“Now, ladies, let me introduce you. This is David Seers and Steve Baines of Hewlitt Pritchard, our lawyers.” They shook hands politely. “And Peter, of course.”
“I think we’ve met,” said Maddy, and smiled broadly at Peter as his eyes twinkled and he winked supportively at her.
“And this is Greg Feinstein, Tessutini’s vice president of business development.” Their hands were grasped firmly by a preppie-looking man, all tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, who in turn introduced a man to his right, “Brian Bridgeton, our lawyer.” More handshaking, then Geoff indicated someone seated over the far side of the table, “and Tom Drake, Tessutini’s CEO.”
The man stood up and came round the table. He was enormously tall and lean and towered over Maddy and Izzie. Out of a sea of forgettable faces, this guy was impressive, and Maddy had to remind herself to look cool and nonchalant as she greeted him. Dark blue shirt and striped tie, suit trousers and, unlike the others, no jacket. He was not traditionally handsome—she supposed she’d imagined he’d be an Ivy Leaguer out of a John Grisham novel—but he was too rough cut for that, and he certainly had presence. She noticed neat cuffs as he took her hand in his cool, plate-sized one, and then she peered all the way up to his face. His hair was very short, obviously once dark judging by his dark eyebrows, but was now flecked with plenty of gray. His skin was slightly tanned—at Martha’s Vineyard, no doubt—and she reckoned he must be in his mid-forties. But it was his eyes that engaged her. She couldn’t really see the color of them, but they were framed with laughter lines and they looked hard at her with an assessing, rather presumptuous mirth. Well, she thought fleetingly, this would be eye candy if negotiations got dull.
Settled down in their places, opposite Tom Drake and his henchmen, Maddy suddenly felt her palms go clammy, and she had an irresistible urge to hold Izzie’s hand. This made the first Elements encounter seem like a picnic. She wanted a drink, too, but she wasn’t sure if it was the done thing to help yourself to the designer mineral water laid out down the middle of the table. What the hell. She leaned across the table, and to her chagrin, couldn’t quite reach, until Tom Drake slowly pushed the bottle and a glass toward her.
“Er, thank you.” Don’t be pathetic, Madeleine.
With the élan of a man who had clearly done this many times before, Greg Feinstein got the ball rolling. “Now that everyone’s here, we can start. It is delightful to meet you, ladies. As Geoff said, I am one of the corporate finance advisers for the Tessutini Group, and I have to say how impressed we are with Paysage Enchanté.” He pronounced this in his Boston brahmin accent to rhyme with “bay.” “We have watched your progress with interest and, as we have indicated, are very interested in bringing your company into the Tessutini Group. We think it would complement our portfolio very well. We have always prided ourselves on having a stable of forward-thinking and innovative enterprises, and we feel we could fulfill the brand’s potential.” He went on to repeat the offer made in their original communication, but hearing him say it aloud made it seem very real.
There was a pause, and Maddy slurped her drink inelegantly in the silence.
David Seers of Hewlitt’s took up the reins. “I understand my clients are interested in your offer to buy the Paysage Enchanté brand and associated goodwill, but have several points they would like to make.”
Geoff, in his element, swung into action at this point, and Maddy was relieved to let him run through the details they had talked about over the phone the day before. Clauses were discussed and counterdiscussed across the table, product recipes and production processes detailed, wording tweaked and fine-tuned, staff payoffs proposed and accepted, and after a while Maddy felt like a spare part. She tried not to let her eyes glaze over, nor to wander over to the other side of the table. The atmosphere seemed cordial enough, and Geoff was at his most dynamic. She could understand why Peter rated him so highly.
This is all going too well, she thought. They seem to be agreeing to everything, including maintaining the brand name and image, and we haven’t even played our ace yet. Perhaps someone’s going to jump through the door any minute and shout, “Joke! Had you going though, didn’t we?”
She kicked Izzie under the table, and scribbled on the pad in front of them, “Boîte Bleue?” Like passing notes in class, Izzie nudged Geoff and pointed to Maddy’s note. He raised his eyebrows at it, quizzically. Just agreed big sales deal with them, Izzie scribbled, and put the value of the order as discreetly as she could. Geoff’s eyebrows shot up even further. “Make us worth more?” she wrote underneath.
“Um, Mrs. Stock has just reminded me” (boy, he was cool) “that the company have just finalized a new order with Boîte Bleue, which would place the products in all sixty stores in six European countries.” He told them the estimated value of the order over the next twelve months. “This, we feel, should be reflected in Tessutini’s offer.”
“It is already a very generous one for a company that has not yet filed a year’s trading figures,” said Feinstein without flinching. “On these terms we would expect exclusivity.”
Peter’s voice came from the far end of the table. “Perhaps, but your offer was made without this information, and this Boîte Bleue order is clearly quite a coup. You will know yourselves just what a demanding company they are to supply.”
Greg Feinstein looked at his boss, who wrote something in small writing on the top of the papers in front of him, then he looked back at Geoff. “I think, yes, we can factor this increase in turnover into a new, slightly improved offer.” Maddy kicked Izzie again. Result!
“Our only issue,” said Feinstein, after a moment and glancing down at his notes, “is with Paysage Enchanté’s desire not to relinquish the rights to the products should Tessutini decide not to produce them any longer.”
“Er . . . that doesn’t seem reasonable,” Maddy blurted out without thinking. Judging by the looks of surprise coming at her from around the table, it was clear they really weren’t supposed to speak at all during the proceedings, and she felt like a juror who had suddenly said something inappropriate in court. She could feel the sweat prickling under her armpits but plowed on. “Surely if you decide that Paysage Enchanté should not be continued, then it’s fair game for anyone to buy the name back from you and start up production again, even if it wasn’t us?” She’d directed her remarks to the tortoiseshell glasses, but she could feel Tom Drake’s assessing eyes, full of humor, yet so damned arrogant, looking hard at her. She shifted her gaze to meet his.
He held her eyes. “The company, at the moment, is yours and Mrs. Stock’s by rights too,” he said at last, “until such time as you decide to sell. I’m afraid this is a clause of the contract on which we are immovable.”
Maddy looked down quickly at the draft contract in front of her. Suddenly she felt terribly protective about their little range of products. The fun Izzie and she had had putting together the story; the meetings with Pru and Elements; the cabbages stuffed into the veg patch; long evenings of agonizing work that had gone into meeting orders; the girls back at the barn with their foul language and fouler jokes; Crispin and his visits to the weirdos in Wales; Lillian with her efficiency and surprising little hobbies. Paysage Enchanté was their baby, even if it had been somewhat unplanned, and she felt now as if they were having to put it up for adoption.
She turned to Izzie, her eyebrow raised in what she hoped would read as, what do you think?
Izzie turned back to the table and, in her best hard-nosed businesswoman voice, said, “Am I not right in thinking there may be a requirement for us to stay on for a period of time as directors, to oversee the handover?”
There was a moment’s silence, until Geoff and Greg spoke almost simultaneously. “I think you’ll agree, Izzie, that if production is to move to the States, it really wouldn’t be practical.”
“Mrs. Stock, set your mind at rest,” soothed Greg. “Tessutini is one of the biggest cosmetics producers in the world. I can assure you there wi
ll be no hitch in the transfer.”
Izzie looked questioningly at Maddy. “Er . . . can we have five minutes to talk about this please, gentlemen? Either we can leave the room . . . er, or you can.”
Once the Americans had closed the door behind them, both Maddy and Izzie slumped back in their chairs, not realizing how tensed up their bodies had been.
“Is it too early for a drink?” Izzie asked Peter.
“With a bit of luck, darling, we can crack the champagne soon, but let’s sort out this hurdle. Their terms are very reasonable so far—remarkably so, really—but I think you may have to concede this one.”
Geoff gave a nervous little cough. “Maddy, I think you will find that these sort of caveats are very normal in such negotiations. It is part of the purchaser’s requirement to have complete control of a brand once it has been acquired. Don’t forget the restrictive covenant—you will both be excluded from setting up a similar business for the next two years anyway.”
“I can see his point, Maddy,” said Izzie gently. “Would we want to start it up again, even if they did stop production some time in the future? If a company like Tessutini decides after a while it’s not really selling as much as it should . . . well, they’d take it off the market. They know the cosmetics market better than we do.”
“Everyone knows it better than we do, love. This whole thing has been by the seat of our not insubstantial pants.” Maddy smiled at her. “Is there any chance of some coffee, then?” Geoff picked up the phone to put in the order.
“It’s all so very final though, isn’t it?” Maddy continued quietly, so only Izzie could hear. “Once they take it on, then it’s good-bye to everything.”
“Maybe, but isn’t that what we want? Haven’t we decided that we’ve had enough? All this spin’s made me so dizzy, I don’t know who or what I am anymore.”
She looked at Izzie and could see the plea in her eyes. Selling the company was going to be the only way that she could salvage her marriage, wasn’t it? Despite Marcus’s eleventh-hour support during the shenanigans with Fabien, Maddy wasn’t convinced his volte-face was genuine. How much longer would he tolerate Izzie giving every hour to the company? It had been one hell of a year for her and, if they didn’t sell, the business would have to make a quantum leap to be able to supply Boîte Bleue at all. No way could they fulfill orders the way things were now, and how long would it take to realize an imaginary warehouse in Rotterdam? They’d be victims of their own sales bullshit. It was only fair to take the money Tessutini were offering.
But Maddy couldn’t help feeling a strong flood of selfishness. Where would the sale leave her, except richer? She had no other life except for this. Their brief time at Huntingford House had been one of grief and Paysage Enchanté, but the day after the sale went though all she would have would be the grief. There was only so much shopping you could do in a lifetime, even for someone with her abilities in that department. And what about all the things Will had said? But what was left for her?
Izzie squeezed her hand. “We’ve proved such a lot to ourselves over the last year. Think how far we’ve come since Ledfinch Manor and that awful Fayre and the terrible smell in your kitchen. It was fun, but anyway it might not be the end. For both of us, it could just be the beginning.” She smiled at her terrible cliché.
They returned to the table for another hour of tedious semantics then, with a finality that felt like the end of a particularly arduous exam, Greg Feinstein wrapped up the meeting. “This is all fairly straightforward and we will have it finalized within days, ladies, and then we will sign the agreement and have it ready for signatures.” He tidied his papers, slipped them back into his briefcase and put the lid back on his pen with a conclusive click. “I think for security reasons, we should leave the building separately, so if you could give us a few moments before you leave the room . . .” There was a general scraping of chairs as everyone stood up, shook hands, and made their farewells. Tom Drake took Maddy’s hand again and, feeling bereft, she found herself saying, “We’ve worked hard on this company, Mr. Drake. You will look after it, won’t you?”
His eyes crinkled into a smile. “Oh, we know you have. That’s why it’s been so successful. We’ll take good care of it,” and he picked up his briefcase and walked out of the door, his minions following behind.
Maddy felt her body sag with relief. “Is there light at the end of the tunnel, Iz?” she muttered.
“It’s coming, babe! Just a few more days of being wholesome, and we can do what the hell we like.”
The traffic back was dire, bumper to bumper up the A40, stopping and starting until Maddy’s clutch foot ached. The tedium was interspersed with calls from Geoff who gabbled his excitement into Izzie’s ear. “He says we should have the contracts by Friday,” she said as she cut him off after the second call. “He’s really fired up. Anyone would think it was his money.”
“We’re going to have to give him a bonus of some kind, I suppose.” Maddy looked into her wing mirror and tried to change lanes. “I’ll ask Peter what the procedure is. In the meantime, my girl, you’re going to need a lesson in how to spend serious cash. Burn a hole in that plastic.”
For the next excruciatingly slow hour they planned what they were going to buy, Izzie’s ideas getting more and more bizarre as time went on. By the time Maddy dropped her at her house, to be greeted by a cautious but friendly Marcus, Izzie had parted with most of her half on everything from an aquarium to a yacht painted lilac and manned by a crew of Adonis (or Adoni, they weren’t quite sure of the plural).
As she finally pulled into her drive, Will and Florence flew out of the door, and it took her some time to answer their questions and listen to their news of the day. At last she dumped her bag in the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine.
Will came trundling in after her. “Mum, can I play on the Game Boy? Colette said I couldn’t till I’d done my homework.”
“Well, have you?”
“Yes.”
“Well then you can.”
“Mummy, can we have a disco?” Florence tottered into the room in her clippy-cloppy pink shoes and one of Colette’s pink sparkly T-shirts bearing the slogan “Like I give a FCUK.”
“Why not?” said Maddy, seizing the mood. “Out on the terrace. I’ll put the speakers in the doorway—Florence, darling, you get the ABBA CD.” She scooped up Pasco, went into the sitting room, and flung open the doors. Yes, it was warm enough in the early autumn sunshine. Turning the speakers around, she slipped in the CD from Florence, and turned the volume loud. Will, too cool by far to join in, sat on the garden bench, engrossed in Pokémon on his Game Boy. Pasco began to push the soily tractor he’d found discarded on the ground through the flower bed, and Florence, grabbing Colette by the hand, began to gyrate to the music. Everyone happy, Maddy dashed upstairs; dug out and threw on her own FCUK T-shirt from the back of the wardrobe, some pink pedal pushers (bit tight now) she hadn’t been able to wear under the Ruralist regime, and her beloved Jimmy Choos; retrieved her wine from the kitchen; lit a much-needed cigarette; and went back to stand in the doorway.
“Come on, Mum,” shrieked Florence over the soundtrack. “Come and dance.” Careful not to spill her wine, and giggling with the fun of it all, she joined the dancing lineup.
The music was so loud, and dance steps needing so much concentration, she couldn’t possibly have heard the click, whirr, click, whirr coming from the other side of the garden hedge.
Chapter 18
Izzie yawned and stretched, careful not to disturb Charlie who had clambered into bed in between them again sometime during the night. He’d given up coming into their bed a couple of years previously but, since the night she’d fled with the kids to Maddy’s house, he’d woken every night and sleepily sought her out. She hadn’t said anything. No point making an issue of it. Perhaps it would sort itself out in time. Perhaps her marriage too would sort itself out in time. Perhaps.
Charlie’s long, dark glossy lashes
lay on his cheeks and his mouth was softly open, his breath sweet and warm. Skinny as ever, he was getting tall now, and she smiled to herself as she traced with her eyes the bump he made under the blue check quilt—not a little boy anymore, but he was still easily thrown by changes in his life. What would be best for him and Jess? For their parents to stay together, despite their flawed relationship? Or for them to split up, live apart, and carve up the children between them, a weekend here, a holiday there? The way Izzie felt now, the latter choice would be easier, or at least less painful. But she was not the only one involved. With Marcus around and the constant pressure to forgive, to analyze, to debate, she sometimes felt the top of her head was going to come flying off.
She felt tired—dog tired. If someone had led her into a darkened room with a nice comfy bed and left her uninterrupted, she reckoned she could sleep for three weeks straight. And the prospect of actually being able to do just that was dangling in front of her. All they had to do was to get the signed contract back to the States, hand all responsibility over to Tessutini, bank the check, and take it easy—maybe not for life, but for a while.
Charlie stirred, saving her from any further thoughts, and slurred huskily, “Kisses, please.” So imperious, so adorable. How could she love these children so passionately, yet feel so many doubts about their father? Jess came tippy-toeing in next and snuggled up on Izzie’s other side, completing her bliss. Izzie nuzzled her hair, inhaling deeply, and listened to an account of her latest dream.
Marcus, still on his best behavior, had already set out to jog down to the village to get their newspaper. He was working hard at getting back into shape, perhaps remembering how irresistible Izzie had once found him. She shook her head sadly. It would be a long and difficult process if they were ever to build a relationship that worked for both of them. And without the business to act as legitimate distraction . . . He wanted the emotion. All Izzie wanted was some undemanding task to divert her. Could it be that Marcus was the one from Venus, while all she wanted was a nice cozy cave somewhere on Mars?
Goodbye, Jimmy Choo Page 33