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  Three and a half months ago, I started to believe in dreams, not nightmares. That dreams could exist where you don’t come close to dying every night. Where you don’t want to die. Then that dream turned to a nightmare, slowly, surely, the way it was destined to do. Five weeks ago, that’s when I saw the train coming at me down the tracks, racing towards me. When I realised she couldn’t take any more. That I’d mounted enough of my shit on her. That I’d broken her.

  Oh, baby, there’s so much more, trust me.

  When Scarlett took that call from Neil Wallace and when she got on that plane, I willed my subconscious to let the train hit me. But it didn’t. After thirty years of nightmares, I woke to the worst version of Hell yet. And I only have myself to blame. I shouldn’t have dared to dream. When she walked into my boardroom, I should’ve let her be. I didn’t and this is my penance, this is what I deserve. I let myself taste goodness and now the black I see every day is a darker shade.

  I don’t see another soul as I run the loop of St. James’ Park then along the tree-lined path between the grass verges of Green Park and into Hyde Park. I run right, passing the finery of The Dorchester Hotel and the murmurings of morning traffic, then further into the park’s centre, lapping the lake, taking the webbed path on routes to nowhere until I give in. Then I work my way back through the parks, across Westminster Bridge and along South Bank—dead because the tourists are still sleeping—back to the Shard.

  Amy is already in the apartment when I get back, preparing to make breakfast. I nod in response to her smile but I keep my music drumming in my ears and move straight to the gym room off the lounge. Jackson halts his reps on the leg press and stands behind the punch bag. He holds the bag ready whilst I peel my soaked jumper from my torso and literally let it pool on the floor. Then I start nailing the bag, blow after blow, not missing a beat from the track playing through my headphones.

  “Greg, enough.”

  “Hold it still,” I growl.

  My fists land again, a hook with my right, an uppercut with my left, then Jackson lets go of the bag. I pummel every bit of temper and frustration into the blow as my shin impacts with the bag and sends it swinging hard left.

  As my back slides down the gym wall and my legs give out in front of me, Jackson hands me a bottle of water and I finally take the plugs from my ears.

  “This’s gotta stop, kid.”

  My teeth clamp down on the rim of the bottle and my jaw clenches as I glare at Jackson in an attempt to deflect the speech I’ve received at least once in each of the last five weeks.

  “What’s done is done, Greg. You made the choice.” He hovers over me in sports shorts and a vest.

  “I know I made the fucking choice, Jackson. I don’t need to hear it. It was the right thing to do.”

  “If that’s true, why do you feel like shit? You’ve never been like this over a woman.”

  I’ve also never moved one into my apartment and thought about her every minute of every day.

  Shaking my head, I take another swig of water and wish it was an acceptable hour to replace the water with scotch. “It’s what she would’ve done. She would’ve done the right thing. Maybe I learned something from someone for a change.”

  Jackson shakes his head and flicks a towel over his shoulder. “If it was the right thing to do, kid, quit beating yourself up over it.”

  And he leaves the gym. This is what he’s started doing. This dramatic effect thing. Drops a statement like that then pisses off, leaving me to dwell on it. What’s more fucking annoying is that he’s ruined those only ten minutes in my day when my body is too drained to think.

  * * *

  “Pop your bottom down on that stool, I’ve made scrambled eggs and smoked salmon.”

  It’s hard to be a dick with Amy, she doesn’t deserve it. I manage something close to half a smile and a mumbled thanks. Christ, I need to get a grip. It’s the group’s AGM today and I need to put on a show. The group is doing well, I’ve seen the results. Something concrete I can rely on.

  I’m arrogant about business because I’m good at it. Corporations, investments, innovations, markets. I just get it. I’m always ten steps ahead so even if I get set back two paces, I’m still better than the next guy. Regardless, my Board and my shareholders, they expect Gregory CEO today, the other Gregory, the personality I rely on to mask everything else.

  “These are good, Amy.”

  She smiles and flicks her dark-blond ponytail—she loves a compliment. She’s one of those people you have to envy. She has a simple existence. She doesn’t have huge aspirations. She cooks and cleans for me, looks after her children—I’d stake money on the fact she’s a good mother—takes care of her husband who does something manual, a hearty, butch-type job that requires tough skin. Amy doesn’t want anything more than she needs. And she’s happy.

  Jesus, I really envy that.

  After placing my cutlery at six o’clock, scrolling the three emails that have landed on my Blackberry in the time it took me to eat scrambled eggs and drain my coffee, I nudge my plate towards Amy and lift a foot to the rim of my breakfast stool to fasten my laces. Laces tied, grey trousers adjusted, white shirt cuffs tweaked to lie just lower than the cuff of my blazer, I’m ready to put on the show.

  “Hold the phone, mister, what would you like for dinner?” Amy calls.

  Hold the phone. For the first time in days, I genuinely smile. It was the night of the hunt—another thing I got wrong. Scarlett was pissed at me for ignoring her all night, buttering up Adriana to get to her husband, private equity investor, Francis. Then Williams’s sister, Charlotte, nearly went to bed with some arsehole and I swear I could’ve killed him, would have, if Scarlett hadn’t put those damn beautiful eyes in front of me. Scarlett was reeling from everything that happened when I found her sitting on the four-post bed in our room. It killed me seeing her like that again, a mess because of me. But just like every time I screwed up a saying, she couldn’t resist giggling when I said, hold the fort. “It’s hold the phone,” she said. I knew it was but after the first time I got one of her English sayings wrong and she laughed like an angel, I just kept doing it. And every time, she giggled, the sweetest sound. Even when she was angry, I could break her by being all goofy and getting the saying wrong. It became a sort of addiction. That sound, her giggle, could melt me, still can.

  “Whatever you like, Amy, surprise me.” I really couldn’t care less.

  “Alright, hunny, have a good day.”

  * * *

  Lawrence, as Chairman of the AGM, declares the meeting quorate. Leaning forward over his tan leather document folder—designed for him by my mother—he wiggles those goddamn varifocals that he really ought to have given up on by now, and draws a tick next to item number one on his agenda. He has a slightly larger information pack than the other twelve directors around the board table, including me. Christ knows what extra stuff he has in there, it’s probably packed out with blank pages, but the AGM is his big show. Batman has a cape, Spiderman shoots webbing, Lawrence has stacks of paper and God help any man who stands in the way of Lawrence and his agenda.

  “Agenda item number one, previous year’s performance and financials, one January 2015 to thirty-one December 2015. Mr. Ryans?” He lifts his specs to rest on top of his head and looks up at me. I’ll never understand why people do that, like they’re standing on the deck of a yacht, Monaco sun blazing down, and the varifocals are a shaded pair of Tom Fords. Except Lawrence is in the boardroom of GJR Enterprises in the middle of London City and it’s raining outside.

  Sipping coffee is a good tool. It creates a pause, short enough and legitimate enough to not appear rude but long enough to let every other man—and one woman—at the table know that this is my show, agenda or no agenda. Coffee cup slowly and purposefully back in its place, I sit taller in my leather chair, undo the middle button
of my grey suit jacket and place a territorial, finger-spread hand on the large glass table.

  “Good morning all. It’s good to be around one table. I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for what’s been another strong year, in a market that’s still recovering. Turnover and EBIT have increased across the group year-on-year. Gross profit is up in all but one company but net profit is down in two subsidiaries.”

  I nod once to Williams who sits to the right of me, looking sharp in a navy pinstripe, for a daddy-to-be. That mass of intentionally messed-up dirty blond is going to have to go though, a daddy can’t look like a student. Having said that, nor should a man of thirty-two years.

  One glance and a nod is all it takes, Williams and I work like a well-oiled machine—most of the time. He clicks on the projector to illuminate the blank white wall at the opposite end of the board table. There’s no need to close the black blinds across the floor-to-ceiling windows because London’s ominous January sky is providing us with all the darkness we need, but he does turn off the lights with his multifunction remote.

  A blue-and-orange graph depicting the gross profit of all companies in my group, under GJR Holdings Limited, is displayed by the projector. I dip my head to Williams once more and he clicks to the next slide, a close-up of the two companies with falling year-on-year net profit.

  “Since the results are up, GJR Communication Solutions seems as good a place to start as any. As you know, this is primarily a vehicle for research and development.” I gesture to Mark Flemming, a stereotypical Scotsman with red hair and freckles. A stocky chap but untoned—reminds me of Hamish in that Mel Gibson movie, Braveheart. Looks completely wrong in a suit. Much happier behind a desk in a pair of jeans and a thick check shirt developing new software, or lying on his back fixing up a new machine. “Mark, you can fill in the detail when we work round the table but suffice to say, last year was one of generation. Profit won’t be realised on Mark’s latest project before quarter four this coming year, at best. Mark, when we come to the agenda item I’d like you to outline for the group the timetable and projections for sale of the new software.”

  “Aye, alright, Gregory.”

  “Alright then, moving on to Constant Sources. This is an English incorporated company with offices in England and France. Nick Henshaw, as you all know, retired his directorship two months ago. Since then Tim and Jean-Paul have been taking care of operations. Which of you will be picking up the presentation?”

  “I will, Gregory.” Jean-Paul is still brownnosing after the episode with Nick Henshaw. He knows the only reason I kept him and Tim is because they do a good job with that company but one wrong move and he’s gone.

  “Alright, take the floor, Jean-Paul.”

  Jean-Paul turns to Williams, asking him to move the slide presentation along. His movement causes his black hair to fall into his thick black brows. He needs to cut that mop, he looks shabby, it gives a bad impression. Williams clicks over the slide presentation to a graph I’ve already seen and Jean-Paul starts talking through the figures, justifying the drop in net profit with various R and D investments.

  My attention appears outwardly to be focussed on the financials illuminating the room but her face comes into my mind. The look in her eye when she asked me why? I told her she needed space to think, away from me, to decide if she wanted to be with me. On some level, I think I wanted that to be the case. In truth, I knew as I was typing an email to her boss, telling him Scarlett wanted to take the Dubai secondment, that her stubbornness, her pride, her insecurities about me, would make her end it. She was right when she called me a coward. I did take the easy way out because I couldn’t bring myself to say it, I couldn’t tell her that I don’t love her.

  It’s never been a problem before. When women have swooned and fallen in love with me in the five minutes I’ve kept them around, I’ve told them straight. The thing is, I can’t fall in love. I won’t fall in love. I’ve loved people. I’ve loved two people and that turned to shit. My mother nearly died being beaten to a pulp by my father, all because of me, because I hid. And the other...

  Get a grip, Ryans. AGM. Focus. Jean-Paul. Constant Sources.

  “...it’s called Black Diamonds. It’s extremely similar to our game, Jail Run. It’s a very similar concept but Black Diamonds is cheaper to download. It’s burst onto the scene in a big way in just a matter of weeks and it continues to grow. It would be fair to say it’s going viral and it could really put a dent in our Jail Run profit margin.” Jean-Paul has moved onto his SWOT analysis for 2013—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats on the horizon for Constant Sources.

  Nick Henshaw is still fishing around, trying to get his claws on more money for the shares he sold back to the company when I forced him to resign without compensation—there’s a threat I’m still fending off.

  “Who’s the owner of the gaming software, Jean-Paul?” The question comes from Zara Vanderbilt-Delores, the only female director. Sometimes I wish there were ten of her. She’s shit hot. Really knows her stuff, gets markets and business. She tears strips off some of the men but God is she vicious when she wants to be. She’s in camp You’ve Got to be a Bitch to Get Things Done. I would’ve said that was true of all successful women before Miss Heath.

  Stick with it, Ryans, eye on the ball.

  “That’s the crazy thing,” Jean-Paul responds. “It seems to be a young man, boy. Just out of college. Nineteen. Zimbabwean.”

  “Let’s buy it,” I bite, taking my frustration out on Jean-Paul.

  “Ah, err, we’ve tried, Gregory. The boy’s lawyers aren’t interested.”

  “How much did you offer?”

  “Five hundred thousand. They wouldn’t even speak to us.”

  I have to bite down on my gums. If you want a job doing properly... “Set me up a meeting. I’ll close it.”

  “We’ll need a lawyer,” Williams says. His voice is wary. As it should be. I know what he’s thinking.

  “Then find one.” My eyes burn into him, daring him to challenge me.

  “What about—”

  “No.”

  Lawrence breaks the standoff by announcing the next company on the agenda. I watch the slides click over to another financial graph I’ve already seen.

  Eyes flick to me as I push my chair out and move to the window. I nod to say continue and the room gets back to business as I stare at the first drops of rain dusting the glass pane in front of me. She thinks she loves me. She doesn’t know me. She knows the man who gets impossible tickets to the Dame Judi Dench play she’s desperate to see, the man who whisks her away to a vineyard because her father used to enjoy fine wines with her, the man who flies her to the opera. I don’t even know where that man came from.

  She doesn’t know me. Maybe I should fly out there and tell her. Tell her everything. Tell her who I really am. Then she’ll see that I’m not a man to be loved and I’m a man who can’t love. I should’ve told her. She wanted to know. She kept pushing and I was too...what...afraid? If I’d told her it would’ve ended us. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. Just like I wished I’d left her alone after that pitch. But I couldn’t.

  Who am I kidding? It’s been five weeks. She’ll have moved on. I’m the fucking idiot still pining after a woman who I knew for a matter of weeks. Soon I’ll have been without her for as long as I was with her.

  A sudden ache strikes my chest and I have to push my palm against my pec.

  “Do you have a view, Gregory?” Zara is burning two big dark-blue eyes into me when I dart my head from the window to face the table.

  Fuck! She was last on the agenda. Think, Ryans, what was her proposal? Ah, yes...

  “Zara, we’ve discussed this before. Your role is to head up Corporate Social Responsibility within the remit I give you.”

  “I appreciate that, Gregory, but we’ve followed the same charities
for four years running. I think it would be a positive message if we spread our funding to some other areas of need, open up to a fair procedure, ask for charities to pitch to us.”

  Is she challenging me? Seriously?

  “No. We stick with the children’s hospital and domestic violence in Africa. Consider that item closed.”

  Zara’s mouth opens and closes. For a split second, I think she’s considering pushing my buttons further. She wisely backs down. She thinks I’m a dick. Good. I am.

  Lawrence closes the AGM and dials reception to have lunch brought through. I don’t hang around for small talk, I head back to my office.

  Loosening my tie a notch, I take a seat behind my desk. The live feeds to the Dow Jones, FTSE and other markets in which I dabble, are playing on flat screens around the room. I dial reception to have some lunch brought to me then stare at my screen saver. Scarlett looks truly mesmerising in her black gown, the diamond choker around her neck out shone by those devastating eyes. It’s a press shot. We’re on the red carpet outside my mother’s house. The annual gala. That night. I remember how awkward she felt, how she didn’t want to get out of the Bentley. She was nervous she wasn’t good enough. What a joke! She was the most beautiful woman at the gala. Screw that, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, inside and out. The fucking dull ache throbs in my chest again.

  “Greg.” Williams opens my office door and walks straight in. “Where were you today because you weren’t in the AGM?”

  I give him a sigh that reflects how truly exasperated I feel. “I’d already seen the papers, Williams.”

  He stalks towards me and takes a seat on the opposite side of my desk, pulling up his trousers at the knee as he sits.