Heartbreaker Read Online Free Page A

in London’s financial district, but no woman living alone, even in the City, should let someone into her building without first making sure of her visitor’s identity.
    The building itself had clearly been renovated in recent years for the lift was modern, equipped with a phone for use in emergencies, and the ride was so smooth that there was barely a jolt when the car stopped at the fourth floor.
    G was waiting for me. Automatically I stepped out onto the landing, but I never heard the doors whisper shut again and I never heard the lift return to the lobby.
    I was absolutely dumbfounded.
    And so was he.

CHAPTER TWO
    Gavin
    Youth culture is not unaware of sexual love and its implied commitments, but it has a tolerant attitude to what it calls
shagging.
In one significant section of youth culture, many young people shag or have sexual intercourse with each other whenever they feel like it, the way they have a cup of coffee or a hamburger.
    Godless Morality

RICHARD HOLLOWAY
    This cool blonde’s creamed into my life like a chilled-out meteor. Her legs are luscious and she’s got the kind of feet a fetishist would kill for, dainty little numbers wrapped in low-cut, skin-tight black leather. Phwoar! WIKKID, as the teeny-totties croak, the little innocents who have no idea what wickedness really is. I take one look and my eyes are instantly spherical. This babe’s mega-shagworthy. In fact she’s exactly the kind of babe I dream of shagging when I’m slogging away at pushbutton sex with a load of masculine lard.
    But what the hell’s she doing here? And where’s Richard? And just what the fuck’s going on?
    “Hullo, Gorgeous!” I say casually. “Looking for something?”
    She turns a ritzy shade of pink. That’s probably because I’m wearing nothing except a pair of CK jeans low on the hips with the zip peeled back to reveal an eye-popping portion of sub-navel hair. In contrast she’s glossed up in a beige-coloured ball-breaker’s business suit and a virgin-white silk shirt. I wonder what she’s got on underneath, and at once I’m picturing an onward-and-upward lacy number and a couple of non-silicone knockers that remind the old soaks of champagne glasses— traditional champagne glasses, I mean, not those bloody flutes that get plonked in front of you nowadays in any shithole that calls itself a wine bar.
    Ms. Shaggable’s about to speak, and I’ll bet my best Rolex I shan’t hear estuary English. We’re talking class here. We’re talking style.
    With an oddly precise inflection she says: “I’m a friend of Richard Slaney’s.”
    At once I fling the door wide open. “Then come on in!” I purr, voice smooth as liquid chocolate. “Any friend of Richard Slaney’s is a friend of mine!”
    She takes the plunge and crosses the threshold.
    I’ve recovered from my shock and my eyes have returned to their normal shape after their seconds of being spherical, but I’m more baffled than ever. Can she be Richard’s PA? No, she’d have said so. And she’s not Moira playing games either. I saw a photo of Moira when I was at Richard’s home in Hampshire.
    Golden Girl’s speaking again. What
is
that precise little inflection she gives to her careful Home Counties accent? There’s something foreign there, but I can’t identify the country. Fascinating.
    “What’s the G stand for?” she says, and of course I think of G-spots and G-strings and assume this is some kind of upmarket verbal foreplay, but it turns out she just wants to know my first name.
    “Gavin,” I say, and find I’m unable to take the suspense a moment longer. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Carta Graham. I used to be a partner with Richard at Curtis, Towers, but now I’m—”
    “—fundraising for that clergy-bloke who’s fixing Bridget—yeah, Richard told me about you. Okay, what’s going on?”
    She looks me straight in the eyes and says: “He had a coronary this morning.”
    “Shit!”
    “He’s still alive but I don’t