Anything but Vanilla(21)
‘Sorrel... Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’ Calm, ordered—at the sound of his voice, her pulse rate immediately began to settle. ‘I’ve managed to get tickets for the gala opening of La Bohème and I need to know if you’ll be free on the twenty-fourth.’
‘Really?’ She tried to sound excited. ‘I thought they were like gold dust.’
‘They are. Someone owed me a favour.’ No surprise there. He was the kind of man everyone wanted on their side in the turbulent financial world. Picking up on her lack of enthusiasm, he said, ‘Puccini is at the lighter end of the operatic scale, Sorrel. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘Only one person dies?’ she said, half jokingly. The closest she’d ever wanted to get to an opera involved a Phantom and her pulse rate was now non-existent.
‘This is grand opera,’ he said, a touch impatiently—he didn’t joke about the ‘arts’, ‘not a soap opera.’
‘I read that the soap writers trawl Greek tragedies for their plot ideas.’
‘Really?’ he replied, with about as much enthusiasm for the idea as hers for a night at the opera. Graeme might have said that she was everything he’d ever want in a wife but she was, no question, still a work in progress. Her sisters weren’t entirely kidding when they referred to him as ‘Professor Higgins’.
It wasn’t like that. Well, not totally like that. Any man would want his wife to enjoy his passions and she’d always known exactly what she wanted in a man. Graeme was her perfect fit and she would do her best to be his. On the bright side she could wear the vintage Schiaparelli gown she’d found at the back of a junk shop a couple of months ago. It was perfect for mingling with millionaires at the post-gala party because it wasn’t about opera, it was about networking. Being seen with the right people, being noticed and it was the world she had aspired to since she’d chosen a business rather than an academic career. When she was a millionaire, no one would care who her mother was, or think her beneath them.
‘It’ll be fun,’ she said, doing her best to sound more enthusiastic. You didn’t get anything worthwhile without a little suffering and it could be worse. Much worse. Graeme could have been a cricket fanatic—a game that involved entire days of boredom. ‘Remind me when it is? I’ll have to call you back when I’ve checked my diary. With Elle on maternity leave I’m filling in with Rosie as well as the big events.’ At least he understood that business took priority over everything. Even death by singing. ‘Right now I’ve got a bit of a crisis on the ice-cream front.’
‘What’s that woman done now?’ And the opera was forgotten as they returned to familiar, if contentious, territory. Ria was definitely not his idea of a businesswoman. Perfect or otherwise.
‘Are you free this evening?’ she asked, avoiding the question. ‘I need to talk to you about the possibility of raising some finance.’
‘Finance? I thought I’d made it plain that you need to consolidate before thinking about taking any more risks. Next year, maybe.’
‘Yes, yes...’ he’d been saying that for the last two years and at this rate she’d be fifty-five before she achieved her ambition ‘...but it’s a matter of adapting to circumstances.’ Quoting one of his favourite axioms back at him. ‘I want to make an offer for Knickerbocker Gloria.’
‘She’s in trouble?’ he asked, with what sounded like the smallest touch of self-satisfied ‘I told you so’ Schadenfreude. ‘Well, you know what I think.’ The free-spirited, disorganised Ria and the intensely focused, totally organised Graeme were never going to find common ground. ‘Don’t let sentiment jump you into doing anything hasty.’
‘I won’t,’ she assured him, ‘but I don’t have time to talk right now,’ she said, irritated that he felt he had to remind her of business basics. She was grateful for his support, his advice, but this wasn’t about profit and loss. This was about something much more important. Friendship. The future. Magic.
Ideas were going off like rockets in her head and the minute she’d dealt with the immediate crisis, she’d put them down on paper. Prepare a business plan. If she could show him the money, he’d listen.
‘Leave it with me. This might well play into our hands. I’ll make some enquiries, find out exactly how much trouble she’s in—’
‘I appreciate the offer, Graeme, but to be honest if you have that much free time, I could do with a hand mixing up a batch of cucumber ice cream,’ she said, unable to resist a little payback for his smug satisfaction that he’d been proved right about Ria.