Free Tall Poppies by Louise Bagshawe Page B

Irish wake, a restrained affair with a few glasses of Scotch and some tired sandwiches, which was what Connor thought appropriate. She worked methodically in the store before the guests came back, tidying the last few boxes of pills and bottles behind the counter. Connor would be pleased to see the place straight and somehow it seemed a better farewell to Frank than a bunch of flowers anyway. Nina buffed the mahogany counter until she could see her own face and tried to figure out what Frank would have advised her. First up, don’t panic.
     
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    She leaned back against the empty shelves and took a deep breath. On her own again. Well, she’d been there before.
    It was scary, but she did have some options this time. The local storekeepers knew her and a couple of them had been over making probing noises. Fatimah Resaid in the large grocery across the street had even offered her a job, so she wasn’t going to starve. But Nina had the baby to think of now. Even if it was frightening, she had to hold out for something better. A career with potential.
    Mrs Minsky in the hairdresser’s opposite, who was fond of the grave, quiet kid who’d turned Frank Malone’s sorry little store around, had tried to do her a good turn just that morning. Abraham & Straus, the huge department store on Hoyt Street, ran a management trainee programme.
    ‘My niece’s husband works over there, he could put in a good word for ya,’ Mrs Minsky announced. ‘You got your pay, your benefits … that’s a real business, Nina, ya could go places with an outfit like that.’
    ‘Thank you, Mrs Minsky, I appreciate it,’ Nina said uncertainly.
    ‘What, ya don’t like Abraham and Straus? Ain’t it big enough for ya after the empire here?’ Mrs Minsky
    snorted, waving her hands round the empty room. ‘It’s not that,’ Nina said.
    ‘Ya worked in retail, in a drugstore,’ Mrs Minsky pointed out. ‘Now the question is, where can that take ya? In the store business, in Brooklyn? A and S is the best there is, honey, think about it.’
    When the mourners returned and pounced on the whisky and salmon, Nina was still thinking about it. By the time pompous young Connor took her aside and magnanimously announced he was adding one extra week to her severance pay, Nina had pretty much made up her mind.
     
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    She was more interested in ‘drug’ than ‘store’. Abraham & Straus was glamorous, for Brooklyn; a retail career could lead to Saks and Bloomingdale’s, to pretty cosmetic counters and staff discounts on perfume. It would be fun and fashionable.
    However, the real money was elsewhere. A year’s book-keeping had taught her the kind of cash that the prescription-drug companies made, despite lazy salesmen and lousy service. New York was hooked on its vitamins and minerals, its pills and potions, and it would stay that way. There were vast improvements needed in the pharmaceutical business. She’d been a customer and she knew it. Thinking about that gave her a little frisson of excitement.
    ‘ The drug business would be less diverting than a big retail store and much harder work, but it would provide better for her kid. As far as Nina was concerned, that was all that mattered.

Chapter 8
    Elizabeth arched her back under the caress of his tongue. Gerard’s grip was firm, one hand expertly brushing across her breasts, the other stroking between her legs as he moved down her spine. Her skin was hot and slippery, making her long, burnished hair damp around the forehead and dewing the chiselled outlines of her muscles. Gerard was so lost in lust for her incredible body he never noticed her eyes were closed. His own were fixed on the gilt-edged mirror opposite the bed, its ornate frame belying the wild scene it was reflecting. Silk sheets and pillows crumpled on the floor. A primrose satin Dior gown and evening suit flung casually over a chair. And Elizabeth’s firm body curving back against him, his cock pushing in and out of her …