Perreira opening chequebook for flood victims, The Times Online informs me, going on to add, making a substantial private donation in addition to the £15 million also pledged by the Perreira Foundation.
‘What in God’s name …?’ I murmur.
The Daily Mail, the next one on the list, has posted only twenty-one minutes ago that Heart-throb billionaire Joel Perreira digs deep for Bangladesh: unknown amount donated to tragic flood victims from ‘personal funds’.
‘Libby?’ Bogdan is staring at me. ‘You are looking as if you are about to be vomiting. Shall I be getting you cup of tea?’
When I don’t reply, he gets up and heads over to the counter as fast as his legs will carry him, possibly to avoid any chance that, if I am going to be sick for some reason, I’ll do it over him.
‘Joel’s a … billionaire.’
At the word billionaire, Cass’s eyes sharpen and she lunges forward in her seat.
‘What?’ she demands. ‘Who?’
‘Joel … the guy I went out with the other night … Joel Perreira …’
‘Joel Perreira?’ Cass echoes.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re going out with Joel fucking Perreira?’
‘Yes.’
‘The billionaire Joel Perreira?’
‘Apparently.’ I stare at the iPhone screen. ‘He told me he was a personal trainer.’
Unless … is it possible to make billions from personal training? I mean, I know Davina’s made a fair few bob from her workout DVDs, and then there’s that 30 Day Shred woman who’s earned a small fortune from her commodification of off-putting abdominal exercises …
But no. I don’t think it’s possible to make billions from that. I don’t think it’s possible at all.
Cass snatches my phone from my hand. ‘This is him, right?’ She stabs a finger at the picture that’s come up on screen in the Reuters link. ‘The guy you’re dating?’
‘Yes.’ I stare at the photo. It’s him, all right, although he’s looking smarter – positively dapper, in fact – in an exquisitely cut suit and a rather gorgeous pale blue silk tie that brings out the colour of his eyes. ‘That’s him.’
‘Well, that’s Joel Perreira.’
‘But there must be some mistake …’
‘So if there’s been a mistake, Libby, why do you think it says right here …’ Cass flicks down the screen with a finger until she alights on a link to an article in the Daily Mail, ‘that he’s worth two point six billion pounds? That his divorce a couple of years ago cost him six hundred million quid? That he owns homes in Holland Park, West Sussex, Manhattan, Sydney, the Gold Coast, St Lucia and—’ she chokes, ever so slightly, on reading the last one, ‘Beverly Hills?’
‘No. No. He lives in Shepherd’s Bush. Ish.’
‘Shepherd’s Bush-ish is bloody Holland Park!’ she shrieks at me, displaying, suddenly, more knowledge of London metropolitan geography than she ever has of anything else in her entire life. ‘For fuck’s sake, Libby! How the fuck are you shagging a drop-dead gorgeous billionaire?’
The middle-aged couple at the next table glance over at us, though whether in disapproval at Cass’s appalling language, or out of interest (to see whether or not I look as unlikely a candidate for gorgeous billionaire-shagging as has been explicitly stated), I don’t know. Or, right now, much care.
‘But I …’ I croak. ‘I mean, we haven’t …’
I’m staring at the words on the Mail Online page, and trying to make them make sense.
It may only be a couple of years since Joel Perreira was named the second richest Under-40 in the United Kingdom, but he’s not a man to sit around resting on his laurels. This week the self-made billionaire has pledged $50 million from his eponymous children’s aid foundation to be put towards the construction of at least four maternity and paediatric medicine clinics and half a dozen schools in the Central African Republic and Liberia. The foundation’s director and Perreira’s mother, Barbara Reitman, made the announcement at the glittering annual fund-raiser for the Perreira Foundation, held this year in …
But I don’t care where the glittering annual fund-raiser for the Perreira Foundation was held. Even though, it seems pretty obvious now, this must have been where the photograph in Caroline and Annika’s press pile was taken.
‘I don’t understand.’ I feel the most horrible, sick sensation in my stomach. ‘I don’t understand why he lied to me.’
‘Because men are a bunch of fucking liars, that’s why.’
‘Yes, but usually they’re exaggerating the other way, aren’t they? Trying to talk themselves up, make themselves sound better or more important or … or richer than they really are …’
‘Well, maybe he had a bet with some friends to see if he could find literally the only woman on the entire fucking planet who didn’t know who he was!’ Cass spits.
‘How the hell was I supposed to know who he was?’ I’m stung. ‘I don’t spend my life reading … I don’t know … Billionaire’s Gazette.’
‘Nor does anyone, Libby!’ Cass shrieks. ‘There is such a thing as bloody Google, though. Didn’t you even think to do that before you went on this date?’
‘No. I didn’t.’
‘Then you’re a moron,’ she shoots back. ‘If you don’t Google the hell out of someone before you go out with them, how are you supposed to know who they are? They could be a serial killer for all you know!’
‘If they were a serial killer,’ I say, rather faintly, because I’m still trying to take in what Cass is telling me about Joel, ‘I think it’s unlikely it would be plastered all over Google.’
‘You don’t know that! What if they used to be a serial killer in the past, and then they went to prison for all the serial killing, and now they’re out, and claiming they’ve turned over a new leaf … anyway, none of this is the point!’ Cass wails. ‘Why are you dating a billionaire when I’m stuck with bloody Zoltan and his horrible sprogs for the rest of my life?’ She reaches over the table and grabs my hand. ‘I’ve always been a good sister to you, Lib, haven’t I?’ she goes on, desperately. ‘You won’t forget me? You’ll see if you might be able to funnel a bit of cash my way, you know, for the bare essentials? A full-time nanny? Those boarding-school fees – or maybe the fees for that workhouse place you were talking about—’
‘What is trouble?’ This is Bogdan, returning with my cup of tea. ‘What is going on?’
‘Libby’s only gone and snagged herself a bloody billionaire,’ Cass says. Her tone is half-bitter, half-triumphant.
Bogdan stares at me. ‘Gorgeous man who you are meeting in street? How is this possible?’
‘Ha! I’m asking myself the same bloody question,’ says Cass, ‘trust me. I mean, first Dillon O’Hara, and now Joel Perreira …’
‘Wait – I am knowing this name.’ Bogdan frowns, thinking about it. ‘Joel Perreira is social media entrepreneur, no? He is guy who is investing in early days of Tumblr?
‘And Instagram. And Snapchat. And about a million mega-successful apps. Yeah,’ says Cass. ‘That’s him.’
I feel as if the floor has been pulled away from beneath me. I don’t know, now, if anything Joel told me on our date was actually real.
Apart from the fact that his name is Joel Perreira, that is.
And it’s obvious, now, why he looked so anxious when he blurted out his surname like that.
I mean, was the whole thing just a big joke to him? Going out with the one woman on the planet who didn’t realize who he was?
‘He just sat there and lied to my face,’ I mumble. ‘He said he was a personal trainer. He said …’
I have to think about this for a moment.
Because if I think about it, I’m not actually sure that Joel did say he was a personal trainer.
I think I said he was a personal trainer and he … didn’t deny it.
Which is a pattern that he stuck to throughout the evening, come to think of it, whenever I asked a question about any of that s
tuff. He said he has great clients. He said he travels a lot for work. He said he was going to Barbados to meet a client out there, and obviously I just assumed it was a personal training client. Whereas it was probably something, instead, to do with all his money …
So it wasn’t even outright lying, it was more the kind of clever sort of half-truths that make you feel oh-so-hilariously superior to the person you’re telling them to. Sitting there all poker-faced, paddling madly like a duck beneath the surface to think about the clever way you’ll avoid their next probing question.
‘I just don’t get it,’ Cass is saying, to Bogdan. ‘I mean, she’s my sister, and I love her and all of that crap, but I mean, seriously – how the fuck is she doing it?’
‘Perhaps,’ Bogdan muses, ‘she is capable of the amazing feats of stamina and/or acrobatics in the sex department—’
‘Guys! Please! Can you have a bit of bloody compassion? I’ve made an absolute fool of myself with … Oh, God,’ I suddenly groan, loudly, as I remember some more of the things I was saying. ‘I told him not to order off my website because the jewellery on it was too expensive for him! I offered him my Oyster card to get home on the bus!’
‘This is mortifying for you,’ Bogdan agrees. ‘Is begging question of why you are not Googling him before you are going on date?’
‘Exactly!’ says Cass.
‘Or, once on date, while you are going to bathroom? Or while he is going to bathroom? There are plenty of opportunities,’ Bogdan continues, ‘for the Googling that you are not taking, Libby. This is why I am finding it hard to have the sympathy with your predicament. This, plus the fact that you have just been on date with hottest richest man am ever seeing in my life.’
‘Why didn’t I Google him?’ I ask, in astonishment. ‘Because I was having a great time! Because I was too busy enjoying getting to know him – or rather, who I thought he was – to think about getting out my phone and doing my due diligence! But mostly because I think it’s plain depressing to do due diligence on a first date. I mean, where’s the romance in that? Where’s the mystery?’
‘Who the fuck cares about romance or mystery,’ Cass asks, ‘when you’re all set to marry a billionaire?’
‘I’m not marrying him! For fuck’s sake, Cass! I’m not even going to go on the second date.’
Cass and Bogdan stare at me.
Then they turn and stare at each other.
‘Is clear to me now,’ Bogdan tells Cass. ‘Your sister is mislaying the marbles.’
‘Mislaying them? Bogdan, honey, I’m starting to doubt she ever had them in the first place!’
‘Look,’ I say, furiously, ‘I’m not going to go out on a date with someone who’s just sat across the table from me and lied their socks off all night!’
‘Libby. I don’t think you’re quite getting it.’ Cass takes a deep breath, places both palms on the tabletop and gazes across it at me. ‘He’s. A. Billionaire. That means he has billions of pounds in the bank. Not millions. Not squillions. Not … hang on, there is such a thing as gazillions, right? Or is that more than billions?’
‘Am thinking that gazillions may be highest possible denomination.’
‘So, more than billions, then?’
‘Am thinking so. But am not sure.’
‘Oh, I know. We can look it up on Google,’ Cass says, pointedly, getting out her own phone as I pick up mine again.
I’m going to send a message to Joel right this minute.
Hi. Just to let you know I won’t be able to make it tonight. It was nice to meet you and …
Good luck with all your future money-making endeavours? Good luck counting your billions? Good luck donating millions to a raft of impossibly good causes?
I can’t think of anything to say that doesn’t sound snippy or defensive.
‘Ah,’ Bogdan is saying, as he and Cass peer at her phone together. ‘Is looking as if there is in fact no such thing as actual gazillions.’
‘Well, that just doesn’t make any sense … I’m absolutely certain there’s such a thing as gazillions, or it wouldn’t be a word …’
I put my own phone down again. I’m not going to send a message. A message is the coward’s way out.
What, is the question, would Grace Kelly do in this situation? I may not be able to ask her, after she was (possibly) accidentally exorcized from the mystical depths of the Chesterfield, but I think I already know.
I am going to go and meet Joel tonight, and I’m going to confront him about this – with a dignity and class that belie the mortification and hurt I actually feel – and then I’m going to sweep out of his life and never see him again.
Because, even though I never intended anything serious to develop with him, I am hurt. Surprisingly hurt. I’ve never been all that good at trusting men at the best of times, and for Joel to act the good guy while secretly making a fool of me behind my back – setting up, as he must have done, that little love-fest at Pressley/Waters just now …
Letting me get my hopes up about a way out of the mess my career is fast becoming.
Letting me take a sneaky peek at a world where I’m no longer agonizingly in love with Olly, but can move on with someone else instead.
I take a large gulp of burning-hot tea, and shrink back as far into the booth as I possibly can, listening to Cass and Bogdan squabble about whether billions are more than gazillions, or the other way around.
An hour before the appointed time of our date this evening, I’m here in Hanover Square, standing right outside the London offices of Jansen-Perreira Ltd, Joel’s multibillion-dollar tech company.
I mean, I can’t even comfort myself with the fact that he’s some evil exploiter of precious natural resources, or an arms manufacturer, or something.
His company, as far as I’ve gathered from my belated Google research this afternoon – all afternoon – is green. Clean. Family-friendly. They consistently top the rankings for employee satisfaction, thanks to all kinds of wonderful workers’ provisions, from heavily subsidized crèches to amazing cafeterias, plus everyone getting their birthday off work and a discretionary number of ‘duvet days’ per year, when they’re allowed to just recharge their batteries without having to make up some spurious fib about food poisoning.
So he’s practically a saint, in the world of big business.
A saint who also happens to be, in his private life, an out-and-out liar.
Which I’m going to tell him to his face. And which is probably a huge mistake, but now I’ve decided to do it, I don’t think I can turn back. It’ll feel like I’ve backed down from something important. Something I really need to do.
And OK, I’ll admit it: there’s a (much) less impressive part of me that just wants to see Joel’s face in the instant that he realizes that I know.
I’m ever-so-slightly losing my nerve, now that I’m actually here, however, outside this impressive building in Hanover Square.
But I can’t go back now. I won’t go back now.
Trying to adopt the sort of chilly, don’t-fuck-with-me air that Grace Kelly has down pat, I head through the revolving doors, stride towards the little seating area near a bank of lifts, and sit down on a white leather sofa that probably costs more than the entire property market of Stevenage put together.
There are enough people – Joel’s grateful, well-subsidized employees – heading in and out of this huge lobby that I don’t think anyone is going to question why I’m here. Still, I pick up a copy of the FT that’s folded, neatly, on the coffee table in front of me, and pretend to read it while I wait, and watch the lifts, and the revolving doors, for any sign of Joel.
I’m actually a little bit relieved, though, when my phone suddenly rings, because having a conversation is going to make me look more convincingly busy, and – I can but hope – less ambush-y.
It’s Mum.
Mum calls me so rarely that I assume, for a moment, that she must need help in some way. She’s still at the hospital, taking full advantage of
her insurance-covered stay for as long as she can but, knowing her, she’s remembered some vital possession she needs to be brought to her from her flat, or she’s decided that one of the nurses has (surprise, surprise) Got It In For Her and just wants a good old bitch. Either way, I’ll answer, because it’s better than skulking behind a copy of the Financial Times.
‘Libby! Darling!’ Her voice, as I answer the call, is syrupy-sweet. ‘Do you have a minute? Have I caught you at a bad time?’
‘No, I have a couple of minutes, Mum. What’s up?’
‘Oh, darling, can’t I ever just phone for a little chat?’
This is when I know, immediately, the real reason she’s called.
Joel. Cass has told her about Joel.
‘I mean, here I am in hospital with all this time on my hands all of a sudden … I mean, that’s the main reason I don’t usually get the chance to call up for a good old gossip, Libby. I’m so busy, and you’re so busy … this just seems like a golden opportunity to make up for lost time!’
‘I’m still busy, actually, Mum.’
‘Of course. Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt you. I tell you what, why don’t we plan a nice evening out somewhere really soon, when I’m out of the hospital? Give ourselves the opportunity to catch up on … everything that’s going on in our lives.’
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
On the one hand, her shamelessness is sort of funny. On the other hand, it’s incredibly depressing that after all these years of disinterest, all it takes to get her champing at the bit to be my BFF is the news that I’m involved with a billionaire.
Correction: was involved.
‘Well, that would be nice, Mum,’ I say. ‘Let me know when’s good.’
‘Oh, darling, any time!’ She clears her throat, almost inaudibly. ‘I mean, obviously you must have quite a bit of your time taken up with this … new man Cass has told me about.’
‘Not really.’
‘Then you must!’ The syrupy-sweet tone transforms into a panicked-sounding shriek. ‘Libby, it’s vitally important that you make him your top priority! Where would Kate Middleton be now, darling, if she hadn’t dropped everything else in her life to make sure she was there when William needed her? And what sort of mother would I be,’ she goes on, images of herself as a sort of doppelgänger for Carole Middleton, all skirt suits, coat dresses and discreet diamonds, clearly popping into her mind, ‘if I counselled any differently?’
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 16