Free The Shameless Life of Ruiz Acosta by Susan Stephens Page A

she had to take as a sign that the agony-aunt column was on the up. ‘But let’s not get carried away,’ she cautioned the two girls sent to help her. ‘This is still early days, and—’
    ‘You’ve worked a miracle so we can all keep our jobs?’ Pixie suggested.
    ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Holly argued red-faced.
    ‘You have to carry on living with the playboy now … poor you,’ Freya said, exchanging a wry look with Pixie. ‘Not that we’re jealous, or anything.’
    What would Ruiz have to say about that? Holly wondered, feeling the buzz inside her ramp up a gear at the thought that she had to go out to supper tonight with him.
    ‘Anyway, we’re just glad to be here,’ Freya added warmly as she plonked a thriving pot plant, her personalised mug, a budget-sized box of tissues and a generous supply of chocolate for them all to share on the desk.
    ‘You’re right,’ Holly agreed, telling herself not to be so selfish and join in the celebration. She had to stop wishing and longing, and pretending she could steer her life to a happy-ever-after-ending in which a confident Holly Valiant won the hand of a prince instead of a frog. She could do what she liked through the column, but not that. The ‘Living with a Playboy’ feature was a fiction to boost reader numbers, which it had done, and that had to be enough for her. Except it wasn’t, Holly admitted silently as she exchanged spirited high fives with the other girls.
    But hang on a minute, Holly thought as the celebration subsided. Wasn’t this expansion of the column and securing of their jobs the moment she’d been working towards? And wasn’t it essential to immerse herself in that work if she was going to forget being anxious about supper with Signor Sexy tonight? Her gaze fired as the other girls looked to her expectantly. ‘Chocolate?’ she said.
    ‘Tick!’ the girls chorused.
    ‘Bottle of fizz to celebrate?’ She was less sure of this one and was already planning to slip out and buy something.
    ‘Tick!’ Pixie said triumphantly, producing a bottle from behind her back.
    ‘I think we have everything we need,’ Holly confirmed. ‘Let’s kick this column into shape!’
    And let me have something I can control to think about, she prayed fervently, instead of a whole lot of man that I can’t.

 

     
     

    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall—’ Will someone cover the damn mirror!
    Tonight’s the night. I am taking the playboy out to supper and I can’t decide what to wear. I realise that taking him out reverses the natural order of things—but then I am not the playboy’s natural order, if you take my meaning. I am more of a meagre side dish—the type of thing you order to try, and more often than not leave untouched. Me? Lacking in confidence? What makes you think that?
    All right. I admit it. Every item of clothing I possess is on the bed, or on the floor. Carrier bags and sales tickets are scattered around like confetti, because, as it turns out, my wardrobe is full of nothing to wear. And, as I am constantly reminded by the playboy’s long-legged basque-wearing friends, sex sells. Not exactly my area of expertise. Consequently, I have decided that my next article for you will be a helpful piece on the subject of staying out of debt. At least that’s where my credit card provider told me I should be concentrating my thoughts.
    I must admit the real crisis of confidence came when I tried to decide what to underpin my modest outfit with tonight. As I don’t possess a single basque, or hold-up stocking, should I chance a shocking-pink thong?
    As my underwear is unlikely to receive an airing, that hardly matters, does it?
    And the playboy? He’s acting as cool and as sexy as ever. Accompanying me to supper is nothing more than a workaday chore for him in order to keep in his sister’s good books. So at least I should be safe. And I should be glad about that—right?
    TYPING up her column was a