Read Online The Flirt by Kathleen Tessaro - Free Book Online

sat there, in his cashmere dressing gown, with his morning coffee, he looked upon the pile with satisfaction. In there, somewhere, was a budding new apprentice and an answer to the staff difficulties that had plagued him for the past months.
    He considered diving straight in but then dismissed the idea. He was a creature of habit and married to the inflexible, set routine of his daily life. One of the pleasures of living by yourself is the privilege of being able to practice, day after day, in whatever order you wish, the rituals that define your tastes and aspirations without any threat of disruption. And at fifty-eight, Valentine was deeply grateful for his solitude.
    He had loved, a few times briefly but only once seriously. The love wasn’t returned and so he made peace with all the aspects of single life that many people find so abhorrent. Now he valued them above all else. Over time he’d mutated from a lonely, watchfulperson into a completely self-sufficient one, treating himself with the same affection a lover would. The older he was the more he realized that few people were given the time and means to be as completely indulged as he was. He hadn’t had to accommodate another human being on any matter of significance for years. He was entirely, unapologetically selfish and grateful for the opportunity to be so. Now, when he thought of the woman who broke his heart (which was rare), he viewed it as a narrow escape.
    No, he’d finish his coffee, glance at the crossword, then have his bath. And while he was dressing, his assistant, Flick, would arrive.
    Flick had been sent from an agency twelve years ago. She’d turned up, a rather dour middle-aged Irish woman in a beige Marks and Spencer twinset, shortly after her husband died. Her full name was Mary Margaret Flickering, but Valentine had christened her Flick early on. At first she was horrified. But gradually, Mary Margaret Flickering began to fade and Flick took hold. The beige twinset disappeared; her actions became sharper, her tone confident and Valentine learned the power of reframing someone. Flick was more daring and resilient than Mary Margaret Flickering had ever been. And she was funnier too. Now she was invaluable to him.
    Half Moon Street wasn’t a traditional office. It was an old-fashioned bachelor pad. It had last been refurbished in the late fifties and still had some of the plumbing features from the thirties that are so popular now. There was a large reception room, a tiny office, a single bedroom and the kind of kitchen only a man would find adequate. It was furnished like a set from Brideshead Revisited ; a look of luxurious, old moneyed antiques shoved into students’ quarters.
    There had been a time when Valentine had toyed with the idea of having a separate office but in truth he enjoyed having Flick about. She provided just the right touch of domesticity to his life. He liked the fact that he could emerge from his bedroom to find her rifling through the post; more often than not she’d make some smalladjustment to his tie in the same casual way a wife would. It was all the intimacy he required without any of the emotional turmoil.
    After she arrived, he took a brisk morning walk around St. James’s Park, then popped into Fortnum’s to pick up something for lunch (at the moment, they were both fond of campagne bread, foie gras and fresh figs). Then he returned, settling down to review all the applications that she’d opened and sorted, removing the most blatantly hideous.
    There were only two that were of interest. One was a darkly sensual young man from Wales and the other, a blond public-school boy from North-West London. The Welshman’s romantic résumé was quite shockingly graphic; he obviously thought the position was for some sort of gigolo and wanted to show that he’d received adequate technical training. But the school boy’s was endearingly brief; he’d lost his virginity to a friend of his sister’s, dated a few girls,