A Mistletoe Proposal

‘Because of Charlie?’

‘No, because of…lots of things.’

‘Name one.’

‘Stop interrogating me. I’m not in the dock.’

‘No, your victim is usually in the dock with you pressing home the questions. So, you can dish it out but you can’t take it?’

‘How dare you!’

‘Name something I’ve done to offend you-a new offence, not one you’ve told me about before.’

She ground her teeth, wondering how she could ever have sympathised with him.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘Franton.’

‘Who?’

‘You’ve forgotten him already, haven’t you? That poor man who burst into your office this morning.’

‘That “poor man”-’

‘Yes, yes, I know. Insider trading is wrong, but he’s not the only one who’s sailed a bit close to the wind, is he? I know someone else whose activities threaten your firm’s good name, but he doesn’t get chucked out. He gets protected. You hire a lawyer to keep him on the straight and narrow.’

‘He’s my brother-’

‘And Franton is a man with a wife and children. Maybe he doesn’t deserve a position of trust any more, but you threw him onto the scrap heap without a second thought.’

Pippa waited for Roscoe to speak but he was staring as though he’d just seen her for the first time.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m a soppy, sentimental woman who doesn’t understand harsh reality and sticks her nose into what doesn’t concern her. There, now, I’ve saved you the trouble of saying it.’

‘Soppy and sentimental is the last thing I’d ever call you,’ Roscoe said. He seemed to be talking in a daze.

‘Well, anyway…since you’re employing me I suppose I had no right to fly at you like that.’

His voice was unexpectedly gentle. ‘You can say anything you like to me.’

‘No, really-it’s none of my business.’ Suddenly she was desperate to get away from him.

‘I wish I could explain to you what the pressures are-I think I could make you understand, and I’d like to feel that you did.’

‘As you say, I don’t know what it’s like for you.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘I don’t suppose I could imagine it.’

‘Pippa-’

‘Don’t let me keep you. We both need to drum up new business.’

She gave him a brilliant smile and moved firmly away. She didn’t even look back, but plunged into networking- smiling, laughing, making appointments, promising phone calls. It was an efficient evening and by the end of it she’d made a number of good contacts.

At last she found herself on the edge of a little group surrounding the managing director of the firm celebrating its triumph. He was growing expansive, making jokes.

Roscoe, standing nearby, joined in the polite laughter, while his eyes drifted over the crowd until he saw the person he wanted and watched her unobtrusively.

‘It’s been a good celebration,’ the managing director said. ‘Of course, I really wanted to arrange this evening a couple of weeks later, so that we could make it a Christmas party as well, but everyone’s calendar was crowded already.’

‘Such a shame,’ said a woman close by. ‘I simply adore Christmas.’

There were polite murmurs of agreement from almost everyone.

But not from Pippa, Roscoe realised. Beneath the perfectly applied make-up, her face had grown suddenly pale, almost drawn. She closed her eyes, keeping them shut just a moment too long, as though retreating into herself.

David spoke in Roscoe’s memory. ‘The nearer to Christmas it gets, the more of a workaholic she becomes… It’s as if she’s trying to avoid Christmas altogether.’

He studied Pippa, willing her to open her eyes so that he might read something in them. At last she did so, but when she saw him she turned quickly, as though she resented his gaze.

As she moved away a strange feeling assailed him. She was young, beautiful, the most alluring, magnetic woman in the room. And she was mysteriously alone. No man claimed her, and she claimed none either. For a blinding moment the sense of her isolation was so strong that it was as though everyone else had vanished, leaving her the sole occupant of the vast, echoing room.

Or a vast, echoing world.

He told himself not to indulge fanciful thoughts. But they wouldn’t be banished. He started to go after her but somebody called him, forcing him to smile and go on ‘business alert’. When he managed to escape, Pippa had vanished.

Along the front of the hotel were some elaborate balconies, decorative stonework wreathed in evergreen. Pippa wandered out, thankful to escape the air inside, heavily perfumed with money, seduction and intrigue. But it was too chilly to stay out long and after a few minutes she turned back. Then she stopped at the sight of the man standing there.

‘Good evening,’ he said.

After a moment memory awoke. This was the ‘big noise’ in the financial world, with whom Roscoe would soon merge his firm, becoming, if possible, more powerful and autocratic than he already was.

‘Mr Vanlen. I think we met briefly in Mr Havering’s office.’

‘You could say we “met”. It was more you putting yourself on display. Mind you, there’s plenty to display, I’ll give you that. You knew you were driving me crazy, and you meant to do it. Fine, I fell for it. Let’s talk.’

‘No, I-’

‘Oh, spare me the modest denials. You came out here knowing I’d follow you.’

‘No, I didn’t know you were here.’

‘I’ve been watching you all evening. Don’t pretend you didn’t know. Here’s the deal. You and I, together, for as long as it suits me. And you’ll find me generous.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ she said coldly. ‘I am not interested in you in any way, shape or form. Is that clear?’

But, as his self-satisfied smirk revealed, he interpreted this in his own way.

‘Evidently I didn’t make myself clear,’ he said. ‘Does this say it plainly enough?’

Pulling out a flat black box, he opened it to reveal a diamond pendant of beauty and value.

‘And that’s just the start,’ he added.

She regarded him wearily. ‘I’m supposed to be impressed by this, aren’t I?’ she said. ‘But I’m not interested. Can’t you understand that?’

‘Come, come. You’re a woman of the world. You know the score. You’re used to rich, powerful men and you like them that way, don’t you?’

‘Only if they’re interesting. Not all rich men are interesting. Some of them are plain bores.’

‘Money is never boring,’ he riposted. ‘Nor is power. You see them?’ He flung a hand in the direction of the room behind them. ‘The richest, most powerful men in London, and there isn’t one of them I couldn’t crush. Ask Havering. His investigations about me have shown him a few things that surprised him.’

‘He’s had you investigated? You sound very cool about it.’

Vanlen shrugged. ‘It’s no more that I expect, ahead of our tie-up. I’ve done the same to him, and I found things that surprised me too. It’s par for the course.’

He was right, she realised. This level of sharp-eyed suspicion was normal in the world of high finance where Roscoe inhabited a peak. But it made her shiver.

‘I know a few things about you too,’ Vanlen went on. ‘You like to play the field. No permanent lover to make things awkward. Fine, then we understand each other.’

His hand slid around her shoulder, making her move away quickly.

‘The one thing you don’t seem to understand is the word no,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll say it as often as I have to.’