At the Boss's Command

by Darcy Maguire

  The reception at the Marie Antoinette Suite! She had forgotten all about it. Her snow-soaked clothes weighed heavily on her.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I can’t be there.’

  ‘Do you intend to come to the AGM tomorrow?’ he demanded.

  ‘Do you want me there?’ she asked, meeting his eyes.

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s probably better if you stay away.’

  Amy felt as though her heart was stopping. She could hardly breathe. So it had happened, just as she had always feared it would—had always known it would. Lavinia had won and she had lost. As Lavinia sneered at her now, Amy was unable to even cry.

  Anton looked into her eyes one last time. His expression was unfathomable, dark. Then he turned, and, taking Lavinia by the arm, led her towards the Marie Antoinette Suite.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE old house had once seemed so huge to her. Now she saw it as just a simple white cottage with a slate roof and a smoking chimney, nestling among a thicket of birches. The garden, which had once been a terrifying forest through which she had run madly with pounding heart, relentlessly hunted by her enemies, was now revealed as a ragged shrubbery of laburnums, rose bushes and laurels.

  But the smell of the house, of wax and wood-fires, was just as she had always remembered it. It filled her with so many memories, some bad, some good, some happy, others irreparably sad.

  The heating of the cottage depended on the iron boiler built into the fireplace. It was another cold and snowy morning, and the fire was burning low, so Amy piled more logs into the grate. She nursed the fire until it was blazing and she could hear hot water gurgling through the pipes of the old radiators. The chill began to come off the air.

  She went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. While it boiled, she contemplated lunch. For the past few days, her life had been this—concentrating on the simple tasks of making a fire, brewing tea, planning a meal. Nothing more, nothing less. It was about all she could cope with. A broken heart did not allow anything more demanding.

  As she washed vegetables, she heard the sound of a car coming up the lane. It was a red family estate, driving slowly and carefully because of the thick snow. She did not recognise it—the cottage had few visitors these days. She watched from the kitchen as the car pulled up next to the garage. A woman and a child got out. The child ran to the cottage. The woman paused to lock the car, then followed.

  At last Amy saw who it was—one of the twins, her cousin, Jamie-Lee.

  She dried her hands and went to open the door for the visitors. The child, a four-year-old boy named David, jumped into her arms.

  ‘Hi, Aunt Amy!’

  ‘Goodness, you’ve grown, Davie,’ she said, hoisting him in her arms. ‘Hello, Jamie-Lee. I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  ‘It’s so warm and cosy in here,’ Jamie-Lee said, hauling off her parka and hanging it on the coat rack beside the door. ‘You’ve turned it into a home again.’

  ‘Your dad has gone for a walk down to the village to buy a newspaper and some pipe tobacco,’ Amy told her cousin.

  ‘I know,’ Jamie-Lee said. ‘We saw him as we crossed the bridge. But it’s you I wanted to talk to, Amy.’

  ‘OK,’ Amy said cheerfully, though a cordial tête-à-tête with her cousin was hardly customary—nor a particularly welcome idea right now. ‘I’ll pour the tea.’

  There were some of the child’s toys in a cupboard. Amy got them out so he could play while she and Jamie-Lee sat on either side of the fire. Jamie-Lee was a thin blonde woman with feathery hair. She had married a doctor and lived some two hours’ drive away, so she had evidently made a special journey to be here. She seemed nervous, her thin shoulders tense under the expensive cashmere cardigan, her mouth compressed.

  ‘What did you want to talk about?’ Amy invited.

  Jamie-Lee drew a deep breath. ‘I’ve come to make my peace with you,’ she said in a brittle voice. Amy said nothing, cradling the teacup in her hands and watching the flames lick around the logs. Jamie-Lee swallowed and then went on. ‘We were loathsome to you, Amy. All three of us. We did and said horrible things to you. When I remember what we were like, I feel sick. You were all alone and you had just lost your parents. You needed us to be kind to you, needed your family to help you, but instead we—’

  In the silence, the flames crackled. Still Amy said nothing. It was not her job to help her cousin out with whatever it was she wanted to say.

  Jamie-Lee’s fingers were shaking and the teacup rattled against the saucer. ‘We were talking about it the other day. We were all so ashamed of what we did to you. I know the others want to talk to you themselves, but when I heard you were staying with Dad I decided to come over and apologise to you. I’m so sorry, Amy. More sorry than I can say.’

  To her surprise, Amy saw that her cousin’s eyes were brimming with tears, her pale lips working painfully. She reached out her hand. ‘Don’t cry, Jamie-Lee. It was all a long time ago.’

  Jamie-Lee put down the cup with a clatter and grasped Amy’s hand, sobbing. ‘Please say you forgive me,’ she begged, ‘please say that, Amy.’

  ‘Of course I forgive you,’ Amy said, ‘though I’ll never know why you all disliked me so much.’

  Jamie-Lee gave a laugh that was halfway to a sob. ‘Oh, of course you know why!’

  ‘I promise you, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, because you were so much prettier and cleverer than any of us, of course,’ Jamie-Lee said, wiping her eyes. ‘You were so talented and we were such mugs. And Dad thought the world of you. You showed us up for what we were.’

  ‘I see,’ Amy said quietly.

  ‘And all the boys fancied you like mad—they never even looked at Sally-Ann or me. And then you started winning all those scholarships and bursaries and things. You got honours for sport and academics. The teachers adored you, and it was always me or Sally-Ann at the bottom of the pile. You even started your periods before we did. We were so insanely jealous. And you grew breasts before we did and all the boys were crazier about you than ever—’

  ‘You’d better stop,’ Amy said as her cousin’s voice rose, ‘I don’t want you chasing me round the garden with the carving knife again.’

  Jamie-Lee gave that half-sob again. ‘It’s taken me all these years to crawl out from under that inferiority complex, Amy. If it had just been me, I think I would have worshipped you. But there were three of us, you see, and so we ganged up on you. The tall poppy effect, you know. Trying to cut you down to our size. But you just kept growing taller and taller, and the taller you grew, the smaller we felt. When you arrived in our little world, everything turned upside-down. But I finally realised something important.’

  ‘What was that?’ Amy asked gently.

  ‘You gave me a wonderful example,’ Jamie-Lee said simply. ‘I had someone to look up to. I learned from you—to work hard, try my best, to achieve. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without you.’

  ‘Well, I hardly—’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Jamie-Lee said. ‘You’re such a good person. So in control of your life. I still envy you like mad, but it’s under control now. You have had three wonderful jobs in a row. And now you’re in Hong Kong, working for Anton Zell. We’re so proud of you; a top job overseas for a wonderful boss, travel, money, excitement—you deserve it so much.’

  Amy smiled painfully. ‘I’m not so sure it’s all it’s cracked up to be,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t think I’ll be going back to Hong Kong any time soon.’ She was feeling shaky. She took the cups back to the kitchen to make fresh tea.

  Jamie-Lee followed her. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I lost the job.’

  ‘But—why?’

  ‘I concealed some information during the interview process.’

  ‘Professional information? About your qualifications?’

  Amy sighed. ‘No, something personal. About my private life.’

  ‘But, Amy,’ Jamie-Lee protested, ‘they’re
not allowed to bring up your private life during an interview.’

  ‘This job was special.’ The last thing she wanted to do was talk about Anton to Jamie-Lee, but her cousin’s wide blue eyes were fixed on her. ‘The employer was—special. He grew to be special to me, I mean. And I think I did to him.’

  ‘You fell in love with Anton Zell?’ Jamie-Lee gasped.

  ‘It’s an occupational hazard,’ Amy said wryly.

  ‘But—what happened?’

  ‘Things didn’t work out.’

  ‘Why?’ Jamie-Lee persisted, taking the second cup of tea that Amy gave her.

  ‘Let’s just say that perhaps I’m not as good a person as you imagined,’ Amy said painfully. ‘And I’m certainly not as “in control of my life” as it seems.’ She glanced at the little boy playing with toy soldiers on the carpet. ‘And you can’t envy me a tenth as much as I envy you now,’ she finished quietly.

  Her uncle returned from his walk just before lunch. He had stayed out longer than usual, probably warned by Jamie-Lee that she wanted time alone with Amy. Retired and grey-haired now, Jeffrey Cookson presented a comfortable figure with his cloth cap and his pipe dangling from under his moustache.

  He was carrying a pink newspaper which Amy recognised as the Financial Times. He took it from under his arm, unfolded it and passed it to Amy.

  ‘Some news about your boss, my dear,’ he said laconically. ‘I’m going upstairs to wash.’

  Alone by the fire, Amy turned to the article. It was on the front page. The headline read, Zell Buyback Has Impact on Share Prices.

  Her heart beating fast, she read the text.

  The Zell Corporation’s recent buyback of a major block of shares, formerly owned by the late Sir Robert Carron, is now widely perceived to have enhanced shareholder value. ZellCorp share prices surged after news of the buyback was announced at the stormy recent stockholders’ meeting.

  At the current share price of 134p the dividend yield is 8.9%, and since the dividend appears safe the shares are proving attractive to income investors, though capital growth may be limited as company CEO Anton Zell takes ZellCorp into new areas over the next two years.

  Zell denied that the aim of the buyback was simply to give a short-term boost to his company’s shares.

  ‘There were differences of opinion on the direction the company should be taking,’ he explained, talking from his Hong Kong office. ‘In the end, it came down to a crisis of confidence. The simplest solution was for us to buy back blocks owned by dissenting elements. This has proved expensive, especially since our requirement for capital expenditure is set to be high as we expand into new areas. But we now have a free hand to develop the way we want to, and the remaining shareholders have seen the value of their shares substantially increased, which will enhance their confidence in management.’

  Lady Lavinia Carron, the principal beneficiary of the buyback, is back in France; however, she made a brief statement today through her financial advisor, Heinz Meyer. ‘We disagreed with Mr Zell about his new operations and on several other fundamental issues. He refused to listen.

  We got our money back. That’s all. The improvement in the share price is immaterial to us. We believe Zell paid too much for his own shares and expect to see a substantial drop in the share price as soon as the public realise their confidence in this man is misplaced.’

  Lady Carron received a multimillion-pound cash sum for her shares. However, her prediction that the ZellCorp price is set to fall soon is unlikely to be borne out in reality, as demand for the shares is now very high.

  The imminent implementation of exciting new technologies, including advanced recycling refineries and the laminate plate system, has rocketed ZellCorp into the forefront of the petrochemical industry. The market has interpreted the buyback as a highly positive signal from ZellCorp and there is considerable market interest in this company.

  The rest of the article dealt with the details of the new technology including a sidebar about the Korean shipbuilding licensing deal, and a photograph of Anton taken at the Ritz during the AGM.

  Amy laid down the paper, staring into the flames. Her heart was still thudding. So things had not turned out as she had anticipated. She had been too afraid to read the papers since leaving London. She had simply assumed that Lavinia would carry the day and that Anton would shortly be announcing his engagement to her.

  But it hadn’t happened that way. The bitterness so evident in Lavinia’s Press statement bore out the newspaper’s report that the stockholders’ meeting had been ‘stormy’. She had not, after all, carried the day. Whatever deal she had offered, Anton had had no intention of bargaining down his position.

  Now Lavinia was back in France and Anton was in Hong Kong. And she was here in Northamptonshire. Their lives had collided passionately and then had gone on their own ways.

  Amy rose, restless and agitated, and went into the kitchen. She would give a great deal to have seen Lavinia’s performance at the AGM. The venue which she had expected to be the scene of her triumph had turned into her Waterloo.

  She would give a great deal, too, to have seen Anton’s performance. She had made many mistakes of judgement about Anton Zell. She had assumed that he would let expedience rule his life, the way other men did. But he was not like that.

  He was not that kind of man.

  She busied herself with preparing lunch for herself and Uncle Jeffrey. But her mind was busy with so many brilliant and fiery images, images of Anton she had locked away until this moment: Anton making love to her, filling her like a sail in a hurricane; Anton making her laugh till she was weak; the deep core of peace she had felt with him as they stood in that temple on an island off the coast of Vietnam.

  Her heart filled with tears and restlessness, she laid out the food for her uncle. She sat with him while he ate but could not touch anything herself. Her stomach was in a knot. He did not ask why Jamie-Lee hadn’t stayed for lunch, nor about the reason for her visit.

  That was his way. Jeffrey had never asked her directly about the reason for her sudden departure from Anton’s employment. Perhaps because he was not her real father, he had always kept out of her private life. Yet when she’d needed somewhere to run to, he had asked no questions, had just opened his door to her.

  She felt he had always known more than he said about what happened to her, but he did not pry. One day she would be able to explain some of the dark places in her life to him; but not today, not yet.

  The snow had stopped falling and the sun was peering uncertainly through luminous cloud, so after lunch she decided to go for a walk in the woods alone. As a girl, it had always been her refuge, her place to think.

  It was early January—almost a year to the day since she had walked into Anton Zell’s life, and he into hers.

  In the summer, the woods were a deep-dappled place of rustling leaves and teeming bird life. It was strange to walk through them now and see the sky above, criss-crossed with bare twigs, and hear no sound but the crunch of her own boots in the snow.

  There was much to think about. It had been such a strange day. Twice in quick succession, her expectations had been transformed. People had behaved as she had never expected they could or would.

  She had never anticipated that any of her cousins would ever feel guilty about the wretched childhood they had given her, let alone that she would hear Jamie-Lee, always the ringleader, apologise with tears in her eyes.

  And then, the news of Anton’s buyback had come as an even greater shock. She knew that Lavinia had seen herself as Anton’s consort and could only imagine the huge effort she had made to achieve that goal. Anton could have staved off the crisis by a dozen means. What had happened that awful evening at the Ritz, after she had left, and Anton and Lavinia had walked into the Marie Antoinette Suite together? She would never know.

  But somehow, Amy felt that article in the Financial Times had rounded off her understanding of Anton; just as Jamie-Lee’s apology had rounded off her unde
rstanding of her cousins, and had closed the door on a dark and unhappy chapter. Understanding why her cousins had been so resentful of her had helped her understand herself, too.

  She had always been such a high achiever, so determined to be at the top, to be the best at everything. Perhaps she, too, had been unbearable to them, as they had been to her. But where had it led her, that relentless urge to excel? Into two disastrous experiences. She had become personally involved with two employers in succession. Both relationships had ended in catastrophe.

  Hardly the great professional triumph that Jamie-Lee perceived.

  And it was painful to see herself through Anton’s eyes— as a woman who habitually slept with her bosses, who lied about her past relationships, who concealed what she was under a cloak of hypocrisy.

  Of course Martin McCallum would have told Lavinia the story his own way, absolving himself of all blame and making her out to be a monster; and no doubt the story would have improved further as Lavinia relayed it. But the truth was that she had been terribly stupid with Martin and was still paying for it now—would pay for the rest of her life. Because she had lost the one man she had ever loved. The only man she ever could love.

  There was a pool at the heart of the wood, fed by a little stream that trickled down from the hills. She reached it late in the afternoon. In happier summers she had swum here, cooling off in the clear water. Today parts of the pool were iced over and its heart was a deep turquoise blue. The sun had set low and was turning crimson through the trees.

  Amy sat on a boulder and looked into the aquamarine depths of the pool. It was so still here, in the heart of the woods. Nothing stirred. No creature moved, no wind blew. It seemed to Amy that after so much travel and noise and colour and movement, she had finally reached some still point in her own life—a centre, around which everything else revolved.

  In this still place, the decision formed in her heart out of the silence. Retreat and despair were not the answer. She would not accept that it was all over.