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skirt. If I was going to
Elise’s office, I wanted to impress.
    “Joe?”
    His coffee cup
shook as it landed on the saucer. “Mmm?”
    “You know
later, when I go out with Elise…do they know about us? If she asks,
what do I say?”
    “The truth, if
you want.”
    I gawped at
him.
    “What?” he
said. “Kenji knows what I’m like.”
    “I can’t tell
Elise that! How’s she meant to take me seriously?”
    “Why would you
want her to do that?”
    “What happened
to Bach and Dagier being stuffed to the arse end with bright young
things?” I mimicked, scowling.
    “Leila. I’m
teasing you.” He beckoned. I sank down beside him, twisting my damp
ringlets into a slide. He tugged a few strands loose and then
smiled as he smoothed them behind my ears. “What would you like to
tell her?”
    “I…I don’t
know. You were hardly inconspicuous last night.”
    “Didn’t know I
was meant to be. You liked it well enough.” His closed fist brushed
my chin. “What would you do with another client?”
    “Pretend we
were dating.” The words felt an odd shape as I said them.
    “Well then.” He
patted my knee. “Not exactly a lie, in a manner of speaking.”
    “But what if
she says something to Yves or Sadie or Poppy?”
    “I think she’s
a bit more professional than that.”
    “If you say
so.” The paper was clammy beneath my fingers, and I set it back
down before the ink spread. “What will you be up to this afternoon,
then?”
    “Family,
mostly. My parents and my sister’s lot live over here.”
    “That’ll be
nice for you.”
    He finished his
coffee. “Why, did you want to come?”
    Erm. First, I
blinked far more than was attractive, and then a scowl pulled my
nose up in an aching wrinkle. Joseph shook with laugher.
    “Thank fuck for
that,” he said.
    “Mom, Dad…this
is Leila, my whore,” I said drily. “She’s not a bad lawyer either
but mostly, I like her girl parts.”
    “I don’t know
what’s worse.” He sighed. “That I’d actually say it, or that they
wouldn’t be surprised.”
    * * * *
    Our seduction
of Redfish complete, we entered what Joseph called the Peacock
Phase. Now that our feathers were spread and shining, our
territories mapped and our competitors reduced to hissing from
afar, we stopped beating around the proverbial bush. We got raw. We
got bloody. We were hashing out contracts, and that meant going to
war.
    I didn’t expect
an easy ride purely due to personal connection, but neither did I
foresee such scrutiny. With no friendly greeting or warning of
wounds, Elise and her colleagues launched straight into their
queries, and it was all I could do not to duck.
    “This point,”
she said curtly, holding up page fourteen, “we’re not happy
with–”
    “It’s British
tax law. Are you well versed?” Joseph cut in. “And then, of course,
you won’t need us at all.”
    “Much cheaper,”
said Yves.
    Elise put a
nail-bitten hand up to stifle a laugh. It seemed she enjoyed being
a madam. “Not that part, Mr Merchant. Regarding billable
hours for the negotiations when we will, in effect, be producing
much of the text ourselves–”
    “I think what
Elise is trying to say,” Deacon said as he removed the pen from his
mouth, “is that compared to our other quote, this sounds
particularly steep.”
    Joseph nodded.
“When you consider that other houses are quoting you based on
theory, though–when they have never performed an acquisition for a
pharmaceutical outfit, where the regulations are crucial–you never
know what might take them longer. Much longer. They can’t give you
specifics for their billable hours.” He gave a passive little
shrug. “We can do that. We have.”
    “It
seems…excessive.” Elise pursed her lips.
    “Again, we can
only go as fast as local regulations allow. Things will be slower
in Britain than over here, but not massively. We can smooth the
way.”
    Poppy and Sadie
sat together again. How well did they know each other, exactly?