Love to Hate You Read Online Free Page B

with models or women who work in PR – playing at having a job while they try to snare themselves a man. Of course, the whole lot of them together wouldn't have the IQ of a person of average intelligence, but that doesn't matter. All Ian wants is to be idolised, nothing more.
    I pull my hand out of his grip as though I'd burned it and look away. Better get back to reality. “Have a good night and a good weekend, then,” I say magnanimously, proud of having risen above the situation.
    He raises his usual sarcastic eyebrow, and my plan to bury the hatchet melts like snow in the sun. “Come on, get a move on,” I add as I walk towards the door, “you know bimbos don't like being kept hanging around. Never make them wait.”
    And to top it off, I give him a wink just before I disappear into the darkness of the corridor.
    I go back to my office and, for the first time since I opened my eyes this morning, I want to smile. Thanks Ian – thanks a lot.

Chapter 3
    I slam my little car up the gears as it noisily hurtles its way through the fields outside London. I'm in the countryside, approaching my parents’ farm, where everything is 100 per cent organic, and even more politically correct.
    My parents are bizarre creatures – or at least, that's how they look to someone as square as me. They're English but they're anti-royalists, they're vegetarians – vegans, to be precise – and they are anti-religion, or at least closer to Buddhism than to any other religion, they're a common law couple who never got married and they'll support pretty much any non-governmental organisation going. They have three children: Michael, my big brother, who works as a doctor for Amnesty International and various other organisations that help refugees around the world, and my sister Stacey who works as a solicitor for people too poor to able to afford one. And me.
    Given all this, it’s easy to understand why I feel uncomfortable around them. I'm a tax consultant, for God's sake! As far as they're concerned, my job is to help rich people get richer, which makes me a walking, talking symbol of the ills of society – a sort of she-demon with a laptop, if you will.
    But I'm also their youngest daughter, so they do their best to put up with me – if I was the eldest they'd probably have cut me off a long time ago. When Charles was in my life, they looked upon me with a slightly more benevolent eye, but without him I'll surely be back to being the least loved member of the family.
    *
    As soon as I park, the usual flock of geese rushes over to try and bite my hand in greeting.
    Free-range geese are cheerful creatures, according to my mother. I'm of a somewhat different opinion, but I've never had the guts to confess it.
    I don’t even get
why
my parents keep geese, to tell you the truth, since they don’t eat them. Geese are nasty creatures, as everybody knows, and the ones my parents produce are even more belligerent and hateful than usual.
    Since I’m quite used to all this, I head for the front door, assuredly sidestepping the cats and dogs sleeping around the porch. Years of practice have got me quite good at this, so it only takes me a few seconds to get myself inside the house, and the killer goose that's had its sights on me since I arrived is left honking outside the closed door. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.
    â€œMum, I’m here!” I shout, so she can hear me.
    â€œIn the kitchen,” my mother's mellow voice comes back.
    And there she is indeed, preparing a vegetable soup with an unusual perfume. Never ask what she puts in her cooking, you might die of fright.
    â€œOh,
there
you are, Jenny, we were worried about you. You’re an hour late,” she says immediately. Today my mother is wearing a bright yellow dress which, judging from the dazzling colour, is probably meant to be some sort of homage to the Sun.
    â€œI’m not late. I told you I'd be