Mistress on Demand

SOPHIE had woken up with an awful presentiment thatthe day wouldn't go well. From the moment she'd squirted toothpaste all down the front of her pyjama top, to the near disaster when she'd just narrowly escaped spilling a whole mug of coffee down the front of the 'posh' frock she was reluctantly wearing to her friend Diana's wedding, her nerves had been jangled. Okay, so she didn't like weddings --hatedthem, in fact, but Diana was her closest female friend, and after a tumultuous year when her volatile relationship with Freddie was on one minute, then off the next, the least Sophie could do was show up and bear witness to the occasion.But her luck, if she was going to be blessed with any at all today -- and Sophie was beginning to think that she wasn't -- just seemed to get worse and worse. She'd made three-quarters of the journey to the register office in her car when there'd been an awful spluttering hiss from the engine, then a pop, then...nothing, as it had finally given up the ghost and come to an undignified end by the side of the road. Sophie had had no alternative but to grab her coat and start walking to the register office. There was nobody she could ring for help because she wasn't covered for breakdown and, besides,wouldn't you know it'she'd left her mobile phone on the hall tablealong with her purseas she'd rushed out through the door. So she hadn't even been able to get a taxi.Now, as she hurried across the grey London pavements grimly clutching her umbrella because it had been raining all morning, and wasstillraining, and just when she believed her luck couldn't get any worse, a gleaming black Rolls Royce swept past her into a puddle, which resembled a small reservoir, and all but drowned her in the backwash. Coming to a furious standstill as cold, muddy water dripped like sludge down the side of her fawn-coloured coat and turned her expensive matching shoes to a darker, grimier version of the concrete pavement, Sophie swore out loud.Not just once -- but three times, in quick violent succession, each passionate utterance giving undisputed vent to her fury and indignation.Narrowing her gaze, she saw to her surprise and satisfaction that the stately vehicle had slowed, then stopped at the side of the kerb. Not hesitating, she hurried towards it, her heart pumping with rage and her breath tight, her only concern that whoever was in there got a piece of her mind that they wouldn't soon forget. If Sophie had to arrive at her best friend's marriage ceremony looking as if she'd slept in a puddle beneath Waterloo bridge, then the occupant of that damned Rolls Royce was going to know that she prayed the same bad luck which had been visited on her today would dog the rest ofhisday.She didn't for one moment doubt that the car's owner would be male. Only a thoughtless, insensitiveoafwould deliberately drive through a puddle when he could clearly see her walking on the pavement beside it. But when she reached the car, a silver-haired chauffeur stepped out and looked immediately contrite."I'm so sorry, miss. We were in a hurry and I didn't see that confounded puddle until it was too late.""Well,I'min a hurry, too, but you don't see me ruining someone else's day with my thoughtlessness, do you? You should have been more careful! Now what am I supposed to do?" Her freezing fingers curling stiffly around her umbrella handle, and the puddle that had soaked her shoes turning her feet to twin blocks of ice, Sophie had trouble keeping her teeth from chattering."Get back in the car, Louis. I don't have time for this. We're going to be late as it is."It was only at the sound of that coolly imperious voice that Sophie glanced into the passenger-seat window at the back of the car. Catching a glimpse of precision-cut wheat-blond hair and eyes as hard as flint, she felt a shiver run down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold or damp cCox, Maggie is the author of 'Mistress on Demand', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373125548 and ISBN 0373125542.