Mergers and Acquisitions

by A. E. Radley

  “We have an excellent digital team here,” Kate argued.

  “That’s true, to an extent,” Georgina allowed.

  “No, it’s true, full stop,” Kate replied curtly. “You are not the only agency to win digital awards. Yes, you are known for your social media marketing campaigns, but we can design and build websites just as well as you can.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Georgina grinned patronisingly. “But surely it makes sense to put the whole digital asset collection together?”

  “It makes sense if you’re aiming to make a play for the account,” Kate accused.

  Georgina smirked and shook her head. She placed the pack down on the table. “Are you suggesting I have an ulterior motive, Kate?”

  “Are you suggesting that you don’t?” Kate took her glasses off and placed them on the table to meet Georgina’s gaze.

  “Would I like the Atrom account for myself? Yes, of course I would,” Georgina admitted. “Am I going to engage in some petty subterfuge to do so? Of course not.”

  Kate didn’t believe her for one second.

  “You deliberately set me up regarding the name,” Kate pointed out.

  “The name?” Georgina frowned.

  “The name,” Kate repeated. “You didn’t back me up when I suggested that Bolt was a bad choice.”

  “Ah. I didn’t back you up, but I didn’t set you up either. I simply read the situation. I agree with you that the name is ridiculous. But, as soon as you brought it up, which you were right to do, I could see that Yannis had already made his mind up. I didn’t want him to feel that we didn’t understand his brief. As a team, we need to demonstrate an understanding of his needs. You weren’t in a position to do that, not without backpedalling like a Russian circus bear. So, I took the initiative.”

  Kate laced her fingers together and leaned forward slightly. “Utter nonsense.”

  Georgina let out a sigh. “I’m not going to stand beside you and make myself look stupid. You needed rescuing from that mess, I rescued both of us. You’re welcome.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Excuse me if I don’t thank you. I’m having trouble adjusting to this knife in my back.”

  “If you want to talk about knives in backs, then may I remind you of Pink Blossom?”

  Kate laughed. That particular episode had spilled from Georgina’s lips awfully quickly; clearly it was a sore spot. Possibly one that had set this whole mess in motion.

  “Oh, I see. That’s where this is coming from. You lose a client to me six years ago, and you come after me now?” Kate shook her head and let out a sigh. “And I thought we were professionals.”

  “You stole that client from me, and you know it,” Georgina replied heatedly.

  “I did no such thing! Rosie is an old friend of mine, I attended her daughter’s wedding, and we chatted about marketing. She was disillusioned with your company, but I didn’t say anything to poach her from you, she was already lost to you. If I didn’t get the contract, someone else would have.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Kate saw the anger in Georgina’s eyes. Finally, the veneer was falling away, and they could have a real conversation without the fake niceties. This was all a vendetta, a well-planned and malicious one.

  “We’re going to have to find a way to work together, Georgina. If you can’t work with me, I can explain that to Yannis,” Kate threatened.

  “You think you’re the only one who has his ear?” Georgina replied with a scoff. “I have as much sway with him as you do. You know the kind of man he is, always looking for something new and exciting. Well, here’s a newsflash for you, that’s me. You’re old news, Kate.”

  Now, that is a dig at my age, Kate thought. “Yannis may be like a magpie, seeking out the new and the shiny, but he also appreciates loyalty and, above all else, family. I have known the Papadakis family for the past twenty years. I have eaten at his table, an act that means something in his family.”

  “I know that family is important to him. But so is business. He has lofty goals, ones I can help him reach. He wants to be ahead of the curve, not on it.”

  Kate stood and walked over to the window. She looked out at the busy city as she contemplated the situation. Both of them wanted the contract, but neither of them would get it if they didn’t work together. But working together was starting to look completely impossible.

  “We have to find a way to work together,” she said finally. “Pink Blossom is in the past. This is now. The bottom line is that Yannis would fire both of us in a heartbeat if he felt we couldn’t work together. I think we both know that we’re embarrassing our gender at the moment. There’s enough talk about bitchy, backstabbing women without us making matters worse.” Kate turned to look at Georgina. “Do you agree?”

  Georgina nodded. “I do. As much as it irritates me, we’re defined by our sex. If two men were fighting over a contract, it wouldn’t matter. But do you honestly feel that we can work together? You talk about a knife in your back, I still feel the one you stuck in mine six years ago. You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you.”

  Kate knew that Georgina was right. They couldn’t work together; there was too much history between them. There was only one way forward.

  “We should let Yannis pick,” Kate suggested.

  “Explain?”

  “I propose that we both present to him, and then we let Yannis pick. Trying to split the contract is pointless, we’d still have to work together. If both Red Door and Mastery present to him on everything from PR to branding, video to digital, then Yannis gets twice as many ideas and gets to pick a winner. That way it’s fair, and we get as little blood spilled as possible.”

  Kate sat back down at the meeting table and regarded Georgina, hoping she’d go for the idea.

  “Presumably, we’d present a united front and tell him that this is the best way forward?” she asked.

  “Absolutely, we’ll explain that we feel this is best for him. No need to tell him of our difficulties.” Kate had no intention of explaining to Yannis that she’d rather extract her own fingernails than work side by side with Georgina.

  “Sounds reasonable,” Georgina allowed carefully. “But I’d need time in order to prepare for a full pitch. We’ll need to have a timetable in place. You’ve worked with Yannis before, so you have an advantage on style guides and industry knowledge.”

  “We’ll agree upon a schedule,” Kate said. If Georgina was going to agree to the plan, the least she could do was clear the path for her. “As for industry knowledge, we could host a small presentation together. Invite the big names, show them a taster of what we are doing, and get their feedback. It would be hugely beneficial for both of us. Then we’d have the same market research to go away and each build our own campaign presentation.”

  Georgina nodded. “That sounds like the best way forward. We’ll gather our research together and then separate.”

  “I think that is in everyone’s best interests. Then we’ll get Yannis to choose, and the losing party will walk away,” Kate added. She wanted to be very clear about that part of the plan.

  “Absolutely,” Georgina said.

  Kate regarded Georgina carefully, hoping to uncover whatever she might be planning. But the American was completely passive as she gathered her belongings from the meeting table.

  “I look forward to getting back to New York,” Georgina said with a smirk as she turned to leave. “May the best woman win.”

  Chapter 12

  The grinding noise squealed loudly through the quiet office. Sophie jumped out of her seat and dashed over to the photocopier. It was the third time the machine had jammed that day. She pressed the end button, and the noise stopped.

  “Bloody thing,” she mumbled under her breath.

  She lowered the main flap and jumped back when a plume of black ink dust flew out. She glared at the machine.

  Copying the Peterson presentation should have been a ten-minute job. So far, it had taken over an hour.
And now the machine seemed truly kaput. She trudged back to her desk and picked up the phone, dialling the number she had quickly memorised.

  She shouldered the receiver and sat on the edge of her desk. As she did, she looked down and saw that her light grey trousers had been stained by the black dust cloud. She reached out to wipe the stain with her hand but paused. The last thing she needed was to get it on her hands, then her face.

  The phone continued to ring out. She checked the time and realised it was six o’clock. Her jaw dropped in surprise. It seemed only ten minutes ago that she was greeting Kate with her morning tea. Suddenly, the entire day had vanished.

  Being insanely busy had the benefit of helping the day fly by. Not to mention that she rarely had time to get nervous around Kate or Georgina, mainly because she only spent thirty seconds at a time with either woman before having to rush to another task. Luckily both women had been busy, often with their office doors firmly closed. Something was going on, but Sophie wasn’t interested. She was too busy to take notes on the current state of office politics. She had no idea how Jonathan managed it all.

  She slammed the phone down. Asking anyone in IT to stay after five was like trying to stop the tide from coming in. She looked at the photocopier again, the blackened flap still hanging open like a gaping wound. The account management team needed the copies for the next morning. They were coming into the office early to grab the presentations before getting on a train to go to the client’s offices.

  Sophie slid off the edge of her desk. She undid the buttons on her shirtsleeves and carefully folded them up as high as she could. The copiers on the other floors were out of ink, awaiting spare parts, or in the middle of printing a massive report for the audit. This copier was her only hope.

  She knelt in front of the machine and reached her fingers in, plucking out sheet after sheet of concertinaed paper from the innards of the machine. She delicately blew the ink dust from the flap and looked at the unfathomable instructions for how to remove paper jams.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  Sophie jolted. She looked up to see Georgina leaning on the wall, looking down at her with a smirk.

  Sophie’s mind started to spin. Had Georgina been waiting for something all this time? It was her first day being Kate’s temporary PA, and already she was struggling to keep up with the relentless pace. Even though she had thankfully not seen much of Kate all day.

  “I’ve not seen you much this afternoon,” Georgina spoke again, filling the silence.

  Sophie clambered to her feet. “I’m sorry, is there something you need? Did I forget something?”

  Georgina pushed herself from the wall. “No, not at all. Is everything all right?” She looked at the copier and raised her eyebrow. “Technical trouble?”

  Sophie plucked a couple of tissues from the box on her desk. She tried to clean her fingers.

  “Yes, it keeps jamming. The other machines are busy.”

  Georgina looked at her watch. “At six o’clock?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Well, one is out of ink, and one is awaiting a part,” Sophie confessed. She hadn’t wanted to admit that she’d wasted so much time because of broken machinery. It just didn’t sound good, and she didn’t want to give Georgina any further ammunition to use against Kate.

  “Sounds like shoddy office management to me,” Georgina quipped.

  “Just bad luck,” Sophie defended. “It’s not usually like this.”

  “I should hope not.”

  Sophie found herself staring at the woman. Not for the first time. Something about Georgina caused her to stop and stare. She’d caught herself doing it a few times lately and was mortified. Georgina had obviously noticed; nothing seemed to escape her attention. Thankfully she seemed to find Sophie’s speechless staring amusing.

  Sophie blinked and looked away. “I’m sorry, did I… did we have a meeting?”

  “Not a scheduled one,” Georgina said. “Michael and I were heading out for a drink, maybe a bite to eat. Would you like to join us?”

  Sophie found herself staring again. She caught herself quickly and turned away, retreating to the safety of her desk. “Um, a drink?”

  She’d never been asked out for drinks by any of the Red Door crowd. The accounts ladies were all in their forties and fifties and keen to get home to their families the moment work ended. Since she’d been on the top floor, no one had really spoken to her. She wasn’t technically a part of a team, so fitting in wasn’t an easy matter.

  Georgina chuckled. “Yes, a drink. It’s something work colleagues sometimes do after a particularly trying day. With the pub culture in your country, I would have thought you’d have heard of the concept?”

  Sophie didn’t like being mocked. “I’ve been to pubs,” she defended.

  Exhaustion was making quick work of her nerves. Maybe she’d found a solution for dealing with Georgina and Kate: just be permanently tired. Of course, that wouldn’t last long before she was fired.

  “I’m certain you have. Would you care to go again?” Georgina replied, Sophie’s snappy tone appearing to roll right off her.

  “I… I can’t,” Sophie said. She sat down and looked dejectedly at the copier. “I have to get that report printed. And then I must get home, Matt’s expecting me. I’m hoping we can have a night together, he works a lot of evenings lately.”

  “Ah, yes.” Georgina sat on the edge of Sophie’s desk. “The boyfriend. Have you been together long?” She picked up the photo frame that contained a picture of Sophie and Matt. It was a couple of years old now, but it was still her favourite picture of them.

  “Three years,” Sophie replied. Her eyes fixated on the way Georgina’s skirt tightened as she perched on the desk. She suddenly realised what she was doing and snapped her eyes up to Georgina’s face. “Three years,” she repeated.

  “Quite a while,” Georgina said.

  “He’s the one.”

  Georgina raised her eyebrow again. “The one? Congratulations. What does he do?”

  “He’s a sales executive for a web design company. The money isn’t great, but he’s really good at what he does.”

  “So, you’re engaged?” Georgina queried. She looked pointedly at Sophie’s ringless finger.

  Sophie felt her cheeks flush. “No, not yet. We’re waiting until we can afford a wedding. We decided that we’d get married about eighteen months ago, but we’re delaying the actual engagement.”

  “If that’s the way you want to do it,” Georgina said.

  Sophie didn’t know why she felt the need to explain herself, but something in Georgina’s tone had her wanting to clarify the situation. “And Matt wants to lose some weight, before the wedding.”

  “I see.” Georgina lowered the picture frame back to the desk. She picked up a piece of paper and started to read it. “And how is the weight loss going?”

  “Really well,” Sophie enthused. “He joined a military fitness club a couple of months ago. Since then, the weight has dropped off.”

  Georgina lowered the piece of paper. “Ah, I see.”

  The tone was back. And it worried Sophie. “Why… why do you say it like that?”

  Georgina stood up and straightened her skirt. “It’s not my place to say. If you change your mind about that drink, we’ll be in The Crown on the corner of Kirby Street.”

  Georgina turned to leave. Sophie struggled to ascertain what was on Georgina’s mind. Clearly there was something, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was.

  “Wait.” Sophie stood up. “I mean… please, what did you mean?”

  Georgina stopped and turned back to look at Sophie. She regarded her sadly for a moment before she folded her arms. “You say that you decided to get married eighteen months ago. You’re putting off the wedding while you save money and he loses weight. But he only started to exercise a couple of months ago. And he is working evenings lately. As a sales executive for a web design company. A job that is presumably of
fice-based?”

  Sophie nervously licked her lips. When laid out in front of her like that, she could see how Georgina could get the wrong idea. “It sounds bad, but—”

  “Many couples can’t afford a wedding when they choose to get engaged. Some never actually get married. It seems odd to not announce an engagement at all.”

  “W-well—”

  “And he works late?”

  “Sometimes, but—”

  “Is it happening more often lately? Does it maybe coincide with his weight loss?”

  Sophie opened and closed her mouth.

  Georgina smiled, sadly but knowingly. “Is he dressing differently? Taking more care over his appearance?”

  Sophie thought of Matt’s cleanly shaved face. She swallowed.

  “He… he shaved,” she admitted.

  “Is that unusual?” Georgina asked softly.

  Sophie nodded. “He said he never would. Said he liked having a beard.” She could actually hear the blood rushing through her ears. Surely Matt wasn’t having an affair. They were in love. Practically engaged. Sort of.

  “He works late?”

  “Y-yes, he goes to the pub. He socialises with work contacts, trying to get them to sign a contract. It’s a sales thing.”

  Georgina took a step forward. She put her hand on her hip and fixed Sophie with a sympathetic look. “Is he still affectionate? Passionate? When did you last have sex?”

  Sophie felt the heat pouring into her cheeks. “Wow, um, I don’t think I’m comfortable answering that,” she confessed.

  Georgina chuckled. “Then don’t tell me, but ask yourself. Don’t be blind to what’s in front of you, Sophie.”

  Sophie considered the cheek kisses. She couldn’t remember the last time they were intimate, but she had caught him looking at porn on his laptop once. It had hurt her, knowing that he had urges that weren’t for her. They hadn’t talked about it; Sophie had swept it under the rug along with so many other concerns.

  Georgina was still looking at her. Sophie could feel the burn of embarrassment on her face.

  “We’re… passionate,” she argued, even though she knew it was a lie.