Fantasy Girl. Carole Mortimer

was and giving an appearance of brightness. Natalie looked as calm and composed as ever, evidence of her model’s training, her figure was slender, although it gave a totally feminine look to the cream tailored suit she wore with the soft black silky blouse, her legs were long and shapely. Yes, she could undoubtedly still o back to modelling if she needed to—but she didn’t want to. She hadn’t liked being used as a glamorous clothes-peg.

      She was probably overreacting to the call, it was probably just to discuss Beauty Girl with her, as she had first thought.

      She checked her own make-up, the dark shadow on her lids, only the vaguest hint of mascara to her naturally dark lashes, the light foundation to her already flawless complexion, a dark blusher to her high cheekbones, the vivid red lip-gloss to her slightly pouting mouth. The latter needed retouching, and she had just finished doing so when she heard Dee return to her office. Thank goodness, she would have to start for Adam Thornton’s office very soon.

      ‘Whew!’ Dee put the almost glossy sheets in a disorganised pile on her desk. ‘That damned machine broke down again,’ she wailed, explaining why she had been gone so long. ‘It’s going to take me for ever to get these into any sort of order!’

      Natalie could sympathise with the other woman, having experienced the photocopier for herself. ‘I have to go out, Dee,’ she said softly. ‘To see Mr Thornton.’

      ‘Okay, I’ll just—My God, Mr Thornton!’ Dee turned to her with a stricken face. She was a small blonde woman, very pretty, with a wonderful taste in clothes, the rich rust of her blouse and trousers suiting her perfectly. ‘Oh, Natalie!’ she groaned, closing her sparkling blue eyes in remorse. ‘I completely forgot! He called just as I was leaving last night, and I wrote it down quickly in your appointment book. Tom has this wretched ‘flu bug,’ she spoke of her husband. ‘And what with running around after him all evening, and then—–’

      ‘Hey, calm down!’ Natalie smiled. ‘No harm done,’ she understated what could turn out to be very awkward for her. ‘We’ve just made an appointment for later instead.’

      ‘I hope it’s nothing to do with Judith,’ Dee frowned. ‘She missed another photographic session this morning.’

      ‘Oh no!’ Natalie groaned. Judith’s tantrums were the last thing she wanted to cope with this morning, not on top of everything else.

      When Jason Dillman told her Judith had been the one chosen as Beauty Girl she had been a little worried about her unreliability, but he had insisted no one else would do, that it was a direct order from Adam Thornton himself. She couldn’t argue with that.

      Dee nodded. ‘Jake called this morning, but you were so engrossed in your accounts it seemed a shame to disturb you. I called Judith’s flat, but there was no answer.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s far from the first time she’s done this.’

      ‘I know,’ Natalie acknowledged, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Judith’s turning out to be a problem.’ And she could be the reason Adam Thornton wanted to see her after all, but not for a pat on the back!

      ‘She’s always been a problem,’ Dee dismissed, sitting down to begin sorting the sheets into order. ‘And I warned you about letting her become Beauty Girl.’

      Natalie didn’t mind the criticism. She and Dee had struck up a very close working relationship in the eighteen months they had been together, and that was the way it should be. With only the two of them running this agency they very often had to more or less read each other’s minds. They had been in agreement about Judith’s unsuitability to work for Thornton’s, but Jason Dillman had insisted it had to be her, so Natalie had had no choice. Unfortunately it was working out as badly as she had thought it would.

      ‘I’ll talk to her,’ she sighed.

      Dee raised sceptical brows. ‘Will that do any good?’

      ‘I doubt it,’ she grimaced. ‘But I will anyway.’

      ‘When she decides to put in an appearance.’

      ‘Yes,’ Natalie gave a rueful smile, ‘there is that.’ In the past Judith had only come in to see them when she was getting short of money; the work was always available when she wanted it, but since she had been chosen as Thornton’s Beauty Girl her appearances at the agency had only been social ones, and not very often.

      ‘I know she means a lot to you, Natalie,’ Dee decided. ‘But I don’t think I’d be crying if she found herself another agency.’

      Again Natalie made no comment at the criticism, knowing that it was mainly Dee who had to take the first disgruntled calls from clients Judith had let down, that her own calm to the stormy waters only came after Dee had taken the worst of it.

      She wouldn’t be too upset if Judith left them either, she had hoped in a way that Thornton’s would take the other girl over exclusively for an unspecified amount of time. But the contract, drawn up by Adam Thornton’s own lawyers, demanded her services for a year only, and at the end of that year she was free to work for whoever she wanted to. Natalie knew she would come back to her for work, that things were made easy for her there. Not for Judith the effort of a taxing career—work when you have to and play when you don’t, that was her motto—and one she lived by regardless of other people’s feelings. It wasn’t an easy situation for any of them.

      Natalie glanced at the plain white-gold watch on her slender wrist. A white-gold bracelet on her other wrist was her only other jewellery, her fingers were completely bare of rings, the nails painted the same vivid red as her lips. ‘I have to go now,’ she looked up. ‘I have half an hour to get to Adam Thornton’s office, that should give me time.’

      Dee frowned. ‘But it’s only a few minutes away.’

      She nodded. ‘I know. But he was insistent that he could only spare me fifteen minutes at eleven-thirty, so I daren’t be late.’

      Her assistant shrugged. ‘I think it will only take you ten minutes, but you go ahead.’ She smiled. ‘Sounds the forceful type, doesn’t he?’

      ‘At the very least,’ Natalie grimaced her agreement. At twenty-five she wasn’t daunted by much, having confidence in herself and her ability. But Adam Thornton had made her feel like a gauche schoolgirl.

      ‘I wonder what he looks like,’ Dee mused.

      ‘Awful—if he’s anywhere near as unpleasant as he sounds!’

      ‘I found his voice rather sexy,’ Dee grinned. ‘I go for that gravelly sound, it gives an impression of power.’ She grimaced. ‘He’s probably awful, as you said.’

      Natalie laughed. ‘Probably.’ She sobered. ‘If Judith should happen to call or come in …’

      ‘I’ll keep her here,’ said Dee in a hard voice. ‘By force, if I have to.’

      Natalie knew the other woman would too, although she put the problem of seeing Judith from her mind, concentrating on what she was going to say to Adam Thornton. She had no excuse for Judith’s behaviour, except perhaps that she had warned Jason Dillman at the time. Not that that was really an excuse, more a way out, and Adam Thornton didn’t sound the sort of man to let anyone out of taking responsibility for their mistakes.

      Her MG was parked in the car park beneath the building, and she raised a hand to the man on the gate as she drove the sports car out into the daylight.

      Late autumn, the time when all the leaves had fallen from the trees, leaving them bare and grey. The sky was also cloudy and grey, the onset of winter bringing forth an icy cold wind, something Natalie didn’t feel in the warmth of her car.

      She drove with a natural ability, her movements in this, as in everything, graceful in the extreme. The epitome of a hard-headed businesswoman she was not, although she could stand out for what she believed along with the best of them.

      The trouble was she had no idea what to prepare herself for at this meeting with Adam Thornton! He could want to talk about Beauty Girl, or he could