I’m glad you brought that up, Mr Dumphries. What is it, exactly, that you
do
do, apart from