Chapter 1 #2
‘Morning all. It’s good to be around one table.
I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for what’s been another strong year, in a market that’s still volatile.
Turnover and EBIT have increased across the group year on year.
Gross profit is up in all but one company but net profit is down in two subsidiaries. ’
I nod once to Williams, who sits to the right of me, looking sharp in a navy pinstripe but for that mass of intentionally messed-up dirty-blond which is going to have to go.
A daddy-to-be can’t look like a student.
Having said that, nor should a man of thirty-two years.
One glance and a nod is all it takes; Williams and I work like a well-oiled machine – most of the time.
He clicks through the next slide on his laptop that’s being projected onto a large screen.
There’s no need to close the black blinds across the floor-to-ceiling windows because London’s ominous sky is providing us with all the darkness we need, but he does turn out the ghastly fluorescent lights.
A graph depicting the gross profit of all companies in GJR Holdings Limited is displayed. I dip my head once more and Williams moves to the next slide: a close-up of the two companies with falling net profit from last year.
‘GJR Communication Solutions seems as good a place to start as any. As you know, this is primarily a vehicle for research and development.’ I gesture to Mark Flemming, a stereotypical Scotsman with red hair and freckles.
A stocky chap. Looks untidy in a suit. Much happier behind a desk in a pair of jeans and a thick check shirt developing new software, or lying on his back fixing up a new machine.
‘Mark, you can fill in the detail when we work round the table but suffice to say, last year was one of generation. Profit won’t be realised on our latest project before quarter four this coming year, at best.’
‘Aye, all right, Gregory.’
‘Moving on to Constant Sources. This is an English incorporated company with offices in England and France. Nick Henshaw, as you all know, retired his directorship two months ago. Since then, Tim and Jean-Paul have been taking care of operations. Which of you will be picking up the presentation?’
‘I will, Gregory.’ Jean-Paul is still brown-nosing after the episode with Nick. He knows the only reason I kept him and Tim is because they do a good job with that company. He also knows one wrong move and he’s gone.
‘The floor’s yours.’
Williams clicks over the slide presentation to a graph I’ve already seen and Jean-Paul starts talking through figures, justifying the drop in net profit with various R and D investments.
To everyone else, I’m focused on the screen but her face comes into my mind.
The look in her eye when she asked me, Why?
I told her she needed space to think, away from me, to decide if she wanted to be with me.
On some level, I think I wanted that to be the case.
In truth, I knew as I was typing an email to her boss, telling him Scarlett wanted to take the Dubai secondment, that her stubbornness, her pride, her insecurities about me, would make her end it.
She was right when she called me a coward.
I took the easy way out because I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I couldn’t tell her I don’t love her.
It’s never been a problem before. When women have swooned and fallen in love with me in the five minutes I’ve kept them around, I’ve told them straight.
The thing is, I can’t fall in love. I won’t fall in love.
I’ve loved people. I’ve loved two people and that turned to shit.
My mother nearly died being beaten to a pulp by my father, all because of me, because I hid. And the other…
Focus. It’s the AGM. Jean-Paul. Constant Sources.
‘…it’s called Black Diamonds. It’s extremely similar to our game, Jail Run.
It’s a very similar concept but Black Diamonds is cheaper to download.
It’s burst onto the scene in a big way in just a matter of weeks and it continues to grow.
It would be fair to say it’s going viral and it could really put a dent in our Jail Run profit margin.
’ Jean-Paul has moved onto his SWOT analysis for 2026: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats on the horizon.
Nick Henshaw is still fishing around, trying to get his claws on more money for the shares he sold back to the company when I forced him to resign; there’s a threat I’m still fending off.
‘Who’s the owner of the Black Diamonds software, Jean-Paul?
’ The question comes from Zara Vanderbilt-Delores, the only female director.
Sometimes, I wish there were ten of her.
She’s shit hot. Really knows her stuff, gets markets and business.
Her knowledge tears strips off some of the men and God is she vicious when she wants to be.
She’s in camp You’ve Got to be a Bitch to Get Things Done.
I would’ve said that was true of all successful women before Scarlett.
As a lawyer, Scarlett knows her stuff, she’s quick and her advice is pragmatic, she’s rightfully a high-flyer.
But she’s not arrogant or nasty. She’s territorial.
She’ll fight for the people she loves. But she won’t hurt someone until she’s pushed to the edge; she won’t shit on someone just to get what she wants.
Stick with it, Ryans – eye on the ball.
‘That’s the crazy thing,’ Jean-Paul responds. ‘It seems to be a young man, a boy. Nineteen. Zimbabwean.’
‘Let’s buy it,’ I bite, taking my frustration out on Jean-Paul.
‘We’ve explored the potential, Gregory. The boy’s lawyers aren’t interested.’
‘How much did you offer?’
‘Five hundred thousand. They wouldn’t even speak to us.’
If you want a job done properly… ‘Set me up a meeting. I’ll close it.’
‘We’ll need a lawyer,’ Williams says. His voice is wary. As it should be. I know what he’s thinking.
‘Then find one.’ I glare at him, daring him to challenge me.
‘What about—’
‘No.’
Lawrence breaks the stand-off by announcing the next company on the agenda.
I watch the slides flick over to another financial graph that I’ve already seen.
I know all eyes are trained on me as I push out my chair and move to the window.
The room gets back to business as I stare at the first drops of rain dusting the glass pane in front of me.
She thinks she loves me. She doesn’t know me.
She knows the man who gets impossible tickets to the Dame Judi Dench play she’s desperate to see, the man who whisks her away to a vineyard because she used to enjoy fine wines with her father, the man who flies her to the opera.
I don’t even know where that man came from.
She doesn’t know me. Maybe I should go to Dubai and tell her.
Tell her everything. Tell her who I really am.
Then she’ll see that I’m not a man to be loved and I’m a man who can’t love.
I should’ve told her. She wanted to know.
She kept pushing and I was too… what… afraid?
If I’d told her, it would’ve ended us. I wanted to.
God, I wanted to. Just like I wished I’d left her alone after she first pitched to be my lawyer. But I couldn’t.
Who am I kidding? She’ll have moved on. I’m the fucking idiot still pining after a woman who I knew for a matter of weeks. Soon, I’ll have been without her for as long as I was with her.
A sudden ache strikes my chest and I hold my fist against it.
‘Do you have a view, Gregory?’ Zara is watching me expectantly when I turn to the table.
‘We’ve discussed this before,’ I tell her, forcing myself to remember her last item on the agenda. ‘Your role is to head up Corporate Social Responsibility within the remit I give you.’
‘I appreciate that, Gregory, but we’ve followed the same charities for four years running. I think it would be a positive message if we spread our funding to some other areas of need, open up to a fair procedure, ask charities to pitch to us.’
‘No. We stick with the children’s hospital and domestic violence in Africa. Consider that item closed.’
Her mouth opens and for a split second, I think she considers challenging me but wisely backs down.
She thinks I’m a dick. Good. I am.
Lawrence closes the AGM and dials reception to have lunch brought through. I don’t hang around for small talk.
Loosening my tie a notch, I take a seat behind my desk.
The live feeds to the Dow Jones, FTSE and other markets in which I dabble are playing on flat screens around the room.
On my screen saver, Scarlett looks truly mesmerising in her black gown, the diamond choker around her neck outshone by those devastating eyes.
It’s a press shot. We’re on the red carpet outside my mother’s house.
The annual gala. That night. I remember how awkward she felt, how she didn’t want to get out of the Bentley.
She was nervous that she wasn’t good enough to be on my arm.
What a joke! She was the most beautiful woman at the gala.
Screw that, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, inside and out.
That fucking constant dull ache starts throbbing in my chest again.
‘Greg.’ Williams opens my office door and walks straight in. ‘Where were you today? Because you weren’t in the AGM.’
I sigh, not shifting in my chair. ‘I’d already seen the papers.’
He takes a seat on the opposite side of my desk.
‘I’m not in the mood, Williams.’
‘Well, you’re never in the mood, so now seems as good a time as any. Amanda speaks to her every day, Greg; she’s a mess. She loves you. She’s in love with you.’
She doesn’t know me.
‘It’s over, Williams. Done. She’s better off, she just doesn’t know it yet. Now, we need to talk about that hair of yours.’
‘Changing the subject?’
‘Too right, changing it to something you can control. That hair has got to go before you’re a dad. You look like a fucking gap-year student.’
He chortles and, despite myself, my lips turn up, too.
‘Speaking of which. We had our first scan. Want to see?’
He pulls out his phone and shows me a black and white image, a picture of a picture of a large baked bean. But he’s beaming at me, so proud he might burst, so I smile back. ‘That’s a very cute bean. I’m pleased for you.’
We talk for five minutes about the bean and how Williams is coping with Amanda moving into his place.
Then he leaves and I can get back to staring at the image on my screen.
Everything about her is perfect and effortless.
She’s a natural beauty, not like the women who bat their lids in restaurants, bars, wherever I go, or half the receptionists in this place.
All those women see is my exterior and my money.
I came close to falling in love with her, too damn close. But it could never be true. I don’t fall in love. She made me want to be something I’m not. She made me want to be a decent person and, hell, I wanted to tell her the three words she was so desperate to hear. But it would’ve been a mistake.
I knew the night she got drunk and told me about the Dubai secondment, I knew then if she couldn’t see it for herself, I had to make sure she went.
We had to get the murder charge over with first. She had to see that the CPS wouldn’t charge me, that we’d be free because no matter which one of us took the fatal shot, it was self-defence; my father would have killed us.
She had to see that so she could move on knowing she’d done the right thing in the eyes of the law.
Then she told me she wanted to confess to sending my black past to hell. She wanted to save me, again. It tore me up inside. The thought of losing her. The thought of her locked behind bars for doing nothing other than falling in love with me and getting caught in my web of darkness.
When John Harrison called with the CPS decision, everything came crashing to me, everything I’d felt for the last twenty years.
I hadn’t cried since I was ten years old but holding her in my arms, knowing it was over, that she could move on and, yes, that I hadn’t lost her, I sobbed.
I couldn’t stop the tears from fucking falling.
I knew then. I knew I was going to send her away because I’d let it go too far. She’s better than me.
I shouldn’t have taken her to the opera.
It was selfish. I convinced myself it was for her, so she could have one night, the fairy tale.
But damn it, I just couldn’t let her go.
And all night, I fought with myself. I had to remember the plan but, Christ, I wanted to say those three words she needed to hear.
I wanted to say them so much that to not killed a part of me I didn’t know was alive.