A Reluctant Cinderella

by Alison Bond

  It was a good idea. Instead of being lost in a city she didn’t know it would be an opportunity to spend some quality time together. Hotel rooms were always sexy, even the bad ones, especially the bad ones. They could order sex food from room service; they could mess up the sheets and make some noise.

  ‘We get to wake up together,’ she said.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Unless you can tell me right now that you won’t want us to take separate cars to the airport, false names on the flight manifest, sneaking around so that nobody guesses we’re together.’

  ‘It’s the best I can do right now,’ she said.

  ‘I know. That’s the problem. I’ve had it with the cloak-and-dagger routine, Sam. Perhaps I didn’t make that clear?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too.’ He seemed wistful, but then he was back in business mode. ‘You’re around later? I might need to talk to you.’

  Partnership?

  ‘I’m around,’ she said. ‘Until six.’

  ‘Good.’

  And the conversation was over.

  A few hours passed busily. Leanne prepped her for the trip. There were a handful of essential telephone calls ‘but you can make them from the road’, a fresh draft of the Welstead contract to read, ‘but you can go through it on the plane’, and a pile of requests by fax and email to answer, ‘but nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow’.

  ‘Nothing to do then,’ said Samantha. ‘I could have taken the day off.’

  ‘It wouldn’t hurt to do so from time to time,’ grumbled Leanne.

  Yes it would. If she took a day off she’d go mad wondering what she was missing.

  ‘What do you want me to do if Kwame’s wife calls about the nanny?’

  Samantha sighed. ‘You could handle it. Do you know why she insists on speaking to me?’ A ridiculous situation had arisen with one of her players, his wife and a nanny. It was really very tedious.

  ‘She wants to know his pre-season fixtures. I’ve told her, but for some reason she needs to hear it direct from you.’

  ‘Do me,’ said Samantha.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do me. Fake my voice. Oh, don’t look so surprised – I’ve heard you do it before.’

  Leanne dropped her West Country burr and said, ‘Me? Never. The very idea!’ in a perfect imitation of her boss.

  ‘You’re really rather good,’ said Samantha. ‘Maybe I should put you on the phone more often.’

  Leanne grinned. ‘I did you an itinerary.’ She put a neatly printed piece of paper in her hand. ‘You arrive just after eight and they’re sending a car to collect you. I’ve told them you’ll want to keep the car on standby all night and they don’t seem to think that’s a problem. However, I’m not entirely sure they know what standby means. Your phone is set up for roaming and these here are all the numbers you could possibly need. Including these two – here and here – cab companies, in case of an emergency. They speak English, I checked.’

  ‘And the car’s taking me directly to him? To … Aleksandr?’ Her tongue curled around the name, igniting thoughts of exotic cold-war thrills.

  ‘At some restaurant. Here’s the address in case – well … just in case.’

  ‘Perfect. Okay, let’s try to get through as many calls as possible before I leave.’

  She slammed the door behind her and then jumped with shock when she realized she wasn’t alone.

  In her office a ginger-haired and slightly overweight rascal was stretched out on her couch.

  Richard Tavistock had been at the company since he was seventeen. He came to Legends for six weeks of unpaid work experience and he’d never left. By the time she’d started there as an assistant he was already taking home six-figure bonuses as well as the most beautiful woman in any bar. He could have any woman he wanted.

  Any woman except for her.

  He was thoroughly charming to her for several months until he realized that she wasn’t going to sleep with him and then stopped bothering to hide his brutal competitive streak.

  They were born on the same day, exactly the same age. For both of them, success was gauged by watching the other.

  ‘Extraordinary night last night,’ he said, smiling lazily, as if he was still slightly drunk.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Ran into your boys down at Mahiki. Those kids know how to party. The women were crawling over them like maggots on meat. Shame you couldn’t come.’

  She didn’t recall being invited. ‘Which boys?’ She had thirty-four clients, but there would only be two that Richard would try to goad her about this month.

  ‘Monty and Ferris,’ he said. Of course.

  ‘Ferris is only seventeen. What was he doing in a nightclub?’

  ‘Drinking Perrier?’ Richard rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, Mum, should I let him know you disapprove?’

  ‘They’re just a couple of kids, Richard. They’re new to all this.’

  ‘Good job they’ve got an old hand like me keeping an eye on them then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Make sure that you do,’ she said. ‘If they don’t perform right out of the gate for Chelsea they’ll have a hard time winning over the fans.’

  ‘Thanks for that pearl of wisdom – I’m new to this football lark myself.’

  ‘Just watch out for them,’ she said. ‘And that doesn’t mean force-feeding them shots of tequila.’ The thought of those boys wasting their talents and being led astray by the likes of Richard Tavistock made her nervous. She had seen too many players fail to fulfil their potential, lured by the intoxications of women and drink.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. They’re sensible lads. They’re coming down to Wales next month. Boys’ weekend, quad bikes and stuff, maybe some shooting, bit of snooker.’

  Richard had a massive house in Wales that he had converted into his own private playground. Samantha had never been invited, not once.

  ‘I hear you’re off to Prague or somewhere?’ he said.

  ‘Poland,’ she said. ‘Just for the night. There’s an interesting offer for Gabe Muswell floating about.’

  ‘Really? They must be desperate.’

  ‘I’m leaving soon and I have a bunch of calls to get through,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘Sure, sure. You want me to take the call if the Welstead boys call in? I could tell Leanne I’ll handle it, pick up the slack.’

  She wasn’t threatened by Richard socializing with her clients out of work, but letting him into their professional lives would be setting a dangerous precedent. ‘There’s no slack. Leanne will reach me if it’s important.’

  ‘Only trying to help.’

  He was such a liar. He would poach Monty and Ferris within the time it took for his Italian sports car to go from nought to sixty if he thought they would leave her.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’m on it.’

  Leanne came into her office with a small pile of clothes.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Samantha.

  ‘Hat, scarf, gloves, socks, vest and long underwear,’ said Leanne.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘I checked. It’s pretty cold.’

  Samantha grimaced. She was wearing a pewter-grey Prada suit over a red silk shirt and black Gucci boots, an outfit at the high end of her power dressing wardrobe, an outfit that would be thoroughly ruined by a woolly hat and scarf. And long underwear? Forget it.

  ‘I’m going from a plane to a car to a restaurant. How cold is it going to be?’

  ‘Minus two,’ said Leanne. ‘Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.’

  Just before she left there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Jackson would like to see you.’

  She nodded casually at his assistant, not wanting anyone to know how fast her heart started racing. This was it. Partnership. Her reward for years of hard work.

  ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ she said. And forced herself to wait for four.

  But Jackson did not look happy.

>   Something was not right. He refused to meet her eye and alarm bells started to ring at the back of her head. She silenced them. Perhaps he was merely adding gravitas. Being made partner was a serious business.

  Inside Jackson’s office a man was waiting whom she did not immediately recognize. She smiled cautiously at him, his face slightly familiar, and tried to place him. Adrenalin started coursing through her veins. Her body knew before she did that this was not going to end well.

  ‘You remember Carl Higham?’ said Jackson. ‘From Higham and Colvert?’

  A lawyer. Jackson Ramsay’s lawyer. She remembered him now. Senior partner at the firm they used ten times a day, every day, whose number was as familiar to her as her own. But they hardly ever saw Carl Higham, instead speaking at length to any of the dozens of top-end lawyers who worked for him. Higham only came out for the big stuff. Having him just sitting in Jackson’s office waiting for half an hour would cost them hundreds of pounds. A foreboding shiver travelled down her spine all the way to her toes.

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ she said.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ said Jackson.

  ‘You have your lawyer in the room. Should I have mine?’ Her palms were sweating now and she fought the visceral urge to hightail it out of the building. She talked herself down inside her head. She had done nothing wrong and if they thought that she had then it was a mistake, and mistakes could be corrected.

  ‘Let me tell you what we know so far and then you can decide. You don’t have to say anything.’

  ‘And anything I do say will be taken in evidence and used against me?’ Kidding, trying to lighten what felt like a seriously heavy situation.

  ‘I wouldn’t make light of this, Sam,’ said Jackson. ‘You might wish you hadn’t.’

  This was Jackson. This was the man who had given her a break, who had given her a life. She owed him everything; perhaps she loved him more than she would admit, because he was looking at her like a disappointed father and that’s when she realized that the blood pumping around her veins was laced with raw fear. What did they know?

  I shouldn’t have secrets.

  Samantha was the poster girl for Legends. The face they wheeled out when they wanted to look respectable, the proof that not all sports agents were testosterone-fuelled swine chasing after the money. If someone found out about her nefarious past, her criminal brother, one of the newspapers that had long been fascinated by this glamorous, intelligent woman making tidal waves in a man’s world, if they found out they would make something of it, they would make headlines, but not in a good way. And if Carl was here to embark on a libel suit, to force the newspaper to admit their lies, she would have to tell them it was true.

  Yes, I have a brother in jail. Yes, people are dead because of him. Yes, because of drugs.

  Drugs.

  The word alone was like cancer to a sporting career. But Jackson would stand by her, right? He knew that she wasn’t the same person, not nearly the same. The lost lamb he had found in a hotel room was as good as dead. Too much time had passed. She wasn’t that girl any more.

  You will always be that girl.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ Jackson kept glancing at Carl, whether for reassurance or guidance she couldn’t tell.

  ‘I’d rather stand,’ she said.

  He took a deep breath. ‘As you know,’ he started, ‘from time to time we audit our employees to safeguard against illegal business practices and when necessary begin further investigations.’

  What?

  Of course she knew, with such enormous sums of money floating around full financial disclosure was the only way to be sure that it was all going in the right direction. The scope for corruption was massive. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for agents to take bribes and bungs, to ‘tap up’ clubs on behalf of their clients, to divert money from the usual channels either to avoid the taxman or the transfer fee. Every month it seemed there was a new disgrace in the headlines, bringing the game into disrepute. Legends was one of the few firms that had managed to avoid being dragged into a messy scandal. The firm had a reputation for honesty, which is probably why they snared all the best clients.

  What has this got to do with Liam?

  ‘What you won’t know,’ Jackson continued, ‘is that last month after a routine audit we began further investigations into you.’

  ‘Into me?’

  ‘Yes, Sam, you.’

  ‘Why?’ Had they found out about the house she purchased and transferred into her brother’s name? It was a legitimate transaction – she had paid tax on the money – but they would know she had a brother.

  At this point Carl Higham pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. ‘Because of this,’ he said.

  She scanned the paperwork. It was her name, her address, but beyond that nothing was familiar. There was no mention of Liam and slowly it dawned on her that this had nothing to do with him. Nothing at all. In front of her were details of a bank account located with a firm called CoralBanc in Grand Cayman. An account that had received three substantial deposits over the last six months, and no withdrawals, so that the balance stood at an extremely healthy sum somewhere a little over three hundred thousand American dollars.

  In her name.

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is it a joke? It’s a pretty good one, I like it much better than that time someone left a bull’s penis on my desk, or that Portaloo on the roof that said “Ladies”.’

  ‘It’s not a joke, Sam.’

  She looked down at the piece of paper. ‘It isn’t mine,’ she said automatically, because it wasn’t, and she knew nothing about Grand Cayman or CoralBanc, because she understood immediately that she was in deep trouble and all she could think to do was tell the truth.

  ‘You were aware that you had to disclose all personal bank accounts?’ said Carl.

  Jackson shot him a warning look. ‘You don’t have to answer that, Sam.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she said. ‘Of course I was aware. You might just as well wallpaper my office with the FIFA transfer regulations – nobody knows the rules better than I do.’

  ‘You understand we have a serious problem?’ said Jackson.

  ‘We? We have a serious problem? I’m the one who’s looking at my name on a bank account I’ve never heard of. You’d think if someone wanted to give me that kind of money the least they could do is let me know.’

  ‘Sam, please, you can’t smart-talk yourself out of this.’

  ‘I’m not trying to,’ she said, exasperated. ‘Check my phone records; check my passport. I’ve never been anywhere near Grand Cayman, much less opened a bank account.’

  ‘I think this could all be done remotely,’ said Carl.

  She spun round to face him, her eyes on fire. ‘There’s a big difference between what you think and what I think, Carl,’ she said. ‘You clearly think I’m guilty of something, but I know I’m innocent.’

  ‘There’s no need to be defensive,’ he sniffed.

  ‘There’s every need,’ she said.

  What a ludicrous thing for him to say. Why shouldn’t she be defensive when clearly she was being attacked?

  ‘This is all a big mistake.’

  ‘We don’t think so,’ said Carl.

  Another explanation occurred to her and the words ran out of her mouth as they chased her thoughts.

  ‘Then somebody is framing me,’ she said. ‘Somebody who is willing to spend three hundred thousand dollars to discredit me.’

  A snort from Carl. It made her temper flare like a firework.

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘Frame you? Do you really expect us to believe that?’

  She turned on him, livid. ‘How dare you?’ she said. ‘Do I have to remind you of the amount of business Legends brings your company? Me personally, not to mention my clients? I’d appreciate it if you kept your snap judgements quiet until I have had a proper chance to refute them. You can be sure I’ll remembe
r where your loyalties lie when we come to review our legal services.’

  ‘Sam,’ said Jackson softly. ‘There’s going to be an investigation.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I would bloody well hope so.’

  ‘And, until we have resolved this, I don’t see how we can allow you to remain on the premises.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Sam, you’re going to have to take a leave of absence.’

  Until he said this all she had seen was a massive irritating muddle, the resolution of which would eat into her precious working days. Fucking annoying, but nothing she couldn’t handle. At his words she clutched the back of the chair she had previously refused and felt suddenly dizzy.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said faintly.

  ‘Please try to stay calm,’ said Carl. ‘This is merely a suspension. As and when the facts of the case present themselves more fully you will be informed of our decision regarding your future.’

  ‘Jackson?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ he said.

  She slumped down into the chair. Suspended?

  ‘My clients,’ she said. ‘What will happen to my clients?’

  ‘We’ll babysit them – myself, Richard, everyone will help …’

  No, no, no. But she knew there was nothing she could say.

  ‘What do you think? Do you think I’m guilty?’

  ‘Sam …’ he implored.

  ‘Don’t.’

  She stood, without really knowing if she would be able to stand, and relieved when she could. She stepped towards Jackson until she was close enough to smell the intoxicating flavour of his skin, which instantly transported her back to his bed and the last time they’d made love. ‘Swear to me,’ she whispered. ‘Swear right now this isn’t personal.’

  An odd look from Higham, but she didn’t care.

  ‘I swear,’ said Jackson.

  They locked eyes at last. But she saw pity there and so she had to tear her eyes away because she thought that she might cry. This was happening. It wasn’t the latest hilarious joke concocted to make life tough, to remind her that she didn’t fit in, that her breasts and the space between her legs where a dick should be were a handicap they would never allow her to forget. It was real.