Agent Provocateur Read Free Page B

Grace into the neglected wife cliché, but she refuses. She likes Oliver; she likes that he likes her enough to want to neglect her on a permanent basis, although, of course, she will never agree to it.
    He works in the music business, but Grace couldn’t describe his job. They are lovers but only in the way that Grace will allow. When they first met, she told him all about her job, and he tried to make her quit, which is when she told him that if they were going to continue they would do it on her terms, not on his. Which is why she continues to see Eddie, her other lover. She does not have to answer a charge of-infidelity because she is totally honest. They both know about their non-exclusive status and even if they don’t like it, they accept it. They are her men who cannot cheat.
    Eddie, like Oliver, accepts the situation because he believes he is in love with Grace, and is convinced that one day she will wake up next to him and realise that he is the love of her life. Then she will quit her job. Neither of them is married, but Grace believes they see other women. She needs to believe this. There is nothing underhand about the arrangement: it suits her and, according to the men, it suits them as well. No one can cheat on her because she won’t put herself in that position. It’s as simple as that.
    Eddie is the man who has been in Grace’s life the longest. Eddie is a fashion buyer. She used to be his assistant, but they didn’t sleep together until she had long given up her job and started in her current role. He is single, in his early fifties, and is too much of a confirmed bachelor to settle down. He never pressures Grace because he enjoys his life and their arrangement too much. He thinks he might be in love with her, but he is in love with his freedom more. They don’t see each other very often. With Grace having little social time anyway, and with two men to entertain, she neglects Eddie for long periods.
    Grace sometimes thinks of the time when she was working for Eddie, in a nine to five type of role, but it seems like another life. She didn’t enjoy the industry, the rigid hours, the confinement to an office full of people who were equally as fed up as she. However, sometimes she misses the normality, and sometimes she can barely remember it.
    Eddie and Occasional Oliver are not just her lovers, but they are also her friends. They are the ones she calls if she is having a bad day, or a bad night; they are the people she trusts. If someone analysed her relationships, they would probably say that she has to have more than one man because her rota of lovers is her protection, the armour she wears on her heart. They would also say that they stop her from being alone. Because without them, that is exactly what she is. A mad woman, alone with her fish.
    Grace doesn’t believe there is anything wrong in the way she has chosen to live her personal life. She is no longer sure that she is capable of falling in love, so she is doing what she needs to do to keep her happiness. She isn’t trying to hurt anyone, and she always says that if that were going to happen, she would walk away from him. Nevertheless, she is a young, single woman with an unusual career and lifestyle.
     
    Oliver finally decides what he wants to say. ‘You didn’t call me back last night.’
    ‘Sorry, but I was working and I got in late.’
    ‘So you nailed another bastard?’
    ‘I did. I need to call Nicole, who will have to tell his wife.’ Nicole has a golden rule: she doesn’t start work until ten every morning. She says she needs to exercise before work, and that is the earliest she can make it.
    ‘Poor cow.’
    ‘I know, and the thing is he was such a prat. He was this arrogant prick who carne on to me with hardly any encouragement. It makes me really sad that he has this lovely wife at home but he’d rather be in a bar chasing skirt.’
    ‘You even sound like a man.’
    ‘I’ve been around too many cheats.’
    ‘Anyway,