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beyond-middle-age spread hidden beneath a paisley waistcoat in that I’m-not-overweight-I-just-wear-a-lot-of-layers kind of way. That and his thick but combed-over hair. Lawrence is a director on a few of the same boards as Gregory and a non-executive director on many of the others. Usually, that would mean he offers guidance to the Board as to how to run the company but doesn’t have a right to vote on big decisions the way an executive director can. Unlike Williams, Lawrence is the sole shareholder of another company, Connektions Limited. I wonder whether Gregory knows this about one of his closest confidantes but as I delve into the ownership of Sea People International, Inc., the company Eclectic Technologies is taking over, I realise that Gregory must know. Sea People International, Inc. just happens to be majority owned by Connektions Limited, meaning in effect it is majority owned by Lawrence.
    As usual, the intricate links between the companies seem more comprehendible when I sketch them in a diagram. I was once described as a visual learner in a Who Are You? seminar at university. The concept kind of stuck. As I draw the tangled web of companies, directors and shareholders, the attachments become easier to follow but there’s one question playing on my mind
    Why wouldn’t they have mentioned that Eclectic Technologies is buying a company that Lawrence partly owns?
    I think about picking up the phone and asking the question, but Gregory is a busy man and from what I’ve seen, I imagine he’s very much in control of what happens beneath him, under him, in his companies. My thighs reflexively squeeze together beneath the desk. Shaking my hormone-muddled head, I realise I’m probably beginning to overthink Gregory himself, rather than the deal. I note the minority owner of Sea People International Inc. as a Mr. Pearson then resolve to ask my questions at our meeting and continue sifting through my information about the companies, only occasionally having to blank out inappropriate and lascivious thoughts about Mr. Ryans.

Chapter Five
    It doesn’t take much for Amanda to persuade me that a Friday cocktail or two might not be a terrible idea. It’s been a rough week and I’ll rush straight home to Dad afterward. The bar is heaving with suits. Each group has spread itself out in a circle around a stack of handbags, briefcases and laptop carriers. Laughter and rowdy taunts are almost as loud as the music playing in the background. It’s clear as I watch people stagger and gesture flamboyantly, that some groups have been out for a boozy office lunch, which has tumbled through into the evening. The leather booths are full and the bar queue is three people deep. There’s no way you could be alone with your thoughts in here and that’s fine by me.
    “What are you having, ladies?” a man asks from the second row of people fighting their way into the bar, the question almost certainly directed at Amanda.
    “Oh, no, thank you, I’ll get my own,” I say.
    It makes no real difference. The “gentleman” is fixated on Amanda, who already has him wrapped around her finger like her auburn hair as she twists it, flashing her most flirtatious smile, her green silk blouse making her skin dazzle.
    “We’ll take two Cosmopolitans.” Her wish is granted.
    We wait by a pillar close enough for me to watch the bartender make my cocktail and to witness it being carried to me un-tampered.
    “Would you relax? We’ll talk to him for five then he’ll find a pretty blonde and leave us to enjoy our drinks,” Amanda says in her usual carefree way.
    He doesn’t leave us in five minutes. They never do. Amanda has a way of completely mesmerising men. In a bid to be polite, I talk to his friend, whose name is drowned out by the guitars of Oasis’s “Roll with It.”Feigning interest in his alleged mansion, complete with a ping-pong machine and full Sky package, is a struggle. When I ask his name for the third time after ten