The Making of Mia (32 page)

Joshua took a sip of his drink, and Mia followed suit. It was one of the most delicious drinks she had ever tasted, and even
though she was impressed that Joshua had gone to the trouble of getting them, a tiny voice in her head asked if she wouldn’t
be more at home with a gin and tonic. Mia ignored the voice and smiled. She would just have to get used to such extravagance.
She was editor of
Gloss
, after all. She had a lifestyle to keep up.

‘Joshua, it’s superb, thank you so much,’ Mia said, and she took another sip. ‘I can see why Marina Stone likes this cocktail
so much.’ Mia wondered if Joshua would mention that he and Marina were lovers. Would he ever be that honest with her?

Joshua laughed. ‘Marina likes extremes, and this drink takes “ice with a slice” to a whole new level. Unfortunately Marina
also likes to powder her nose a little too much, so I’ve not seen her in a while. She’s at a place in America at the moment
cleaning up. I have to admit I miss her – she’s a good friend, even if her nose is falling to bits.’

‘Joshua …’ Mia began hesitantly. ‘May I ask where Madeline is?’ The moment Mia asked the question she instantly regretted
it. Joshua’s face turned to thunder, and Mia could tell that the subject of his wife was a sore point. Best stick to mistresses,
Mia reminded herself as she took another sip of her drink. She had to admit it was exquisite.

Joshua sat next to Mia and sighed. For a moment she thought she could see real pain in his face, but the closer Mia looked,
the more she realised that Joshua was putting on an act. He didn’t give a fuck about Madeline Turner, and Mia knew it.

‘She’s gone,’ Joshua said melodramatically, and Mia wondered if he stretched to fake tears. ‘Our marriage has been unhappy
for a long time, and unfortunately Madeline became so preoccupied with trying to have a baby that our
relationship floundered. I don’t believe Madeline is well, so she is spending some time in a hospital while I file for divorce.’

Mia put her martini glass on the coffee table carefully and turned to look at Joshua. Was she hearing him correctly? ‘A hospital?’

Joshua nodded. ‘I’m afraid to say Madeline isn’t quite right in the head, so we persuaded her some time in a little clinic
would do her good,’ he said, sighing again. Mia could see an amused glint in his eye, yet she played along. Lying was what
working in the media was all about.

‘The newspaper piece was the final straw to be honest. Anyone could see that Madeline was not well, and my father and I realised
we had to do something about it. The poor woman was quite delusional and refused to admit she had spoken to the
Media Guardian
, but we phoned them up and they forwarded a copy of the email she originally sent them. I think they thought we were going
to sue, but Madeline’s health was our main priority. We were rather shocked – we didn’t think that Madeline was this bad.’

Mia bit her lip and felt ashamed of herself. Poor Madeline.

‘But let’s not talk about my soon-to-be ex-wife any more,’ Joshua announced, the mood in the sitting-room lightening instantly.
‘And let’s talk about you. I must say that I knew it was only a matter of time before we handed the magazine over to you.
What you have done with
Gloss
is marvellous,’ he said, brushing her arm with his. ‘And now that you are formally editor the sky is the limit with what
you can achieve … with my help, of course. I hope you don’t mind but I thought we’d run through the salary increase and the
flat when we’re back at the office.’ For a moment Joshua looked a little uncertain, and Mia stared at him. She could guess
what was coming as he cleared his throat and turned on
his charming smile, reserved only for women he wanted to fuck.

He spoke softly. ‘I really want to use this evening to get to know you, Mia. I think you’re one of the most beautiful women
I have ever met, and, if you don’t object, I want to forget about the Mia who I work with in the office and get to find out
more about what drives you, what turns you on. You fascinate me, Miss Blackwood, and I want to discover the real you.’

Mia tried not to laugh. If Joshua knew who the real Mia Blackwood was he would have made her regurgitate his £4,000 cocktail
back into the glass before throwing her out into the street. Imagining his fury when he found out who she really was pleased
her, and she gave Joshua a slow, sexy smile. If she could get Joshua to fall in love with her, revenge would taste even sweeter.

‘I’d like that,’ Mia said tenderly, and as she put her hand into Joshua’s she could feel him squeezing it gently. Even though
she could see past all of Joshua’s bullshit there was something about him that was quite sexy in an obvious way. She let Joshua
lead her into the dining-room, and she didn’t even mind that his eyes never left hers the entire time.

‘Tell me you didn’t fuck him,’ Amelia said on the phone to her best friend the next day. ‘Please tell me that even you wouldn’t
fuck Joshua Garnet. You hate him!’

Mia lay on her bed and giggled as she remembered the evening. Joshua’s private chef – who used to work at the Ivy, no less
– had served up a meal of her favourite foods: tender sirloins of steak, crispy fries and a soufflé that oozed a river of
dark, bitter chocolate the moment her spoon broke the surface. After dinner Joshua had tried to tempt her with Paxton & Whitfield
cheeses, Rozes Port Red Reserve and Pierre Marcolini chocolate truffles, but Mia was too high on
the conversation with Joshua to eat another bite. She knew Joshua was trying to seduce her with food, and she appreciated
his attention to detail. To her surprise, Joshua was brilliant company, full of funny stories and amusing anecdotes, and above
all else he knew the magazine industry as well as she did. It was wonderful to have a sparring partner, and even though Mia
hated him she allowed herself to ignore her vendetta for one evening so she could enjoy a side of Joshua Garnet she had never
experienced before.

‘It’s all part of my plan, Ames,’ Mia said, ignoring her question. ‘If I can get him to fall in love with me, it will make
the realisation that I am Jo Hill hurt all the more.’

‘You did, didn’t you,’ Amelia said bluntly, and there was a pause at the other end of the phone.

‘I won’t say it didn’t cross my mind,’ Mia admitted, ‘but no, I didn’t. When it comes down to it I’m old-fashioned about my
virginity, and I don’t want to lose it to the person I hate more than anyone else.’

Amelia let out a sigh of relief.

‘Besides,’ Mia said, ‘if I refuse to sleep with him he may even propose just to get me into bed. Imagine Joshua Garnet getting
down on one knee to Joanne Hill and how he’d feel once he knew what he’d done.’

April 2007

Six months later Joshua sat in on the editorial meeting. As Mia gave a presentation about her vision for the future of
Gloss
, Joshua let his eyes wander over her. Although she was dressed sedately for spring in a pink Ballantyne cashmere jumper and
soft grey trousers from Joseph, Joshua thought Mia was still incredibly sexy. With her high, firm breasts almost jutting out
of the cashmere every time she made a point, and her juicy, round bottom being hugged deliciously
by the wool of her trousers, Mia was scandalously sexy. She may have acted like butter wouldn’t melt, but Joshua knew that
underneath that sweet exterior there was something a lot dirtier than most people would think. She had a devious side, and
there was something in the steel in her eyes that made Joshua realise that she was a lot like him: cunning, manipulative and
accustomed to getting what she wanted. However, Joshua thought, as he shifted in his seat to try to hide his erection, if
you didn’t know her, Mia could almost have passed for a virgin. There was something about her that reminded him of a schoolgirl
desperate to lose her virginity, and it turned him on even more.

Yet the more she spoke, the more Joshua realised that there was more to Mia than just a knockout body and a face that Cameron
Diaz would be jealous of. Mia truly was a brilliant editor, and it looked as though his instinct about her was right. She
would not only be a credit to the company – selling hundreds of thousands of magazines and bringing in enough advertising
revenue to wipe his ass on – but also to his family. If she just spread her legs – and Joshua was sure that she would, as
no woman had ever said no to him – then the Garnet heirs would be beautiful children.

Joshua tried to concentrate on Mia’s sales forecast, but gave up. He let his gaze lazily wander over Mia’s body again, and
he could feel his balls beginning to ache. Mia was a distraction, a horny, beautiful and lithe distraction, and Joshua loved
women who played hard to get. Girls who threw themselves at him were a turn-off – they were only after a slice of the Garnet
fortune, and Joshua wanted a woman who already had money. If they were poor they couldn’t possibly be able to afford to look
after their bodies properly, and a flabby twenty-something with badly applied fake tan and cellulite didn’t do it for him.
Mia did. And however much Mia pretended she didn’t want him, Joshua knew that when the time
was right she would pour herself out of whatever designer dress she was wearing for his exclusive benefit, and would allow
herself to submit to him. It was only a matter of time, and even though Joshua was nearing thirty-five, there was still all
the time in the world for Mia to realise she was going to marry him and have his child. But if Mia thought he was going to
propose without a taster of what she was like in bed, she had another thing coming. There was no question that Joshua was
going to try her out first and make sure she was up to scratch at sex. He had made that error with Madeline, and he wasn’t
about to make the same mistake twice.

As Mia rounded up the meeting and her editorial team filed out of the room, her eyes caught Joshua’s. She blushed.

‘Great meeting,’ Joshua said, and as he walked past Mia to leave he lightly brushed past her breasts. Mia blushed even harder,
and Joshua laughed softly to himself. He wouldn’t have to wait much longer, he thought to himself. Mia Blackwood was very
nearly his.

‘Have you seen this?’ Lucy asked, waving a newspaper at Mia as she rushed into
Gloss
first thing on Monday morning. Mia was drinking a strong Starbucks latte in her office in the hope that it would wake her
up, and she glanced at her features editor wearily. So long as it didn’t involve her, Mia wasn’t interested in whatever exploits
the tabloids were banging on about – she had better things to be thinking of. Mia had spent most of the early hours on the
phone to Gable, hitting him for his opinion on how she could get away with not losing her virginity to Joshua. Although she
loved her fictitious brother, she loathed the time difference between London and Hollywood, as it meant that one of them –
usually Mia, because she was the one whose mind raced as soon as she climbed into bed – missed out on sleep because of it.

Gable had spent nearly four hours on the phone to her
that night, and after finding out that Joshua was desperate to sleep with her, he’d concluded that what Mia really needed
was a boyfriend. Gable didn’t think Mia would ever be able to forgive herself if she ended up having sex for the first time
with the person she hated most.

‘What about that William guy?’ Gable had asked as Mia yawned down the phone and watched the sun beginning to rise. The sky
above London was a bright pink, and Mia reminded herself that red sky in the morning was the shepherd’s warning. She sighed.
Even nature was telling her not to go near Garnet.

‘William? When I came back to London, Amelia was desperate for me to “test” my face on someone, so I pretended to interview
him,’ she said quietly. ‘He didn’t realise who I was and I don’t think he liked me very much.’ Mia tried not to sound sad.
The thought of William’s reaction to the beautiful Mia Blackwood still hurt, and she wondered why William hadn’t recognised
her when Amelia eventually had.

‘Yeah, but he adored you once, right?’ Gable hadn’t the patience to even try to be subtle. He had a supper coming up and he
had to start to think about getting ready for it. ‘Why don’t you just give him a ring and ask him to go for a drink?’

Mia had laughed down the phone. William was the only person who she had ever loved, the only man who had appreciated her for
who she was rather than what she looked like. It had merely been her insecurities about her body that had prevented them from
taking their relationship further, but despite Mia now being confident about how she looked she couldn’t see William liking
her any time soon. To him she represented ‘shallow London’, his number-one subject of loathing.

After Mia had hung up she looked at her mobile. It was nearly six in the morning, half an hour before her alarm was
supposed to wake her up. Sighing, Mia turned the alarm off and padded into her kitchen to make herself the first of what she
estimated would be many coffees.

As she switched her espresso machine on she stared at her kitchen in amazement. Even though she’d lived in her Garnet penthouse
apartment overlooking the Thames for nearly six months, she still couldn’t get over the fact that it was hers for a minimal
rent. As well as a doorman, a swimming pool and an insulated media/cinema room on the floor below, Mia’s penthouse had been
refurbished to the tune of almost £4 million – with no expense spared on the specification.

In addition to the pool and cinema, Mia had three big bedrooms – all complete with large en suites and wet rooms where the
shower cascaded as though it were hot, tropical rain – a wood-panelled walk-in wardrobe bigger than her first flat, a glass-fronted
wine cellar, a humidity-controlled cigar suite (which, Mia had laughed down the phone to Amelia, would come in handy if she
knew what she was meant to do with it) and a fingerprint-access strong-room where Mia stored her jewellery, including the
diamond and garnet necklace Cartier had sent to congratulate her on her promotion.

The eat-in kitchen contained shiny red units and brushed-steel appliances, and the dining-room – which was perfect for hosting
Mia’s media gatherings – was bedecked in metallics, with delicate gold-leaf wallpaper and a chandelier that glinted over the
long silver and glass dining-table.