‘I like that dress on you.’
Vomit rises to my throat. Another outfit Jack has successfully banished to the back of my closet.
Back at my desk, I open Outlook and calculate the days I think I’ll have to wait for my next promotion, the promotion which will hopefully see me escape Jack’s close scrutiny. If I do a good job, I could make legal director in two years. Now there’s an incentive. Three hundred and sixty-five days, less twenty-eight days’ annual leave, multiplied by two. Six hundred and seventy-four days, my calculator tells me.
My momentary contentedness disappears when it occurs to me that in less, much less, than six hundred and seventy-four days, I’m likely to be without my dad. That’s where playing around and not doing your work will get you.
Shaking the thoughts away, I get started on my tasks for today and the rest of the week. Given the tight timings, I’ll be working almost exclusively on the Eclectic Technologies deal.
‘Margaret,’ I call from my office to the secretaries’ station.
She appears at my door, her voluminous, grey-blonde hair glued into place just above her shoulders by a can of hairspray, her freshly coated, pink lips turned up. Margaret is the kind of well-turned-out lady who’d never be seen in public without her lipstick. ‘What can I get for you?’
‘Have my reports come through from Companies House for the Eclectic deal?’
Companies House is the official registrar for companies incorporated in England and Wales. Reports from the registrar contain all sorts of key information about a company: its shareholders, directors, incorporation date – things like that.
‘Just,’ she says with an innocently smug smile, handing me the reports, already printed and ring-bound.
‘What would I do without you?’
‘Anything else?’ she asks.
‘Actually, you wouldn’t mind getting me another latte, would you? With an extra shot?’
‘Not in the slightest.’ She rotates on her small kitten heel, the ends of her floral dress swaying beneath her tweed jacket, Anais-Anais filling the air as she moves.
The rich, indulgent scent of my extra-strong coffee fills the room and makes my mind fresher, sharper, whilst sifting through the Companies House reports. When I reach the details of Eclectic Technologies’ directors, I slip off my shoes and roughly pin my hair into a crocodile clip then pull my legs up to cross them on my chair, settling in for the read.
First Director: Gregory James Ryans
Date of Birth: 09.10.1995
Date of Appointment: 01.07.2020
Associated Directorships: GJR Enterprises, Inc., GJR Europe Limited, Bio-energy Holdings Limited, Sound Telecommunications GmbH, Constant Sources Limited…
The list is endless.
I do the math and work out that Gregory is thirty in less than a week. Only thirty! Not even two years older than me! Surveying the shareholder details of the GJR companies, I confirm that he does, in fact, own those too. GJR Enterprises Inc. and GJR Europe Limited are owned exclusively by Gregory but he’s the majority shareholder in most of the others. Casting my mind to the plaque in the entrance of GJR Tower, it’s obvious now that the entire high-rise belongs to him. Outrageously handsome and accomplished. What does a sexy bazillionaire CEO do to celebrate his thirtieth birthday?
Shaking my head back to reality, my eyes move to the next section of the document: Mr Williams and Mr Lawrence.
Williams is older than Gregory, thirty-two, and seems to sit on the boards of almost all the same companies as Gregory. In fact, he isn’t a director of any company that isn’t at least partly owned by Gregory. He has shares in many of those companies too.
Lawrence is older, fifty-seven, which I’d estimated from his character creases and slightly drooping physique hidden beneath a paisley waistcoat. That and his thick but combed-over hair. Lawrence is a director on a few of the same boards as Gregory and a non-executive director on many of the others. Usually, that would mean he offers guidance to the Board as to how to run the company but doesn’t have a right to vote on big decisions the way an executive director can. Unlike Williams, Lawrence is the sole shareholder of another company, Connektions Limited. I wonder whether Gregory knows this about one of his closest confidantes but as I delve into the ownership of Sea People International, Inc., the company Eclectic Technologies is taking over, I realise that Gregory must know. Sea People International, Inc. just happens to be majority owned by Connektions Limited, meaning in effect it is majority-owned by Lawrence.
As usual, the intricate links between the companies seem more comprehendible when I sketch them in a diagram. As I draw the tangled web of companies, directors and shareholders, the attachments become easier to follow but there’s one question playing on my mind: why wouldn’t they have mentioned that Eclectic Technologies is buying a company that Lawrence partly owns?
I think about picking up the phone and asking the question, but Gregory is a busy man and from what I’ve seen, I imagine he’s very much in control of what happens beneath him, under him, in his companies. My thighs reflexively squeeze together beneath the desk. Rubbing the temples of my hormone-muddled head, I realise I’m probably beginning to overthink Gregory himself, rather than the deal. I note the minority owner of Sea People International Inc. as a Mr Pearson, then resolve to ask my questions at our meeting and continue sifting through my information about the companies, only occasionally having to blank out inappropriate and lascivious thoughts about the CEO.
5
It doesn’t take much for Amanda to persuade me that a Friday cocktail or two might not be a terrible idea. It’s been a rough week and I’ll rush straight home to Dad afterwards.
The bar is heaving with suits. Each group has spread itself out in a circle around a stack of handbags, briefcases and laptop carriers. Laughter and rowdy taunts are almost as loud as the music playing in the background. It’s clear as I watch people stagger and gesture flamboyantly that some groups have been out for a boozy office lunch, which has tumbled through into the evening. The leather booths are full and the bar queue is three people deep. There’s no way you could be alone with your thoughts in here and that’s fine by me.
‘What are you having, ladies?’ a man asks from the second row of people fighting their way into the bar, the question almost certainly directed at Amanda.
