Ellie's Return (8 page)

In any case, she could not say that she
was in love Tom, who would ever believe such a thing? He looked the part
alright, he was tall and lean and had a certain kind of pale and haunted charm
about him right now, the ghostly pallor of his more vigorous recent past, but
really, if Lola was going to fall in love with anyone it would not be someone
who was so easily taken in as Tom had been. Tom and Ellie were supposed to be
so deeply in love that even Lola had taken a while to eventually seduce him,
but once she had managed it the whole thing had been so easy that she wondered
how it had taken her so long to work out the right way in the first place.

Three years ago Lola had discovered Tom’s
gift for making money and realised just how much his property business was
worth, she had decided that she would make him an asset of her own. She asked
him to help her with buying a couple of properties that she could do up and
sell on, just small things at first. That way she got to spend more time alone
with him, positively encouraged by Ellie. She got to find out all sorts of
tricks of the trade that Tom had learnt from the dozen years he had spent in
business for himself as well as the forty odd years of experience from his
father. Tom had been adamant about setting up his own business and going it
alone when he started out, rather than working for the family business. He was
quite determined like that, and it was a shame otherwise Lola could have had
that business off him too and far more easily, without having to marry him to
get it. She had realised after spending some time with Tom that batting her
eyelids, telling him how clever he was and brushing herself up against him were
not going to work with him the way they did with ninety per cent of men she had
to deal with, and that if her charms were ever going to work it was going to
have to mean her being a bit more of a confidante to him, which in turn would
mean having to move Ellie on, out of the picture.

Lola had started off saying that she
wanted to develop and manage properties, and Tom had said that he was happy to
help get her started but that she already had a lot going on with her three
shops and he knew she was looking to diversify all the time.
 
Diversifying was good from an investment
point of view but she was looking at having two different types of business,
and both were full time so she would need to decide which business she wanted
more, or would need to employ somebody full time to manage one of the business’s
for her. The alternative was to invest in properties without managing them,
which meant letting somebody else do all the work. A combination of those
things sounded attractive to Lola, and she suggested that Tom work for her. Tom
had laughed at the idea, since his property business was already worth several
million pounds in assets and it provided a substantial income, which he could
keep reinvesting.
 
He had already
invested in various other business start ups, so managing a small new property
business where the assets would not even cover his current wages, was not on
his radar at all. Lola laughed along as he explained why that was not a good
idea for him, but she had already decided that it was going to happen and she
set about ensuring that it would.

At first she asked Tom to take over
managing the lease on her shop properties, to ensure that they had a shared
mutual interest, that way she could make sure that they were properly looked
after, and he would make her a priority as Ellie’s best friend, but she could
have access to him at all times for that reason. Tom had advised her that he
would extend the leases on very favourable terms rather than waiting until the
profile of the arcade went up any more and she forced to pay too much to renew.
That was a very good start for Lola, as she was sure that it was her presence
in the arcade which was doing wonders for its profile anyway, and it would be
useful for her to get that sorted as she wanted to spend tens of thousands of
pounds on getting the shops upgraded to represent the theme which would provide
the template for a nationwide chain, of which the arcade store would be the
flagship. She set to work on that straight away and was able to consult Tom on
short notice as often as necessary.

She was angry with Tom for the way he had
scoffed at her for about the suggestion of working for her. Tom had never
entertained the idea of going to university because he was never intending to
be involved in anything but property and he learnt what he needed as he went. He
knew more about his proposed business before he left school than most people
knew after several years of education and he was set on going it alone. He had
saved his own deposit for his own first property when he was old enough to do
so and had worked night and day to get it turned around and sold for enough
profit to buy another, and he had kept on that way until he was able to accumulate
properties for rent as well as selling them. He had a diverse portfolio; there
were a few high profile properties, but there were some he could do without,
bought just before the market collapsed and which he had bought against his
better judgement. These represented only a handful but they had lost money
already, and there were others that were always going to cost as much to maintain
as they earned with existing tenants. The low end of the property was not
awful, balanced as it was with the good end which far outstripped it, but the
good end was so good that the rest of the property looked fairly poor in
comparison, and Tom’s insistence on looking after his tenants rather than
dealing with disasters at an unpredictable time later on meant that he was
limited with what he could do with some of the older properties. Lola was
impressed by the portfolio that Tom had built up and the more she learnt about
it, the more she was convinced that she could get her hands on it.
 
Ellie was going to be a problem, as she
was besotted with Tom and seemed to be less interested than she ought to be
about his net worth, which seemed very strange to Lola, as she couldn’t see any
other point to him. On the plus side Ellie was also devoted to her and knew
that she had no interest in Tom sexually so she could take advantage of that to
get Ellie out of the picture and take control of Tom.

Tom had seemed quite independent at the
time, full of fire and vigour and almost unstoppable, but Lola had managed to
dampen that arrogance by pretending to be in need, and Tom was so grateful to
her for her consolation after Ellie’s departure that he was willing to do
anything for her, as though he had lost the most important thing in the world
and was grabbing onto whatever might be left. Since Lola had become a joint
director in the business she had managed to influence the direction of the
business somewhat. Tom still had more of the technical knowledge and she still
listened to his advice but she ensured that she seemed to be taking it with a
pinch of salt, it was better to undermine him and make him feel as though he
was of no value, and once he saw the business going in Lola’s direction he
would be glad to have any stake in it at all. It was important to leave Tom
some kind of status because she needed him to stick around and to at least hope
that he would be able to win his business back for himself. The short term plan
was to marry him and get him to persuade his father to hand the assets of his
own business over to Tom as a lifetime gift to avoid the inheritance tax. Tom
had not encouraged this idea so far but she would work on that, and when it was
his she was would work on wresting it all for
herself
as part of a divorce settlement. After that she did not much care what happened
to Tom, but he had lost his fire since she had been with him so he could go
hang. The schemes she had been instigating and perfecting had so far accumulated
her enough start up capital to get her shops going and the money she got from
Tom’s and his fathers business would make her as unstoppable as he had once
seemed. Poor silly Tom, imagine taking all that time to build something and
then losing it by being soppy over a woman. Men were so easy to manage. She may
even have done him a favour, even if he had to learn it the hard way.

There was a knock at the door; it was Charlotte,
the elegant shop assistant. She was telling Lola that the blonde lady was here
again from yesterday. Lola’s musings were interrupted but she did not look
around, she simply told the assistant to say she was not there. The footsteps receded
but then came back and there was a knock again. Lola spun around in her chair
to eject Charlotte, but standing in her place, smiling and as radiant as ever,
was Ellie.

Lola froze for a moment, unable to respond
to the situation. She had been reaching a mental block in knowing how to deal
with her friend, and every time she worked through what she do in this
situation she found herself unable to think further and turning instead to
other matters. That was the breaking of a cardinal rule for Lola who had a plan
for everything, who rarely left any predictable situation unplanned for, but
she had let herself down here and would have to wing it. She smiled and stood
up and crossed the office to give her a hug. She told her how wonderful it was
to see her and asked why she had not announced she was coming. Ellie was thrown
momentarily and decided to say that she wanted it to be a surprise. Lola told
her that was such a shame, she was in the middle of so many things, she was
overseeing the renovation of one of the shops, costing her thousands, and she
was just back from a buying trip and going on another next week, but in the
meantime she had got roped into organising a charity event for tonight which
she was going to be busy with all day.

Ellie looked so happy to see her, that
Lola was convinced she could know nothing. She asked Ellie where she had stayed
last night. Ellie did not seem surprised that she knew she had been in town
last night, and said she had stayed with her mother in London and just come
down now on the off-chance. Could Lola really not spare half an hour for coffee
in case they did not see each other again? Now that she was standing in front
of Lola, her old friend whom she had adored for so long she did not want to
have a confrontation with her, maybe she had no right to be angry at her for
loving Tom, since she of all people ought to understand that. Part of her
wanted to say she knew and she understood, and part of her wanted to see what
she had to say about it. Another part still wanted to bolt, and never come
back. She felt so nervous that her legs were shaking, and she was trying very
hard not to talk too much or say anything to give herself away, her best friend
always knew when nerves had got the best of her.

Lola had made her excuses within the first
minute, she would have to get rid of her and think more carefully about how to
resolve the issue, or she could think on her feet now and find out what she
knew already, maybe throw her off the scent altogether. She agreed that of
course she could spare time for a coffee, but she was angry at not being given
more notice. Ellie smiled and said it was such a lovely surprise to give her,
and she picked up one of Lola’s business cards from a small container of them
on a table in front of her. She beamed about how exciting it was to see her
business growing and how impressed she was by her entrepreneurial friend.
 
The contact details on the card were the
same ones Ellie had been trying to reach her on. She did mention that, but Lola
told her she was getting some new card s printed and she would have to give her
the new contact details. Ellie agreed and asked for them straight away in case
they forgot, but Lola said she would give them as soon as they had sat down for
coffee, and she guided her out of the office, telling the elegant assistant,
Charlotte, that she would be back soon, and behind Ellie's back giving her the
sign to call her in ten minutes.

Twelve

Ellie had decided to confront Lola because
she did not know what else to do.
 
She had been in two minds about turning up at Claudia’s place at all the
night before, and although she certainly intended to see her this visit, had
only gone to find out what she could about Lola’s whereabouts before realising
she was just too tired to carry on.

It was wrong to have allowed that to
happen with Claudia, much worse still to have encouraged it just so that she
could block out what was happening to herself. Claudia was what you might call
bookish, and homely, and introverted, while Lola was attention loving and
pragmatic; they had very little in common other than Ellie who was a little like
each of them and could be equally happy in the company of either. Ellie had
known Claudia for as long as she had known Lola, and though the three of them
had often been a group in the past, she was really the only thing they had ever
had in common. Ellie would have expected Lola to overwhelm Claudia; she was
bigger than her in many respects. Physically, Lola was not large but statuesque,
whereas Claudia was very slight. She deliberately dressed down, and though
Ellie had seen her look truly stunning, that was on maybe half a dozen
occasions since she had known her. She tended to wear gypsy skirts and boots,
or loose dark trousers. She always wore layers of tops and cardigans, and the
colder times of year simply reinforced the reasons to add more layers and
accessories until she seemed to half the volume of the clothing that encumbered
her. In the flesh she was surprisingly shapely, and Ellie had been amazed when
she first saw her naked how curved she was, how surprisingly large but firm her
breasts were, since she had expected she would shaped like a boy; her back was
arched beautifully into the tiniest waist. She was stronger than expected too,
her limited body fat doing nothing to hide the flexing of her taut abdominal
muscles. Her colouring was pale, as was her whole body offset in beautifully Celtic
fashion by raven hair and bright blue eyes, not unlike Ellie’s own. Ellie had
never realised how beautiful her eyes might be until she had seen Claudia’s
staring into her own. She had known that Claudia had a thing for her when they
first met but she had not hidden the fact that it would be unreciprocated
anymore than she had out rightly stated it. Claudia had simply been a part of
her life from the start of her university career, and Ellie could barely
remember how that came to be, but she had started to realise after a time that
whenever Claudia seemed to be at her happiest was when ever they were alone
together, and when she tried to explain or understand the difference in her
behaviour she was unable to put it into words, she was only able to articulate
to herself that she seemed to be on a higher plain for those times.