Chapter Four
Spencer
I was not happy when my daughter announced she was pregnant at the age of twenty-two.
Not because I disapproved of her choice—she was an adult, and while she wasn’t married then, she was in love, and her body is her own, so I would never have been anything but supportive.
But I was pissed off at the thought of being a grandfather at forty-three.
I wasn’t a good father. I was absent too much, too tied up in my own life, and as a result I don’t know how to communicate with my three-year-old grandson, who for some bizarre reason thinks I’m the best thing since sliced bread.
Saturday afternoon finds me wandering around Helen’s lawn, holding Callum’s hand in my left while I press my phone to my ear with my right as I talk to my PA.
“Move the Richardson meeting to three on Monday,” I tell her. “And then I should have enough time for lunch with Stellar Associates.”
“You want me to book the Italian as usual?”
“Please. There will probably be four of us.” I look down as Callum tugs on my hand. We’re almost back at the deck, where the rest of my family is sitting and chatting. He points up at the sky and says, “Duck.”
“I’d better go,” I tell my PA. “See you Monday.”
“Have a great weekend,” she says.
“You too, and thanks for organizing that.”
I end the call and look down at my grandson. “Sky,” I correct him. “Not duck.”
“Duck,” he insists. He promptly sits onto the grass and flops onto his back. “Lie down,” he says impatiently.
I glance at the people on the deck and see my daughter studying us with a watchful eye.
When Callum first came up to me and said he wanted to go for a walk around the garden, she said, “Granddad won’t want to do that, darling,” which stung a little, and was the main reason I agreed to go on a tour of the flowerbeds with him.
So I resign myself to the fact that I’m going to get grass stains on my cream chinos, lower onto the lawn beside him, and lie back.
“Duck,” he repeats, pointing up at the sky. And it’s then that I see it—a blob of cumulus with a smaller piece that looks like a beak.
“Wow.” I laugh. “Clever boy, yes it does look like a duck. How do ducks go?”
“Quack, quack, hiccup,” he says, and giggles. He’s currently fascinated by hiccups since the family Labrador had them and he realized animals can get them too.
I chuckle. “What color is the sky?”
He rolls his eyes at me as if he’s fifteen and has been asked to do the dishes. “Blue, Granddad.”
“Are you being cheeky?”
“Yes,” he says, and pokes his tongue out.
“In that case…” I roll onto my side and tickle him until he subsides into peals of laughter.
“Stop it, you two,” Helen says crossly. She glares at me. “You’ll make him bring up his lunch.”
“Bleugh,” I say to him, pretending to vomit.
He laughs and echoes me, “Bleugh!” to his mother’s horror.
Her husband, Michael, sitting next to her, snorts. “I should be videoing this. Nobody will believe me when I say that Spencer Cavendish was looking at clouds and getting grass all over his back.”
I sit up and glance over my shoulder to see my lambswool gray sweater covered in strands of mown grass. “It’s the new biophilic fashion. I’m bringing nature into the office.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” Scarlett—Orson’s new girl—says, surprising me with her outspokenness. “You’re a lovely granddad.”
She’s barely said a word since she arrived here with him today.
I’m not surprised. Is there anything worse than going to a friendly barbecue with your new partner’s family?
Michael’s parents are also here, as are his two brothers, Vince—who’s here with his wife—and Charles, who’s gay and has brought his partner, Leo.
Michael’s father, Richard, is clearly uneasy with his son’s sexuality and has ignored his boyfriend all afternoon.
I’ve held my tongue, not feeling it’s my place to interfere, but I’m starting to get annoyed by his obvious rudeness, and I’m sure it’s not making Scarlett feel any more comfortable.
“Thank you,” I say to her, adding a smile, touched that she was brave enough to speak up for me.
We had a rocky start, as she’s the daughter of Blake Stone, a guy I considered my enemy for thirty years.
But Blake is dead now, and Orson has fallen in love with her, and I’m learning to try and put the past behind me.
I watch as Orson picks up her hand and kisses it, clearly pleased that she’s making an effort to get on with me.
His puppy, Bearcub, jumps up at him, jealous of him showing affection to anyone else, and Scarlett laughs and picks the pup up, and they both fuss over him.
Things are improving between Orson and me, due in no small measure to Scarlett’s presence.
“Oh, I’ve got something to tell you all,” Helen says. She glances at me—there’s a touch of defiant mischief in her eyes. She slides a hand into the pocket of her maternity jeans and extracts a folded piece of paper. “Have you heard about the Empowerment Auction taking place next weekend?”
“Yeah,” Vince, a lawyer, says. “The local press is having a field day with it. It’s all over the city, everywhere you look.”
I haven’t heard of it. I’ve been in Dunedin the past few days, and before that I was in Wellington, so I’m a bit out of the loop. “What’s it about?” I ask.
“It’s an art and culture auction,” Orson states.
“You can bid on experiences offered by female artists. It’s run by Lumen.
” His gaze meets mine. We’ve discussed previously how the new club is targeting female businesswomen and trying to draw them away from Midnight.
I frown, remembering Marama’s mention of a meeting at the club last week. It wasn’t connected to this, surely?
“You should go,” Helen instructs us. “It’s an impressive lineup. Lots of really talented women offering unique experiences.”
Richard gives his characteristic derisive snort. “The last thing I want is to sit and listen to some female poet waxing lyrical about her menstrual cycle.”
Michael laughs as he looks at the piece of paper that Helen passes him. “I don’t mind bidding on this: ‘Sit for a portrait in the sacred workspace of this brilliant local artist.’” He smirks. “She’s hot. I’ll inspect her sacred workspace any day.”
I glare at him, disgusted that he’d make the comment at all, let alone in front of his wife and the other women here. I’m pleased when Orson takes the paper from him and says, “Grow up, Mike.” He scans the paper. Then his eyebrows rise. “Oh.” He shows Scarlett.
To my surprise, after she’s read it, she glances at me, then reaches down from her seat on the deck and lets the paper flutter onto the grass.
I pick it up and scan it while the others continue their discussion.
It’s a program, double sided, professionally printed and elegantly designed, and it lists a summary of the items being offered in the auction.
It’s an interesting idea, and I can see why the press have picked up on it.
I can’t see why Orson exclaimed or why Scarlett thought I’d be interested…
And then I turn it over, and my gaze falls on the item at the top, which is the one that Michael mentioned.
The photo of the artist is small, but it’s definitely Marama Davis’s exquisite face.
The text reads, “‘The Face I See’—sit for a portrait in the sacred workspace of this brilliant local artist.”
Fury billows inside me. I get to my feet and approach the deck. “This was your doing,” I snap at Helen, tossing the paper onto the table on the deck. “Meddling in other people’s affairs.”
Her eyebrows rise. “You mean trying to help other women become more successful? Well, lock me up right now for that crime.” She holds her wrists out to me, her eyes challenging me to disagree.
I’m happy to oblige. “Don’t disguise this as some kind of altruistic act. If you wanted to help Marama, you wouldn’t have introduced her to that woman.”
Her lips curve up. “Something tells me someone is jealous.”
“It’s nothing to do with me,” I snap. I gesture angrily at the program. “She’s better than this. All those women are. I don’t care how Genevieve Beaumont labels it. These women are selling themselves, and being told they’re heroic for doing it.”
Her smile falters, but she lifts her chin defiantly. “You’re just angry because you know it’s going to be successful.”
“Oh, I have no doubt it’s going to draw a lot of attention.
” I lower my voice so Callum can’t hear me where he’s sitting in a sandpit, shoveling sand into a bucket.
“You’re shit stirring,” I tell Helen. The gleam in her eyes tells me I’m right, and that sends a pulse of frustration through me.
“Is this about the board position again?”
Helen applied to be part of the Midnight Circle when it was formed.
We’d already decided we’d limit ourselves to eight members, and the seventh position had just been filled when she announced her interest in joining.
She was up against two other women for the eighth position—Joanna Waddington, who is the CEO of a nationwide real-estate chain, and Genevieve Beaumont herself.
Genevieve is wealthy and accomplished, but shot herself in the foot during the selection process, which I try not to think about.
Joanna, however, brought incredible business acumen, vast experience, and her own fortune, and all eight of us voted for her.
Even though Helen is my daughter and Orson’s sister, she’s not the businesswoman she thinks she is, and although I love her, I know she only wanted the position because of the prestige she thinks it offers, and not because she genuinely wanted to help people.
No doubt Genevieve has told her that she was also passed over, and the two of them have decided to make my life a misery.
“No,” she says, but her face flushes.
“If you decide to pass over your only daughter, you’ve got to expect some kind of reaction from her,” Michael says.