Ladies Who Launch Read Online Free Page B

thin line. ‘I worked for him longer than I’ve worked for you.’
    Della saw the features of his face soften and she guessed he was about to change tactic.
    ‘Oh, Dells,’ he sighed and held out his hands in a gesture of apologetic surrender. ‘Of
course
he’d remember you. But he won’t
need
you like I do.
I
have
to go on this golfing weekend with Pookie Barnes. I owe him after he’s shifted all his business to us from Cleancheap and he’s making noises about recommending our girls
to clean the offices of his contacts. I have to keep him on side. I hear that Roy Frog is hopping about it.’
    Jimmy laughed at his own joke. He and Roy Frog’s firm Cleancheap had a longstanding rivalry. Della knew that it was thanks to Jimmy’s schmoozing that Pookie Barnes,
Cleancheap’s biggest customer, had jumped ship faster than a rat on the
Titanic
wearing a lifejacket.
    Still Della tried to reason with him. ‘Jimmy …’
    ‘You shouldn’t have let that Ivanka go home.’ He wagged his finger at her, intimating that this situation was of her own doing. He always referred to the office junior as
that Ivanka
as if she still wasn’t part of the Diamond Shine crew despite working there for six months.
    ‘I couldn’t exactly chain her to the desk, could I?’ replied Della. ‘Besides which, she wouldn’t have been much good in her state.’
    ‘I’ve worked through worse.’
    ‘Well good for you, but the lass wasn’t putting it on. Any idiot could have seen that. Bed was the best place for her.’
    ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right. She should spend the day in bed.’ He grinned. ‘Send your old inferior boss a present instead with apologies for your absence.’
    ‘It might not arrive in time.’
    ‘Send him a bottle of champagne. On me. Overnight delivery.’
    If Della’s eyes had opened any further they would have burst out of their orbits and dropped onto the desk. Jimmy Diamond was as tight as a duck’s stitched-up arse. He would sooner
have cut his own balls off than paid next day delivery on anything, never mind champagne for a bloke he didn’t even know. He must be desperate for her to cover the office if he was offering
to go to those lengths.
    ‘I can tell what you’re thinking,’ said Jimmy, guessing correctly. ‘I’m not exactly famous for charging champagne to the company account for people I don’t
know, but I
really
need you here, we’re too busy for you to be off at the moment. Come on, Dells, don’t be mad with me.’
    He gave her his best round puppy-dog eyes.
    ‘Okay, Della, what do I have to do for us not to fall out about this? Do you want me to beg? Look, I’m begging,’ and Jimmy got down on his knees and clenched his hands together
as if praying to her.
    ‘Oh get up, you fool,’ said Della, trying her best to remain annoyed.
    ‘I love you, Della. You know I do.’
    Oh, if only
, thought Della.
    ‘And you love me, which is why you’re going to send that bloke some champagne instead of going to his crap party.’
    He was right.
    ‘Please please please, Dells. Be my friend and tell me that you agree with me,’ Jimmy insisted until her face broke into a resigned smile and she knew that he had won her over.
Again. He always could because with the tiniest bit of flirting, a little bodily contact, the mere hint of appeal in his voice, she was putty in his hands and had been for fifteen years.
    ‘Don’t go mad though. No frigging Dom Perignon. Bubbles is bubbles.’
    That sounded more like him. He hasn’t gone totally mad after all, thought Della.
    ‘Oh, and order some chocs for the missus will you, love. Top notch, big box.’
    Della sighed. ‘Okay. If I must.’
    She had really wanted to go to Whitby, but Jimmy needed her. And Jimmy was the number one man in her life, as she was his number one woman. Despite what Connie, his Lady Muck of a wife, might
have thought.

Chapter 2
    In one single hour, Cheryl Parker’s whole existence had tipped upside down and her