For The Love Of Money - Brian Doswell (speed reading book .TXT) 📗

clad hostesses and Lia in turn. Lia loved every minute of this voyage into her chosen world, keen to be a team member, to dance until she could dance no more.
In the morning she awoke with a throbbing headache. Lifting even one eyelid at a time seemed an impossible task. There was something pulling in her hair, something hard, with sharp edges. With a superhuman effort she forced open one eye and recognised a Lloyds security pass. Through the fog she untangled her hair from the clip and was about to throw it on the floor when she realised that the photo on the pass was not of her. Real pain tore at her insides as she recognised the picture of Lawrence. At the same time, she became aware of an unfamiliar noise, a man, Lawrence, snoring gently into the pillow beside her. Her body froze but her mind whirled as she struggled to remember the previous evening. Lifting her head, she looked around the unfamiliar room. The black jacket and skirt of her business suit hung on a chair beside the bed, her blouse and underwear lay on the floor. Naked, hung-over and shivering, the first thought to enter Lia’s mind was:
“Lia, come and meet your future husband.”

§§§§§

That had all been four years ago, and two tentative mentions of marriage by her father had passed without the dreaded introduction of a pre-selected suitor. Lia was beginning to think that the good doctor Arvindra had come to terms with the business lifestyle of his only daughter and his aspirations for her future as a tame, subservient Indian wife were beginning to fade into the background. For her part, the passage of time did nothing to ease the problem of explaining to a prospective husband how she came to be damaged goods.
The four years with Andersons had passed without problems. Lia’s natural financial ability and her outgoing personality had helped her to leap over the initial hurdles of being an Asian female in a predominately white male environment. She had quickly been accepted as one of the Andersons team and steadily built an impressive record for placing investment capital with businesses from all round the local towns. She was also eternally grateful that her father had chosen to live in Slough, close enough to the multi-racial community that clings like limpets around Heathrow and the outskirts of the Capital City. If the family had followed the migrant trail to the Asian ghettos of Leicester and the north of England, she might have found much stronger resistance to her personal career among the more traditional Asian culture where her father would have undoubtedly been obliged to arrange her marriage or be seen as a weak and ineffectual man in the eyes of his peers. In a totally selfish way, she was equally glad that she had no brothers who might have felt their honour so besmirched that it would be necessary to kill her for having lost her virginity in such a shameful fashion.
Naturally her personal bank account was with Andersons and there was rarely any reason for her personal financial records to be sent to her home address, so it was no great surprise that her father had no idea of her slowly accumulating bank balance. As she grew in seniority in her department, so her commission payments grew. In a year or two she would apply to move to another branch, probably in America where she would live in one of those memorable buildings that made up the Manhattan skyline and her lost virginity would be of no consequence.
Each morning she would be among the first to arrive in the Andersons open-plan offices on the fourth floor of the Queensmere building. She had a daily routine that rarely varied. Coffee from the machine in the alcove by the lift, check the notice board for social news and then log in to her personal account details before checking her email for messages. The daily total in her account served as a spur for her business of the day. One hundred thousand pounds was her target. One hundred thousand pounds of her own money would give her both courage and security to fly the nest regardless of her father’s wishes.
Lawrence remained the only man to share her bed although she was never short of offers. She considered herself to be an international girl of the world, untrammelled by the cultural or religious ways of any one particular country. And yet, she could never quite overcome the thought that she had, in some way, let her father down. On the several occasions when she had been tempted to share a night of passion with her current escort, these thoughts returned to trouble her and she always went home alone.
Lia’s male and female colleagues at Andersons were generally envious of her success in the office but less enamoured of her social track record. On the surface she was popular but behind her back she was known as the Virgin Ice Queen, the girl who promised more than she delivered. Even with the girls, she would always join in with a hen party but always disappear when the hunky stripping fireman arrived.
Lia became driven by the numbers in her personal account. In her own mind she was already damaged goods, she had no personal problems with using her feminine charms to distract her clients while they signed on the dotted line for loans at terms that they might subsequently regret. Harry Joyce was just such a client. The old man wanted a straightforward business loan to develop his storage units. His secretary had called the branch to enquire about a loan and the call had been passed to Lia. A little research on her part and a call to the architect concerned had confirmed that Harry’s business was sound and the request for a loan could really have been dealt with as an overdraft facility for a year or two.
On the other hand . . . . a little over-exaggeration with regard to the planning requirements and a generous over specification in the build standard and ‘Hey Presto’ the overdraft turns into a substantial business loan with an equally substantial sales commission for Lia.
The meeting had gone well enough. Harry Joyce turned out to be an old duffer who could not even work the computer on his desk. The fool from the architect’s office had been no help but, once he had said his piece and gone, Lia was able to work her routine magic on Harry. Step one, a little flattery. Step two, an accidental touch of hands, preferably fingertips, it always seems more casual, more open to interpretation. Step three, get close enough for the old man to think he might see into her open cleavage. Step four, another less accidental touch of hands, perfumed hand-cream applied in the car before the meeting usually helped. Step five. There was rarely any need for a step five; step five was invariably signing the loan application.
On this occasion step five had not quite worked according to plan. However, Lia had not given up on Harry Joyce. As she drove away from his office she noticed him watching her from his office window with one hand held under his nose, breathing the scent of her hand cream.


THE GRAPE VINE

'There’s a woman sitting among the vines, painting.’ Sue threw the statement at George over breakfast of coffee and croissants served beside their swimming pool. It was early October, too late in the year to swim but the poolside setting under the clear blue skies of the Loire Valley made it her favourite spot, especially when she had guests in the villa.
“Yes, I know, she’s been there every day this week. Apparently she’s English, from somewhere round our neck of the woods.” George replied. “I haven’t met her yet. I suppose I should go down there and say Hello, or Bonjour or something. Trouble is, I come here to get away from England and I don’t expect to find it all around me when I get here.”
“Oh come on George, you know it’s not like that at all. Anyway this place is far enough from civilisation to hide for as long as you like. Leave it to me. I’ll go and find her after breakfast. When are you going back by the way?”
“Probably Monday morning, after I’ve seen Arnaud. He says they’ve picked everything worth having and it’s all safely in the winery. Apparently it’s been a good year so we can expect something over seven thousand bottles of Chenin Blanc to our credit. I’ll ask Arnaud to arrange a swap among our neighbours so we can stock up on some reds, Saumur and Chinon if he can fix it. He also said that as we’re over seven thousand bottles we can have our own label. How do you fancy designing something while you’re here?”
George returned to his laptop. It might well be Saturday morning in Luynes but George checked his email everyday of the week regardless of where he was at the time. Silence fell over the pair, broken only by the occasional clink of coffee cups.
George had chosen the villa on the hillside to the north of Luynes for two reasons. Firstly, it offered all the things that he and Sue had wanted, especially the view down to the river which was spectacular. The second reason was that the place was not far from Le Mans and George fancied himself as a potential driver in the classic Le Mans race. In truth he knew that driving was a pipe dream, but he often toyed with the notion of Wilkinson’s sponsoring a car and himself striding down the pit lane as a privileged member of the inner circle.
The opportunity to buy into the vineyard that nestled in the centre of that view down to the river was an unexpected bonus. In his usual style, George had thrown a party shortly after accepting the keys to the villa and invited René Grossjean, the local notaire, as one of the few French locals that he knew. In conversation together, George had explained that he was an investment banker and the notaire insisted that he meet Arnaud Sande, a local vigneron, who happened to be trying to raise enough cash to renovate his winery. A few days later, over a glass or two of Arnaud’s wine, the three had arranged for George to buy three hectares of vines which would continue to be managed by Arnaud and bottled under the Domaine de Sande label. This would be the tenth year of their collaboration. Arnaud had installed new stainless steel vats in the winery and George had watched the land value increase year by year. Both were happy men and, by dint of a combination of George’s totally hands-off involvement in the workings of the domaine and his bottomless hospitality, the two had become great friends.
Sue had resisted the temptation to furnish the villa as a replica of the Sunningdale house. Instead she had enlisted the help of Elise Sande to scour the local antique markets and recreate what both women agreed was a modernised version of the original Loire demi-chateau style. In the ten years of their joint furnishing programme, their original intentions had changed several times, including virtually starting from scratch when Sue decided to change the complete upstairs to provide en suite bathrooms to all seven bedrooms.
Elise had told Sue of an antique market in Saumur on Sunday morning and she had persuaded Lucy to go with them on a shopping trip.
Lucy readily agreed, not wishing to be left alone with George and still not quite sure why Andrew had failed to arrive on Friday evening as planned. She had read the text message twice, ‘Sorry can’t make