Guilty Pleasures (7 page)

Julia met her daughter’s eyes. ‘Darling, please.’

Cassandra was tempted to say no. She was sick of Tom’s feckless ways, drifting from one half-baked ‘career’ to another and she was annoyed that her mother expected her to pick up the pieces. It wasn’t as if she didn’t help out the family as it was. She introduced Julia to wealthy art patrons on London’s society circuit and constantly promoted artists exhibiting in Julia’s gallery, billing them as the next big thing in the pages of
Rive.
But there was always something else.

‘OK, Mother, I’ll see what I can do,’ she said finally. ‘But this is absolutely the last time: I mean it.’

Julia patted Cassandra’s hand. ‘Thank you, darling. He won’t let you down.’

‘Oh, I am absolutely sure he will,’ said Cassandra. ‘Now let’s eat. I don’t want to be late for my flight.’

Roger Milford never liked Monday mornings, but today he had woken up in a particularly anxious mood. From the bedroom window of the Old Rectory he could just see the iron entrance gates to Winterfold and it made his stomach ache. Roger was by nature a decisive, ‘to hell with the consequences’ kind of man, but for once, he was at a loss for what to do. On the one hand he had no intention of going into Milford this morning; the last thing he
wanted to see was that smug bluestocking niece of his sitting behind Saul’s old desk.
My desk,
he corrected himself. On the other hand, much as it pained him to do so, he had to put on a good show for Emma, to impress her, to convince her that with himself installed as CEO her majority shareholding was in good hands.

Rebecca was sitting propped up in the four-poster bed, her mane of pale blonde hair falling perfectly over her shoulders. A tea tray was perched delicately to her side containing a china teapot, smoked salmon and egg-white scrambled eggs which Latvina, their Polish housekeeper, had prepared.

‘I don’t know why I can’t come to the meeting,’ she said, her lower lip pouting. ‘I am a member of this family.’

‘It’s for shareholders and directors, honeypot,’ said Roger, going over and stroking her cheek. ‘I wish you could be there too, but my hands are tied.’

‘What is the meeting actually for anyway?’ asked Rebecca. ‘She’s told you she doesn’t want to be CEO, hasn’t she? So is this meeting to rubber-stamp your appointment?’

‘It better bloody had be,’ growled Roger.

His wife looked at him sharply, recognizing the note of doubt in his voice. The disappointment of not getting Saul’s shareholding had been crushing, but at least it had gone to Emma – having such a good job in Boston, she surely wouldn’t want to leave it for some muddy backwater? But it could so easily have been Cassandra and that… well, that would have been a disaster for Roger. She looked at him again, and squeezed the balls of her fists together. Roger
had
to be CEO. As comfortable as their present home was, it wasn’t anything very special. She didn’t want to live in the Old Rectory for the rest of her life like some vicar’s wife holding dinner parties and making jam. They had to live in Winterfold. He had promised it to her ever since he had proposed at the Hotel du Cap eight years earlier. She thought back to their wedding day in the tiny church in Chilcot. Half the pews had been stuffed with her friends from the rich, fast social set she had fallen into when she had moved to London to model. The other half were her family from the villages surrounding Chilcot; uncles in cheap suits, cousins in hats from the charity shops. At the time, she hadn’t been embarrassed because she had seen the ceremony as a farewell to her past as she moved to her rightful position in the upper classes. Back then, driving up the gravel drive to Winterfold where Saul had
allowed them to have their reception, Rebecca had felt a quiet sense of satisfaction. Despite the twenty-year age difference she had been happy with Roger. He was a dynamic and incredibly attractive man and one day Milford would be his. But that was then and eight years was a long time. Life with Roger was going nowhere fast and it made her almost physically sick.

‘Honey,’ she asked, ‘when do you think we can move in?’

Roger squeezed her fingers and gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster. He wished he could give this beautiful woman everything she wanted. From the second he had met her in Annabel’s nightclub in Mayfair, he had wanted nothing else. Sure, he had known what she was – a two-bit model who had never had the breaks to make it into the big league, a beautiful hustler charming her way around the elite nightclubs of London – but he had pulled her up to his level and turned her into the creature in front of him; poised, elegant and respectable. She looked like the Lady of the Manor. He glanced out of the window towards the gates of Winterfold.

‘Soon, my darling. As soon as we get it all sorted we’ll be moving straight into Winterfold.’

I’ll make sure of it,
she thought biting her lip so hard she drew blood.

The Milford offices were in Byron House, a converted Regency villa a mile outside of Chilcot village. It was a striking building on its own with tall, thin windows and fluted columns either side of the entrance but Byron was all the more remarkable for the adjoining factory building. Built from glass and concrete in the early 1930s in the then-futuristic Art Deco style, it should have been an architectural disaster, but somehow the juxtaposition worked, each styles complementing the other. The same principle of mixing the old with the new was visible in the company’s boardroom, situated on the top floor of the old house. It was a truly magnificent space. Silk wallpaper lined the walls, a huge chandelier hung regally above a long mahogany table with tapered dress-legs and twelve toffee-coloured leather chairs. It was more like the dining room in a palace than a corporate meeting room, but offsetting the grandeur was a modernist steel and glass bar stocked with the finest spirits and champagne and a state-of-the-art audio-visual system set into the far wall, on which Bloomberg, the business channels and ticker-tape information was constantly beamed in from the world’s money
markets. Emma winced as she entered: this was clearly where Saul had spent Milford’s wafer-thin profits. She walked around the room, trailing her fingertips along the table, gazing up at the dancing crystals in the chandelier, thinking of her Uncle Saul, putting off the moment: the moment when she’d have to sit in his chair.

It felt too big, and she felt an impostor sitting there at the head of the table, but she forced herself: the rest of the shareholders would be arriving at any moment and they would expect her to sit there. Emma could feel her nerves getting the better of her. She had tried to look the part of confident businesswoman, but she wasn’t even sure if she could pull that off. Her red dress was an old stand-by for when she had to speak at conferences or in front of company directors. Back then it was like armour; confident and bold, but here at Milford HQ, it felt false and showy. Her hair had been blow-dried and she’d taken extra care with her make-up; not so much that she looked overdone but the tinted moisturizer and glossy lips made her feel ready for the day.
It’s not what you look like, but what you say,
she scolded herself as people began to file in, smiling and murmuring a few words of greeting. Emma’s mother and her Aunt Julia sat to her left halfway down the table. Julia gave Emma an encouraging smile, her mother looked down, playing with her wedding ring. Slowly the room filled: Anthony Collins, Saul’s solicitor, then Ruan McCormack who was Milford’s Head of Merchandising, followed by Abby Ferguson who looked after marketing. There was a hum of pleasant conversation and cordialities. And finally, in came Roger, his gaze lingering on Emma sitting at the head of the table. Emma felt her palms tingle with sweat and she played nervously with the gold bangle on her wrist. Since her first day at Harvard business school it had been Emma’s dream to run a company one day. But as she prepared to address her board of directors, it wasn’t a wave of euphoria she felt, but a rush of nausea.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she began, hoping they wouldn’t hear the tremor in her voice. ‘Thank you all for coming. Can I begin by saying that it was a great honour – although an enormous surprise – when Uncle Saul left me his shareholding. My first response was that the company didn’t belong to me, that I had a life elsewhere, that I didn’t belong here. So I felt that I should offer to sell my 70 per cent stake to the other shareholders.’

Emma could feel the tension and anticipation around the room pressing in towards her. She glanced at Roger who was looking at his hands and nodding cautiously.

‘But I have been thinking about this long and hard. Uncle Saul gave me those shares for a reason and I want to make him proud. We
all
want to make him proud. This company has a wonderful heritage and enormous potential.’

She took a deep breath.

‘That’s why I have decided to keep the shareholding and take the post of Chief Executive.’ Emma paused momentarily, waiting for a reaction. She was greeted by silence. It was as if everyone in the room had stopped breathing.

‘Well, I think there are various formalities and paperwork we’ll need to deal with to authorize it, but…’

She looked at Anthony and the solicitor nodded.

‘But the directors choose the CEO!’ interrupted Julia suddenly. She turned to Roger. ‘Isn’t that right?’

Emma didn’t wait for an answer.

‘As 70 per cent shareholder I effectively control membership of the board,’ she said.

‘What she means, Julia,’ said Roger, ‘is that she can get rid of us in a heartbeat if we don’t go along with what she says.’ His lips were set in a thin line, his gaze stony. ‘Is that not correct, Emma?’

Emma steeled herself. She’d hadn’t expected this to be easy.
You have to be tough, you have to be tough.
She had spoken in front of CEOs of Forbes listed companies before now, but this audience, particularly Roger, who always intimated her even as a child, was making her feel sick. Emma leaned forward and put her hands on the table.

‘I know this may come as a surprise, Roger,’ she began, as levelly as she could. ‘And I know some of you might not even think I should be here. But I think I can bring a lot to Milford. Yes, I don’t know the company as intimately as most people in this room, but perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe we need to start thinking out of the box if Milford is going to recover.’

‘Spare us your management consultancy,’ said Roger tartly.

‘And what do you mean by
recover?’
asked her mother, who had a cold look of disapproval.

Emma sat up in her chair, grateful for the opportunity to show them what she was good at.

‘Since my arrival in England I’ve spent time getting up to speed with the company and where the luxury goods industry is, at large.’ She opened a folder and passed some charts around the table.

‘I’ve prepared these for you to look at. Milford’s market share in the luxury leather goods is now, well, negligible. In the early 1980s we were competing with Gucci. I hardly need to point out that they and many other companies have now eclipsed Milford by a country mile. We have to modernize quickly if we’re to survive but I really believe we can recapture some of our old glory.’

‘Perhaps we haven’t had the best couple of years,’ interrupted Roger, looking around for support. ‘But the new Autumn/Winter line is strong. At our last meeting Saul talked about increasing the marketing budget and we all agreed that that was the way forward.’

Emma noticed that Virginia and Julia were nodding, while Ruan and Abby looked less convinced.

‘Unfortunately I think the problem runs a little deeper than that,’ said Emma. She leant under the table and came up holding a handbag which she placed on the table top.

‘I think I’m right in saying this is the most popular bag from our current line. The “Rebecca”?’

‘That’s right,’ said Ruan.

‘It’s an elegant bag for our existing customer-base,’ said Emma as diplomatically as she could. ‘But that customer-base is ageing. We’re seen as a traditional company.
Too
traditional.’

‘You’re saying that people don’t want our merchandise?’ snapped Roger. His tone was sharp and defensive.

‘Roger, I respect your experience but we have to look at the figures ruthlessly,’ said Emma. ‘Milford’s sales and profits are on a steep downwards turn and yet the high-end accessories market is booming. You can blame marketing if you like, but the buck has to stop at the product.’

Roger barked out a hollow laugh.

‘Since when have you been an expert in accessories design?’ he said. ‘I thought Cassandra was the style guru in our family.’

‘I’m not an expert on fashion, no,’ she said candidly. ‘But I do know about business and I know about the people who can afford super-luxury products. They’re a cash-rich, time-poor demographic. Women who can afford £2,000 handbags have busy lives. They want bags that are beautiful and functional, not stiff and formal. They want bags that make them feel sexy. Lifestyle statements. We need
sleek, discreet luggage that can go from the airport to the boardroom. We need to update our products for the new millennium.’

She moved the Rebecca bag to one side and opened her laptop which was connected to one of the video screens in the wall. She pressed a key and a huge image of a Hermès ‘Birkin’ bag appeared.

‘We sold 55 Rebecca bags last year,’ said Emma. ‘Hermès on the other hand has a waiting list of up to five years for Birkins and Kelly bags.’

‘We’re well aware of the competition,’ said Roger dismissively.

‘And why does everyone want to buy into Hermès?’ she asked, turning her gaze from Roger to Abby. She needed support, she needed confirmation that what she was saying was right.

‘Well, um, they’re beautiful bags. They’re entirely hand-crafted using the highest quality of workmanship,’ said Abby cautiously.

‘And they’re pitched higher than other companies in the sector,’ added Ruan. ‘More expensive, more elite. They manage to be both classic and fashionable at the same time and, well, they just have a magic that everyone wants to buy into.’

Emma smiled and nodded. At least she had managed to get two people to understand what she was saying, even if they were only kowtowing to their new boss.