Dying For You Read Online Free

wonderful style. Don't know how he affords it as according to his file he doesn't work and has no private means at all. Well, apart from the little importing firm he told me about.’ She giggled. ‘Said he'd let me have some coke at cost. Wasn't that darling of him?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Rafferty.
    The intercom on Isobel's desk beeped, Isobel confirmed Nigel Blythe had arrived and was asked to send him through.
    Rafferty walked along the short corridor, found the office, knocked and was bidden to enter, Caroline Durward stood up and came round her desk to introduce herself. Rafferty placed her around the mid-thirties. Tall, three or four inches under Rafferty's six foot, she was a little overweight, but it was extra poundage she carried with dignity. On the plain side, with a prominent nose, her make-up, though heavy, had been expertly applied to make the most of her assets of flawless skin and clear grey eyes. In contrast to the romantic decor, she wore a business-like skirt suit in a brisk navy. She invited him to sit in front of her desk - a delicate-looking construction with ormolu gilding, the obligatory computer perched incongruously on top.
    After he had handed over the form that had been posted to him for completion at home she glanced quickly through it and told him with a smile, ‘That seems to be in order.’
    Rafferty shifted uncomfortably on his chair as Caroline Durward began to enter ‘his’ details on the computer, for although her manner was friendly, she put him in mind of Miss Robson, the deputy head from his junior school days. She had shared Ms Durward's well-modulated diction. It hadn't stopped her from putting the fear of God into the young Rafferty and his classmates— literally, as she was the Religious Instruction teacher. She had insisted they learn great tracts of the bible by heart and would send the blackboard rubber flying towards the head of the child who failed. So while half of Rafferty was trying to remember he was meant to be a cool middle-class dude, the other half prepared to duck.
    A tiny frown marred the previous smooth perfection of Caroline's forehead. Rafferty guessed she had come to the section of his form that was liberally daubed with correction fluid. And as she glanced at Nigel's passport photograph, Rafferty presented her with his best ‘Nigel’ profile and gazed around him at the walls of the office which were decorated with yet more wedding photographs. He suspected they were mock-ups. Sensibly, he had made enquiries and discovered the agency had only been set up six months previously; scarcely time enough for so much wedded bliss to have occurred, he thought. There was even one such photo on Caroline Durward's desk, but as this one lost the dreamy soft-focus and featured a plain bride who was undoubtedly the younger version of Caroline Durward, with a groom whose eyes were so screwed up against the sun that his features were distorted, he guessed this marriage was real enough.
    By now, Caroline Durward had bravely fought her way to the end of his form and had ‘his’ details entered on her computer. She looked brightly at him and said, ‘Now, Mr Blythe - or may I call you Nigel?’ At Rafferty's nod, she said, ‘Do call me Caroline. We like to keep things informal here.’ She went on to enlarge upon the information he had received through the post. ‘As our literature states, we're a small, select agency. We serve the professional classes.’
    Rafferty kept his face straight as Caroline's rather heavy features darted an unconscious little moue towards his unprofessionally completed form, before she continued, even more brightly. ‘Apart from the guarantee of a minimum of two introductions, you'll be able to attend our regular parties and other functions – trips to the theatre, weekends away in Paris, Amsterdam and so on, so you will have the opportunity to meet as many of our members as care to attend. We also have many action-packed trips and weekends