Until two o’clock they all sit at the bar eating canapés and drinking Guinness, which Autumn has never drunk before, but is unexpectedly enjoying. By the time they move to the large dining table, elegantly set with shiny tableware, sparkling, bulbous glasses and a fresh but masculine flower arrangement in the centre, not one word has been spoken about work or the purchase contract.
Even as they eat their three course lunch, so exquisite with attention to detail and taste and move from Guinness to whiskey, conversation centres only on current world events, politics of Ireland, Gaelic football and its relationship to AFL, boats they own, golfing prowess and holiday destinations. By three-thirty, Autumn is drunk, as is Jet and as is the rest of the table, now creating such a din in the otherwise silent restaurant with their over-exuberant laughter and light-hearted, heated debates.
At four o’clock a cheese board, fruit and petite fours are placed on the table, along with alcoholic dessert cider. For Paul, this seems the appropriate time to get down to business. The room comes to a professional hush and Paul finally raises the topic of the purchase contract, the sole reason they are having lunch despite it taking three hours to get to it. He emphasises, a number of times, that there is interest from another party, not mentioning names, and how Jet should take this opportunity to revise or come to a settlement on his final offer so that they can take it to the board and make a decision.
He butters up Jet, acknowledging his philanthropic efforts and his renowned ethical business practices. Paul, in no few words, emphasises that it is Stark Consulting he and the board wish to have taking over McCaffey Consulting Co, but that they are not going to let it go without a fight or a healthy profit.
Throughout Paul’s sales-pitch, Jet remains stoic. His face, his demeanour gives nothing away, bar a waft of unfaltering confidence.
“What you are asking for the company is beyond what it’s worth. In the last three quarters your profits have fallen by seventeen per cent giving you the lowest profit figures since 2003. I know there are global influences at the moment, which will subside in the years to come, and I know this profit issue will be turned around when I take the company over, but that is the future. I am buying the company now. And as the company exists presently, I am not offering a higher bid than what has already been recorded.”
Paul nods, his brow furrowed. “Aye. Then I shall leave the offer as it stands?”
Jet takes Autumn’s hand under the table and stands, lifting her gently with him. “I will confer with my associate for a short moment in private if you don’t mind.”
Paul makes a sweeping motion with his hand towards the doors of the restaurant. “Please take your time. I want you to get this right.” He turns to the waiter standing against the back wall. “Another round of ciders, tanks.”
Although Jet releases Autumn’s hand as soon as she is standing, it is enough to receive some vague, but unexpected insights. Usually when Autumn has been drinking the mental pictures she receives from others are not clear, as though her drunken state somehow convolutes and swirls the energies and she can only observe a jumbled mass of noise and colour, unless she really concentrates. But with Jet, it is still strong. She could feel his distrust, his suspicion. He feels that Paul is hiding a very pertinent fact. Somehow Tanya, Autumn’s boss, is also connected to all this suspicion but she can’t decipher how. Autumn is intrigued and concurrently anxious.
Jet leads Autumn through the doors, down the hall and scans the large foyer for Robbie. When he catches Robbie’s eye he beckons him over with a subtle flick of his head.
“Robbie,” Jet says as soon as he is in ear shot. “We need a private conference room. It only needs to be small.”
Robbie nods. “Follow me.”
He leads them to a room on the opposite side of the foyer. It is a large room with a fridge and coffee service and with a gigantic board table in the centre of the room, surrounded by tall leather chairs.
“Will this be adequate?” asks Robbie.
Jet nods. “Fine.”
Robbie ushers them both into the room and shuts the door quietly behind him on his way out. Jet takes a seat at the head of the oval table and Autumn nervously sits in the chair beside him.
“What’s going on, Jet? I, you, you think they’re hiding something?”
Jet raises one eye brow and stares at her for a long moment. “Yes.” He runs his fingers tensely through his dark brown hair. “I don’t trust Paul. I don’t know why—a sixth sense. I think if I put that offer in it is going to bite me in the arse.”
Autumn nods. “Tell me what Tanya has to do with all this?”
“Tanya?” he questions. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
“Isn’t that the purpose of you holding my hand back there?”
Jet narrows his eyes and nods, but lets the subject drop.
“Jet, as you well know, I have a good way of getting information covertly out of people.”
His eyes widen, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“Let me go back in there, alone. I’ll, um, talk with them for a while and see what I can find out.” By talk she means touch a few of them. She only hopes that her alcohol-muddled mind won’t distort things too much. “I’ll tell them you’re on the phone and I’ll text you when to come back in and what I think about the situation.”
“It sounds like a fucking episode of, I don’t know, Medium.”
Despite his curt voice, from her lack of sobriety, Autumn laughs aloud. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve had so much to drink today and really, I’m not used to it. I’m surprised I’m still standing actually. Surely you can forgive the odd manic laugh?”
He grins. “It’s nice to be reminded that business, and life, doesn’t have to be so serious.”
She places her hand gently on top of his and looks him in the eyes. Eyes she has forgotten were such a beautiful shade of brown, belonging to a face she has tried to ignore is so utterly handsome. She feels his energies stir and shift. Only vaguely present, sitting in the background of his thoughts, are his suspicions and concerns about this deal, more dominantly he is remembering their time together those years ago. If she is going to maintain some level of professionalism at this moment she has to let go. Autumn lifts her hand and says with earnest, “Trust me, Jet. I’ll get the information you need.”
Jet looks at the door and then back to Autumn. “You’ve got five minutes to work your magic.”
She plugs his mobile number into her phone and leaves to face the four Irishmen back in the restaurant.
Chapter 10
Autumn breaths in deeply as she walks back through the noisy foyer, down the hall to the restaurant. How am I possibly going to do this?
By the time she pushes through the double glass doors, she has a plan and is a bundle of nerves.
All the men lift their heads as she walks back into the room. Their eyes are questioning the whereabouts of Jet.
Autumn shoots them her widest, most sincere smile. When she reaches the table she moves around to Paul’s side. “Jethro’s on the phone with another of our associates at the moment and will be back in as soon as he can.”
Paul nods and the other men mumble their understanding.
“I, unfortunately, have let time get away from me today. I have another engagement I need to get to, so I am going to have to leave you gentlemen now. I do apologise.”
She thrusts her hand out towards Paul, not giving him the option of denying her a handshake this time. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Paul,” she says as he takes her hand and shakes it limply.
“Aye, as with you, Autumn.”
Concentrating and aligning the swirl of images Paul effuses in the brief moments they touch, she moves from one man to the next, shaking their hands, giving her apologies for leaving. By the time she shakes the last hand, she has received some significant information. In her current state of insobriety it is difficult to make sense of each man’s images alone, but having all four of them hand over the same infor
mation in four different ways, she has been able, albeit with a little of her own intuiting, to pull it all together.
She glances at her watch. “Jet shouldn’t be longer than a couple of minutes. I’ll catch him on my way out and tell him to hurry. Once again it was a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for a fine afternoon.”
Autumn strides out of the restaurant, the men none the wiser that she has pilfered their secrets—one secret in particular that Jet will find very useful indeed. She hurriedly texts him: Stay where you r. I’m on my way. A
Jet stands when Autumn pushes through the door of the conference room.
“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and eager.
“I know what’s going on.”
One eyebrow raises a fraction. “Tell me.”
“Hansen and Hansen withdrew their bid this morning and Paul and the rest of the board were hoping to hide this little fact from you in an effort to get a higher sale price.”
Jet sinks back down into his chair and breaths out loudly. “Fucking underhanded—” He doesn’t finish his line of profanities, for her benefit she assumes, regardless that her sentiments would have been the same. “Anything else?” he says after a long moment of silence.
She sits down in the chair next to him. “Tanya’s husband works at Hansen and Hansen and has been giving them details about your bid.”
Again Jet angrily huffs, his chest rising and falling. “I knew her husband worked there, I knew she was compromising the deal somehow. That’s why I sent her to South Africa. So Paul knew about Tanya?”
Autumn nods. “He knew about it and he was playing it to his own advantage as best he could. But with Tanya out of the loop, Hansen and Hansen had no choice but to pull out, without the inside information it was too risky a deal.”
“Are you certain about all this?” he asks.
She nods emphatically. “Dead sure.”
He stands, breathing deeply, trying to shake off the anger. “Stay here for me, please. I want to talk to you after I’ve dealt with McCaffey.”
She nods, giving a tense smile. “Sure.”
He opens the door and storms out, not even bothering to close it behind him.
Autumn stands to close the door, her stomach clenching, but glad she doesn’t have to go back in there with him.
Jet returns from his meeting with the McCaffey board, pushing quietly through the door. Autumn raises her eyes to him and offers a tense, questioning smile.
“What’re you reading?” he asks, unexpectedly jovial, nodding towards her iPhone.
Autumn can feel her cheeks blush. “Um, Anne of Green Gables.”
He smiles. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s never too late to be reminded of imagination and opportunity.”
He sits down and nods. “This’s true.”
She clicks her phone off and shoves it in her bag. “How did it go in there?”
He smiles. “Very well. Thanks to you.”
Autumn can feel the tangible relief wash over her. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
“I didn’t tell them what I knew. I simply put in my offer, a lower offer that is—five point four mil—and told them to take it or leave it.”
“And, I’m guessing they took it?”
This time he laughs. “They accepted it on the spot.” He shakes his head, his lips lengthening into a serious, straighter line. “They know it’s a fair price. If they had any sense of morality at all, they had to accept it. It’s funny how when you know the truth, things wrap up quickly.” He reaches for her bottle of water. “May I?”
She nods and watches as he unscrews the cap and skols nearly all the remainder of the contents of the bottle, no regard at all to the fact that her mouth has already been on the bottle or that it they may be again.
Jet looks at his watch, a Rolex no less, and then to Autumn. “Join me for dinner?”
Autumn glances at her own watch, a Seiko, which seems to pale in comparison. Seven o’clock. “Oh my goodness. I didn’t realise it was this late.”
“So will you have dinner with me?”
“Um, sure. I guess I can’t say no to my boss.”
He winces, but turns his head to hide it. “I’m not asking you as a boss, Autumn. And even if I was, you have every right to say no. Work-time is over. I’m asking you as a friend who feels bad that he has kept you so late and is worried about your gastronomic welfare and wants to catch up on the last five years of your life.” His lips curl up into a smile.
She smiles back. “You drive a hard bargain, Jethro Stark.”
His grin mirrors his self-satisfaction. “Are you feeling social or reclusive?”
“Reclusive. Definitely reclusive.”
He pushes out of his chair and walks to a telephone sitting on the end of the table. “Can you please prepare a dinner sitting for two, please?
“Outside.
“Champagne.
“Light.
“Hmm. Not one hundred per cent sure. Better give me one of everything.
“As soon as you can accommodate.
“We will be in the sitting room, so if you can organise tea and coffee and be as unobtrusive as possible, I would appreciate it. Thank you.”
He hangs up and turns to Autumn, smiling, but it doesn’t fully reach his eyes.
“I won’t keep you late,” she says, noting his weariness.
His eyebrows knit together. “Where did that come from?”
“You look kind of tired.”
He shrugs. “I am a little tired. My brother demanded I stay at his house last night. He can’t understand why I would choose to stay at a hotel when I have family so close. I don’t have the heart to tell him I do it so I can get a decent block of sleep.”
“Why can’t you sleep well there?”
He grins. “My nephew and niece who are six and three insist that they sleep with me and if you’ve ever had to sleep with little kids you’ll know they are all elbows, knees and feet and are not afraid to use them in your back or stomach or anywhere else they choose.”
Autumn chuckles. “Why can’t you tell them to sleep in their own rooms?”
He tilts his head to the side and grins. “If you saw their little faces when they ask me, you would know why I can’t say no. Renee, the six year old, is an absolute doll. She’s so beautiful, with long brown hair and these puppy-dog brown eyes. I can’t resist her.”
This makes Autumn laugh even harder. “You’re a pushover and the littlies know it.”
“They always do,” he says, joining the laughter and walking towards the door, opening it wide, the murmur of hushed voices from the foyer leaking through. Autumn rises from the chair and follows him out the door. He leads her through the extravagant foyer, towards the lifts.
Now the pressure of the day has subsided and all that remains is her and Jet, she notices how good his light touch on her back feels through the thin material of her blouse. She notices now—when they are only two friends having dinner together; when she knows she shouldn’t.
Jet is silent as he walks Autumn into a lift, swipes his card and they are propelled smoothly upwards many floors, his hand still resting gently on her back. She wonders if he is thinking the same; if Jet is again feeling the connection, chemistry, they once felt so intensely. From the corner of her eye she glances up at Jet and catches him performing exactly the same gesture. Her cheeks steam with a bashful red glow and she grins. He mimics her smile, his brown eyes cheerful, but they don’t say a word to each other. What can be said?
The doors open at an expansive floor and Autumn’s eyes widen. Jet leads her through the foyer and to the left where she beholds a lounge room styled with two gold-lined Victorian sofas, rugs and décor, plush cream carpet, and an incredible antique chandelier hanging low in the centre of the room. Lying on the coffee table, whose legs and frame twist and curl elaborately, is an elegant setting of coffee jugs, teapots and china. The room is silent, leaving Autumn with th
e impression that, once again, Jet has booked out the entire restaurant. Rather excessive, but then she did say she was feeling reclusive.
Jet gestures to Autumn to take a seat on the sofa; she complies, the pressure of the day lifting from her shoulders. Meanwhile, he continues walking to the double doors and opens them, revealing another room filled with an enormous king-size bed. At this moment she realises this is not a restaurant, rather Jet’s room. He begins with his jacket, shrugging out of it and throwing it on the bed, followed by his tie, which he loosens and lifts over his head and throws it onto the crumpled jacket on the bed. Next to go are his shoes. Barefoot, he undoes the top two buttons of his crisp, white dress-shirt and walks back to the lounge plonking next to Autumn.
“This is your room?” she asks, envying his loosened clothing and his bare feet. She would love to throw off her high heels, slide off her stockings, pull her blouse out of her high waisted skirt and sink back into the chair, legs curled underneath her.
“Yeah,” he says, eyes narrowing slightly. “Is that ok?”
She looks around at the handsome room’s enormity. To the right sits another room with a shiny black grand piano and, beyond that, a balcony offering views of the illuminated Brisbane city. Behind the lounge room, right of the foyer are two more double doors, but they are closed. She guesses another bedroom or a dining room, or even a bathroom exists there.
“Perfectly fine.”
Jet reaches for the jug. “Coffee?”
She nods. “Please.”
He begins to pour her a cup. “I thought if we ate here it would be more relaxing. It means I can throw off that stifling tie and jacket.
He adds a little milk and passes it to her. She takes a sip; this is exactly what she needs after a long day of drinking.
“Please feel free to loosen up. Take your shoes off. Relax. There are no formalities tonight.”
She smiles and slowly slides her heels off with a sigh; pushes them neatly together under the sofa.
The Paler Shade Of Autumn Page 9
