‘I assume you’ve moved to London because you intend to float the business on the stock exchange,’ asked Richard with an air of authority.
‘And why would you assume that?’ asked Adam, with just the hint of amusement in his voice.
‘Well, with the introduction of REITs, isn’t every property company to go public?’
‘What’s a REIT?’ asked Erin.
Richard rolled his eyes. ‘A Real Estate Investment Trust. Property companies convert to REIT status to become tax efficient.’
‘Well, thank you for the lesson, Richard,’ said Charles, his smile loaded with warning. ‘But I hardly suppose Adam is going to let us in on his plans for Midas, is he?’
‘It’s also a little more complicated than that,’ smiled Adam politely.
Erin could see that he was trying to stop the direction of the conversation without wanting to be rude. Richard, however, was like a small dog with a big bone, yapping and jumping, wanting everyone to see how clever he was. Erin looked at Richard with a sinking feeling of what? Disappointment? Embarrassment? When she had first got together with Richard, she had been in her final year of her degree and he was beginning the legal practice course in preparation for his traineeship. All her friends at Uni had considered him to be quite a catch, but at first she hadn’t really seen it. It wasn’t that he was particularly good-looking – there were certainly sexier men at college – but slowly she saw that Richard possessed a self-confidence, a worldliness and a purpose lacking in most of the men she met at the students’ union. Richard talked about the future and his place in it when most students mumbled about indie bands and scoring ‘a quarter’ and she quickly found his considered opinions on politics and economics incredibly attractive. He was a real man, not some lank-haired teenager. She was also seduced by his family, who owned a big red-brick rectory in Worcestershire. She loved the sense of having a big, close-knit family; there were his mother and father, Brian and Margaret, and three brothers, who all worked in the city. But at the same time, on her rare visits home with Richard, she had felt inadequate, as if Richard was out of her league. She’d asked him once what he had seen in her.
‘Fantastic knockers,’ he’d said with apparent sincerity. ‘Whatever happened to that tight black T-shirt you used to wear?’
She’d laughed it off at the time. But here and now, sitting next to Adam Gold, the scales were slowly falling from her eyes.
‘I’m just going to the bathroom,’ she whispered as Richard swirled his teaspoon around in his coffee with the air of a prime minister listening to his cabinet.
‘Yeah, sure, honey,’ he said absently, waving his hand. ‘Take your time.’
The bathroom was quiet, with only a few cubicles occupied, so Erin had the mirror to herself as she dabbed some blusher on her cheeks. Then she noticed another woman standing a few feet away, just watching her. It unnerved Erin a little. The woman had a long, horsey face and the glassy look of someone who had drunk too much. Finally Erin nodded to her. ‘Hello,’ she said, wondering perhaps if she had met her before.
The blonde stepped towards Erin, a little unsteady on her feet. ‘Richard Pendleton’s girlfriend, yes?’ she said with an accent Erin could only describe as phoney-Sloaney. ‘It’s good to finally meet you.’
‘Really?’ Erin was surprised that Richard spoke about her with his workmates and she suddenly felt a little guilty about her uncharitable thoughts at the dinner table.
‘Well, never particularly wanted to meet you before, no,’ said the woman with a twisted smile. ‘But obviously now I’m curious.’
‘Curious about what?’ asked Erin, feeling a sudden fluttery sense of foreboding.
‘Why, curious about you,’ she laughed malevolently. ‘Richard’s little girlfriend tucked away in Cornwall.’
Erin didn’t want to be rude to any of Richard’s colleagues, but this woman was clearly hostile for some reason. ‘Is there a problem?’
The woman laughed. Erin noticed that her lips and teeth were stained purple from the wine. ‘No, no problem, not any more. Not now you have the ear of Adam Gold. This firm would kill to get a slice of the Midas legals and there’s no way they would have got Gold here tonight without you. So Richard is officially Charles Sullivan’s blue-eyed boy. No wonder he’s gone running back to you.’
‘Running back to me?’
The blonde’s sneer was slowly dissolving, her lip wobbling. ‘Last month he told me that he loved me,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘He said he loves me because we’re a good match. He said you live in Cornwall and that it wasn’t working and it was never serious. He told me himself.’
Erin felt her cheeks burn hot. ‘You’ve been seeing Richard?’ she said incredulously.
‘For six months. And then you deliver Adam Gold on a bloody platter and Richard decides to “give your relationship another go”.’ The woman’s words were dripping with spite and bitterness. Erin almost felt sorry for the silly, vengeful cow.
‘Don’t waste your tears on Richard Pendleton,’ said Erin, taking a deep breath to compose herself. ‘Because you know what? I won’t.’
She turned and walked into a cubicle and sat on the toilet seat, pressing her thumbs into her eyes and willing herself not to cry. For a moment, she actually thought she might laugh, but then the tears came, dropping onto her knees. What she had said to the blonde woman was true: it wasn’t Richard she was crying for; she could see now he was a self-seeking, pompous prick. But she still felt worthless. Gullible. A fool.
It had always been that way she thought sadly, remembering when she was fifteen and she had really fancied Michael McGavey from the next village. They had flirted for weeks in school, taken long walks on the cliffs and kicked pebbles into the sea with their shoes. When Becky Lewis announced her parents were away in Tenerife and she was going to have a sleepover party – boys and girls – Erin couldn’t believe her luck. She had gone into Newquay to buy a new dress and she and her friends had giggled with anticipation over what might happen over the course of the evening. Michael had been less friendly that night. Becky had smiled at him and plied him with her dad’s beers. When the games and the horror movies had finished, he’d gone into Becky’s bedroom while Erin had lain frozen in her red sleeping bag listening to the sounds of muffled first-time sex. Some girls didn’t care if you fancied a boy. Some girls thought that if they fancied that boy too, then it was all that mattered. Even if they were your friends, they would still have him. Because they were prettier and wittier and because they could.
Adam can’t see me like this, she thought stubbornly. If she could just reach the cloakroom without seeing anyone, she could slip away unnoticed.
‘There you are. I’ve been looking for you.’
Richard had taken his jacket off and his dicky bow was hanging around his neck. He looked bloated with self-satisfaction and more than a little drunk. He looked around the lobby smugly, where a few people were already beginning to collect their coats.
‘What a good night – and isn’t Adam great? I think I made an impression there. Do you think he’ll request me personally when he instructs us? Anyway, it looks as if Charles is going to swap my final seat from probate to tax. I mean, what good will fucking probate do me? And I’ll be sitting with one of the heavy-hitting partners too.’
Erin stared blankly at him. He had completely failed to register she was upset.
‘Well, you deserve it,’ she spat, ‘after you’ve been working so hard over the last few months.’
‘Ooh,’ he said sarcastically, ‘what’s got into you?’
‘I’ve