by R L Burgess
Zoe laughed and turned back to the computer. The clock at the bottom of the screen read 10:45 a.m. She didn’t have long to go. She really would have to concentrate now if she was going to get this wrapped up on time. Definitely no more time for daydreaming about Reyna Azoulay.
Chapter Two
Reyna Monday p.m.)
Reyna stared at the tousled black curls protruding from the top of the thick, quilted blanket. For some reason he liked to sleep with his face under the doona. She worried he wouldn’t be able to breathe properly and gently slipped it down from his face, like she had every night so far, admiring the sweet curve of his nose and the perfect rose of his lips. He looked so much younger than eight when he slept. Undoubtedly he would pull the blanket back up again before the night was done. His face was slightly flushed and she touched his forehead with the back of her hand. Warm and damp. She lifted the edge of the blanket, fanning him lightly, wondering if he would wake up and be confused. He was actually an exceptionally deep sleeper. Reyna joked that she could have a band play in his room and he would sleep right through it, but then again, the nightmares still woke him up quite regularly. The result of the trauma, the child psychologist had said.
Reyna searched his sleeping face for evidence of her sister, a habit she had fallen into over the last six months. His father’s solid features had left little room for her sister’s delicate lines, but there were subtle similarities. There was the curve of his chin, the length of his eyelashes. Other features were vastly different. Sarit’s nose had been straight and thin, inherited from their Israeli mother, and his was wider, softer. Reyna knew his face would change as he aged, but it was difficult to picture it now. He had their father’s thick Egyptian brow and when he opened his eyes, the dark irises of a long line of Middle Eastern ancestors. Asleep, he looked impossibly young, even for his brief eight years.
She took a long sip from her frosted glass, enjoying the burn of the whiskey as it slid down her throat. It had been a long day. Meeting after meeting after meeting. Her hand still ached from the burn she’d received in the tea room this morning and she pressed it absentmindedly against the cold glass. Zoe Cavendish was flying high as a financial adviser, a real rising star for the firm, but she was possibly a bit of a klutz.
Holden shifted, whimpering slightly as he turned to face the wall. He had decorated it with posters lifted carefully out of the kids’ magazines she sometimes bought him at the supermarket. An array of footballers, soccer stars, and comic figures stared down from the walls, brightening up the space. She supposed these were his heroes. A far cry from the movie stars and ponies she had put on her own walls as a child.
He frowned in his sleep, a quick furrow of his brow, almost a flinch. Soft black curls fell across his face and Reyna reached out and lightly smoothed them away. Was he dreaming of them—his mother and father, her sister, now forever out of reach? Reyna’s throat ached and her eyes welled with tears. He was doing well, but god it was hard. She had watched him struggle against the weight of his inner demons day after day, trying to fit in at the new school, doing his best to embrace this strange new life. She had seen shadows of pain pass over his face when he stared out the window on a rainy day. Occasionally he would break down, sobbing until he was hoarse, and she would hold him while his little body wracked and trembled in her arms. They had only talked a little; he wasn’t so big on talking. The psychologist had said this was normal. She still felt guilty for moving him back to Australia, but what else could she have done? There had been no one left to care for him in England after his parents had died. One fiery car crash had taken away his whole life.
Kissing him lightly on his forehead, she adjusted his blanket again and headed back to the kitchen to sort through the detritus of their evening meal. A stray pair of Lego men lay on the floor under his chair, locked in suspended battle. Reyna picked them up, tossing them into the toy box in the corner by the TV. He certainly was a whirlwind. It was impossible to keep up with the chaos that seemed to follow him from room to room, a tornado of toys and books.
She had been touched by the support her friends had shown when she had first brought him home, supplying her with much needed Legos and stuffed toys, books about superheroes she hadn’t even known existed (seriously, Ant Man?), and action figures. She had bought a few things as well, but there really had been little need. Even his clothing had been taken care of, with bags of small, bright T-shirts and pants arriving in the arms of friends, whenever they visited. They had organised it all while she had been over in London collecting him. She had only just held it together when she had arrived home, jetlagged and heartbroken, a small sleeping boy resting his head on her shoulder in the back of her parents’ car.
Her closest friends, Samira and John, had been on the doorstep to usher them in, casserole in the oven, a glass of wine poured, and a bed made up for him in her spare room. When everyone had finally left, she had sat outside his room and cried herself to sleep. The room had been so bare back then, just plain white walls and the guest futon that doubled as a couch, one small bookshelf with some treasured items and a lamp. They had redecorated it together after a trip to Ikea. Holden wanted yellow, so they bought a sunny yellow desk and a burnt yellow bedspread. They painted the walls a warm and friendly dandelion, fetching the ladder to stick a set of glow stars on the ceiling. But that first night had been hard and strange. For both of them. She had woken on the cold wooden floorboards outside of his room, stiff necked and heart sore, with Holden standing in front of her looking anxious.
“Aunty Rey, I need to pee,” he’d said. “Where do I go?”
Somehow they had made it through the last six months, intact. Her parents had been a godsend, picking him up from school each day and helping him with his homework until Reyna could make it back from the office. Most nights she made it home in time for dinner. Juggling the demands of her role as CEO of Azoulay House with this new responsibility of raising a child had been quite the challenge.
Single at thirty-eight, she hadn’t exactly given up on the idea of having children, but in truth, she also hadn’t really thought about it much. Friends joked that her career was her baby. And in a way it was. Seven years ago she had started Azoulay House, and since then, through long hours and dedicated hard work, she had taken the company from a respectable, but small accountancy firm, to a nationally sought-after industry leader and corporate business partner of the highest calibre. It had been hard work, but it had been worth it.
With the arrival of Holden, things had shifted. When she wasn’t in the office, she was learning to be the parent of a thoroughly grief-stricken, utterly beautiful eight-year-old boy. He required all her attention. There was no more casual dating, no more lazy Sunday mornings drinking coffee and reading the paper, many fewer bottles of wine with friends. She kept her business trips to a minimum. She was Skyping more with her national offices, conducting more of her work from her computer screen, rather than face-to-face. She had considered selling the firm or stepping down from her role as CEO, but with her parents’ support, she had allowed herself the luxury of maintaining her job. These days, though, she worked a lot from home in the evenings, finishing off the day’s emails and juggling the workload she would normally have fit into long days at the office when Holden was asleep.
Her mobile phone buzzed, snapping her out of her reverie. She dried her hands on her jeans and fished it out of her pocket. A message from Samira. Sunday night dinner?
Sure, we’d love to.
Her phone buzzed again. Smiley face. Come early. Boys can play. For the hundredth time she felt lucky to have such supportive friends as Samira and John. It had been Samira’s idea for Holden to try out for the local soccer club with their boys.
“It’ll be a great way for him to make some friends,” she had said as Reyna hauled herself across a freezing, muddy field at eight a.m. on a Saturday morning. And he had really seemed to come alive. He had played soccer back in London, he had told her, half wistfully, half
excited. His favourite position was goalie. She had gasped with shock when he had fallen, taking a hard ball to the stomach, but he had nodded at her stoically and set himself back on his feet, his little body rigid with determination. And so, with her shoes entirely ruined, she had resolved to buy herself a pair of gumboots and a much warmer jacket, and sign him up for the team.
We’re doing okay, she thought as she pulled out his lunchbox and started to prepare his sandwich for school the next day. Her heart gave a painful little kick. We’re doing okay, she silently told her sister.
Chapter Three
Zoe (Tuesday p.m.)
Zoe’s intercom crackled.
“Could you come to my office, please,” a familiar voice sing-songed. Her team leader Thomus (Thom-arse to his team behind closed doors) was a fan of buzzing people in to his office. He never came to their desks if he could help it. It was one of his many power plays.
“Sure,” Zoe replied, sighing as she saved her work and gathered up her notebook and pen.
Thomus was not renowned for being quick. He loved to theorise and digress, expounding his ideas mercilessly as he leaned back in his oversized swivel chair, hands linked behind his thinning, blond ponytail. By three o’clock he would have pronounced sweat patches under each armpit, and his room would be pungent with the mix of his man-scented deodorant and his heavy body odour. An afternoon meeting with Thomus was not something to look forward to. At least he tries to do something about it, Zoe thought charitably as she made her way to his office.
True to form, Thomus was not just leaning back in his oversized, black leather office chair, he actually had his shiny, brown brogues propped up on the large mahogany desk, ankles crossed.
“Zoe, come in, come in,” he sang at her as he twirled a pencil with his right hand, his mobile tucked between his shoulder and his ear. “I’ll just be a sec.”
Which he was not. Ten minutes later she was feeling far less charitable as she fidgeted in her seat, waiting for him to wrap up his call, his self-important tone grating on her nerves.
“Sorry, darl,” he said eventually, dropping his feet from the desk and tossing his mobile onto a pile of paperwork in front of him. “I had to take that.” He tipped himself forward in the overbearing chair, leaning his elbows on the desk. “The McFarlane audit,” he said, giving her a meaningful look. His black-rimmed eyes were small and rounded, sitting closely together in his thin, pale face, on top of a pair of large dark shows, almost racoon-like.
“Er, yes,” she replied, unsure where he was going with this. “I submitted the report yesterday at lunchtime as requested.”
“And what did you put in there?” From his tone, one could have concluded that Zoe had packaged up the final report with a handful of cockroaches included.
She spread open her palms, as if to say, just the usual. “Results of the audit, tax implications and future projections. Just everything the team has been working on for the last few months.”
“And?” He pressed his fingertips together, clearly probing for something in particular. She was at a loss to know where he was going.
“Cover page? Contact details?”
“I don’t suppose you included any advice in your report? No little suggestions for improvements?”
“There may have been a couple of small suggestions.” She tried not to look guilty. “But nothing beyond the scope of my role. I saw a way they could structure their tax burden slightly differently in the future and included it as a pathway for their consideration. That is perfectly within my scope.”
Thomus sighed, his thin eyebrows drawn together in disapproval. Slugs, she thought. His eyebrows looked like silvery slugs, creeping across his forehead. She would not be intimidated by him. She had done nothing wrong.
“You like to be a high flyer, don’t you, Zoe Cavendish?”
“Excuse me?”
“Not everything we do has to be pushed to the nth degree, you know. Sometimes we can just meet the brief and move on. We don’t need to strive for industry recognition with every client.” His sarcasm clearly referenced the award she had won the previous year for Victorian Advisor of the Year.
Zoe pursed her lips, a slight flare of her nostrils the only indication that she was angry. “I’m just trying to do my job.”
“Well, they want to meet with us and explore this option further.”
Ah, so that was it! She blew out a short breath. Thomus hated field trips. He hated any reason to leave his pretentious office and potentially have to do extra work.
“Would you like me to go on my own?” she suggested, knowing he wouldn’t be able to accept. If there was any chance McFarlane’s wanted to take up her suggestions, Thomus would need to be there to claim the credit.
“No, no.” He waved his hand, brushing aside her suggestion. Suddenly his brow cleared. “I will invite them here.”
“Great.” She closed her notebook and pushed back her chair, hoping their meeting was done. The centrally heated air was thick with his smell and she was starting to feel lightheaded.
“Book us a meeting room and arrange this into a prospectus. If we’re going to assist them with this restructure, we should really take over the account entirely. You can organise a little morning tea for them or something. I like those biscuits with the shortbread and chocolate.”
“Right,” she said, knowing it would be useless to argue that booking meeting rooms and organising morning teas was hardly her role. “I’ll organise it. Have you spoken with them?”
“Not yet, just had the email. You can call them and get them in.”
She stood. “Anything else?”
“Try to stick to the script next time, Zoe. We don’t need to be fishing for extra business everywhere we look.”
She nodded briefly, and left the office, taking a deep breath of fresh air as she tried to calm herself. What an arsehole he was. Surely a manager was supposed to be pleased when a client was so impressed with your work they wanted to talk further. Wasn’t that what they were supposed to be doing? Building up business for the firm. Reyna had been banging that drum consistently since Zoe had joined the firm. “We offer an holistic service.” Zoe could clearly hear Reyna’s voice quietly driving the point home at their staff meetings. We aim to be corporate partners with the businesses we serve, not just tax agents, not just accountants, not just financial advisers. Their investment is our investment,” Reyna intoned.
Zoe knew the drill by heart. Thomus was possibly the laziest manager she had ever had. Why the firm put up with him, she did not know.
She stepped into the bathroom to freshen up, pausing at the mirror to check her face. She splashed some water on a paper towel and pressed it against her flushed cheeks. For some reason it always felt ten degrees hotter in his man cave.
The face she examined in the bathroom mirror looked reasonably well put together, given the hours she had put in this week. Long lashes framed her light brown eyes, slight shadows beneath them the only evidence of the late nights she had pulled to finish the McFarlane audit. Wavy, caramel-coloured hair, flecked with streaks of auburn, pulled up into a butterfly clip. She let her hair out and fluffed it with her hands, massaging her neck for a second.
Thomus made her feel stupidly tense. She wished he didn’t get so under her skin. She rubbed her temples in a circular motion, mimicking the stress relief techniques she had seen in an article in the tea room the other day. Was it making her feel better? Hard to tell really. She splashed some more water onto a towel, cooled her neck, and patted herself dry with some more paper towel. Right. Time to get back to work.
Pulling her hair back up into the clip, she studied herself, trying to imagine how others would see her. Her nose was small—a ski jump, her brother had called it. She had laugh lines around her eyes and her cheekbones were high. Medium lips—not too large, not to thin. She smiled at herself, checking her teeth for evidence of lunch. Her features were even, almost symmetrical. She had read once that symmetry was one of the key cha
racteristics of attractive people. Did Reyna think she was pretty? She frowned at herself, waggling her manicured eyebrows. Ridiculous question. Reyna barely knew she existed.
As if summoned by her thoughts, the bathroom door swept open and Zoe yelped, instinctively jumping behind the door, fully expecting to see her boss enter the bathroom. Mel strode through the door and caught sight of Zoe in the mirror. She jumped.
“Woah!” Mel cried, swinging around to face her. “Why are you hiding behind the bathroom door? You gave me a fright. I swear you are not normal!”
Zoe chewed her lip. “I thought you were Reyna,” she said, ducking her head in embarrassment.
“So what if I was? Why the hell would you be hiding from Reyna?”
“Shh, Mel! Keep your voice down.”
“Reyna’s in her office,” Mel replied with exaggerated calm. “She’s unlikely to hear you from across the office and inside the bathroom. Are we losing the plot a little here do you think? Shall we come out from behind the bathroom door and go about the business of being a sought after and successful, highly paid financial adviser?” Mel smiled, to soften her words. “It is undignified for the Victorian Adviser of the Year to be hiding behind bathroom doors.”
Zoe grinned sheepishly. “I was thinking about Reyna and when the door opened I thought it was her. I panicked.”
“Fair enough. Well, it’s not her, it’s me. What are you doing hiding in here anyway?”
“I needed to freshen up. Thomus called me in to his office.”
“Oh no. What did Thom-arse want with you? For what reason were you called into the palace de stink?”
She grimaced. “He’s cross with me for doing such a good job on the McFarlane audit. They want more information so now we have to have a meeting with them.”
“Aha! How dare you be so good at your job as to generate more work for Thom-arse.”
