by Laura Carter
“Clark, this is Dayna. Dayna, meet Clark.”
I’d heard about him from Teddy for years; they’d lived in halls together at university. But this was the first time I’d seen him in the flesh. And. My. God. I opened my mouth to speak, but two sparkling blue eyes trained on mine and stopped the words from coming. I hoped he’d say something, save me from myself, but he didn’t. Instead, Clark stepped forwards, silently, and accepted the hand I’d lifted to him without conscious thought.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” I eventually managed.
“All good, I hope.”
I knew he was a good friend to Teddy, so I respected him for that. But the glint in his eye told me that wasn’t what he meant. “Actually, none of it,” I told him honestly, already thinking about how not good I’d like him to be to me.
He winked then, looking unbelievably cocky, but his soft smile made me think he wasn’t all bad.
Shaking off the memory, I drag my fingers roughly through my hair under the shower’s spray. That was before you realised he’s a dick, I remind myself.
I dry my limbs in a tantrum. These industry events are the bane of my existence — men drinking brandy, smoking cigars and congratulating each other on having more money than an entire third-world country. Since he became CEO of Layton Oil, Clark is just another such arsehole I have to contend with.
I’M HOLDING A mug of much-needed caffeine in two hands, sitting at my dining table, glaring at my laptop. The email finally drops at nine a.m. Bahrain time, six a.m for me. I open all five attachments and trawl through the details of the Persian well. My interest is certainly aroused, more so when I run the financials. With SP’s blending capabilities, this could actually prove profitable. Not highly profitable, but profitable enough for me to justify to my board without having to explain that I’m gunning for a small slice of revenge.
I call Arthur and discuss it with him.
“So do you think we should bid at eighty million?” I ask for final confirmation.
He exhales heavily down the line.
“What is it, Arthur?”
“Why do you want the well, Dayna?”
“We’ve just discussed this for half an hour. I could turn a profit from the well for at least four years at current oil prices, and if the price per barrel rises we’ll make—”
“Tell me it has nothing to do with Roger.”
I sigh as I shift my focus to the picture of my father on the sideboard. It’s in black and white, but I remember each and every colour — the glistening ocean, the yellow of the rig, the bright red of the too-big hard hat I was wearing. My father is smiling, his arms wrapped tightly around me, and I’m giggling. I was six in the photograph. Then, I still had a complete family — mother, father, daughter.
“Arthur, I told you I was looking for a new opportunity before you told me about this, before I knew I’d be going up against Caspar Kahn.”
“So long as that’s the case, I support you. But men like Kahn aren’t to be messed with, Dayna.”
“I’m a big girl, Arthur, and this is business. Just business.”
A forced social engagement is the last thing I need this week. The only silver lining is that it’s an industry dinner. The men here are more likely to pat you on the back for breaking a woman’s heart than give you a hard time. But there’s always my father for that.
I thank my driver as he holds open the limo door, and I fasten the button of my dinner jacket.
“The prodigal son.” My father arrives at the same time I do. He falls into step next to me, a close match for my height and width but missing conditioning these days — not something that stops him wanting to pick a fight with me every time we see each other. “Just when I thought you’d done all the fucking up you were going to do…”
We walk the red carpet leading to the entrance of the lavish hotel. “A pleasure, as always, sir.”
“Don’t get smart with me, Clark. I have a lot more than that to say to you.”
We step through double doors held by suited doormen. The official photographers for the event are waiting with cameras that force me to squint under the flash. We’re engulfed by a blend of rich aftershaves coming from the hundreds of obscenely wealthy men. “That’s possibly the first time you’ve acknowledged I’m smart. I’m touched, truly.”
I accept a glass of champagne from a waiter and take a swig that clears half the contents. I glance around the packed reception area. A pianist can barely be heard above the raucous conversation and rumbling baritone laughs of men in bow ties, already indulging in fine drinks and canapés. The industry is out in force.
My father puts a hand on my shoulder, a move that might look affectionate to an outsider, but his fingers dig into the muscle beneath my collarbone. “Do you appreciate what you have now, what I’ve handed you on a goddamned silver platter, you selfish little prick?” His words come low and ominous through his teeth. “You’re at the head of the company I built, and I won’t let you bring down my reputation, my name. You won’t return to your old ways and you will get that girl back. If you want to fuck other women, do it quietly, but to everyone else, you will maintain the stature that I’ve gifted you and you will marry that girl.”
I take his hand from my shoulder, squeezing his fingers in mine. I stare into his ageing brown eyes. “Years ago — hell, months ago — I was afraid of you. I did everything you wanted. I gave up things I shouldn’t have had to give up, all for you. And now I see you for what you are: a bitter, twisted cunt. You think you’re still someone. You’re not. You’re an old man whose ticker is failing. You’re weak, and one day, people will find you out.”
“Is that a threat, son?”
We turn and smile as a photographer moves in front of us and snaps. The father and son of Layton Oil. As blissful as the Little House on the fucking Prairie.
I drain the remainder of my drink. “It’s not a threat. But the only reason I’m not telling Mother what you did last week, what you’ve been doing, is because it will hurt her. Make no mistake, I no longer have any loyalty to you.”
I turn to leave, but he grabs me by the arm. “You’re wrong, son. You were never everything I wanted.”
A short, sinister laugh bursts from my chest. “Nothing and no one will ever be everything you want.”
I grab another drink and turn on a smile when I hear my name being called by Harrison Franks, the MD of Stellar Fuels. As I join him and his group in conversation, I turn my head around the opulent reception. My eyes meet my father’s more than once, beckoned like bugs to a warning light.
“The difficulty is that these companies think they can charge higher prices for their widgets and valves, but the specifications haven’t changed. They’ve got to recognise that with oil prices this low, they’re asking for disproportionate coin. Do you agree, Clark?”
I pull my attention back to Harrison and speak to him with half my focus on the rest of room. “I agree that we can’t afford to pay more, but the specifications have improved.”
As Harrison continues to drone on about widgets, I spot Caspar Kahn of Persian Fuels making his way into the hotel. This morning, I found out the names of all the bidders for the well in the Middle East. Caspar is one of them, and I intend to see what I can get out of him about his bid.
“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to take care of.”
I’m halfway across the space between Caspar and me when I hear a female laugh. There are only a handful of women at these events, but that doesn’t make a difference; I’d recognise that sound anywhere. It’s like my legs forget how to walk. I rotate on the spot, my body tensing against the charge in the air around me that’s rendered me stupid.
The day before my wedding, I saw my father with another woman, his fingers ramming into her as they hid behind a wall at our pre-wedding luncheon. His own son’s pre-wedding luncheon. “You don’t have to be in love with the woman you marry; you just have to make sure she’s the right woman,” he told me,
as if it was some kind of defence to adultery. I thought about it for the rest of the day. I was thinking about it when I read SP’s accounts and saw Dayna Cross’s face on the cover.
I’ve never bought into fate. But it was too hard to deny the signs. It was a reality check. I didn’t want to be like my father. I didn’t want to marry Connie because she said the right things in company and behaved the right way. If I did that I’d ultimately hurt her. I’d hurt her because she’d never be what I now realise I want. No, what I need.
And what I need is standing right across the room from me.
Caspar Kahn can wait. I rub my fist against the dull throb under my ribcage and remind myself to breathe. She’s stunning. Infinitely more beautiful in person. My lips curve upwards at the sound of another laugh. She sips her champagne and her cheeks flush as she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. I’d stake my life on the fact someone in her circle just complimented her. And rightly so. Her black gown touches each magnificent curve of her body and floats down to the ground from her flat stomach. She leans forwards as she speaks, and my lips part as I catch a glimpse of her back. The gown drapes down to the small of her spine. My mouth goes dry as I fix my eyes on her naked flesh.
As if she’s tuned into my presence, Dayna turns her head over her shoulder. She finds me. My legs are moving me forwards before my mind tells them to do so. There’s a fleeting look of something I like in her eyes. Something I’ve seen before. Heat? Desire? Then, just as quickly, it’s gone, and her face shifts to an expression more like disgust. My brain realises now that this is a bad idea, but I keep moving. She breaks from the group to place her empty glass on the bar.
“Dayna.” Her name comes unintentionally low and husky off my tongue.
She stills but for the subtle rise of her shoulders. I take the moment to drink her in, remembering the smoothness of her skin.
When she turns, there’s a sarcastic smile in her eyes. She leans back against the bar, confident and sexy as hell. “Clark.” It’s cold, and it stings like a jellyfish.
Just like that, I snap back from whatever fictional land I was just floating through. I hold up two fingers and mouth “Scotch” to the bartender. I unbutton my jacket and rest back against the bar beside her. “I see you still have an attitude problem.”
We each take a Scotch and slip back into position, our stances identical.
“I see you’re still a dick.” She drains her Scotch, bangs her crystal glass on the bar as if it were a mallet and strides into the crowd. I can’t help but smile. What a woman.
After more fake and wasteful conversation, we all move into the main room for dinner. I’m one of the last to leave the reception, putting off the delight of sitting on the same table as my father for as long as possible. When will they realise that being joined in blood doesn’t mean we have to sit in one another’s company?
Dayna is standing in front of the table plan, trying to find her name, that naked back making my cock twinge. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she mutters.
“Problem?” I ask, knowing full well why she’s pissed off.
“Not one that can’t be ignored,” she says without looking at me.
“Miss Cross, you’re on table one,” an organiser tells her. “Your microphone is on your seat.”
“Thank you.”
“Microphone?” I ask as we move towards table one, closest to the stage.
“What, you talk these days? Here I was thinking you’re incapable of conversing with a woman. Especially this woman.”
I grind my back teeth, trying to think of a retort that won’t be unforgivable, when a man pushes his chair sharply back from under his table and into Dayna. I instinctively put a hand to the small of her back to shield her. The only person who needed shielding was me. My breath hitches when our skin connects. She jerks, but not enough to break our contact, and I’m confronted with wide eyes, which could be shocked get-the-fuck-off-me eyes or shocked I-forgot-how-good-that-feels eyes.
“I don’t need you looking out for me,” she snaps.
The former then.
To the six men already seated at our table, I imagine Dayna appears poised as she acknowledges the faces and takes one of the two empty seats. But I notice the way her neck and shoulders stiffen. Her attention seems to hover on Caspar Kahn for a second, each of them boring holes in the other. Dayna starts fixing her microphone to her dress, breaking the Mexican stand-off. It makes me wonder whether they already know they’re both invited to compete for the well.
She rolls her eyes when I settle into the chair next to her. My knee grazes her leg, and she tuts subtly, but not so subtly that I miss it.
“I’m surely not that repulsive,” I say quietly.
“Who on earth told you that lie?”
Another organiser leans across Dayna’s shoulder and whispers something to her that makes her nod. His hands rest on the skin of her shoulders, contact I’m acutely aware of, and which I don’t like. She’s not yours, I remind myself. But damn do I want her to be.
“Miss Cross.” My father, on the opposite side of the table, is wearing a look on his face I recognise too well — arrogant prick. “I have to tell you, I was provided with one of the best laughs I’ve had in a long time this morning.”
She clears her throat. “Is that so, Harold?” she says with at least outward disinterest.
My hand tightens around the fork in front of me. My father doesn’t even look at her as he speaks; he’s putting on a performance for the others. It takes me back four years, only we weren’t sitting around a table at an industry dinner. My father, Dayna, my mother, brother and sister — we were all sitting at our dining table having lunch. That day, I let him break Dayna and me. Tonight, he still wants to put her down.
“Yes, I was thoroughly entertained to see SP had been invited to tender for the Bahraini well.”
Now I’m gripping my fork so hard it could melt under the heat of my rage.
“Interesting. I had thought the invitations were confidential,” Dayna retorts.
“Ah, yes, some of us are well-respected in the industry and therefore in the know, if you know what I mean.”
She gives a tight, sarcastic smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Of course I know what you mean, Harold. You just told me.”
One of the men, the CFO of Shale Wells, chortles.
“Huh. Well, a wasted invitation if you ask me.” My father picks up his wine glass, signalling his derogatory little show is over.
But Dayna sips from her own glass, leans back in her seat and continues, “How so?”
“Dayna, darling, clearly you’re not in a position to rival the likes of Layton Oil and Persian Fuels.”
She stands from her chair and smooths her dress in a manner that screams self-assurance. “I’m nobody’s darling, Harold, and actually, I will be bidding.”
It’s Caspar Kahn’s turn to snigger. I want to ram my fucking fork into two pairs of eyes at this goddamn table. I want to take hold of Dayna and carry her away. Shield her. Protect her.
She shifts her attention to Kahn. “I plan to reclaim what was taken from SP. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I’ve been asked to give the opening speech this evening due to SP’s success in the last twelve months, if you know what I mean.”
As she leaves the table, my father continues, loud enough to reach her. “What a farce that is, too.”
I watch the pale skin of her slender back move as she walks away. “What she left out is that there are only a handful of companies in this room not struggling to pay off their own debt. And she certainly left out that she’s heading up the only company to have made a year-on-year increase in profit.” I don’t need to move my gaze from Dayna’s fine body to my father to know that my comment will have left him reeling.
Dayna takes her position at the lectern on stage. The lights in the room darken, and a soft orange glow illuminates her. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome, for a fifty-first year.”
If David
Attenborough had a female alter-ego, Dayna Cross would be it. Her voice is like a liqueur coffee — warm and smooth with a kick of something that gets my blood pumping.
“It is an honour to be asked to speak here tonight. It has undoubtedly been a tough year for the industry…”
She exudes a confidence that I know she won’t be feeling inside. That knowledge, that I know her intimately, has my abdomen in knots. How did I ever let her go?
She concludes her speech to rapturous applause from most of the people in the room — not including my father and Caspar Kahn. I’m fixated on her, unapologetically so, and when she lifts her eyes to me through her lashes, her cheeks subtly flushed pink, my pulse races.
Shit, Clark, get it together.
I stand when she comes back to the table and sit when a waiter tucks her chair under.
“I’ve got it, thank you,” she says, placing her own napkin across her lap as the waiter hovers, his interest obvious and understandable. Dayna exhales, a short discreet breath that could be relief from the speech being over or preparation for the next two hours sitting at this table.
The others fall into more bullshit conversation. I listen without partaking, eating the parsnip soup that suits the cold weather outside, too aware of Dayna’s presence beside me.
I lean back to allow a waiter to clear my bowl and I inadvertently hang my arm across the back of Dayna’s chair, my head so close to her neck I can smell her perfume — floral with a hint of something exotic.
She turns her head and finds her nose inches from mine. Her red lips part.
“Your speech was, ah, very well delivered,” I tell her.
She waits a nanosecond, her breath teasing my mouth. “I’m not looking for an endorsement, and if I were, I wouldn’t be looking in your direction.”
“Wow, look what four years did to you.”