Ripples

Robin Wright Full Manuscript: 85,700 words

Ripples

Adult

Romantic Suspense

Epigraph:

O silvery weeping willow tree

With all leaves shivering,

Have you no purpose but to shadow me

Beside this rippled spring?

Christina Rossetti (extract from In The Willow Shade)

Chapter 1

“I can’t help myself, Ade, I’ve just got to. Don’t you want it, too?”

“Well, of course, Rog, but she’s not frigid, just got a boyfriend, that’s all. Your charms, such as they are, may work on the secretarial floor, but Emilia’s got more brains than you and I put together.” Adrian Lowndes was tall, handsome, loaded and debonair.

“I know that, you twit. That’s why I have a plan to take her brains out of the equation. We need camouflage, though. A couple of fifth columnists, ideally. Lisa will do it.” Balling up a sheet of paper, he threw it at a statuesque blonde girl hunched over a laptop in a nearby cubicle, striking her on the shoulder. She looked round in annoyance. She leaned down and picked up the ball of paper, and walked languidly over to their shared cubicle.

“What do you want now, Prescott?”

“Oh, be nice, Lisa. I wondered if you would do me a solid.”

“No.” Lisa turned back to her desk, after dropping the ball of paper dramatically on to Roger’s desk.

“Please? Pretty please?” Roger wheedled.

Lisa, like many of the girls who worked at Atkins Brown, had a very small soft spot for Roger Prescott. Whereas Adrian Lowndes was tall, handsome, loaded and debonair, Roger was more of the East End barrow boy made good. He had saturnine good looks, dark slicked hair and the morals of an alley cat. He had broken hearts by the dozen on the misnamed secretarial floor, where the executive assistants to each director made the innumerable bookings which kept Atkins Brown in the sky, competition-wise. Lisa turned back to him.

“It’ll cost you.”

“Deal. What’ll it cost me?”

“Depends on the favour, dumbass.”

Roger stood up to check no one was listening. “I want you to start a rumour for me.” His quiet voice didn’t carry far.

“What rumour?” Lisa looked curious, at least.

“I want you to let it be known that Emilia Stuyvesant is known as the Ice Queen, because she’s so frigid.”

“You’re sick, Roger. Emilia’s not frigid. She’s got a boyfriend, and is anyway too good for the likes of you.”

“You say that, Lisa darling, but you know what passion lurks under this smooth exterior.”

“I do, and if ever I need a golf pencil, I know where to come. Leave her alone.”

“What if I offered you a gram?”

Lisa smiled wolfishly. “Two, and I’ll consider it.”

“Done. On delivery.”

Lisa looked down at each of them. “Why on earth do you want to start a rumour about Emilia, anyway? She’s always been really helpful to the two of you. Is it just professional jealousy, because she’s got more smarts in her nail varnish than you two put together?”

“She’s a stuck-up cow, Lisa. She won’t give us the time of day,” Roger scowled, and Lisa looked like she could now see what was going on.

“You lying toad, Roger. What’s happened – she turn you down? Perhaps she’s got a phobia of caterpillars.”

“She hasn’t been receptive to Roger’s romantic overtures, Lise.” Adrian grinned as he threw Roger under this bus.

“Of course not. Who would be? But you’re still a pointlessly vengeful sicko, Roger. Two grams, all the same.” Lisa waggled her fingers at him, and left again.

Lisa had spoken to her friend Mhairi Worsley, another girl on the M&A teams with a model figure and the ability to wrap most men round her little finger. They kept an eye out, and when Millie had got up to go to the bathroom, they had followed a few minutes later.

*

Millie was thinking about her four year anniversary at Atkins Brown. Back at the start, her mother had been all smiles. “That’s outstanding news, darling! Brilliant! Well done you, eh? Do you know when you will start? What does Jake think?”

It had been typical of her mother to move straight to the practical aspects. Her then new boyfriend Jake, when asked, had gone straight to champagne, when she had told him of the offer and her acceptance of it. She would be a graduate trainee in Corporate Finance at Atkins Brown, the best-performing bank in the City five years in a row. Big starting salary, which had enabled her to move into a two-bed apartment in a managed building in Southwark, near the office. The work was more exciting than being a corporate lawyer, towards which her professor had pushed her. Corporate Finance meant mergers and acquisitions, the famous ‘M&A’. It also meant big funding transactions, in both debt and equity – stuff she had been fascinated with for months. She had been so touched that her mother had respected the move.

It had been pretty much the last time Denise had respected much. Millie’s mother could not enjoy things the same way, now. Yesterday, Denise had been unable to remember why Millie was there in her room, when Millie went into that dimly-lit, institutionally-smelly building to tell her mother of the four year milestone. Dementia had hit Denise hard, and now she was in what they called ‘a home’, though a place less homely was hard to imagine. She barely recognised Millie, some visits.

Millie knew the hours at Atkins Brown were harsh. She had not seen her university friends for months, if not years. She had few other friends outside work, and even within the firm, friendships were usually shallow, insubstantial affairs, deriving most often from need for assistance and the search for competitive advantage. She had managed to hold on to Jake, her boyfriend, but that was really not working well. Jake was revealing a deep jealousy of her friends at work, especially their money and their education, as he imagined it through the jaundiced eye of someone to whom those gifts were not given. Still, he was there. Life, technically, was good, by the objective yardsticks she was used to applying.

Yes, life was good – wasn’t it?

She heard somebody push the door to the restroom open and come in. From the noise, it was probably a couple of women. Suddenly, everything in Emilia Stuyvesant’s world turned to ashes. Locked inside the narrow, plastic confines of this cubicle in the ladies’ toilets on the sixth floor, the nasal, affected voices near the mirrors tore through her world, stripping away the illusions of safety, comfort and progress she had spent four years building.

*

“You coming out on Friday, Mhairi?” Lisa asked, inside the same ladies’ toilet. Her drawl was instantly recognisable to Millie.

“I can’t decide. Bit skint this week. Why, where are you going?”

“The Bear, and then probably the Regency night club. The boys are trying to get a party going. They’re even talking about asking the Ice Queen, but she won’t go.”

“Who?” Mhairi had asked.

“The Ice Queen. Emilia Stuyvesant. You know, because she never goes out with anyone here. Not even for group drinks. The boys are sure she’s frigid.”

“I thought she had a boyfriend.”

“She says she does, but has anyone ever seen him? In four years?”

“No-o, unless – wasn’t he at the Christmas party? But no one has ever seen my boyfriends, either.”

“That’s because you never keep them past the sell-by date of a pint of milk, darling.”

“You cheeky mare! You can talk. You’ve had seven this calendar year, to my certain knowledge.”

“I’m selective, that’s all.”

“Lisa, honey, it’s only April.”

“Whatevs, darling. Can I borrow that lippy? Such a great shade.”

The hard plastic of the toilet paper dispenser dug into Milli’s palms as her fingers locked tight. Her chest tightened involuntarily, trapping the air in her lungs. Her breath seemed to shrink in her chest as everything froze in her mind. Ice Queen? Frigid? She had thought she was amongst friends, here. She thought she got on with everyone. The whispered labels vibrated through the thin partition door, spinning her mind into a frantic, dizzying audit of every smile, nod and polite hallway greeting she had misread as friendship. Her mind went into freefall, suddenly trying to remember when she and Jake had last made love. It hadn’t been for months. He had become even more jealous and paranoid of late, ever since the Atkins Brown Christmas Party, when he had managed to become insecure over the money flowing around, and how attractive her colleagues were. Things had got a bit better recently, hadn’t they? Maybe they hadn’t, but how would these two know?

Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves, the saying went, but she hadn’t been eavesdropping. She had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Into the silence that fell as the girls left the restroom, Millie continued to analyse. How could a casual bathroom gossip completely invalidate the highest performance scores on the floor? She had helped everybody on the entire floor at some time or another, even those with three or four years’ more experience, unpicking errors in their spreadsheets or correcting their documents. Excellence buys respect, she had told herself. But it didn’t, clearly – it bought betrayal and whispering behind her back. It bought a vicious nickname.

Millie had turned in more 100-plus hour timesheets than any three other people, and never said no to anyone who wanted help. She couldn’t even remember saying no to being asked out for group drinks, largely because she couldn’t remember ever having been asked out for group drinks. She wasn’t aware of anyone on the floor who had ever had a bad word for her.

Now she didn’t know who to trust. Who was being friendly, and who was laughing at her behind her back? She couldn’t even discuss it with Jake, because he had been so snippy about her colleagues on the one occasion when he had showed up to a bank event, at that damned Christmas party. She could hear Jake’s braying, triumphant laugh in advance as she imagined his response, and she didn’t want to hear it for real.

The only people she felt she could count on were the department librarian, Celia Wilkinson, and one of the Managing Directors, Peter Mishkin. She knew Celia would be a friend and would tell her the truth, and she was as plugged in to what was going on as anyone in the department. Celia was in her late forties, divorced, and commanded the respect of everyone, from the weak, vacillating Head of Department, John McVeagh, to the newest batch of graduate trainees.

Peter was a Managing Director, the youngest they had. He was thirty-nine, very smart, good-looking in an ‘I work much too hard’ sort of way, and had got divorced the previous summer, after his wife Theresa had run off with a tennis instructor a few years ago. Millie couldn’t look at his amazing blue eyes too often, as she found then compelling. It didn’t hurt that he was fit, and charming. He was so focused on his work that Millie often left the office just before him and found him in when she arrived back. He lived out in Putney, was it, or Richmond? An SW London postcode, anyway. He would not be averse to having a coffee with her and offering some advice. He had never gone to office functions much at the best of times, as far as she knew, so he would not be concerned about protecting anyone. She liked Peter – liked him quite a lot too much, given that he was lead on the Cairns account, her main source of work. Also given that fraternising within the bank was an absolute no-no. Nothing was going to happen there, she knew, but he could still be a help.

Millie pushed out of the lavatories, her heels clicking too loudly on the tiled floor. She fled across the building, passing beneath the relentless, accusatory glare of fluorescent tubes to the quiet sanctuary of the Research department. Behind her barricade of monitors, Celia looked up, her sharp expression at the disturbance softening into a rare smile. The smile was a good sign – Celia could be a right dragon if she felt you were being unreasonable, or if she was having a bad day.

“Hey, Emilia, long time no see. Only person in the bank who does their own research, you are. What’s up? Cairns not enough for you?” Cairns Industries, or more accurately its idiosyncratic President, CEO and billionaire majority owner Brian Cairns, was Millie’s main source of work. She did three or four deals a year for Cairns, and they usually brought in something over £50 million of fees between them, with the same again on the associated financing transactions. They were the largest regular client the bank had, by some distance.

“No, Brian’s cool, thanks, Celia. I just wanted to pick your massive brain on something?”

“Work something or personal something?” Celia’s perspicacity was a legend in the banking world.

“Bit of both, really.”

“Sounds fascinating, darling. Can we do a coffee at lunchtime? I’m on the South Beach.” Celia was probably not overweight, but was always on a diet of one sort or another. She had often announced her envy of Millie’s ‘exceptional metabolism’, which kept Millie reasonably slim and even elegant, all year round.

“Sure. One o’clock downstairs suit you?” With up to four thousand wage-slaves in the building, the staff cafeteria downstairs was pretty busy, but excellent.

“Perfect. Can’t wait.” Celia had managed the entire conversation without removing her eyes more than once from the screen she was reading, as far as Millie could tell.

*

The coffee proved to be relatively short. Celia had assured her that she had literally never heard anyone refer to an Ice Queen in the office, not in reference to Millie or to anyone else. Her advice was straightforward enough: if people are saying you’re something you’re not, prove that you’re not. On this occasion, it might be as simple as accepting an invitation.

On the way back to her desk, Millie dropped in at Peter’s office. “Any chance of a word at some point, chief?”

“Millie? Just the person I wanted to see. I’ve been reading this draft for Cairn’s rights issue for the Dorning deal. Makes me a bit cross, if I’m honest.” Peter was the only person in the office who called her Millie.

“Oh, no, what’s wrong with it?” Worried, Millie slipped into the chair opposite Peter’s desk. He took his reading glasses off and rubbed his face. His eyes were definitely piercing, and that gorgeous shade of blue.

“I don’t really know how to put this without coming over all boss-ish, Millie. I’ve steered dozens of these rights issues through to completion over the last twelve years, Millie. I know every trap, every trick, every error. All with documents like this. You’ve done how many – eight? Ten?”

“Five.”

“That just makes it worse, Millie, I’m sorry. This is a one hundred and ten page document, and I’ve been through it twice, with a fine-toothed comb. I cannot find anything at all wrong with it. Nothing. Not even a bloody comma out of place. You weren’t even at the wretched meeting, and were just using my notes. You’ve made me look completely redundant. Congratulations. Good job.”

“Well, we have a really good team…”

“Oh, no, you don’t, missy. Clarissa has been gone for two months. Jayne and Sarah were on vacation, and Thingy has been down with the lurgy for a week. Nobody else could possibly have worked on this, so all the credit is yours.” ‘Thingy’ was Martin Speke, the most junior member of the account team.

It took Millie a moment to understand. “You’re not really angry?”

“No, Emilia Stuyvesant, I am not really angry at all. I am aware that I have a genius working for me on my biggest account – the bank’s biggest account, even - and it makes me very happy indeed. This is a superb piece of work. Thank you!” He smiled a huge wide smile, which made things both much better for Millie’s state of mind, and much worse.

“You really had me going, there, Peter!”

“I’m sorry, Millie, but if you’re going to be this perfect every time you do anything, I really might as well go home.”

“Don’t do that, Peter!” She blushed furiously, as she realised she had said it too quickly. “Brian would be bereft, if you’re not there to hold his hand.” Improvised quickly, that wasn’t bad, she told herself. Peter smiled, at least.

“Oh, don’t think I won’t be taking credit for this with him, don’t you worry! Richard, hi!”

Millie turned in her chair. Behind her, the narrow, long face of Richard Ashworth, the department’s chief of staff and wannabe head, was poking around the glass door. “Got a minute, Peter?”

“Sure, come in.”

“Ah, glad you’re here, Emilia, as this concerns you, too, in a way.” Richard came in to the office and leaned stylishly against Peter’s bookcase in his expensive Herbie Frogg suit. In his mid-fifties, Richard was a good-looking man, until you realised that he had little to no sense of humour unless someone was suffering that wasn’t him. Most people in the Bank were smart, and realised this very quickly, and he was not very popular with the junior staff. The word on the floor was that he had a bit of a problem with the ‘Colombian marching powder’. He put his left elbow against a shelf covered in the acrylic celebration blocks Cairns used to memorialise their deals, and steepled his fingers.

“Shoot.” Peter said, leaning back in his beautiful leather office chair. Not standard issue, that chair, Millie knew. Peter had claimed a back problem, to get that ergonomic beauty supplied to his office. He played squash in the gym next door twice a week, and she was sure there was nothing wrong with his back that wouldn’t be cured by her running her hands.....stop it, Millie! You’ve got Jake!

“It’s about the Cairns account.”

“Right.”

“The powers that be would like to put Adrian Lowndes in below you, as director. To give the team a bit more gravitas, they felt.”

This was obvious bullshit, Millie knew. For one thing, thanks to the uselessness of John McVeagh, Richard himself was effectively the ‘powers that be’, all on his own. Peter would know this, too. She wasn’t going to get in between these two, that was for sure.

“Really, Richard? Why would you want to do that?”

Very neat! Millie could feel herself learning from the master. Lets him know that Peter knows it’s his idea, and makes him justify it, in one fell swoop.

“Well, we are worried about what happens if you have a problem, and there is no one properly plugged in, as it were. Adrian has the right approach, and I’m sure that Brian would prefer to have more aircover, don’t you think?”

“I am certain, though I’m happy to ask him if it would help, that he would not. He has been highly resistant to changes of the team ever since I joined the account eleven years ago. He has me, Clarissa (when she’s back from maternity), Emilia here, the manager Jayne and two execs, Sarah and ...and...”

“Martin,” Millie supplied.

“Right, Martin. And Clarissa and Emilia are fully plugged in at all times. Full team already. Lowndes is an Assistant Director, and he is nowhere near as good as Emilia here. Brian wouldn’t like that, I don’t think.”

“Well, we shouldn’t discuss such things in front of the help, Peter.”

“No? Perhaps not. Anyway, I will be putting Emilia up for Director in the half year review. Maybe Brian would accept Lowndes as Assistant Director, then.” Peter knew full well that Adrian was Richard’s protégé, because everyone knew it. Adrian made no secret of it, telling anyone who would listen that his own father, Henry Lowndes, had been the Head of Department when Richard was hired, and had guided the young Richard himself.

“Well, if she is made up, she will want her own clients, won’t you, Emilia?” The question was so obviously rhetorical that Millie said nothing, but just smiled politely. Richard unfolded himself from the bookcase and moved back towards the door. “So perhaps we should revisit it then. That other thing we were discussing – still on track? It’s just that John and I need to sign the contracts next week, and it wouldn’t do to make a mistake over that.”

“That’s all going well, Richard. I was just discussing it with Emilia.”

“Excellent! Well, thanks for listening, Peter. Later.” Richard slid out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Peter watched him walk away down the corridor outside.

“Wow.” Peter spoke first. “Talk about blatant.”

That wasn’t what Millie had taken from the conversation. “Are you really going to put me up for director in June, Peter?”

“Hmm? Yes, yes, absolutely I am. I’ve actually already done it. McVeagh will fret about it, because it is quick. Eighteen months is minimum for an AD, I believe. But you are already way better than half the directors, and they all know it. It will go through. I don’t trust that snake Ashworth, though, and you had better not either.” He actually wagged a forefinger at her, which made her giggle. He was smiling again.

“No, of course not, Mr Mishkin,” she said, struggling to keep her face straight. “What is the other thing that we were apparently discussing?”

“Ah, yes.” He looked at her as if considering whether to tell her something or not. It seemed the jury came down on her side. “You know the bank is thinking of moving back into a new building in Bishopsgate?”

“Well, I’ve heard the rumours, sure.”

“Richard is paranoid that Cairns won’t do enough deals to enable the Bank to keep up the payments. Could be a problem, if that happened. But as you know, once we have finished this one, Brian wants to acquire a big cargo company. He’ll keep us in deals for a good while yet, and more clients will come in on the back of those. Anyway, that’s enough of this ivory tower stuff. What did you want to talk about?”

And suddenly, it came crashing back down. What did she want to say? The pain had diminished, and maybe now was not the time.

“It’s okay, I think you have answered my questions.” She stood up to go.

“I have? Wow, without you even asking them? I must be better than I thought. Maybe I don’t have to fall on my sword just yet. If you’re sure?”

“Yes, thanks, Peter.”

Back at her desk, the tightness in her chest was gone, but the hurt was still there, in the background. She looked around, to see if anyone was looking at her. No one was – or did Tim Christie look up? He was a nice enough guy, she had thought. An executive, in the same intake as Sarah, he stuck in her memory because he had asked her to dance at the Christmas party, right in front of Jake. He was like an enthusiastic puppy, she thought. Jake had growled that she wasn’t available, ever, and Tim had fled.

He obviously had a crush, but she had dealt with worse at college.

Millie knew she wasn’t a supermodel, by any stretch of the imagination. She was reasonably tall, reasonably pretty, reasonably slim, reasonable attractive on conventional measures. Nothing special. She had one asset that every boyfriend she had ever had had been keen on, and that was her lustrous chestnut hair. Just a little longer than shoulder length and gently wavy, it was usually twisted around one or other of her index fingers. At college, she had had far more attention than many prettier girls, because she looked so normal – approachable, even. She was kind, friendly, charming, clever. She could sing reasonably well, dance reasonably well, and cook reasonably well. The only thing she was exceptional at was corporate finance, she thought. Maybe karate, too. Otherwise, she was, well - reasonable.

She could remember her mother’s joy at her double first in Law from Magdalen College, Oxford, but Millie had not enjoyed law enough at the corporate firm she had joined thereafter to want to do it for a living. Her real escape at University had been karate, which she had studied from the age of ten. She had got as far as fifth dan black belt, and had competed for the University and trained other instructors in her time. She had missed it when she moved to London, but she had not yet found a club that could give her what she wanted, nor found the time to search for one.

Millie checked her watch. A quarter to five. She jerked suddenly as a shadow blocked the glare of her monitor. She looked around to find Adrian Lowndes looming over her cubicle divider, his dark eyes fixed on hers.

“Emilia, got a minute?”

“What’s up, Adrian?” Probably wanted another sample document from her own personal supply, she thought.

“We are thinking of going out on Friday night, few drinks, bit of a boogie. I was wondering if you’d like to come with?”

Okay, so that was unexpectedly quick. What was that, five hours after she had overheard Lisa and Mhairi? Well, here at least was one of her detractors, she supposed.

“That sounds brilliant, Adrian. I could do with a night out. It’s been a long month. Where and when?”

Adrian looked like the cat who had got the cream. “We were thinking the Bear, and then on to the Regency. Do you know it?”

“Yes, I do. It’s one of Jake’s favourites.” To her certain knowledge, neither she nor Jake had ever been anywhere near the place, a nightclub on Northumberland Avenue. It was most famous for being expensive, and for occasionally ejecting a minor celebrity for being intoxicated. Usually one whose career needed a boost, Millie suspected. Well, girls rarely had to pay in there.

“Well, that’s sorted, then,” Adrian drawled. “We’ll be in the Bear from about eight-thirty, I should think. Can you get away by then?”

“I would hope so, on a Friday.”

“Great – see you then.” He turned away and walked back down the office.

That should put an end to the rumours. Better tell Jake. Phone was best – he was not going to take this well, she knew. A night out with her work colleagues was bound to set him off. She could invite him to stay for the weekend, starting Friday night. That sometimes worked. Jake’s actuarial firm’s office was in Hendon, and his small flat in Watford, so he was rarely on her side of London.

Well, she had started her defence.