‘You see? Salmond is dangerous. We’re in trouble.’
Giving him a reckless, dancing grin, Paul said, ‘We’ll chop him off at the knees, don’t worry. He isn’t going to win. We are.’
Telling yourself you’re going to win makes it far more likely that you will; he had known that from the start of his career, but Freddy had never had that clear-sighted confidence, and he didn’t have it now.
He turned that arrogant, assured smile on the chairman he was hoping to convince, and Freddy watched him with his usual mix of admiration and uneasiness. Paul always had won his battles – but Freddy was more worried than he had ever been before.
Later that afternoon, sitting at the boardroom table in wintry sunlight, Freddy still watched him with that same uncertainty. What was he thinking as he smiled at the Frenchwoman he had had an affair with last year? Freddy could never read Paul’s expressions.
He had never liked Chan
tal Rousseau himself; she never bothered to be charming to him – she had concentrated all her allure on Paul. Had she been in love with him? Or had she just hoped to marry him? She was certainly lovely – hair like midnight, eyes as dark as coals, and a figure that promised hot nights. But there was a secrecy in her, a touch of malice, a glitter of feline spite that Freddy found unpleasant.
‘We’ve done well for you and your investors over the past few years, Chantal, so I hope you’ll be sticking with us,’ Paul said softly, smiling into her eyes.
She smiled back. ‘I can’t give a cast-iron guarantee, Paul, you realize that? Not yet, anyway. I have to consult our board fully and see how high Salmond is prepared to go.’
The sunlight gleamed on her pale throat, and Paul was suddenly reminded of last night, of Cathy arching over him, her hair brushing his eyes, her breasts touching him. His body seemed to be boneless suddenly, he was melting with desire and tenderness.
Chantal Rousseau watched him intently, saw his throat move as he swallowed, his tongue touch his lower lip as if it was ash-dry.
At that second his secretary took a phone call and turned to whisper to him, ‘Senator Gowrie, sir. He insists on talking to you.’
Paul looked round the table. ‘Sorry, this won’t take long.’ He took the phone. ‘Hello, Senator, anything wrong?’
‘Hi, Paul, hope I’m not interrupting anything important, but . . . I’ve been thinking. The security at your place is really tight, isn’t it? I know your men have checked the estate over, but I think it might be wisest if I sent some men down now, before I arrive.’
Irritated, Paul said, ‘That might alarm Cathy. Don’t worry, nobody is going to get in or out of Arbory without the alarms going off. Keep to our arrangement, Don. Don’t worry so much, this is England, not the States. I don’t want Cathy getting into a panic. Sorry, sir, but I’m in the middle of a board meeting, I must get on . . . see you soon.’
He hung up and looked around the table. ‘Now, where were we?’
‘Yes, where were we?’ Chantal Rousseau asked.
One of the board said gloomily, ‘I get the impression Salmond has been planning this for months. He isn’t in any hurry to make a kill because he’s so damned sure he’s going to get us. When he has enough of a share base, he’ll offer some sort of share-for-share deal, rather than offering cash. He may have a good cash-flow, but I imagine he’d rather make a paper deal. It would make sense.’
‘We have to convince our shareholders it isn’t in their long-term interest to accept whatever he offers,’ Paul said. Why hadn’t he seen this coming long ago? But he knew why – because he had been too obsessed with Cathy to think of anything else. For years he had been steering his ship between dangerous rocks and getting away with it – but the voice of a siren had drawn him on to a fatal shore and he had a terrible feeling that he might never get off it again.
Sophie was so tired out by the long flight that she went to bed early that night and slept heavily. Next morning Steve and she had breakfast together downstairs in the hotel café; Sophie just had orange juice, coffee, rolls and a thin spreading of black cherry jam, which to her delight turned out to be from her own country, a Czech brand which she knew well, with thick real fruit embedded in every spoonful.
‘Try it! It’s delicious,’ she urged Steve, who looked amused, but took some with his toast.
‘Not bad,’ he agreed, picked up the small pot and read the name of the company, the address in the Czech Republic. ‘I could taste the fruit and it was thick stuff, not the thin tasteless stuff you sometimes get in these hotels.’
‘My mother makes her own jam, from fruit she grows herself – apples and blackberries . . . it’s even better than this!’
‘My mother makes her own preserves, too – we have rows of fruit bushes and fruit trees at the far end of the yard and every autumn my mother is busy in the kitchen filling jars and stacking the shelves in the pantry with them. She’s a terrific cook. When I was a kid I loved sandwiches made with a mix of jelly and peanut butter.’
She made an incredulous face. ‘Sounds weird. Peanut butter AND jam? Ugh.’
‘Well, I have to say I haven’t eaten it in years. I’d probably hate it now – our tastebuds change over the years, don’t they? Along with everything else.’
He picked up the notes she had made for him on the various English politicians who would be seeing Don Gowrie today. ‘What are you going to do today? Are you coming along with us? You’re invited to the dinner tonight, you’ll see Gowrie then, but if you want to hang about waiting for him to come out of meetings, you’re welcome to come with us.’
She shook her head. ‘I thought I might go around London. I enjoyed my time here and there are lots of places I want to see again. Unless you need me?’
‘No, I guess I don’t need you.’ He frowned at her, though. ‘Sophie, don’t get any crazy ideas, will you? Don’t do anything stupid. Remember, somebody tried to kill you in New York – keep an eye out for anyone following you, stay out of the subways, take taxis – I’ll give you some British money to pay for them, they can go on our expense sheet, don’t worry. I don’t want to hear you’ve been pushed under a London bus! Do your sight-seeing and shopping, whatever, but for God’s sake keep out of trouble.’
The camera crew appeared in the doorway, gesturing urgently, and Steve sighed. ‘Got to run. Now, be good, won’t you? Be sensible!’