Counting on Love

by R L Burgess

  “It was nothing. Just a misunderstanding.”

  Samira cut in. “So, Yana, tell us what John’s really like at the office. He’s always saying how busy and important he is, but what’s the truth of the matter?”

  “Does he now?” Yana shifted her gaze away from Reyna, with a confident smile. “Well, I suppose he’s not entirely wrong. He does some pretty good work.”

  “You see,” John said, beaming. “Told you!”

  An excited roar came floating down the hallway from the boys’ room.

  “That’ll be the princess saved then,” Samira said.

  Reyna glanced at her watch. She didn’t like to keep Holden out too late on a Sunday night before school.

  “I suppose we’ll have to make a move soon.”

  “Time for dessert first?” Samira suggested. “John’s made apple pie to go with the ice cream you brought.”

  “Oh, John,” Reyna sighed. “Martha Stewart eat your heart out.”

  “That’s a yes from me.” Yana rubbed a hand across her flat stomach. “Although my waistline won’t thank you. Who can pass up homemade apple pie and ice cream?”

  Certainly not the boys, who asked for second helpings almost before they had finished scraping their bowls clean of the first serve. Not for the first time, Reyna found herself marvelling at how much food an eight-year-old boy could tuck away. Thankfully money was no issue for her, but her heart went out to those who were on minimum wages, trying to manage the expenses of education, clothing, and food for growing children. Life was expensive, and it was no wonder so many people were struggling out there.

  “Well, thank you all for a lovely evening,” Reyna said, clearing the last bowl from the table. “We’d better be making tracks now if we don’t want to be too sleepy for school tomorrow.”

  “I don’t mind being too sleepy for school, Aunty Rey,” Holden said. “We can just stay home if we’re too tired.”

  “Some of us have to go to work, sleepy or not,” she replied, grabbing their coats from the hallway.

  “Wouldn’t do for the boss to slack off now, would it?” John joined in. “Why would anyone else bother to come to work if the boss doesn’t?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t think I would want to be the boss,” Jessie said, looking worried. “That sounds hard.”

  “I would!” Gideon exclaimed. “I would just tell everyone what to do all day, and they would have to do everything I said because I was the boss. I’d be like, ‘get me a packet of chips,’ and they would have to get me chips straight away.”

  “If only it worked that way,” Reyna said with a rueful smile.

  Reyna and Holden bid everyone good night, Reyna declining a last nightcap as they shrugged on their winter coats in the hallway.

  “Want me to give your number to Yana?” Samira murmured, giving Reyna a tight hug.

  Reyna shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “There’s a woman at my work, Alli, you might like—”

  Reyna swatted her friend’s arm. “Enough!”

  “Fine, fine. Goodnight, Holdy. Sleep well.” Samira gave his shoulder a squeeze.

  “All right mister, ready to race to the car?” Reyna asked him, helping him zip his coat.

  Chapter Seven

  Zoe (Monday a.m.)

  What the hell was that noise? Zoe groaned, realising that it was her phone, mercilessly blaring the hideous new ring tone Travis and Chiara had set last night in the pub. Could it be six thirty a.m. already? She felt like she had only just closed her eyes.

  “That should get you out of bed tomorrow,” Travis had said, narrowly avoiding sloshing his beer onto her phone as he took a large gulp.

  “Yeah, this ringtone works a treat on Travis,” Chiara added. “No one can sleep through such an assault.”

  Chiara’s friend Petra had taken that moment to whisper in Zoe’s ear suggestively that if they stayed up all night there would be no need for an alarm in the morning. Zoe, caught off guard by such a direct approach, had mumbled something stupid about the importance of rest for muscle repair and excused herself to go to the bathroom. Petra, with her short blond bob, upturned nose, and red painted fingernails, had not let up. She had pressed her leg against Zoe’s under the table, brushed her hand over drinks, sent searing, meaningful looks over the table, and had finally pulled her in for a kiss at the end of a game of pool. For one brief moment Zoe had been tempted to let herself give in to the embrace, but when Petra’s hands crept under Zoe’s shirt right there in the pub, she realised this really wasn’t what she wanted. If she was going to be with somebody, she wanted to feel a connection; she wanted some zing, some sparkle and pizzazz, not a lecherous fumble in a pool room smelling of beer and old carpet. She had gently extracted herself from the embrace and declined a repeated invitation to spend the night together, joking that her alarm would have to do the trick for now.

  Well, the alarm had certainly woken her up. Travis and Chiara had not been wrong there.

  Reaching groggily for her phone, she stabbed at it ineffectually, attempting to turn it off without opening her eyes. It was no use. She cracked an eyelid and immediately shut it again, her retina burned by the bright light coming off her phone in the dark room. Incessant, grainy rock music blared from the tiny speaker, forcing her to open both eyes in order to shut it off.

  She groaned again. Her body felt like a sack of potatoes that had been repeatedly rolled over by a pickup truck. Why did they do this to themselves? Perhaps a hot shower would help.

  She sat up gingerly, her joints moaning with resistance. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and immediately let out a hiss as pain seared through her calves. Yesterday’s Tough Mudder course had been punishing.

  She pushed herself off the bed with equally tired arms and creaked down the hallway to the shower. It was a challenge to manoeuvre herself over the edge of the bath, but she managed, turning on the shower and gasping as the water took a moment to heat up. How on earth was she going to make it through today, she wondered, adjusting the taps so that the water was almost too hot to bear.

  Zoe washed her hair, still finding bits of dried mud even after last night’s shower. She’d literally had mud everywhere at the end of the race—up her nose, in her ears, her pants, her shoes, and her hair. She would probably still be finding little flecks of mud on herself for the next week.

  She shut off the shower and stepped out of the bath. The hot water had loosened her up a little, but she would have to take some anti-inflammatories to make it through the day. She leaned in to the mirror to study her face. Great, just great. No amount of makeup would fix this baby. She looked like she had been in a bar fight. Her right eye, normally a standard light brown, was bloodshot and surrounded by purple and black, courtesy of another contestant’s stray foot as they had climbed the rope netting. Her top lip was puffy (same foot), and she had a long scratch on her left cheek from sliding under a wire fence. Not to mention the fact that she was walking like she needed a Zimmer frame. Oh well, she would just have to do her best. There was too much on her plate today to miss work for a few sore muscles.

  She put on her snappiest suit, a dark grey pinstripe with a light grey shirt underneath, trying to compensate for the state of her face. She struggled into her boots and perched at the kitchen counter with her coffee and toast. By the time she had finished scrolling through her work emails (a bad morning habit that she had yet to shake) and responded to a few urgent enquiries that had come through to her inbox over the weekend, she felt ready to go and face the day.

  Her phone chimed, alerting her to a message on the Tough Mudder group chat she shared with her friends. It was Mel. She had simply written, Ug. Almost immediately another chime followed and a picture of Travis’s face showed up on her screen, a graze across his cheekbone and dark circles under his eyes. Somebody bring me Panadol…

  I too am dying, Zoe keyed in. Whose idea was this?

  Yours! Enid joined in. But wasn’t it
ace?! A barrage of photos followed from the day, the group warming up, Travis taking a dive into a mud pile while Chiara looked horrified, a red-faced, mud-splattered group celebrating at the end. She smiled. It was comforting to know that her friends were feeling as beaten up as she was. The beer, she decided, as she slid behind the wheel of her car and backed out of the driveway, had not helped. She wasn’t hung over. She’d only had a couple, but in retrospect, water would have been a better choice. It would probably also have helped her ease away from Petra more smoothly, come to think of it. Her exit had not been her finest moment. Telling her friends she was going to the bar, she had slipped out the back door and into an Uber, texting them when she was on her way to let them know she had gone.

  Oh well, she thought, easing around a truck that was holding up her lane of traffic. Could have been worse. Petra had been nice enough, but there had certainly not been any spark. No quickening of the pulse, no flush to the skin, no rise of the body temperature when she was near. Not like with Reyna.

  Stop it, she chided herself. This stupid crush was distracting her, causing her to act like a teenager playing dress up as a financial adviser. She had to pull herself together. She was good at her job. Not just good, great. She knew she actually had a real talent for helping people and businesses manage their affairs, and she didn’t want to throw all that down the gurgler by acting like an idiot with a bad case of puppy love.

  She pulled into the car park at work and shut off the engine, taking a deep breath. She let the air out slowly through her mouth as if she were blowing up a balloon. Her swollen lip stung and her eye pulsed with a dull ache. Anti-inflammatories were masking the streaking pain in her muscles, but she was still acutely aware of the tightness in her limbs. After this weekend’s Tough Mudder course, she had certainly proven to herself that she could face down adversity. Maybe she wasn’t quite ready for blind dates and kissing strangers in the pub, but she was done with this Reyna ridiculousness.

  “Run into a door handle?” someone asked, for the hundredth time that day.

  “Yeah, you been in some kind of brawl, Cavendish?”

  She sat down in the large meeting room, acknowledging the comments with a thin smile. It had been an exceptionally long day, what with all the pain and asides about her roughed-up appearance, and she was tired of pretending everyone was hilarious.

  “You should see the other guy,” she said, relying on the cliché.

  “Right, settle people.” Thomus clapped his hands, shuffling his papers together at the head of the table. “Figures time. Reyna has asked us to discuss the impact of a possible Vicon Probis demerger and what we would need to do to prepare for such an event.”

  Zoe opened her notebook, thoughts scrambling through her head. She had some important points to raise here, if she could just order her thoughts and present herself clearly.

  The meeting room door opened and Reyna popped her head into the room. “Mind if I join you all?”

  “Of course not,” Thomus said, rising in surprise to greet her. “We were just about to start discussing the demerger. Take my seat,” he said chivalrously.

  Reyna ignored him, taking a seat across the table from Zoe, nodding at the group. “Don’t let me interrupt, I’m just keen to hear your perspectives.”

  There was silence, her colleagues reluctant to speak up with the presence of the CEO suddenly overshadowing their meeting.

  James, an alpha male with an overly active sense of importance and hair that an environmental group could mistake for an oil slick disaster, cleared his throat. “We’re looking at a fairly run-of-the-mill split here. Both companies look good right now and by divesting themselves of Probis, Vicon probably has a better future.” He flipped his pen between his fingers. “I recommend Azoulay House advance the idea with a prospectus for each company and strategies for the demerger.”

  Reyna jotted in her notebook, nodding at him as he spoke. She had worn her hair out today, and it fell in long, dark waves around her face. Her makeup was subtle, a light lipstick, some mascara enhancing her long lashes. Small diamonds twinkled in her earlobes, and to Zoe she looked like a Bollywood movie star. What would it be like to run her hands through that hair? Her heart gave a disobedient kick.

  “Anyone else?”

  More silence.

  “I would posit that the demerger represents a threat to shareholders,” Zoe suddenly found herself saying, “and each business will suffer a loss to their bottom line that may create unsustainability and instability into the future. I think we have a duty to represent this to the company and its shareholders.”

  Reyna shifted her gaze to Zoe, her eyebrows slightly raised. “That’s a strong and combative stance, Zoe. What evidence do you have to back yourself up?”

  “By my calculation, the viability numbers just don’t add up,” Zoe answered, her aches and pains forgotten for the first time. “Without each other, both businesses lose integral cash flow and neither has the numbers to back themselves as an independent operator.”

  One of her colleagues shifted in the seat next to her, giving her a soft kick under the table. The message was clear: ease up a bit. Perhaps she was coming on a bit strong, but she believed in her calculations and what she perceived to be a duty of care to the public. It would be wrong to recommend to their clients that they do something that would cause hardship to hundreds of shareholders and potentially the resulting business structure.

  “Well,” James countered, “that’s your opinion. I think you’re letting fear cloud your judgment. This could be an amazing growth opportunity, and we need to be blazing a trail here for these guys, not creating a climate of fear amongst their stakeholders.”

  “It’s not just an opinion,” she said quietly. “It’s the numbers. They don’t add up.”

  Reyna made another jot in her notebook. “I’m not sure I entirely agree with you, Zoe,” she said slowly, tapping her pen lightly on her notebook.

  Zoe flushed, her armpits prickling with sweat. “May I ask why?”

  “In a ViconProbis demerger our role is to assist the company by providing financial instruments for the process. It’s not actually our role to advise them on the profitability or future sustainability. It’s our role to set them up with two financially independent, operational business structures. We can give them points to consider that will create the least disruption for shareholders, but ultimately we should not be advising them for or against the actual demerger.”

  “Really?” Zoe frowned. “I would have thought it was our responsibility to alert them if we think there is an integral problem.”

  “They’re looking at the same numbers we are. If they decide to go ahead that is their prerogative.”

  “But what about all the people who’ve invested in the business and will now take a huge loss?”

  “You don’t know that they will.”

  “It’s likely.”

  “Likely or not, we provide the tools, we advise on the process, not the potential outcomes.”

  “Is this not possibly a bit shortsighted?” Another kick from her colleague, this time sharp against her ankle. She gulped, rubbing her palms on her knees.

  “I believe it’s called sticking to the brief.” Reyna paused, her eyes resting coolly on Zoe. For a moment they gazed at each other, eyes locked together like horns in a bullfight. Zoe’s pulse jumped in her neck, heat rising under her collar. And then Reyna turned away. “Anyone else have thoughts to share?”

  Zoe focused on the smooth white Formica of the table in front of her, the flow of continued discussion washing over her. She rubbed at a small pen mark on the desk, smudging the little blue line until it faded. She felt stung by the rebuke in Reyna’s eyes, the way she had been ultimately overruled and passed over. Of course, Reyna was entitled to do that. She was the boss, but she was surprised by Reyna’s position. Zoe uncapped her water bottle and took a long sip of the cool water, shifting the bottle away from the sensitive bruise on her lip. The dull thump of her swoll
en eye ached deep in her head. This was not her day. Stupid alarm. She wished she had slept through it.

  “Well, thank you all for your thoughts,” Reyna was saying as she closed up her notebook. Zoe kept her eyes down, studying the lines of her palm. “I won’t disturb your meeting any further. Zoe, do you have a moment to pop in to my office this afternoon?”

  She sat up with a start. “Yes.” Her pulse thumped like a dog’s tail.

  Reyna pushed back her chair. “Great, come by in an hour.”

  “So that went well,” Mel said as they sat in her cubicle, Zoe recounting the conversation.

  “You think?” Zoe said, her face a picture of worry.

  “No, Cavendish, I do not think. You called our boss shortsighted. To her face! What were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking,” Zoe paused, “that she was wrong.”

  “Oh right, no big deal then.”

  Zoe dropped her notebook on the desk and sank into her chair. Mel leaned against the cubicle wall.

  “In general it’s not great to tell the boss she’s wrong.”

  “Yes. She seemed…”

  “Frosty?”

  “Possibly. I felt it was my duty to speak up, though.”

  “I can understand that. I wonder why she wants to see you.” Mel looked pensive, chewing on the lid of her pen.

  “Slap on the wrist?”

  “Nah, she’d get Thomus to do that. Anyway, it’s almost four so I suggest you get your skates on and go and find out.” Mel flashed her a better-you-than-me smile.

  Zoe paused before Reyna’s door and straightened her suit jacket, smoothing out her pants. There was no sound behind the door and she knocked gently on the thick wood, almost hoping Reyna had forgotten about their meeting and she could slink away.

  “Come in.”

  Zoe pushed open the door and stepped inside. Reyna stood behind a large, modern desk set against a wide window looking out into the leafy street below. Her phone was tucked between her shoulder and her ear, and she was clearly listening to someone, nodding and murmuring in agreement as she paced before the window. She waved for Zoe to enter, gesturing at the seats in front of her desk.