delay all that much longer discussing her past with her child. What choice did she have? Questions would be repeated over and over if the issue wasn’t addressed. She couldn’t allow her old emotions to get in the way.
“Good morning, Cate.” It was the attractive young brunette behind the reception desk.
“Morning, Lara.”
Lara was busy appraising Cate’s smart appearance. “Mr Saunders and the others are waiting for you in the boardroom. Some bigwig is coming in.”
“Have you got a name for me?” Cate paused to enquire.
“Actually, no.” Lara sent her a look of mild surprise. “The appointment is for nine-fifteen. Love your outfit.” Lara had learned a great deal about grooming, hair, make-up, clothes accessories, simply from studying Cate Hamilton. Cate had such style. She was wonderfully approachable too. No unbearable airs of superiority, unlike Cate’s female colleague, the terrifying Murphy Stiller, who held herself aloof from everyone not on the command chain. Stiller was supremely indifferent to office perceptions of her. Cate Hamilton appeared to know instinctively office alliances were important.
“Thanks, Lara.” Cate moved off. In her own spacious office she swiftly divested herself of her classic, quilted lambskin black handbag, and then checked her appearance in the long mirror she’d had fixed inside the door of one of the tall cabinets. She always dressed with great care. It was important to look good. It was expected of her. It went with the job. She was wearing a recent buy, a designer two-piece outfit with a slim black pencil skirt and a white jacket banded in black. Her long blonde hair—the definitive Leo’s mane—she always wore pulled back into various updated arrangements for work. Looking good was mandatory. All-out glamour wasn’t on the agenda. Too distracting to the clients. Even so she’d been told she was considered pretty hot stuff.
They were all seated around the boardroom table—big as any two ping-pong tables shoved together—when she entered the room.
“Good morning, everyone,” she greeted them pleasantly, and received suave nods that hid a variety of feelings. Downright lecherous on the part of Geoff Bartz, their resident environmentalist and a very unattractive man. The hierarchy was still men, though not as inflexible as it once had been. The richest person in Australia was in fact a woman, the late mining magnate Lang Hancock’s daughter, Gina Rinehart, worth around twenty billion and counting. All of the men were Italian suited, Ferragamo shod, the one woman at the table as impeccably turned out as ever, cream silk blouse, Armani power suit. No one reached a position near the top of the tree without being exceptionally well dressed. Lord knew they were paid enough to buy the best even if they rarely strayed from imported labels. Cate trusted her own instincts, giving Australian designers a go. They were so good she stuck to them.
“Ah, Cate,” Hugh Saunders, CEO and chairman of the board of Inter-Austral Resources, oil, minerals, chemicals, properties etc. sat at the head of the table. He was credited with almost single-handedly turning a small sleeping mining company into a multibillion-dollar corporation. On Cate’s entry he exhaled an audible sigh of pleasure. A lean, handsome, very stylish man turning sixty, he had personally recruited Cate Hamilton some three years previously. He considered himself her mentor. If he were only ten years younger he privately considered he would have qualified as a whole lot more, sublimely unaware Cate had never entertained such a thought. “Come take a seat. There’s one here by me.” He gestured towards the empty seat to his right.
Territorial display if there ever was one, Murphy Stiller thought with a tightening of her lips and a knitting of her jetblack brows of one. Murphy Stiller was brilliant, abrasive, ferociously competitive. Murphy’s sole aspiration was to move into Hugh Saunders’ padded chair while it was still warm. The great pity was he was such a stayer! Before Hamilton had arrived on the scene she had been Queen of the Heap, able to command attention and a seat at the CEO’s right hand without saying a word. Then the newcomer she had mentally labelled upstart had from the outset started producing results. Corporate politics, balance sheets, marketing plans, impromptu presentations, refinancing. It could have been familiar territory. Hamilton was up for the challenge. A compulsive over-achiever, of course. Murphy knew the type. A multitasker, always up to speed. Saunders seemed mesmerised by her. Certainly he had carefully mapped out her career. But that was what men spent a lot of time thinking about, wasn’t it? Sex. Whether they were getting it. Or more often missing out. When Murphy had entered the boardroom she had naturally made for the seat on the CEO’s right—she never jockeyed, jockeying was beneath her—only to be forestalled by Saunders’ upraised hand smoothly directing her to a seat on his left, as though oblivious to her chagrin. Time to hot up her nightly prayers her young rival would get her comeuppance. Flunk something. Take a fall. Get married. Go into politics. Fall under a bus. Anything.
Murphy forced herself to stop daydreaming. It wasn’t going to happen.
All were now seated. All faces were turned to the chairman, who had glanced at his watch to check what time they had. “What we do and say here before our prospective client arrives is extremely important,” he announced with great earnestness. “This is a man used to meeting people at the highest level. I believe he even talks to the Prince of Wales on a first-name basis.”
Cate pretended to be lost in envy. She had her own understanding of the English upper classes, though the Prince was said to be a genuine egalitarian.
“He’s already acquired a small empire in different parts of the world,” the CEO was saying. “He’s now looking at our mineral wealth. Overseas the news is Australia is being driven by mining and resource. Not surprising their top entrepreneurs want in. We’re going to prove extremely helpful.” He paused as another project came to mind. “He’s also interested in acquiring a property in the Whitsundays. Virgin territory as it were, far away from the usual haunts of jetsetters and the current hot spots, the Caribbean and such. You all know the late George Harrison bought up there. Had a holiday home on our far-flung shores, then a virtual outpost. George knew what he was about. I know we can help our prospective client. Perhaps you, Cate. You’re very good at dealing with people. You might even be able to persuade Lady McCready to finally sell Isla Bella. She trusts you. Aren’t many places left in the world as pristine as Isla Bella.”
“Sure our prospective client doesn’t want to turn it into a resort?” Cate asked. “Lady McCready is totally against any such project.”
“Goodness me, no!” Saunders vehemently shook his head as though he’d had it straight from the horse’s mouth. “This is a man who shuns glitz. He wants a private sanctuary for him, his family and close friends. He will want to visit, of course, if Lady McCready is agreeable. She must be a great age now. Only the other day someone told me she had passed away.”
“Still very much alive, sir,” Cate said, watching the CEO hold up a staying hand as the mobile on the table rang. He listened for a moment, said a few words, then put the receiver down. “Ah, he’s arrived.”
It was delivered with such reverence the prospective client could equally well have been Prince Charles or even President Obama. The Clintons had made the great escape to North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef islands, pronouncing the whole area an idyllic destination. Perhaps it was Bill Clinton or some retired American senator, who just wanted to sit around all day without anyone taking cheap shots at him as political enemies tended to do.
Lara entered the boardroom cheeks glowing, her mouth curved up in a smile. After her came an extremely handsome man in a hawkish kind of way: aquiline nose—perfect to look down on people—finely chiselled aristocratic features, thick jet-black hair with a natural wave, extraordinary eyes, the colour of blue flame; immediate impact that would linger for a long time. He stood well over six feet, very elegantly dressed. Not Zenga; Savile Row made to measure. A tailor’s dream.
