Read Into Temptation (Spoils of Time 03) for Free Online Page B

And I am not going to be held responsible for the possible drowning of a dozen little girls.’
    ‘We wouldn’t drown. That’s so silly. We would be very careful. And it wouldn’t be on the ocean, it would be on the creek.’
    ‘Jenna,’ said Barty, setting her briefcase down, realising reluctantly that she had to give this her full attention, ‘you were going to be very careful when you got on Lee’s pony last autumn. But you fell off and broke your arm. You were going to be careful when you went down that run in the Catskills in January and broke your ankle. You were going to be careful when you climbed that tree at South Lodge last summer and fell out of it and concussed yourself. You can’t be careful for yourself, let alone twelve other people. Sailing is potentially a very dangerous thing to do. Now you can have a weekend party, everyone can stay, and you can all go riding on the shore, but you are not going out in sailing boats and that is all there is to it. All right?’
    Jenna looked at her; her lovely little heart-shaped face grief-stricken, her extraordinary green-blue eyes filled with tears.
    ‘But Mummy, I’ve told them now. I shall look so stupid. Please, please, just two of us at a time. And over at Sag Harbor, of course, not the ocean—’
    ‘Jenna no. You’ll have to un-tell them. And look stupid. It’s not fatal. In any case, I would put money on their mothers all refusing to allow them to come. Now, why don’t you get your bag and I’ll give you a lift to school.’
    Jenna gave it a last shot.
    ‘Please! Don’t you love me at all?’
    ‘Very much. So much that I want you and indeed your friends to live to grow up. Come on. Or you’ll have to walk with Maria.’
    ‘I like walking,’ said Jenna, ‘I’m not ready.’
    She might have recognised defeat, but she wasn’t prepared for total surrender.
    ‘Fine. See you tonight. Love you.’
    Silence. Barty walked out of the door of Number Seven, the house on the Upper East Side she had bought when she and Jenna had moved to New York, and closed it very firmly. She was fifty yards down the street when the door opened again, and she heard Jenna shout.
    ‘Love you too.’
    She had won then: this time.
    She reached her office at Lyttons New York in its brownstone in Gramercy Park and felt calmer even as she looked up at it; many other publishers were in huge modern buildings now in midtown, but Barty adored the gracious mansion-style setting of her workplace, with its iron railings and wide steps running up to the huge front door. She was also extremely excited about her recent acquisition of the house next door to accommodate Lyttons’ slow but steady growth. Five senior editors now, each with their own team; as well as an editorial director, Marcus Forrest, with whom she had an interesting love-hate relationship; a fine list, of both non-fiction and fiction; a steady presence in the best-seller lists; along with a reputation for publishing both popular and literary books. And of course, overall control of Lyttons London, not merely financial but editorial – although that was a discipline rather lightly exercised. Budgets were one thing and she was required to approve them; purchases of books, of authors, promotional plans and scheduling quite another. She walked into her office on the first floor and sank slightly wearily at her desk; she found her run-ins with Jenna extremely exhausting. Exactly as those with Jenna’s father had been . . .
    Her secretary, Cindy Phillips, appeared with a steaming mug of coffee; she knew what her boss’s priorities were. No offer of any book, however exciting, no review however brilliant, no sales figures however good – or bad – were given a moment’s consideration until the first coffee of the day was on Barty’s desk. She picked it up, smiled at Cindy gratefully. ‘Thank you. Anything urgent?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Fine. I’ll buzz you in a minute.’
    She sat drinking the coffee, looking