Simon muttered sarcastically.
‘I didn’t know there was a contract with them up for grabs,’ she said to Tom.
‘It was highly confidential. Si and I had to sign nondisclosure agreements; we couldn’t tell even you,’ Tom replied, looking at her feet. ‘But with Russia, China and the
Middle East as their biggest markets now, offering a diamond-studded interior is exactly the edge they’re looking for.’
Clem thought she was going to be sick.
‘And now there’s nothing to show them,’ Simon mumbled, folding his arms across his body and dropping his chin to his chest. ‘Any reputation we had for professionalism
will be scuppered once this gets out. There’s no way we can get something else done for Berlin in the timeframe and . . . Fuck! We can hardly come clean about why we’re not showing the
bike. We’re just going to have to say the technology’s not finessed yet and hope to God that Perignard keeps quiet.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Clem said quietly. ‘I really, really, really am.’
Her words were directed at them all, but her eyes were on Tom. No one would look at her.
‘Simon, let’s go into the meeting room,’ he said, ignoring her again. ‘We need to review where we are on invoices and new business.’
‘Sure thing,’ Simon said, grabbing his iPad and coffee from his desk, and shooting Clem a look that for once wasn’t suffused with repressed yearning.
Clem’s heart beat double-time as she watched them walk off together, Simon’s hand slapping Tom’s shoulder in commiseration, their voices already low in consultation.
She
was always the one who made Tom smile when things were bad; now he could barely look at her, and when they did talk, it was practically with a snarl.
Pixie, realizing she was alone with Clem, widened her eyes excitedly, clearly about to suggest a sympathy cupcake at the Hummingbird, but one look at Clem’s expression and she scooted
quickly back to her desk.
Clem stood stock still, resisting the urge to barge in to the meeting and demand to be allowed to help. This was her doing! She ought to be given the chance to fix it! That was what she wanted
to say, but deep down, she knew a low profile was all Tom wanted from her at the moment.
He had built the company from nothing, but in eight years it had come to be seen as the successor to prestigious British leather houses like Connolly and Bill Amberg. Tom wasn’t happy
stopping there, though. He was going after the big guns – Hermès, Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton – he wanted
his
leathers wrapping the luxury world. He’d been just
one bike away from taking that first step, and he’d done all that with the £10,000 their parents had given each of them when they’d graduated – or in Clem’s case,
dropped out. Like the prodigal son, he’d used it as seed money to buy twenty hides, a specialist sewing machine and a six-month lease on this office.
He had asked her at the time if she wanted to join forces – what they could do with a £20,000 start-up would bring forward his five-year plan by at least three years – but
after the disaster of failing her second-year exams (although turning up would have helped, she admitted afterwards) Clem had been adamant that what she needed was to ‘get away’ and see
the world and had promptly bought a one-way business-class ticket to Bali and sat on the beach for eight months, until she ran out of money and had to ask their father to sub the flight home.
If Tom had been disappointed by her decision, he’d never said. He’d even ridden to her rescue when she’d been fired from her last and latest job as a sales manager at a chichi
lingerie boutique on Westbourne Park Road. He had thrown her the lifeline of working for him, even though there was no real role to cover and her job was more display than anything else.
Tom covered the corporate and trade accounts, and was the only point of contact for hotels, high-end architects, investment banks and car
‘I didn’t know there was a contract with them up for grabs,’ she said to Tom.
‘It was highly confidential. Si and I had to sign nondisclosure agreements; we couldn’t tell even you,’ Tom replied, looking at her feet. ‘But with Russia, China and the
Middle East as their biggest markets now, offering a diamond-studded interior is exactly the edge they’re looking for.’
Clem thought she was going to be sick.
‘And now there’s nothing to show them,’ Simon mumbled, folding his arms across his body and dropping his chin to his chest. ‘Any reputation we had for professionalism
will be scuppered once this gets out. There’s no way we can get something else done for Berlin in the timeframe and . . . Fuck! We can hardly come clean about why we’re not showing the
bike. We’re just going to have to say the technology’s not finessed yet and hope to God that Perignard keeps quiet.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Clem said quietly. ‘I really, really, really am.’
Her words were directed at them all, but her eyes were on Tom. No one would look at her.
‘Simon, let’s go into the meeting room,’ he said, ignoring her again. ‘We need to review where we are on invoices and new business.’
‘Sure thing,’ Simon said, grabbing his iPad and coffee from his desk, and shooting Clem a look that for once wasn’t suffused with repressed yearning.
Clem’s heart beat double-time as she watched them walk off together, Simon’s hand slapping Tom’s shoulder in commiseration, their voices already low in consultation.
She
was always the one who made Tom smile when things were bad; now he could barely look at her, and when they did talk, it was practically with a snarl.
Pixie, realizing she was alone with Clem, widened her eyes excitedly, clearly about to suggest a sympathy cupcake at the Hummingbird, but one look at Clem’s expression and she scooted
quickly back to her desk.
Clem stood stock still, resisting the urge to barge in to the meeting and demand to be allowed to help. This was her doing! She ought to be given the chance to fix it! That was what she wanted
to say, but deep down, she knew a low profile was all Tom wanted from her at the moment.
He had built the company from nothing, but in eight years it had come to be seen as the successor to prestigious British leather houses like Connolly and Bill Amberg. Tom wasn’t happy
stopping there, though. He was going after the big guns – Hermès, Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton – he wanted
his
leathers wrapping the luxury world. He’d been just
one bike away from taking that first step, and he’d done all that with the £10,000 their parents had given each of them when they’d graduated – or in Clem’s case,
dropped out. Like the prodigal son, he’d used it as seed money to buy twenty hides, a specialist sewing machine and a six-month lease on this office.
He had asked her at the time if she wanted to join forces – what they could do with a £20,000 start-up would bring forward his five-year plan by at least three years – but
after the disaster of failing her second-year exams (although turning up would have helped, she admitted afterwards) Clem had been adamant that what she needed was to ‘get away’ and see
the world and had promptly bought a one-way business-class ticket to Bali and sat on the beach for eight months, until she ran out of money and had to ask their father to sub the flight home.
If Tom had been disappointed by her decision, he’d never said. He’d even ridden to her rescue when she’d been fired from her last and latest job as a sales manager at a chichi
lingerie boutique on Westbourne Park Road. He had thrown her the lifeline of working for him, even though there was no real role to cover and her job was more display than anything else.
Tom covered the corporate and trade accounts, and was the only point of contact for hotels, high-end architects, investment banks and car
Similar Books
