Chapter 6 December 6th
I sigh and push the file away, resting my head back and looking at the ceiling. TF Shipping isn’t strong enough, will never be at this rate, no matter what I do. I feel like I’m swimming against the tide, talking to a brick fucking wall. I pick up my desk phone and call Thomas’s line.
“Camryn,” he says, a definite wary edge to his voice.
“We need to talk.”
“Why do we need to talk?”
Why do we need to talk? Yesterday, I tried to talk him out of thousands of pounds on unmerited bonuses—not that I was successful.
TF Shipping needs to be attractive to an investment bank.
We should have achieved the necessary profit margins within the last forty-eight months.
There needs to be full business operational transparency, and I’m still finding odd transactions that have nothing to do with the business but are claimed as such.
If Thomas wants to issue an initial IPO where an investment bank underwrites his process and determines share prices, then promotes stock for potential investors, he needs to have a clear reason for floating, and credible share price growth.
His operating costs need to reduce, and profits need to increase.
And yet . . . We’ve been over this a thousand times, Thomas.
“You know what? I’ve nothing new to say.
I’ll review last month’s figures.” I hang up, frustrated, and email Finance for this month’s numbers, answering my phone when it rings and placing it in the crook of my neck so I can keep typing. “Debbie.”
“Thomas wanted me to remind you about Friday.”
“I just spoke to Thomas. He never mentioned Friday. What’s Friday?”
“The Dorchester at seven.”
I inwardly groan. “Right, yeah. I said yes to that, didn’t I?”
“And I have someone called Dec Ellis on the line for you.”
My typing fingers still on the keys, my email unfinished. “Ellis?” He’s not told me his surname. “Dec Ellis?”
“Shall I put him through?”
My stomach flips. “Um . . . yeah, sure, put him through.” I wriggle my foot back into my heel under my desk and stand, picking up my phone and walking up and down. Nervous. Alive. “Hello?”
“Hey,” he says, soft and low. I close my eyes and breathe through the shudder rippling down my spine. He really has the most incredible voice—deep but silky. “Lunch?”
“Lunch?”
“Are you free for lunch?”
“You want to have lunch?”
“No, I want to see you.”
I stop pacing as a rush of warmth fills me. “I don’t take lunches.” Never. Not in the history of my employment have I taken a lunchbreak.
“Take one today.”
I don’t realise I’m biting down on my lip until I feel a sharp stab.
Why am I doing that? Biting down on my lip, trying to stop myself smiling?
Because I don’t think I should smile? Am almost afraid to?
For so long, I’ve stumbled through my days, hollow, lost, desperately sad, and now I don’t know how else to be.
But around Dec, the weight of my past seems to lift a little.
And that’s something to smile about.
I breathe in deep, release my lip from my teeth, and allow myself the privilege of smiling, albeit small. “Okay.”
An audible rush of breath travels down the line. Relief. “Where works for you?” he asks. “I’m at the top end of The Strand.”
“I’m on the other side of Piccadilly Circus.”
“Meet in the middle?”
“Now?”
“I’m on my way.” He hangs up, and I pull my phone away, looking at the receiver.
He’s on his way. A surge of energy hits me, and I become a bit of a flustered—very unusual—mess, dropping my phone clumsily on my desk, getting all caught up in the cord as I do.
“Fuck it,” I say, trying to unravel myself.
How the hell did it end up round my thighs?
The door knocks. “Don’t come in,” I yell, just as the door opens.
Thomas stops dead in his tracks, taking me in, a state of a woman tangled in a bloody phone cord. “All right?”
“Fine.” I lift a foot in turn and step out of my trap as gracefully as I can before claiming my bag and unhooking my coat off the wall. “I’m going for lunch.”
“Huh?”
“Lunch. I’m going for lunch.” I pass a very concerned-looking Thomas.
“You don’t eat lunch. In fact, I’ve never seen anything but coffee pass your lips.”
Thomas hasn’t seen me outside these offices, where plenty of alcohol passes my lips.
“See you in an hour or so.” I walk with purpose to the elevator, disregarding the interested looks coming my way, and board, swinging on my coat, managing a quick check in the mirror.
I pull my hair over one shoulder and lift the collar of my coat, and as soon as the doors open, I exit, walking with purpose.
Out my building.
Up Regent Street.
Across Piccadilly Circus.
Onto Leicester Square.
I’m very aware of Christmas on steroids around me, can smell the mulled wine and toasted chestnuts. But today, it’s okay. I dip and weave through the endless crowds, urgent for a different reason.
Him.
I’m halfway across the square when I spot him, just one man amid masses of people.
And my heart blasts, pounding so hard, I can feel it in my throat.
“God, you beautiful, unexpected man.” I stop, a static form in the middle of the square, forced to take a moment and a breath at the sight of him.
He stops too, seeming to take me in, his face endlessly expressionless.
His suit’s back, his navy, double-breasted overcoat fastened, his scarf wrapped around his neck.
The way he stands, his stance wide, his body lifted from the chest, his hands in his coat pockets. He’s . . .
Magnificent.
Strong.
I walk to him, our eyes glued, and slow to a stop a foot away. He says nothing, but he pulls a hand from one of his pockets and offers it to me.
Taking it is easy.
And without one word spoken but a million unspoken, he starts to walk us away from the chaos. Not that I’m registering the madness around me. The ball of anxiety isn’t following me. I feel nothing, only awe and, I fear . . .
Something deeper.
Dec seems to know exactly where he’s going.
We arrive at a little deli on the corner of a back street, and he pushes his way in, making a bell above the door ding our arrival.
There’s room for only a handful of tables and chairs, all taken bar one at the back by the stairs.
He unravels his scarf and hangs it with his coat on the back of a chair, and I follow his lead.
“Let me,” he says, rounding me and easing my coat off my shoulders. I feel his breath at my ear, his front virtually pushed into my back.
“Do you need to be so close when you help me out of my coat?” I ask, my smile hidden.
“Absolutely.” His lips meet my jawbone, and the sensations are arresting. “Coffee?” he whispers.
“Please.” I can hardly talk.
“How do you take it?”
“Black.”
He breaks away, allowing me air, not that I want it, and hangs my coat on the back of my chair before he heads to the counter.
Lowering to my seat, I watch him while he orders, the eternal impassive man not even cracking a smile for the server, just a stern nod when she says she’ll bring our drinks over.
Joining me back at the table, he sits in the chair, looking big and uncomfortable.
His phone rings, forcing him up again to dig it out of his pocket.
He rejects the call, and it immediately rings again.
“Do you need to get that?”
“Probably, but I don’t want to.” A fleeting moment of exasperation passes across his face.
“Bad day?”
“Had better,” he replies sharply, rejecting the call again. “I had a last-minute unexpected rescue bid come in on a company I’m acquiring. I had to escape the circus for a while.”
“So you called me.”
One of his brows lifts, and he rests back in his seat as the server approaches, giving her room to slide the tray onto the tiny table. “Are you hungry?”
I shake my head and thank the server for my coffee and water. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think we’ll fit anything else on this table.
” He starts moving things around, a semi-scowl on his handsome face, making the lines across his forehead deepen.
And his phone rings again. Every muscle in him seems to tense, his jaw twitching as if he’s gathering patience. “Do you mind?”
I wave him off, taking some water as he answers.
“What?” he says, short, listening for a few moments, his eyes narrowing.
He fascinates me. I could watch him for an eternity, and it’s in this moment I realise he’s not actually eternally impassive.
I see emotion on his face, like now as he scowls his irritation.
I’ve seen mild frustration, and I’ve seen relief.
But no joy. No warmth, although I feel warmth from him.
But does anyone else? Or do they get the stern man I’m looking at now, as he listens, obviously wound up about something?
I can see why someone would be wary of him.
The formidable businessman.
Or simply a formidable man?
The person on the other end of the line’s voice is clear, not because they’re speaking loudly, but because it’s so quiet in here. “What do you want us to do?” they ask.
“They want a bidding war, we’ll give them one.”
“Dec, as your adviser, I’m telling you you’re already paying too much for this company.”
“They’re cowboys looking to make their name by chasing me out of the deal. I’m not backing down. Ten million.”
“Jesus.”
“Do it.” He hangs up and calmly rests his phone down, taking a deep breath. “Tell me about your day.”
“It sounds like it’s going better than yours.”
“Mine will be fine.”
“You don’t look like it will be.”
“It will be. Tell me about your day.” He picks up his cup and blows across the top, momentarily making me forget where I am and what I’m doing here. His lips . . . “Camryn?”