knickers! The banker had done his homework. She’d bet he could tell to a penny how much they’d made in the last fiscal year. Last week, in all probability.
‘The retail market has been difficult all round,’ she said. She’d already said way too much. India was right. She should have kept her head down and her mouth shut.
‘I know.’ He sounded almost sympathetic. Romana wasn’t fooled for a minute. ‘But Claibourne & Farraday appears to have become entranced with its own image as the most luxurious store in London.’
‘Well, it is,’ she declared. ‘It may not be the largest, but it has a style of its own. And it’s definitely the most comfortable store in town.’
‘Comfortable? As in old-fashioned, boring and lacking in new ideas?’
Romana almost winced at this telling description. ‘And you have them?’ she demanded. They might have sat around bemoaning their father’s refusal to modernise, get away from the mahogany and red-carpet nineteenth-century decor. Let in some light. She wasn’t about to tell Niall Macaulay that. ‘You have brilliant new ideas?’ she asked. It was far too late to keep her head down.
‘Of course we have plans.’ Niall Macaulay said this as if anything else was unthinkable. All buttoned-up in his dark suit, with not a scintilla of passion behind his stone-grey banker’s eyes, what did he think he could bring to the greatest department store in London?
‘I didn’t say plans, I said ideas. Plans are something altogether different. You might be planning to sell out to one of the chains,’ she said. ‘None of the hassle, just loads of money to play with at your bank. And if you were holding the golden share, we wouldn’t be able to do a thing to stop—’
‘Romana…’ A disembodied voice from the intercom stopped her in full flow. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but if you don’t leave right now—’
Niall Macaulay glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes to the second,’ he said.
Five minutes too long, she thought. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Macaulay, fascinating as this exchange of views has been, I do have to be somewhere else right now. On Claibourne & Farraday business. I’ll have to leave you to compare diaries with my secretary. Just let her know when you can spare some time for the store and I’ll include you in my plans.’ Without waiting to listen to his views on that suggestion, she grabbed her bags and, not bothering to wait for the lift, headed for the stairs.
Spare some time? Niall wasn’t about to let a chit of a girl get away with a put-down like that. She was the one not giving full value and he was about to prove it. Collecting his overcoat and umbrella, he followed her.
‘Miss Claibourne?’
The uniformed commissionaire at the main entrance had summoned a taxi and was holding the door. She stepped in. She was in a hurry and didn’t need another dose of Niall Macaulay. ‘That didn’t take long,’ she said. Not nearly long enough. He’d obviously followed her straight down the stairs. Then, because politeness appeared to demand it, she said, ‘Can I drop you somewhere, Mr Macaulay?’
‘No.’ Her relief was short-lived as he climbed in beside her. ‘I’m going wherever you’re going, Miss Claibourne. When I said I was going to spend some time shadowing you, I wasn’t referring to some stage-managed occasion, set up for the purpose. I meant now.’
‘Now?’ she repeated stupidly. ‘You mean now, this minute?’ She laughed—an unconvincing ha-ha-ha sort of laugh—hoping that he was joking. He didn’t join in. Her mistake; the man didn’t joke. ‘Forgive me. I understood you had a bank to run. I assumed you were a busy man, that you’d want to pick and choose.’ She hoped she looked sincere when she said, ‘You might prefer not to get involved in everything I do,’ because she really meant it. She didn’t want to be involved in everything she did.
‘I’m here. You’re here. Let’s not make a performance over this. Let’s just get on with it.’
He thought she was trying to hide something, and it was very tempting to say yes and let him see for himself, but really it wouldn’t be a good start. ‘Trust me, you really don’t want to shadow me today.’
‘Trust me when I say that I really do, Miss Claibourne. If I don’t stay with you all the time, how will I ever learn?’
And she’d thought the taxi driver had been sarcastic.
‘You don’t understand. I’m not—’
‘You’re not working today?’ He glanced at her shopping bags in a manner that suggested he wouldn’t need a month to discover everything there was to know about her. His look suggested that he’d had her all weighed up from the moment half a carton of latte had taken the shine off his shoes.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Hadn’t you better tell the driver where you want to go?’
‘I really think it might be wiser if I faxed you a list of what I’ll be doing for the rest of the month,’ she replied firmly, ignoring his suggestion.
‘I’m sure it will make interesting reading. But I particularly want to see what you’re doing today.’
She doubted that. She really doubted that. A little shiver of fear erupted as a giggle. ‘It’s very commendable of you to take this so seriously.’
‘I take everything seriously. I’m certainly not the kind of man who believes he has nothing left to learn. Even from you,’ he added.
‘That’s very generous of you.’ Her smile disguised a level of sarcasm that she rarely stooped to. Could it be catching?
‘You are working today?’ he repeated. ‘You do draw a full-time salary?’
He made it sound as if she was somehow cheating. Taking the money but not putting in the work.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I draw a full-time salary.’ And today she was going to earn every penny, she thought, as she leaned forward to give the cab driver their destination.
India had been surprised that the Farradays had bought her delaying tactic, and it suddenly occurred to Romana that perhaps things weren’t quite as simple as had first appeared. Why else would three busy men give up so much time to shadow three young women who could teach them nothing?
Niall Macaulay had already admitted that they wouldn’t be running the store, but putting in their own management team. Did they need to prove the Claibourne women incompetent before they could hope to dislodge them from the boardroom?
But they weren’t incompetent. So everything was just dandy…
‘Miss Claibourne?’
‘What? Oh… You want to see how I earn it?’ she asked.
‘You made a big pitch back there about how hard you all work. How nobody else could do the job.’
‘I didn’t say nobody. But I don’t believe an investment banker could easily step into my shoes.’ Not this investment banker, anyway. Public relations required warmth. An ability to smile even when you didn’t feel much like it.
‘Well, you’ve
