Chapter 16
DAYNA
Having only had brunch on the flight back to England and nothing else by four thirty in the afternoon, my stomach is rumbling like a bass drum as a receptionist leads me along the corridors of London Cap bank to Sophia Falicino’s office.
‘Dayna, hello. A pleasure to see you.’ Sophia, SP’s bank manager, stands to greet me on legs that are longer than my entire body, accentuated by her black pencil skirt and sinfully high heels.
I take her hand. ‘Thank you for seeing me on relatively short notice, Sophia. I appreciate it.’
She waves a hand casually as she retakes her position behind her desk, unbuttoning her cream blazer. Sophia is that woman. The one who could intimidate the most beautiful and most successful women. I’m neither and don’t mind admitting how inadequate I feel around her.
‘Let me pull up your proposal here.’ She pouts her lips, her cheekbones perfectly contoured in the light of the desktop screen.
‘I have a hard copy if that’s helpful,’ I tell her, sliding the rush-job funding request towards her. It’s far from my finest work, but in the circumstances of this tender’s timeline, it really was the best I could do.
‘That’s perfect, thank you.’ She licks her index finger and thumb and flicks quickly to the page containing projections for ROI – return on investment.
I tell her about the well as she peruses the figures.
I’ve never been this anxious asking for capital investment, which is surprising given that I’ve asked for larger sums when SP was in a worse financial state.
It’s not at all surprising given the risk I know I’m asking London Cap to take.
And it’s certainly not helped by my overwhelming need to take revenge on Caspar Kahn.
‘With the fall in oil prices, the government can’t realise a profit itself so it’s looking to sell. ’
Sophia sits up, interlaces her fingers and presses her palms to the desk in front of her. ‘You hit the nail on the head, Dayna. Oil prices are painfully low and continuing to fall.’
‘I know. I’m not hiding the weakness, Sophia, but I am telling you that SP can turn a profit.’ I run my finger down one bar of a graph. ‘You see, here, this is the figure a typical company could expect to achieve. This one here is what SP can achieve with its blending expertise.’
She hums as if she’s mulling it over. I hope she’s mulling it over.
‘I’m not saying I could realise the kind of profit I could have eighteen months ago, but there’s potential here. If we got some big export contracts.’
‘If.’
I fake a smile. ‘You know it’s an if, Sophia; we’ve done enough deals together.
Look, I know I can make this work, and it’s a solid foot in the Middle East again.
It’s an entry step and it will be far from a windfall, but once the industry stabilises, SP will be left with a quietly profitable well and an increasing network in the Middle East, something which is crucial to the long-term success of the company. ’
Sophia leans back in her chair and brings her hands to rest on her stomach. ‘Dayna, you know I like working with you, and we’ve done some good business in the past.’
Here’s the inevitable ‘but’.
‘But I just don’t think I can endorse this one. There’s a very small margin for error here. The profitability is low, at best. There’s a good chance prices could continue to fall and possibly plummet.’
‘I’ve factored in margin.’
‘A small amount. There are some serious players finding themselves insolvent, and SP isn’t as big as some of those names.
My advice to you as your bank manager is to sit tight, ride the storm, and look for opportunities to invest when you have a clearer picture of how the industry and SP are going to fare. ’
It’s no worse than I expected. It’s exactly what I expected. But with the private equity house turning me down earlier today, Sophia saying no would leave me no option but to submit an alternative bid. No option but to team up with Hassan Deeb or Clark.
‘Please, Sophia. If you want me to beg, I will. This is a good opportunity for SP. I’ve never let you down before.’
Her smile is laced with pity. ‘Dayna, it’s business. I just can’t support this. I’m sorry. Maybe the next one.’
She’s right. I know it. Clark knows it. This well is potentially a bottomless pit ready to absorb money for no return. But I want it. I want to take something Caspar Kahn wants, just like he took something I wanted, needed, loved. Just like he took my father.
* * *
I force myself to smile at my staff as I make a beeline for my office. ‘Is Arthur around, Rach?’ I ask when I round her desk.
She pulls up his calendar on her desktop. ‘Just coming out of a meeting with Jeff Potter.’
I check my watch; it’s coming up to 6 p.m. ‘Could you try to grab him before he heads home and let him know I’d like to speak with him?’
‘Sure. I’m guessing from the look on your face the meeting with Sophia didn’t go to plan?’
I take off my coat and hang it across my arm. ‘It went exactly as I expected. She won’t invest.’
‘And King’s Private Equity?’
I shake my head, suddenly feeling drained. I can’t blame Sophia or King’s. In their shoes, I’d probably do the same.
‘Where does that leave you?’
‘That’s what I want to discuss with Arthur.’
‘Okay. I’ll get him.’
I head into my office, drop my coat then turn around and head back to Rachel’s desk. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be dismissive. I know you’re trying to be nice. I’m just tired.’
She smiles. ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t get all those numbers anyway.’
I don’t sit behind my desk. Looking at my email, letting the business know I’m around, might just finish me off today. Instead, I pour myself a glass of sparkling water from my fridge and sit onto the leather sofa, looking out at the bright lights of Tower Bridge against the indigo sky.
‘The bank and PE are both out,’ I say, watching Arthur’s reflection in the window as he moves into the room and takes up a seat in a chair next to the sofa.
‘I can’t blame them, Dayna.’
‘Arthur, you’re the one person I can rely on, the one person who understands how much I need this.’ I turn to face him. ‘He was your best friend.’
He crosses his legs and rubs a hand across his chin.
‘He was. And if anything ever happened to me, he would have looked after Teddy, guided him, in business and in life. I owe your father that too. I need to do the best by you, Dayna. Pull out of the bid. This is not the right way to get back at Kahn. I wish I’d never told you about the tender. ’
I frown. ‘I would have found out.’
He shakes his head with a sigh. ‘When it was a straight bid, that was one thing. I didn’t like it, but I was willing to support you.
I won’t, can’t, watch you do a deal with Bahrain.
You’re not trying to outbid Kahn any more; you’re provoking him.
If your plan worked, when he found out…’ The look in his eyes chills me to the core.
‘He knows.’
Arthur drags a breath through his teeth. ‘How do you know?’
I move to the window. ‘He broke into my hotel room and threatened me at knifepoint.’
‘Jesus Christ, Dayna. That man is dangerous. How can I protect you from that?’
I turn sharply. ‘I’m not asking for your protection, Arthur. What is it with everyone trying to fucking protect me?’
Arthur all but jumps to his feet. ‘I owe it to your father. Pull out of this tender.’ His face is burning red. His black eyes make my body tense reflexively. This is just about as angry as I’ve ever seen him.
‘What if there were another option? I get the well and stay away from Hassan?’
‘You’ve already pissed off Kahn. He’ll be gunning for you no matter how you win this well.’
‘Could you at least hear me out?’ I’m shouting back at him, my frustration boiling over into anger.
He paces the room, hands on his hips.
I fight against the part of me that doesn’t want to tell him because that would make the offer a real prospect and no longer something I have to consider alone. ‘Layton Oil.’
His eyes widen further and his features set. ‘What about Layton Oil?’ he growls. I’ve never felt it before around him, but I’m apprehensive. Arthur has never behaved like this. I wonder if I’m catching a glimpse of the businessman he used to be, my father’s right-hand man.
‘Clark has put an offer on the table. He and I would go in together, Layton Oil and SP. He’d add capital so we could increase our bid.’
‘And he’d get SP’s blending know-how?’
‘Right. There’d be a limit to how much we could increase the bid, but we should still be able to turn a profit if we?—’
‘No! Absolutely not. I forbid you to work with a Layton!’ His words are almost a roar.
I front up to him physically for the first time ever. ‘Excuse me?’
‘SP will not do business with a Layton.’
‘You can’t decide that.’
‘If your father were here, he’d say the same thing.’
My hands tremble with rage. ‘He never told me not to date Clark, so why would he have a problem with me working with him to get us, SP, what we want? To get him revenge?’
‘Your father never had to separate you and Clark, Dayna, because Harold was always going to do that. Even if you think you could go ahead with this, Harold will never allow it.’ We’re so close I can feel Arthur’s words on my face.
‘Harold Layton doesn’t head up Layton Oil any more; Clark does.’
He laughs, hollow and sinister. This is a side to Arthur I don’t like. ‘Harold Layton controls Layton Oil, he controls that board and he controls his son. The answer from my side is no. I would see you lose the well over making a deal with that man.’
‘What are you talking about? First Caspar’s the devil, then Hassan, then Clark. Why don’t you want this? Why don’t you want us to fight for what Dad lost?’
He points his finger in my face. ‘You’re on thin ice. Very dangerous territory. You need to walk away.’
I open my mouth to speak, but he turns and storms out of my office.
I replay the last two minutes in my head. My eyes sting. Arthur is like a second father to me. I didn’t know he could be like that.