Chapter 20
My father used to say you should never go to bed on an argument. I guess that’s true because I’ve woken even more pissed at Gregory than I was when I fell asleep. Yet, I’m now staring at the muscles of his naked back as he climbs out of bed.
Damn it. I know my body and I know I’ll have caved. Whenever he carried me in here from the spare room, I’ll have given myself over to him, probably cuddled into his chest and wrapped my legs up in his. Hell, as I watch him move into an arms-raised stretch, I want him, too.
‘Good morning, beautiful.’
I scowl my silent response, unsure whether I’m more annoyed with him or myself. On a head shake, he leaves the bedroom and when I hear him bound down the stairs to go out for his five-thirty run, I know the coast is clear for me to head to the gym.
‘Still pissed?’ Jackson asks me as I pummel the punch bag.
I land a right hook. ‘What do you think?’
‘I’d say you’re getting a lot of power in those arms these days. Let’s get your elbows involved.’
Mopping my brow with my forearm, I turn my back on the bag, then holding my gloves together in front of me, I thrust an elbow back and up into the throat of the bag like he taught me.
Katrina Martin and Nick Henshaw. Why? Did she question his motive for resigning from Constant Sources? And Francis. Why would someone in private equity invest in a man who ran one company into the ground and was pushed out of another?
I’m on blow number three with my elbow when the gym door opens and Gregory removes his plugs from his ears, looking damn fine with wet hair, masculinity radiating from him. I pause and watch as he peels off his hoody and reveals his toned, bare chest.
God, help me. I can feel Jackson’s silent amusement by my side.
As Gregory moves towards the bag, I take off my gloves. This is the routine. Now Jackson trains Gregory whilst I stretch out and leave to get ready for work. But today, petty though it may be, I throw my gloves so they land on the weight bench at one side of the room, then I barge past Gregory.
‘Don’t you have anything to say to me? Shout, rant, anything?’
I pause before turning to face him, trying desperately to look only at his face.
‘Yes. Actually, I do. I reviewed the draft joint venture agreement with Shangzen Tek yesterday. You need to agree a share option. GJR is bringing more knowledge to the joint venture than Shangzen and both companies are getting equal equity and voting rights. If the JV company makes a profit, I would suggest you have an option to increase GJR’s stake, exercisable on the annual accounts of the first and second years in operation. ’
‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’
‘Yep.’
‘You don’t have anything to say about this?’ He holds my engagement ring in the air between his forefinger and thumb.
‘I took it off to go on the bag, Gregory. If I’d taken it off because I’m pissed at you, I probably would’ve thrown it at your head.’ I snatch the ring from his fingers and make to leave.
‘I’ll need you to draft that option into the agreement,’ he calls as I open the gym door.
I reply over my shoulder, ‘It’s already done. Now you need to agree it.’
‘Well, I’ll do that.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine!’
* * *
I’m eating Amy’s expertly round poached eggs on an English muffin, talking to her and drinking coffee.
It’s impossible to be angry in the company of one of the happiest people in the world and my mood has improved tenfold.
As she tells me about her son’s rugby game last night, she looks over my shoulder to the staircase.
‘Poached eggs, flower?’ she asks Gregory when he takes a seat on the stool next to mine.
‘Please.’
Amy cracks two eggs into her already hot pan of water, then places a black coffee and a glass of fresh orange in front of Gregory.
‘I’m sorry.’
I look up from my plate, almost choking on his unexpected words. He’s wearing a navy suit with a crisp white shirt and sky-blue tie and Christ does he smell amazing. Not ending last night the way I thought we would is clearly playing havoc with my hormones.
‘The worst thing wasn’t what Nick said, Gregory; it was that I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t control my reaction because you kept me in the dark. Again.’
‘I know. I get it.’ He exhales heavily. ‘Scarlett, this is my life. I deal with dark and twisted and I deal with it in my way. Let me finish. I’ve never had anyone living this close to me, who wants to know things about me.
I’ve also never felt the need to protect anyone as insanely as I do you.
’ He casts an eye to Amy who, less than inconspicuously, leaves us.
‘I’ve told you before, you’re everything to me now and I won’t let anything happen to you.
I won’t let anyone hurt you. Sometimes, that might mean keeping things from you but you have to trust that everything I do is in your best interests.
Even if I get it wrong sometimes, or you think I do.
’ He smiles fleetingly. ‘I’m always thinking of you. ’
‘I know that.’ And I do. ‘But I want us to be a team. Work together. Face challenges together, whatever they may be. You’re not alone any more, Gregory.’
He squeezes his eyes shut and raises my palm to his lips. ‘Aurora.’
* * *
‘Wait.’ He pulls me back as I manoeuvre somewhat awkwardly out of the Mercedes in my black pencil skirt. ‘I don’t want you to find out and think I’ve been keeping things from you.’
He glances at Jackson in the rear-view mirror then back to me. A look that makes me lift my legs back into the car and pull the door closed.
‘I went to see Jack.’
My old boss Jack? The man Gregory forced to confess to sexual assault?
That Jack? My skin crawls until the tingling grows to a shiver and my shoulders shudder.
I should consider myself lucky. All those late nights in the office, the crass jibes, the way he used to look at me like I was his next meal.
But Jack never actually touched me. Thanks to Gregory, I never became one of the women he abused.
‘When?’ I don’t need to ask why; I know why. He went to see him to determine whether Jack is behind the trouble with Black Diamonds.
‘Wednesday.’
I nod. ‘And?’
‘It’s not him, Scarlett, I’m certain of it.’
I nod again, unsure how I feel about that. ‘Thank you for telling me.’ I lean across the back seat and press my mouth to his. ‘It means a lot.’
He strokes my hair behind my ear and pushes the curled ends back across my shoulder. ‘Don’t overthink, baby; enjoy your last day at the firm. I can’t wait until I get to see you all day, every day.’
‘I’ll be working,’ I say with a smile I can’t help because I’m really looking forward to working next door to him, too.
‘Your boss might give you extended breaks,’ he says with a suggestive half-smile and the kinky sparkle in his eye throws my mind back to images of us fucking over his desk.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, pecking his cheek and making my move out of the car. I bend and lean back through the open door. ‘I’ve heard he’s a bit of a dick.’ I blow him a kiss, leaving him laughing as the door closes.
* * *
It wasn’t Jack.
I need to start making my final handover notes and packing up the contents of my desk but before I do, I open my matter file for Constant Sources (GJR): Black Diamonds.
‘Hey, you.’ Amanda appears at my office door. ‘Leaving lunch and embarrassing goodbye shenanigans at one.’
‘Oh, Amanda, please don’t go over the top; I’d rather slope off quietly.’
‘And that’s why you have a fantabulous best friend to make sure you don’t.’ She leaves as swiftly as she arrived, calling back, ‘I’ll collect you at twelve fifty-five. Be ready.’
I start working back through the information I have on the Black Diamonds IP registrations.
Nothing. I scour my documents and notes on the subsidiary companies that filed the registrations.
Local counsel said there was nothing suspect about those companies nor the French parent company.
I put on my headset and dial each lawyer in turn, asking them to urgently send through the details of the three companies, names of directors, shareholders, constitutional documents.
Ten minutes later, I’m scouring the documents on my screen and I see one common thread.
Francesco Benedetti, Director.
I can hear Adriana’s whiney voice chastising her husband. ‘Oh, Francesco, you’re so baaaaad.’ The man I know as Francis is… Francesco Benedetti?
Typing Francesco Benedetti into a search engine gives me a link to Carter’s Private Equity House. I remember the name.
Unsettled and feeling like I’m onto something all at once, I click the link to the company’s website. The homepage is full of spiel about the PE house’s investments. Latest News. Corporate Social Responsibility. Then I click Team.
There he is. A black and white image with a bio sits under the heading Francesco Benedetti. Francis.
Francis is registering Black Diamonds?
Gregory answers almost immediately when I call.
‘Ryans.’
‘It’s Nick Henshaw.’ His name tastes vile as it leaves my mouth.
‘Scarlett?’
‘Francis, Adriana’s Francis, is Francesco Benedetti.’ I try to slow my pace and keep it together as I explain.
‘Yes, one and the same.’
‘Last night, when Nick Henshaw told me he’d gone into business with Francis, he said it like a threat.’
‘We’ve been over this.’
‘This morning, I had local counsel send the registration documents of the companies behind the Black Diamonds registrations, Gregory, and there’s one constant. Francis, Francesco, is a director of them all.’
‘Ja, so what does that mean?’ His South-African twang rolls off his tongue like he’s relaxed but I know I have his attention.