by Liz Fielding
He raised his brows. ‘That much?’
‘She may be young, but she’s not stupid.’
‘Are you suggesting that she stage-managed the whole thing?’
‘That she waited until the contractions were well established before taking a turn around the nursery department, you mean? That’s very cynical of you, Mr Farraday. I was suggesting nothing of the kind. Simply that she understands the value of publicity.’ She glanced up at him. ‘You looked quite something with the new baby in your arms.’
‘You pay and I get the publicity. It hardly seems fair.’
‘The cost comes out of the PR budget,’ she reminded him, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. Jordan Farraday was winning the publicity war hands down. First with the author, then making a hit with the celebrity chef, when he’d asked the kind of questions that made the man look like a towering culinary intellect. And then Serena had insisted he be the one to hold the baby. ‘And Claibourne’s gets the publicity.’
‘In this instance it would seem that it’s the “& Farraday” who’ll get all the newspaper coverage.’
She shrugged as if it made no difference. ‘It’ll make a nice story,’ she said. She’d like to believe his colleagues in the City would be ragging him about it for days, but had to admit that the prospect was unlikely. They’d more likely be awestruck by his ability to cope in the kind of crisis they’d never want to be anywhere near.
They’d taken a black cab to the hospital, to avoid the hassle of finding somewhere to park, and Jordan grabbed one now that was dropping off passengers. He spoke to the driver, then joined her in the back of the cab.
‘Will we have the pleasure of your presence at the store tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Today isn’t over yet.’
‘That’s true,’ she said, remembering the files in the boot of her car. ‘I’ve got a load of paperwork to get through tonight.’
‘Anything an interested shadow can help with?’
‘No,’ she said, too quickly. ‘It’s… Well…’
‘Secret?’ he offered.
‘Confidential,’ she said. ‘Family business.’
‘It’s all family business,’ he replied, as the cab pulled over to the kerb and came to a halt. ‘One way or another. We’re here.’
‘Where?’ India glanced out at the side street, where they had stopped in front of a small restaurant she knew by name, its reputation for good food, and the impossibility of getting a table.
‘I had my secretary book a table for eight o’clock. We’re a little early, but I don’t suppose that’ll be a problem at this time in the evening.’ He climbed from the cab, holding the door for her.
‘Look, I know you said we’d have dinner, but honestly I’ve got a pile of work—’
‘India,’ he said, cutting her short. And the way he used her given name was faintly shocking. Like being touched. ‘I’ve been chasing you around that wretched store all day. I’ve been very, very patient, and you will now do me the courtesy of sitting down and sharing a meal with me. I want to hear about your plans. How you see the future of Claibourne & Farraday.’
‘In my hands,’ she replied, without missing a beat. And the changes she had in mind were not for sharing with Jordan Farraday.
His smile was perfunctory. ‘Humour me, as I’ve humoured you all day, or the shadow deal’s off and you can forget all about me playing follow-my-leader for the rest of the month. Instead I’ll instruct my lawyers to invoke the golden share agreement first thing tomorrow.’
That wretched ‘golden share’… The two per cent controlling interest in the company that was supposed to be handed on, like some Olympic flame, to the oldest male heir. Not this time.
He might be oldest; she was best.
‘In which case,’ he added, just in case she hadn’t got the point, ‘you’ll be out by the end of the week.’
‘You can try,’ she said, not moving. ‘Once the lawyers get involved it could take years.’ Except that would defeat the whole object. She might be in, occupying the seat, but she wouldn’t be able to do a thing. Any move to change the name, change the style, do anything constructive, would be met with legal injunctions. The company would stagnate, wither.
She would surrender before she’d let that happen. She just hoped he didn’t know that.
‘So…’ he said. ‘We both know exactly where we stand. No more pretending to be nice. You have possession of the store and you’ll do anything to keep it. Something that I can’t possibly allow.’ Then, ‘But we still have to eat.’ And he offered her his hand.
Damn! She hadn’t planned on things moving this quickly. A fact she was sure he knew. He knew altogether too much. All day he’d been at her shoulder, stealing the limelight, charming everyone he met, apparently interested in the smallest detail, always asking the right questions.
Always there, just at the corner of her vision, close enough to touch but never quite touching.
She’d tossed her sisters into this situation without a thought as to how they’d cope. She’d just wanted the time it had bought her. The time it had bought her lawyers as they tried to make a case to stop the takeover.
Faced with the reality of spending a month in this man’s company…up close and as personal as it got…she wished she’d listened to their protests.
She wished they were home, so that she could talk to them. Romana had taken time out from her extended honeymoon to e-mail her detailed ideas for the better use of space—ideas that she’d wasted no time in implementing. And Flora had sent back wonderful cloth, jewellery and design sketches, as well as a report for the travel department on Saraminda.
Neither of them had offered advice on dealing with a Farraday male. Maybe because they knew their solution could never be hers.
She’d never felt so alone in her life.
When she still hesitated, he let his hand drop and said, ‘If you doubt that I can do it, I’ll tell the driver to take you back to the store. But I suggest you clear your desk while you’re there.’
She could scarcely believe her ears. ‘You’re threatening me?’
‘No, India. I don’t make threats to get what I want. What I’m doing is giving you a month of my time in which to convince me that you’re the only person in the world who can run Claibourne & Farraday.’
‘Why?’ The word escaped her lips before she could stop it. ‘Why are you doing that?’
‘Giving you a month of my time?’
‘Yes. What’s in it for you?’
‘Well, let’s see. I’m doing it because your lawyers requested it and my lawyers could see no disadvantage. I’m taking the opportunity to familiarise myself with the store. Get to know the senior staff.’ She wished she hadn’t asked. He was using the time she’d given him to infiltrate himself into the store, smooth the transition… ‘What I’m doing is bending over backwards to be reasonable, so that if we do end up in a court battle I’ll impress their Lordships as a reasonable man who’s done everything asked.’ And he smiled. ‘Does that answer your question?’
His answer was so smooth, so pat. So…reasonable! She couldn’t fault him. Which meant she’d just have to swallow her pride and play nice.
‘Yes, well, I’ve never suggested I’m the only person in the world who can run the store, JD,’ she said, finally joining him on the pavement. If he was going to make free with her name, without so much as a by-you-leave, she certainly wasn’t going to keep calling him Mr Farraday. As if he were the boss and she were his underling. They were equals. As he turned from paying the driver, she dredged up a smile. ‘Just the best.’
‘Jordan,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘My staff call me JD. You and I are equals.’ Equals? Could he read her mind? ‘Partners. I’d rather you called me by my name.’ He lifted his brows, encouraging her to give it a try.
‘Jordan?’ she offered.
He lifted the corner of his mouth in a wry smile. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?�
�
Patronising oaf. She didn’t believe for one minute that he considered her his equal, but she’d do her level best to change his mind—and if that involved supping with the devil, she’d do it. She put a little more effort into her smile as he placed his hand beneath her elbow—did he feel her jump as he touched her?—pushed open the restaurant door and held it for her.
‘It’s curious that we’re both named after countries, don’t you think?’ he said, once they were seated at a quiet table.
She resisted the temptation to point out that while he was named after a very small country she was named after a sub-continent. ‘My father met my mother in India,’ she said, perusing the menu. ‘Hence the name. It’s something of a family tradition. My father took his second wife to Florence for their honeymoon, and met his third in Rome on a trip to the fashion shows. She was a model. Hence Flora and Romana.’
‘How fortunate he didn’t have boys.’
She glanced up. ‘Well, that’s original.’
‘What is?’
‘Most people say how lucky it was that the cities weren’t Naples, or Pisa. Tell me about your name. Was that a honeymoon destination too?’
‘My parents never got around to taking a honeymoon,’ he replied. ‘But then they never actually got around to marriage.’
‘Oh.’ Served her right for asking.
‘According to my mother, my father’s surname was Jordan. Or rather Jourdan. He was French. They met while she was backpacking in Europe before going to university. It was one of those holiday romances. You know how it is. Brief. Passionate.’ He shrugged. ‘Life-changing.’
Was it a big deal having a baby as a single mother back then? She supposed it must have been. Something about the way he’d said ‘life-changing’ suggested it had radically changed his mother’s life. And not necessarily for the better. Not going to university would have been the first of many sacrifices.
‘I did wonder how you came to be using the Farraday surname,’ she said. She’d resisted the urge to ask. She didn’t want to know that kind of stuff. She had to keep this businesslike. ‘You never knew him?’
‘My father? No. He was long gone by the time Kitty realised she was pregnant.’
‘Kitty? You call your mother by her first name?’
He shrugged. ‘A gloss to protect my grandfather’s sensibilities, I suspect.’
‘Oh, I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I just don’t know much about your family history.’
‘We have a lot in common, you and I. We both want the same thing. We both come from one-parent families.’
She wanted to ask him if his mother had ever found someone special. Wanted to know about his life. Had he been an only child? The son of an embittered woman? An older half-sibling… An outsider… This morning he had been a stranger. Already she wanted to know his deepest fears, his happiest memories.
‘She gave you his name,’ she said.
‘Not the whole name. But she felt I should have something to remember him by. The way your name reminds you of your mother. Do you remember her?’
‘No. I was still a baby when she left.’ So much for keeping it businesslike. Concentrating on the menu, as if she hadn’t already made up her mind what she would choose, and as casually as she knew how, she said, ‘According to my grandmother she never settled—hated London. She just wanted to go back to India, kick off her shoes, don her beads and get back to the ashram.’
‘Without you.’ Without her. She was twenty-nine years old, quite old enough to understand that not all women were natural mothers, but her casual abandonment still had the power to hurt. ‘What did your father say?’ he asked.
‘Not much. Just that things had probably turned out for the best. But then I’m sure you already knew that, since it was apparently covered comprehensively in the gossip columns at the time.’
‘You haven’t read the cuttings?’
‘Would you?’ She shrugged. ‘Opinion seems to have been that I was better off in a well-organised nursery with a nanny who knew what she was doing.’
‘And your mother agreed to that? Your father just let her go? They hadn’t been married more than a few weeks.’
‘Are you asking me to justify his decision? Or explain the actions of a woman I haven’t seen since I was three months old?’
‘You must have thought about it.’
‘Of course. But my father was struggling to come to grips with taking over Claibourne & Farraday after your grandfather’s death. He wasn’t in any position to chase after her.’ The easy answers flowed from her lips, as they had flowed from her grandmother’s whenever she’d asked about the exotically lovely girl in the photographs who was, apparently, her mother. Then, as if it didn’t matter to her, ‘And you know my father: the man who invented the trophy wife. It must have been a complete mismatch. The surprising thing is that they ever got around to marriage, considering how much my grandmother disapproved of her.’ But then her grandmother was a bigot and snob. ‘You obviously know that it was something of a last-minute affair.’
‘A quick trip to the register office on the way to the delivery room is the way I heard it. But then I imagine he was aware that with a wedding he’d have had a stronger claim on you.’ She glanced up from the menu. ‘Your mother could have taken you back to India with her and disapeared,’ he explained. ‘He might have a short attention span when it comes to women, but your father has made a point of keeping his children close.’
India had never seen it that way. When you only ever heard one side of the story… She swallowed, then, as if it was of no interest to her either way, ‘I think you probably got it right the first time, Jordan. I think my grandmother is the one who made a point of holding his family fast. I’ll have the roast sea bream,’ she said, discarding the menu. ‘You seem very well informed about my family.’
‘The Claibournes are our partners. Naturally I’m interested in everything you do. Surely you’ve got files on us?’
‘To be honest, I’ve never actually thought that much about the Farradays,’ she said dismissively.
‘A mistake.’
‘Evidently. But honestly I didn’t think you cared. You’re just the “and” part of the name. Totally uninterested in the store.’
‘Oh, come on. You can’t believe that.’ He frowned. ‘Do you?’
‘We’ve never even met before today,’ she reminded him. ‘I didn’t know about the golden share until the lawyers told me about it.’
‘Your father never warned you?’
‘I imagine he thought I’d be safely married with other things to keep me busy by the time he retired. Unfortunately the heart attack brought things forward.’
He regarded her with those unreadable eyes. ‘No plans in that direction?’
‘Marriage?’ He shrugged, suggesting that it wasn’t the only option these days. ‘Who has the time?’ she said. ‘With my father’s example, who’d have the inclination? You?’ she asked.
‘Work seems to take up all my time.’ After what seemed an age, he turned to the waiter and gave their order. ‘Something to drink, India?’
‘Mineral water. Still. No ice or lemon.’
There was a moment of silence. ‘My secretary suggested I propose a dynastic marriage,’ Jordan said after a while. ‘To settle all arguments. For ever.’
India cleared her throat. ‘Isn’t that a little presumptuous? For a secretary?’
‘Maybe. But Christine will tell you herself, without shame, that she’s the best secretary in the world.’ His smile suggested that he agreed with her.
‘Even so.’
‘She was taking the pragmatic view. What she had in mind was a kind of…well, merger,’ he said, his voice lingering over ‘merger’, the soft burr in his voice suggesting a lot more than an alliance of business partners, tugging at some soft core inside her, making her feel very conscious of his masculinity. ‘The kind that was once commonplace. To unite fortunes, great estates—’
‘Department stores?’ Her ripple of laughter suggested that he could not possibly be serious. ‘Oh, please.’
‘I believe the picture of Flora and Bram’s wedding in some gossip magazine put the idea into her head,’ he continued. Seriously.
Serious, he was even more dangerous than when he was smiling. The smile could be discounted as window dressing, but serious…
She floundered for a moment as a fighter squadron of butterflies attacked her stomach. He couldn’t… He wouldn’t…
‘Sally…my secretary…showed me the photograph too. She didn’t suggest we follow suit, however. Clearly,’ she suggested, ‘my secretary is brighter than your secretary.’
‘Sally’s a charming girl.’
‘With a live-in boyfriend who plays prop forward for the London Irish,’ she said. Then wished she hadn’t. Before he could respond, she picked up her handbag and took out the weekly event schedule for the store, which was tucked into her diary. ‘Now, tomorrow—’
He reached out and grasped her wrist, stopping her before she could begin. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘before we do anything else, I want you to show me exactly what you’re doing to the top floor.’
His fingers were long and strong, dark against the paler skin of her wrist, and his touch tingled like an electric shock. ‘You’re supposed to be shadowing me, Jordan,’ she said, concentrating very hard on keeping her breathing even, light. ‘Observing what I do. Not dictating my timetable.’ She wanted to snatch her hand back, rub away the pressure of her fingers against her skin, blink and break eye contact. But she did none of those things. Instead she tried to think of something very, very dull while she kept her gaze fixed on the bridge of his nose. It was an old trick one of her nannies had taught her, to outstare some girl who’d been giving her a hard time at school. It never failed.
This time she thought it might, but then, without warning, he released her wrist and sat back as the waiter appeared with their drinks. ‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘I’d be a little more impressed if you were doing your own job, instead of rushing around standing in for Romana, doing the PR stuff that she would normally be taking care of.’