Yours Unfaithfully (32 page)

“I’ve heard so many good things about you, Melanie, but I hope to get to know you a little better so I can make my own judgement. I’m certain it will be every bit as satisfactory as your reputation has led me to expect.” His words were delivered through the ever present smile that served to warn her, she could be putty in his hands. He was the kind of man that women dreamt about, ideal to spend time with, but she was here to work. Best not forget that, she reminded herself sharply. He’d know how to treat a lady, and of course, he’d know a lady when he met one. She’d make certain he couldn’t doubt her credentials in that department.

The unexpected pleasure in discovering Hugh Ballantyne made it all that much easier to be horrible to Ratty. She watched him, silently observing her, and for his benefit she responded to Hugh with far more intimacy than she would normally, or indeed than she was feeling. She was simply taking advantage of a gifted opportunity to put the knife into Ratty from the start.

“Hugh, I shall do my best to satisfy you at every turn,” she said, treating him to her come to bed smile, normally reserved for Tim, and only rarely to him of late. Her eyes twinkled like tiny stars.

Sensing chemistry in the atmosphere, she embellished her welcome still more.

“I’m at a disadvantage, having heard very little about you except your name until today. I hope you’ll take every opportunity to set right that omission and enlighten me with all of your experience. As you know, Hugh, I’m away from home without the benefit of a chaperone and in a country with which I am unfamiliar. May I seek your protection at times when I am unsure of myself? It would be so reassuring to know that I am safe, in the hands of a gentleman, someone I can trust. She swung hers eyes across to meet Ratty’s, and was delighted to see that he was fuming.”

“Melanie, you have my undivided attention, do not hesitate to call me whenever it pleases you. I look forward to being at your service.”

She smiled graciously then turned to Ratty and muttered under her breath, “so stick that in your pipe you bastard and smoke it.” She gave him a huge smile that was patently false. She hoped it might piss him off even more than he was already.

In that mood the meeting got underway, each of them outlining their brief from their respective firms and how they saw their part in the ensuing proceedings. Melanie made a point of agreeing with everything that Hugh said, while stalling Ratty constantly with phrases like, ‘Sorry but can you be more precise,’ or ‘Could you make it clear what point you are trying to make’. By the end of the session Ratty’s mood was foul; he shoved his laptop into its case and left the table without a word. Hugh gave him time to get out of earshot.

“Melanie, I need to know exactly what is going on here. Please don’t treat me like a fool. You have just given Naziree one hell of a bad time. If it’s part of your game plan then it was highly successful, the man has gone away in an extremely bad mood, but as we are all supposed to be ‘on the same side’ in these negotiations with the Poles I am more than a little puzzled. Please explain.”

Melanie was shocked to discover that her performance hadn’t gone unnoticed by Hugh as she had hoped. If she wasn’t careful, Hugh would think she was a complete amateur and ship her back to the UK with instructions to despatch a replacement at once. All that would spell was an end to her career. Perhaps she had done enough to put Ratty in his place, so now she had better get things under control. First she had to decide what to tell Hugh.

“Hugh... I sense that you are a man of the world, sensitive, observant and at the same time discreet. May I be frank with you?”

“Our relationship will fall apart very quickly if you are ever anything less than. My position in Stellar Haufman doesn’t allow me to make mistakes, nor does it allow me to watch while others do so.”

“Ratty and I know each other slightly, we first met at a party given by a mutual friend and then we met a couple of times after that. Ratty wanted our friendship to go further than I was expecting. You see, I am a happily married woman. When I told him I’d never meant to give him the impression that we could be more than friends he... well, I suppose you could say he didn’t like losing. He told me he wanted me, and the next thing I know I was seconded to this project. I want to be sure that he knows I’m not his plaything.”

It was fully two minutes before Hugh spoke, but his smile never wavered.

“Do you want me to believe that you wouldn’t have been chosen for this project if Naziree hadn’t got designs on you?”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Then should I ask the bank to replace you with someone more suitable?”

“If you do that, Hugh, you will end my career and destroy me.”

“So I have to decide between my professional competence and the charm of a rather flattering young woman?”

“Young might be an exaggeration as well!” She laughed at him, despite the knowledge that her future was hanging on a knife edge.

“Melanie, I can believe that Naziree wants a relationship with you; probably half of the men who ever met you also feel the same, but I’ve known him for several years. I was instrumental in getting him into Osborne Melrose Law, which in turn led to them winning the contract to work for Stellar Haufman. If his only motive for including you in our team is personal then he’s behaved like a fool, but he isn’t a fool and you would do well to take that on board. I know him well enough to say with certainty that if he chose you for this project it is because you are the best that the bank possessed. If you stay, your future is safe and your career can only do well. Welcome to the team.”

She knew she had just been given her first lesson in trying to be clever with men who were accomplished at knocking metaphorical lumps out of each other. She had been stupid, outside of her comfort zone, in an area of business where she would need all the help she could get, and she had managed to humiliate the man who had given her the opportunity in the first place. Maybe, just maybe, she should give him the benefit of the doubt.

At the afternoon meeting they met their opposite numbers from the Polish Company Praza, all of whom spoke excellent English. Ground rules were established and some preliminary papers were exchanged. An itinerary was set out which included visits to nine production and research facilities across Poland. Hotel reservation details were discussed and transport arrangements were agreed. Although it was a productive meeting they had not touched on the real issues on which the deal would succeed or fail.

They agreed to reconvene in the hotel’s board room at nine thirty the next morning, then with hand shakes all round the meeting ended and the Poles departed.

The three of them gathered up their papers and laptops in silence until Hugh decided enough was enough. “We’ll meet in the restaurant at seven and discuss our strategy for tomorrow over dinner. Until seven then.” It wasn’t an invitation, it was a command, and it left no room for dissident abstention. Before the other two could acknowledge him, he was gone, deliberately leaving them to talk.

“I suppose you want me to say I’m sorry for earlier?” she said.

“And I suppose you want me to say sorry because I insisted that the bank sent you?”

“Shall we call a truce?”

“I thought a truce was something that occurred when two warring factions agreed to peace. I have never been at war with you, Mel; I made that clear to you weeks ago over lunch, when, as I recall, you were much friendlier towards me than you are now.”

“Ratty, a lot of dirty water has gone under a lot of bridges since we first met at Nina’s. Perhaps I led you on, gave you the impression that I was ‘up for it’ as you might say. The truth is I was a married woman going through a domestic crisis at home. I was vulnerable and weak. You were kind, charming and treated me like I was made of cut glass. I wasn’t used to being treated like that, husbands don’t bother. You must know that – and so I welcomed your attention. When Tim and I went on holiday we sorted everything out, and we’re great again now. I had to put some distance between you and me before it became serious and stuffed up my marriage. I’m sorry, but that’s how it was... then I came back from holiday to find I was booked to leave Tim and the kids for four weeks, just when we’d got everything sorted. Can’t you see how bad that made me feel?”

“Yes, of course I understand and you should understand that I would never say ‘you were up for it’, or use some crude expression which demeans you. Have you forgotten that I told you I love you? So... you’ve sorted out your mess of a marriage, but for how long? If, after twenty years, you still haven’t got it right then it must be time to call it a day, get out, and try something different, someone different.”

“You make it all sound so easy, Ratty. You seem to forget we have three children.”

“I will take you and your three children, I will care for them as I would my own. They are of you so I cannot do otherwise than take good care of them.”

“But Ratty, don’t you see, they love their dad, they want to stay exactly as they are, in their maternal and paternal family. You are kind, too good for your own good, but it’s not going to happen. I told you before, Ratty, I have it on good authority from Nina that there are plenty of good looking women in your office who would welcome your attention. Don’t waste your time on me.”

“Melanie, time spent with you is never wasted. The happiest moments of my life are those I spend with you.”

“You’re hopeless, Ratty, What am I going to do with you?”

“If you can’t love me, then at least humour me, pretend to love me, just until we go home. What harm can it do?”

“I don’t want to. I have a husband. It isn’t right. Doesn’t your faith have something to say about women who commit adultery? I think stoning to death is the usual price a woman has to pay isn’t it?”

“I am not a fundamentalist, nor for that matter devout. I went to school in London with children of many different religions and I learnt to respect the faith of others whilst not becoming too committed myself. Every religion claims to understand love, but to me love is wanting to be with someone so much that it hurts when you cannot be with them. That’s how it is for me with you. I wake up in the morning thinking about you and I go to bed thinking about you.”

“You are crazy.”

“Funny, that’s what my father said when I told him I was going to be a lawyer and not a bus driver!”

They laughed together at the absurdity of the situation. “So what happens now?” Ratty asked. “Now, I am going to lie down for an hour before I shower and prepare for dinner.”

“You know that isn’t what I meant... are we friends?”

“Of course we are. Thank you for loving me, it’s a compliment, but please, can you try to fall in love with someone else? It would make things so much simpler.”

“I can try, but it would be like trying to fly unaided, like a bird, it’s not possible.”

“Grrr... Ratty
you’re
impossible. I’ll see you at seven.” Melanie headed back to her room and looked out of the picture window onto the lake. The never ending stream of roller bladers and cyclists flowed along the water’s edge, while on the lake crews of oarsmen were practising for competition. She wished she could get out there and join them. It looked a lot more fun than having dinner with two men who would talk business all night. She picked up her mobile and dialled home, too early for Tim but at least she could check that Trudy was still taking care of her offspring. The kids confirmed that she was doing a brilliant job. Nothing to worry about on that score then. She’d have to try and ring Tim later; difficult once they started dinner though.

As she’d expected, the talk initially was confined to how they would approach the negotiations, what tactics they would use to arrive at the most favourable deal. Hugh was in charge of the project and he set out his ideas on how they would react to proposals put forward by the Praza team.

“We’ll listen to them, let them have their say, but we must never show any emotion. Don’t look pleased when they show us a profitable factory, even though you know it’s working at less than half the running costs of a similar plant in England. The Poles are very good negotiators; they will be looking to measure our reactions. They’ll pick up at once on what their strong points are and which aren’t. We need to keep our powder dry until we sit down to discuss figures. That’s when we’ll list the negatives, in a bid to pull the price in our favour.”

“Won’t it seem rude if we don’t show some enthusiasm at what we are being shown? Imagine if you were showing a potential buyer around your house. You’d expect them to say ‘What a nice bathroom,’ or something, wouldn’t you? If we appear to be unimpressed they may lose interest in us. Do they have other interested parties?” Mel addressed her argument at Hugh.

“Melanie you are very perceptive, despite your lack of experience. You’re going to be a formidable player in this game.”

“Is it a game?” she responded

“I like to think so, yes. As a child I played monopoly with a friend. We used to play for hours and I would sit there hoping he wouldn’t notice that I had just landed on his Mayfair plot plus hotels. What we are doing here is playing ‘real’ monopoly, with someone else’s money of course, but that means we can’t afford to lose, not if we still want careers afterwards.”

Ratty interjected, “What about the documentation? We’ve agreed that it will be in English and subject to English law, that’s fine, but there’ll be hours of reading necessary to study all the papers they are going to submit. We’ll need to instruct a Polish lawyer to report on title for the properties included in the deal.”

“No problem, you can do it tomorrow. You can miss some of the trips to look at factories if you need more time to study the papers.”

Melanie wondered how Ratty would feel about being left behind while she and Hugh went off for a couple of days on a trip across Poland. His face gave nothing away. The arrival of the food brought conversation about work to a temporary halt. It was over coffee that Ratty suggested a walk around the lake. Hugh declined, indicating that he had to write up his notes on Day One before e-mailing them to London.