Hayley smiled, picking up her coffee cup.
‘Exorcise. To free a person of evil spirits.’ Angel grinned and waved her fingers across the table. ‘Wooooo!’
‘Attagirl. Want to ride the subway?’
‘But we haven’t finished here yet!’ Angel folded her arms across her chest. ‘I want to see a piece calledGrosse Fatigue.’
‘Just imagine me with bed hair and mix it together with fizzy wine and jet lag.’ Hayley grinned. ‘I’ll show you tomorrow.’
15
DRUMMOND GLOBAL OFFICES, DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN
Oliver was buzzing. Getting the fundraiser off his back first thing had set him up for the rest of the day. The meeting with the design and development team had been the cherry on top. Now the only thing hanging over him was the takeover of Regis Software. Maybe Clara had been right. Maybe he had taken his finger off the pulse with respect to that. Perhaps he needed to do more. He’d had an email from Mackenzie this morning saying the lawyers were dragging their feet over some moot point.
What would his father do? He shifted in his seat as that thought went through his mind. Why was he thinking that? Hadn’t he been telling everybody he wasn’t his father, that he was his own man? He shouldn’t need an eighties businessman’s guidance to manage a twenty-first-century company. Did he really need or want this merger? What were the benefits for both companies?
He picked up the phone on his desk and pressed a key. He waited for Clara to answer. ‘Clara, could you get Andrew Regis on the phone?’
Outside Drummond Global Offices, Downtown Manhattan
Hayley’s eyes went from the dark-grey street, the snow having been worn away, through the chrome and glass entrance doors and upwards, scanning the many floors to the spiral top of the offices.
The building of Drummond Global was like a real-life Lego construction, only made of metalwork and windows, not plastic bricks. It was a complete world away from the architecture of the Guggenheim.Thiswas industry. People inside this multi-million-dollar organisation were all part of important decisions, deal-breaking negotiations, creating and selling vital technology. Dean was a global hardware genius, fitting right into this high-stakes world. It was another universe when compared to fresh-pressing and stain removal at the cutting edge of the dry-cleaning industry.
‘Is this where Donald Trump works?’ Angel asked, her eyes following her mother’s, her hands occupied with a giant hot dog. Hayley had devoured hers in thirty seconds and moved on to a pretzel that hadn’t taken much longer to finish.
‘No,’ Hayley said, her eyes following the line of the building and back down again. ‘This is where Uncle Dean works.’
‘Wow, it’s huge,’ Angel said through splutters of bun.
‘Yeah, it is.’
The sound of ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ came bursting out of a boom box on the sidewalk, a breakdancing reindeer busting some moves. Hayley reached a hand out to Angel. ‘Come on.’
‘Hot-dog hands,’ Angel said, shaking the bread-covered sausage up and down and following.
‘We won’t be here long. We’ll just leave this jacket for Mr Meanie and we’ll go and get milkshakes.’
Angel answered with an indecipherable noise through sausage chomping.
Hayley pushed at the door and the warm air from insidebuffeted her hair as she passed through the entrance. She heard anotherwowescape from Angel’s lips as they stepped into the foyer.
It was the grandest office Hayley had ever been in and looked more like a high-tech hotel. There was a cream, tiled floor that had been polished so well, you could almost use it as a mirror, a central terminal with a bank of screens dominated the rest of the area and at the far end of the room was the reception desk, a sculpted metal affair with three women – scratch that, three models – in matching grey and pale-blue uniform sat behind it.
‘Fashion alert at twelve o’clock,’ Hayley whispered to Angel. ‘Grey and pale blue. What were they thinking?’
‘They need some tangerine in there,’ Angel replied. ‘Or some deep plum.’
‘Nice work.’
‘Wow! Look!’
Before she could say anything else, Angel was skating across the slick floor. Her daughter stopped just in front of a giant Christmas tree. It was easily three feet wide and its star topper almost touched the ceiling. The annual spruce in Trafalgar Square had nothing on this. Then she creased her brow at the scene. Two men in overalls were working deftly with the swags, baubles and bells but it looked like they were taking the decorations off rather than putting them on.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ she called to Angel.
She went up to the reception desk, undoing the zip of her backpack as she moved. Smiling at one of the blonde-haired receptionists, she pulled the jacket out of her bag. Angel arrived at her side.
