After placing my cutlery at six o’clock and scrolling the three emails that have landed on my phone in the time it took me to eat scrambled eggs and drain my coffee, I nudge my plate towards Amy and lift a foot to the rim of my breakfast stool. Laces tied, grey trousers adjusted, white shirt cuffs tweaked to lie just lower than the cuff of my blazer, I’m ready to perform.
‘Hold the phone, mister. What would you like for dinner?’ Amy calls.
Hold the phone.For the first time in days, I genuinely smile. It was the night of the hunt, Opening Meet of the season: another thing I got wrong. Scarlett was pissed at me for ignoring her all night, for buttering up Adriana to get to her husband, a private equity investor. Then Williams’s sister, Charlotte, nearly went to bed with some arsehole and I swear I could’ve killed him, would have, if Scarlett hadn’t put those damn beautiful eyes in front of me. She was reeling from everything that happened when I found her sitting on the four-post bed in our room. It killed me seeing her like that again, a mess because of me. But just like every time I screwed up a saying, she couldn’t resist giggling when I said, ‘Hold the fort.’
‘You mean hold the phone,’she said. I knew it was but after the first time I got one of her English sayings wrong and she laughed like an angel, I just kept doing it. And she laughed every time, the sweetest sound. Even when she was angry, I could break her by being goofy. It became a sort of addiction. As much as it wasn’t like me, that sound could melt me, so I guess she found a side to me I hadn’t known myself before her.
‘Whatever you like,’ I tell Amy. ‘Surprise me.’ I really couldn’t care less.
‘Oh. Err, I’ll go for one of your favourites in that case.’
* * *
Lawrence, as chairman of the AGM, declares the meeting quorate. Leaning over his tan leather document folder – designed for him by my mother – he wiggles those goddamn varifocals that he really ought to have given up on by now and draws a tick next to item number one on his agenda. He has a slightly larger information pack than the other twelve directors around the table, including me. Christ knows what extra stuff he has in there, it’s probably packed out with blank pages, but the AGM is his big event. Batman has a cape, Spiderman shoots webbing, Lawrence has stacks of wasted trees. God help any man who stands in the way of Lawrence and his agenda – or who asks him to go paperless.
‘Agenda item number one, previous year’s performance and financials, one January 2025 to thirty-one December 2025. Gregory?’ He lifts his specs to rest on top of his head and looks up at me. I’ll never understand why people do that, like they’re standing on the deck of a yacht, Monaco sun blazing down, and the varifocals are a shaded pair of Tom Fords. Lawrence is in the boardroom of GJR Enterprises in the middle of London City and it’s raining outside.
Sipping coffee is a good tool. It creates a pause, short enough and legitimate enough to not appear rude but long enough to let every other man – and one woman – at the table know that this ismyshow, agenda or no agenda. Coffee cup slowly and purposefully back in its place, I sit taller in my leather chair and undo the middle button of my suit jacket.
‘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. Iwon’tfall 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 calledBlack Diamonds. It’s extremely similar to our game,Jail Run. It’s a very similar concept butBlack Diamondsis 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 ourJail Runprofit 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 theBlack Diamondssoftware, 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 campYou’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.’
