Sheer Abandon Read Online Free Page B

most sought-after high-rise buildings in Docklands, with huge sheet-glass windows and coolly pale wood floors, furnished from Conran and Purves & Purves; she owned a soft-top Mercedes SLK, which she used only at weekends; she had a walk-in wardrobe that was an exercise in fashion name-dropping, Armani, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, and a stack of shoes from Tod’s and Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik filed in their boxes in the fashionably approved manner, with Polaroids stuck on the outside for instant recognition. And she worked on average fourteen hours every day, often over the weekend, had a very limited social life, hardly ever went to the theatre or concerts because she so often had to cancel.
    “And what about a boyfriend?” asked her sister, married now for seven years with three children. “I suppose you just go out with people in your own line of work.”
    “Yes, that’s right,” Martha had said briefly, and it was true; she had had two rather tidy relationships with solicitors on a similar level to her, and one heartbreaker of an affair with a third, an American who had just happened to be married and failed to acquaint her with the fact until it was too late and she was helplessly in love with him. Martha had ended the relationship immediately, but it hurt her horribly, and a year later she was only just able to consider going out with anybody at all.
    She wasn’t lonely exactly, she worked too hard for that, and she had a few good friends, working women like herself with whom she had dinner occasionally, and a couple of gay men she was immensely fond of, who were invaluable escorts for formal functions. And if an empty Sunday stretched before her, she simply went to the office and worked. But somewhere within her was a deep dark place which she tried to deny, which drew her down into it during her often sleepless nights, usually at the news that yet another friend was settling into a permanent relationship; a place filled with fears: of a life that was not merely independent and successful but solitary and comfortless, where no one would share her triumphs or ease her failures, where fulfilment could only be measured in material things and she would look back with remorse on a life of absolute selfishness.
    But (she would tell herself in the morning, having escaped from the dark place) being single was perfectly suited to her, not only to her ferocious ambition; nobody messed up her schedule or interfered with her routine, no untidied clothes or unwashed cups or unfolded newspapers destroyed the perfection of her apartment. Apart from anything else, it meant her life was completely under her control.

    She walked back into her office at six, having studied herself in the mirror as she left the overnight room; she certainly didn’t look tired. She actually looked as if she had had a good night’s sleep.
    Martha was not a beautiful girl, and certainly not pretty; she was what the French call
jolie laide
. Her face was small and oval-shaped, her skin creamy, her eyes dark and brilliant, but her nose was just a little too large for her face, a patrician nose, and she hated it and from time to time she considered having surgery, only to reject it again on the grounds that the time could not be spared. Her mouth also displeased her, too big again, she felt, for her face, although her teeth were perfect and very pretty. And as for her hair…a lovely gleaming brown certainly, but very straight and fine and requiring endless (and extremely expensive) care simply to produce the easy swinging bob that looked as if it could be washed and left to dry on its own.
    And yet people always thought her gorgeous: glossy, perfectly dressed, and wand-slim. Her appearance was the result, like everything else in her life, of a great deal of hard work.
    There was a weary-looking Asian woman plugging in a vacuum cleaner in her office.
    “Lina, good morning. How are you?” Martha knew her quite well; she was always there at