by S M Mala
‘Of course it was!’ she laughed out loudly then sighed, before taking a sip of her tea. ‘I have a lot on my mind and I want to stay focussed. I need to keep a clear head, that’s all.’
For a moment there was a flicker in her eyes before she grinned.
‘Are you having second thoughts about us?’ he asked apprehensively. ‘Has the bubble burst for you so soon?’
‘You really are an arse, do you know that?’ she said and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘I thought that from the moment I met you, all those months ago.’
‘So you’re still into me?’ Finlay smiled, relieved of the answer.
‘If you don’t know that then you’re a bit thick and you’ve been into me too much. I think I should rub some Sudocream into your bits to soothe them.’
For a moment he examined her face and felt overwhelmed with happiness.
‘Have you done enough research in venture capitalists, I know-.’
‘Stop,’ she said, putting her hand over his mouth. ‘I want you to go to see your mother for lunch, as I know she has planned to do something special for you. Please make up. Toby texted me this morning and it would make me very happy if you went.’
For a moment he felt a little angry at being told to go before seeing her frown.
‘I don’t want you to fall out with your mother over me and I certainly don’t want you to lose your job. This will make me feel better as I’d hate to go through the same thing with your mother as I did with that bitch.’
Sylvie closed her eyes for a moment and bit her lip as he could see she was getting upset. All his anger disappeared and was replaced with concern.
‘Does your mother dislike the idea of me so much?’ she asked quietly. ‘I really hope she doesn’t hate me.’
‘Hey there,’ he said, looking sympathetically at her, knowing this was going to eat her up. ‘She’s not like that woman. Freya is another thing all together. When I saw Piers he said mum was worried about me losing contact with James if Juliette doesn’t play nicely.’ Suddenly he saw her eyes widen and she glanced away. ‘I won’t let that happen.’
‘You need your job Finlay. You need to have money to pay for your child and your responsibilities. I don’t exactly know what you actually do, but Stephen told me you were very good at it and…’ she hesitated for a moment. ‘He also told me he knew about us and that’s why he lashed out all those months ago.’
‘Seriously?’ he said, surprised by the news.
‘We talked.’
‘You did?’
‘Della dumped him so maybe coming back to work with us is helping … not sure for how long he’ll be there but I’m sure your mother will find him another job.’ She shook her head. ‘I better get my CV together.’
He sat back in his chair realising Sylvie was starting to give up and he let out a frustrated sigh.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked and also sat back.
‘You’ve got six weeks to sort this out.’
‘Finlay, you know as well as I do we don’t have a chance and, in reality, it will be a fortnight as the guys need to know where they stand by then as we have to give notice. I can’t get anyone to buy your share and … I just have to accept it. Let’s just do the best we can and, hopefully, when your mother turfs us out onto the streets, we get jobs quickly enough. I’ve started updating everyone’s CVs just to help them out.’
He knew he had to help.
He knew this was also going to piss off his mother but he had no choice.
The woman he loved was going to lose everything and he needed to do something to make sure that didn’t happen… whether she liked it or not.
Sixty three
‘Is that okay with you?’ Sylvie whispered, looking around the office to make sure no one could hear her. ‘The bistro around noon tomorrow?’
‘Of course,’ the reply came. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, I’ll see you then.’
She hung up and placed the phone to her chest breathing deeply, knowing she was doing the right thing before closing her eyes.
‘Yes I mediate when I stress,’ said a cheerful Samina, walking into her office and putting down a small plate of pakora and a cup of tea.
‘Meditate,’ Sylvie corrected then her heart sunk for a second before she put on her winning smile.
‘You got wind?’ Samina asked unimpressed. ‘You have pretend face on. What you do?’
‘You have, what did you call it? Your dolly face on,’ replied Sylvie examining the cheek with a large amount of rouge. ‘I take it Toby is still filming you?’
‘I internet perception you know. Local Indian radio station want to interview. I say speak to manager.’
‘It’s ‘internet sensation’ and you have a manager?’
‘Rosalind,’ she smiled sweetly. ‘What you up to? You up to something? You quiet for week. That Finlay make you do things to his winky that give shock?’ Then Samina burst out laughing at her joke before leaning closer. ‘How big his winky? He look like man who have slim one.’
‘I’m not going to discuss this with you,’ Sylvie smiled, before shaking her head and looking around the office. ‘He’s perfect in every way.’
‘Big winky!’
‘Perfect winky,’ she sighed, before seeing Toby walk out of his room and glare at Samina for a second. ‘What have you done to Toby?’
‘Huh,’ Samina replied, before putting her nose in the air. ‘I told him if he not like what I say he can do himself. I tell the truth. I test, I know.’
‘She’s doing it on purpose,’ he said, walking into the office as Sylvie smiled at his pink cheeks and furious expression. ‘Tell her Sylvie! Tell her to listen to me. I am the director!’
‘You not know how to direct pee straight into toilet,’ sniffed Samina who flashed Sylvie a smile which meant she was winding up the young man. ‘I have fun with product and tell people.’
‘Sylvie, she said one of the lubricants was good for removing wine stains from your carpet!’
‘I say you get two thing for price of one. Lady juices and cleaner… bargain!’
‘Samina, don’t wind up Toby. We are extremely busy and there’s only a matter of weeks before we find out what’s going on and… let’s just go out in a blaze of glory, shall we?’ she said gently to the pair of them.
‘She also said that the anal plug could remove piles so there was no need for surgery,’ Toby huffed before shaking his head and storming out of the office.
‘My pile gone. Shove right back in,’ shrugged Samina before turning to look at Sylvie. ‘You love Finlay Chambers?’
‘Leave me alone,’ Sylvie replied and looked at her laptop screen.
‘Why you speak to his wife last week?’
She froze for a second and looked at the inquisitive pair of eyes staring back at her.
‘Pardon?’
‘You deaf Sylvie? They say too much sex makes you deaf. I saw what you do with Finlay wife last week?’
‘How do you know?’ she asked, her heart thumping as she looked at her calculator once again and did another percentage breakdown of the company value before grimacing.
She’d now done it about thirty times that morning.
‘I watch you walk and then see tall giant woman come towards you. I scare she not see you and stomp on head,’ she said with all seriousness. ‘Did she stomp on head?’
‘Don’t tell anyone, do you hear me and especially Finlay. Promise me.’
‘What she say?’
‘She said enough.’
As she waited at the restaurant the following day, she looked nervously around. Sylvie’s heart was beating fast and her palms were sweating. All she wanted to do was get it over and done with but still she was torn on how to handle it without hurting anyone she loved. Putting her hand in her bag, she pulled out her calculator before pressing a few buttons and staring at the figure.
She felt sick.
‘Sylvie,’ she heard someone say and looked up to see Alice.
Quic
kly she rose to her feet, hearing the chair scrape and seeing Alice pull a face due to the noise.
‘Thank you,’ Sylvie said, swallowing hard as she put her hand out. ‘I’m grateful you came.’
Alice smiled and shook her hand firmly before seeming semi amused by the act then sat down.
‘I was shocked when you called,’ Alice began. ‘It’s been a rather eventful few weeks.’
‘I’m not with him to spite you, please don’t think that,’ she blurted out. ‘He’s the last person in the world I would have ever thought… and I tried to stop it so did he. You have to believe me I would never come between the pair of you. God, I’d hate for you to think that was my plan. I’m not like that, in spite of what she has said about me, I’m not someone that wrecks lives.’
Placing her hand on her chest plate, she tried to calm down her breathing for a moment knowing pin pricks of tears were coming to her eyes. Then she took a sip of water, noticing her hands were shaking, before she put the glass back down.
‘Are you okay?’ the older woman asked and Sylvie recognised the similarities in Finlay’s face. ‘You look a little peaky.’
‘Do you believe me?’
‘Yes I do,’ she said quietly. ‘I need a glass of wine. Do you want one?’
‘Please. Anything,’ she said, trying to compose herself as she looked around the restaurant she frequented on a regular basis with Piers. ‘Alice, I want you to know I’m very sincere about how I feel about Finlay. It’s not a rebound or revenge thing, for me it’s very serious and … I hope it is for him. But if it isn’t, I will forgive him as I just want him to be happy.’
‘White or red?’ Alice asked, staring hard at her as Sylvie shrugged, feeling the woman wasn’t interested in what she had to say. ‘Rose it is, as I know Piers mentioned you like it.’ Nodding for a moment she tried to say something but too many things were going around in her head. ‘I want Finlay to be happy too. I am his mother, first and foremost, not his boss.’
‘Please don’t sack him! He needs money to pay for James and I … well… to be honest, I don’t know what he does but Stephen says he’s good so I take it he is… though he’s done nothing to help me, as per your instructions,’ she said, wanting to show Alice, Finlay could still obey.
‘You love my son?’
‘Someone asked me if Finlay loved me the other week and didn’t sound very convinced,’ she sighed, remembering Juliette before recalling why she needed to speak to Alice. ‘And I love him very much, more than I could have ever imagined. I’ve let him walk away from me a few times and it broke my heart, but I thought it was for the best. How can you not love him once you’ve knocked down his stuck up arsehole attitude? He’s just adorable. Really wonderful to be honest… well that’s what I think.’
Quickly she darted a glance at Alice who was giving nothing away from her expression.
‘I don’t expect you to like or accept me but I do want you to know, I would never use or hurt him… ever. I simply love him and I know I’m older and can’t give him a family but I can only give him my heart and that’s what I have to do. Don’t give him a hard time, don’t issue an ultimatum as it hurts him and he was so upset after you quarrelled and-.’
‘Sylvie, he quarrelled then told Freya that he was in love with you. She was furious when she found out that I knew where you were, as she’d been looking for you for some time.’
‘What?’ The hair stood on the back of Sylvie’s neck. ‘Keep her away from me, from my child. I don’t want her trying to hurt us. I have legal paperwork to make sure she keeps away.’
She heard the sharpness of her voice, the panic from within knowing she never wanted to face her again.
‘What she did was wrong,’ Alice said gently. ‘It was her way of dealing with her grief.’
‘What about my grief? What about my daughter’s broken heart?’ she said, swallowing back her angry tears. ‘She made my life hell. I had to hide somewhere where she couldn’t find us, hurt us anymore, take everything we had and crush it because she could. You know not one single person from his family even tried to make contact with us since he died. My mobile number has been the same for nineteen years and they never called. It was heart breaking to see they didn’t want anything to do with Daisy, Rupert’s baby, his child.’
‘I know,’ Alice said, shaking her head slowly before looking at Sylvie, who noticed tears were forming in the woman’s eyes. ‘It was horrible. You were treated badly. You didn’t deserve any of it and neither did your daughter.’
‘Anyway I don’t want to talk about that,’ she said, closing her eyes and feeling a tear drip onto her cheek. ‘I have a proposition for you and it comes with caveats to protect the people I love.’
‘It’s a great location,’ said Finlay, impressed by the office and warehouse. ‘Battersea is a good place.’
‘It is,’ replied Andy, handing him a glass of scotch before admiring his own building. ‘Not as flash as where you work but we might get there… one day.’
He let out a little laugh.
Finlay could see why women found him attractive and a little bubble of jealousy floated into his throat when he thought about Sylvie. The man was packaged up like a model or actor.
You couldn’t fault with anything.
He was more than perfect.
‘I was pleasantly surprised to get a call from you, if I’m honest,’ Andy said, sitting on a sofa opposite Finlay. ‘I got the impression you’re not particularly enamoured by me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Finlay lied, knowing he couldn’t tell him he was bloody jealous. ‘I was trying to get my head around ‘Good Vibration’ and … oh god, that wasn’t meant to be an innuendo by saying ‘head’.’ He felt the colour rise in his cheeks. ‘It’s very different and I had an opinion about it which, I now know, was wrong and judgemental.’
Andy smiled and took a sip of his drink before nodding for a moment.
‘I understand. I still get raised eyebrows when I explain what products I manufacture. Are you still going to sell your share of the business?’ he asked as Finlay bit his lip for a second. ‘Have you seen how popular they are on the web? I know the business is doing well and I don’t understand why you would want to let it go. It’s a good little earner.’
‘We’ve lost some money from one of the other businesses. It has a rippling effect on the profits, to put it mildly. And Piers, my stepfather, launched ‘Good Vibration’ to see if he could do it. He did and-.’
‘Sylvie did it,’ Andy gently interrupted. ‘She is the key person. You know when I first met her, she was just dumb struck when I told her about all the products. I’ve never seen anyone look so shocked at what she was supposed to sell. Your stepfather, well he was highly amused by it all. At the time she was a shadow of herself and it showed.’
‘She said you helped her out.’
‘And I want to help her again,’ he gulped, glancing away for a moment. Finlay noticed he looked at him sideways before staring out of the window. ‘It’s not been that easy to get finances for buying your share. Your mother is asking for a lot of money.’
‘I agree,’ he sighed for a moment, knowing what he had to say, which was going to be really hard for him, his ego and his jealous spat. ‘I need your help. I don’t know anything really about that area but I want to make sure that we sell the sixty per cent, even if it’s not at the price my mother wants. I don’t want Sylvie to lose the business. I know what it means to her.’
There was silence for a moment as he didn’t want to look at him, to betray how worried he was.
‘Why do you want to help her now when you could have done something about the company ages ago?’ Andy quietly asked.
‘Because I’m desperately in love with her,’ he honestly blurted out.
Finlay felt his chest tighten, knowing the full admission he was making.
‘Ah, that old chestnut,’ the man laughed.
‘Certainly is.’
He’d not seen her for tw
o days and knew she was waiting in the hotel room on Saturday morning after dropping Daisy off. Finlay practically ran to the place, after parking his car, and nearly fell through the door to find her sitting in bed reading something on her e-reader. Sylvie’s glasses were perched on the end of her nose as she smiled.
The woman was naked and waiting for him under the sheet.
‘You’re late,’ she said as he quickly leaned over and kissed her cheek. ‘And you haven’t shaved.’
‘Yes my love. I got stuck in traffic and I’m being a lazy bastard,’ he replied, pulling off his t-shirt, then undoing his shorts as she smirked.
‘You’ve got nice legs,’ Sylvie sighed as she took off her glasses before putting down her gadget. ‘And I missed you.’
‘God I missed you and we have one hour and twenty minutes for me to show you,’ he said, sniffing his armpits before going under the sheet.
He could smell her beautiful scent and wanted to put his head between her legs then he noticed her feet, covered in socks.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked, before pulling the sheet off and looking at her. ‘Really love me?’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Are you willing to prove it?’
‘Soon I will prove it,’ she smiled and he could see she was about to laugh.
‘Well prove it now and take your socks off.’
Finlay could have choked with laughter when he noticed the look on her face of pure horror, which he’d only seen her do when producing the pink glittery dildo all those months ago.
‘I can’t,’ she eventually replied, sitting up and pulling her feet closer to her body. ‘It’s not a good idea.’
‘You don’t love me?’
‘Finlay, I love you so much you will never know what I’m willing to do for you,’ she said and his heart melted for a moment as her face filled with fear. ‘But you might not love me when you see what’s hidden. You might not look at me in the same way again.’
‘Can I be the judge of that?’ he gently replied, seeing her whole mask had slipped and before him was a very vulnerable woman. ‘It’s only feet.’
‘But it’s not only feet. It’s a congenital deformity that I’ve had to live with, that I’ve had to hide. Only my close family members have seen it and-.’
