Chapter 97: Chapter 97: The Girl Who Was Hunted - Chapter Thirteen

MICHAEL Breakfast at home: over toast, juice and coffee, Charlotte’s phone beeps.

She barely looks at it, obviously knowing what the tone is.

“S’cuse me,” she mutters, vanishing into the bedroom, leaving her phone on the table.

James’ eyes meet mine, his expression quizzical. I lean over, looking at her phone screen.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Mmm… Calendar Reminder…. ‘Take your pill’.”

He nods, looking thoughtful. We sit in awkward silence for a few seconds.

“You think she wants children?” he asks.

“Not sure. Certainly, she’s not mentioned it, so I’m guessing she’s not interested right now. In a few years, who knows?”

After another pause…. “And, do you?”

“It’s a big house…”

James stares into space, looking pensive.

Time to take the bull by the horns.

“James…”

“Mmm?”

“For the avoidance of doubt…. If Charlotte should fall pregnant, I will adopt, in the womb, any child she bears…”

He glances up for a second, no more, then drops his eyelids in acknowledgement, looking happier.

*****

CHARLOTTE Down in my small office in the Haswell Building, nothing else being asked of me just now, I am busy with a college assignment. There is a knock.

“Door’s open…”

A familiar face appears. “Hello, Charlotte. They told me you were down here. I was in the area, so I thought I’d call by.”

It is Daniel, originally introduced to me by my Master and Michael for one of our ‘parties’. However, he blotted his copy-book the last time we met, by making an unsubtle attempt to tempt me away from my two Lovers. He has not been invited to my company since.

And I am not comfortable with him turning up, unbidden, in my office; just the two of us.

“Hello, Daniel. What can I do for you?”

“I thought you might like to go out for a drink this evening? Or dinner perhaps?”

“No thanks. I’m busy.”

“Another evening then?”

“No. Daniel, you know that I’m with James and Michael. I don’t fool around.” I hold up my left hand, displaying my ring finger with its twinned bands of yellow, red and white gold.

He tilts his head, looking at me askance. “You don’t fool around? The last time I met you, you were fooling around with three of us. And the first time, as I recall, there were five of us.”

“That’s different. It was with James and Michael. If you want to play, you have to ask them.”

Very uncomfortable now, I gather my text and notes together. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have an appointment in a few minutes.” I’m lying, and doubtless, Daniel knows it. I squeeze by him out of the office, making my way up to the canteen, where I can work in a more public place.

*****

“You’ve missed a bit.”

“Have I?” My Master peers sideways in the mirror, and I stroke his face where a little stubble has escaped his razor.

“Ah, yes. Thank you.”

“You seem nervous?”

He rocks his head one way and the other. “I’m always a bit edgy when there’s a meeting with the Thorntons. Thornton Junior is a bit of a firebrand, and I’m still the new boy, seniority-wise.”

Finishing his shave, he buttons on a shirt and puts on his tie. He’s all fingers and thumbs. After watching him, three times, trying to get the tie straight, I turn him at the shoulders, undo the tie and re-

knot it for him.”

“Who are the Thorntons, Master?”

“They’re Haswell’s major shareholders in the City Project. Thornton Senior runs the show from their end. Thornton Junior thinks he does.”

“Richard has the larger shareholding though?”

“Yes. Jaye Thornton, the son, wasn’t happy about it apparently, but his ego was appeased by quite a lot of the Project being named after his father.”

I laugh. “The famously fragile male ego?”

“Mmm. Perhaps.” His smile is wry. “Interesting you should put it like that. Apparently, the idea to do it that way came from Beth.”

“Are you a shareholder?”

“I am now. It was part of the directorship deal. Haswell likes to have all his associates on board one way or another.”

“To keep all the interests aligned?”

“Yup.”

“And you wanted it that way?”

“Of course I did. Even as a minor shareholder, it’s worth a great deal of money…. After all, I have a wife de facto to support.” He gives me a half wink.

“I think you would have wanted it anyway, Master, with or without a wife; de facto or otherwise.”

He flashes eyebrows at me, grinning, but then turns serious. “You’ll be fine, Charlotte. You have me, as well as Michael. And that’s before you’ve even started earning properly in your own right. You’re never going to be short of money again. You can choose your life, rather than having it thrust upon you.”

*****

Up in Reception, my Master vanishes into his office to fetch the files he needs for the meeting. I am about to leave for my own office when Richard flags me down from the Conference Room.

“Charlotte, don’t disappear. Fetch your notebook. I want you as Meeting Secretary for this one.”

I follow him in, along with the rest of the attendees, trying to identify the Thorntons. I assume that they are the two men, one elderly, one much younger, who sit to one side of Richard.

Another man, whom I don’t recognise, starts to seat himself several chairs away, then sees me. He looks again, very unsubtly checking me out. I look away, but he moves from his original seat to the one next to mine. He does not, however, sit in it.

Instead, he perches on the edge of the desk next to me. He’s good-looking, in an oily sort of way, but his smile is pasted on, fake.

“Well. Hi there. You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Fairly new, yes.” I make a show of arranging my notebook, ready to take the minutes. and trying to display my be-ringed left hand.

He slides closer to me on the desktop, and I lean backwards, “And what’s your name again?” he asks, his voice oily. “I didn’t catch it.”

“That’s because I hadn’t given it. And it’s Conners.”

Still smarmy; “No, I meant your first name?”

“Ms.” I snap.

He holds out his hand, still with his fake smile. “I’m Ewan.”

Reluctantly, I take it, shaking briefly. His hand is damp.

“Nice ring,” he says.

“Isn’t it?”

Thank God! Surely, he’ll take the hint now?

“Would you be interested in lunch later?”

He notices my ring, and still, he asks?

“Yes, I’d be very interested, but not with you, thank you.”

Finally, flushing, he backs off, seating himself a couple of chairs away, further along the conference table, his expression angry.

Have I overstepped the mark? Richard must have heard the exchange from the top of the table. I see him looking at me over his glasses.

“Are you ready, Miss Conners?” he asks.

‘Miss Conners’? It’s always been Charlotte before.

“Yes, I am, Sir.”

“Fine. I think almost everyone is here…. Ah James, there you are….”

*****

When the meeting is finished, my Master accompanies the Thorntons out. “I’ll see you at lunch then, Richard.”

I am about to leave myself when, “Charlotte, a moment please.”

Oh, Hell. Am I in trouble again….?

“Yes, Mr Haswell?”

Again, he looks at me over his spectacles, this time sucking in his cheeks against a smile. “I just wanted to say, Charlotte, that I appreciate that sort of thing puts you in an awkward position. I did consider blasting him myself. His behaviour was very inappropriate. However, I think you will do better by, for the most part, fighting your own battles.”

I let out my breath.

Hadn’t realised I was holding it….

“You look relieved?”

I dance from one foot to the other. “Thought I was in trouble again for a minute.”

He rubs his nose. “Not from me Charlotte. You handled it rather well I thought, left him stinging. But, trouble? You’re going to have that kind of trouble to deal with all the time.”

“Er, didn’t mean from you actually. From… er….” My eyes trail out of the office.

Richard follows my gaze. “From James? Sorry, but he’s going to have to learn to deal with it too….”

*****

I curse, muttering to myself as my laptop hums and flickers. Obliged to twiddle my thumbs for a while, I startle as I look up.

My Master leans against the door frame, smiling down at me. He looks elegant in his suit, which fits his long frame well.

“Aren’t you several floors away from your zone? The Directors’ Empire is on the Fifth Floor if memory serves.”

Sucking in his cheeks, “Oh, just thought I’d wander down and sexually harass some of the minions…

one of them anyway. Problems?” He nods down at my laptop.

“It’s just decided to run an update, right when I was in the middle of something. Everything ground to a halt….” Exasperated. “Did you have this problem as a student?”

He snorts in laughter. “Computing has moved on a bit since I was a student. Home computers weren’t even envisaged then. They taught us on the university mainframe; Fortran, using punched cards…”

I gape. “Punched cards? You’re joshing me…”