Take a Chance on Me (22 page)

But when she turned round she saw why Mac had stopped joking around. He was looking into the distance, stony-faced. Following his gaze across to the entrance of the huge chamber, she saw a thin, designer-suited executive-type in heated discussion with Bill Galloway. And it wasn't Simon.

‘Tremain,' growled Mac. ‘What's he doing here?'

Peter was just ending his spiel, and waved his arm to begin the filtration process. As the cylinders whined up to maximum volume, a high-pitched whirring sound filled the huge plant with noise and vibration. As he stepped down from the gantry, Mac was waiting for him. He shouted something into Peter's ear. They both looked over to the new arrival, Mac shaking his head and saying something that
didn't
look like ‘
good speech mate
'. Then both men stomped off towards the entrance, where the new arrival was waving away a white coat from a lab technician and standing in a proprietorial pose, arms folded, braced for Mac's onslaught. Sadie couldn't see much of Mac's adversary, but she could tell by his walk that this meant trouble. But before Sadie could react, Alexis was at her elbow.

‘I'll go,' she said to Sadie. ‘You stay here and follow the tour – it's more important that you don't miss the science, right? I'll take care of Mac.' And she set off hot on their heels, leaving Sadie with the plant manager, Kaha'i, shrugging his shoulders then holding out his arm to say ‘shall we continue' on the final part of the tour, including a reluctant Sadie whose arm he took while he continued the running commentary.

Sadie could only look over to the commotion, longing to know what was going on. She saw more arms being waved, knew there was something heavy going down, but had no choice but to stay with the rest of her group, all of whom had noticed the furore in the corner.

If Alexis hadn't already trotted along so keenly, Sadie might have been tempted to go over there. But she had to keep things in perspective. Mac was a womaniser and a playboy billionaire and she was a cog in a wheel. That's all. A bloody irritated, frustrated, curious cog, but a cog nonetheless. She wasn't even high enough up to look after anyone's small print. So better let them get on with it – she'd have to wait for the update from Mac later. So she plastered the smile on her face once again and continued the tour, and another hour of watching boxes whizzing round in a cling-film machine, hearing about hermetically sealed purification technology rooms, and listening to more water jokes from their guide in sixty minutes than she'd heard in a lifetime.

Slumping in the back seat on the coach again, she thought of home, wondering how her girls were getting on. She'd called from her room this morning, around their suppertime. Abi had been fine, busy with her work as ever, but Georgia had used four minutes fifty seconds of her five-minute allocation to moan about Nana. First for cooking food the ‘wrong' way and mixing up chopping boards. Then ‘dumping' her and Abi with a neighbour while Nana went to dinner ‘with some stupid, boring, old grey guy'. The final whinge was that Nana had been refusing to help her revise for a ‘really, really, like super-important test' the next day.
‘And then, Nana told me that she thinks German is a stupid language and I'll never need it anyway.'

After saying goodbye, a powerful pang of missing home had hit Sadie hard. Guilt crept insidiously under her skin, creating a ‘
bad-mother
'
cloud hanging somewhere between her shoulders.

It sat not far from the ‘
jealous ex-lover
'
puddle that had just taken up residence in the pit of her stomach.

And quite near the ‘
broken family
'
millstone, ever-present around her neck.

She shook her head, unscrewing the bottle of Frish she'd been handed on the way out of the plant and drinking it straight down. The coach started up but there was no sign of Mac. No Alexis. And no Peter. What on earth was going on?

Oh God, this had better not be bad news.

This was the biggest, most important deal of her life, and if it didn't work out, she didn't know what she was going to do.

Half an hour later, the diminutive local guide was playing the role of Pied Piper to the MCA group, winding their way along a clean, white corridor. Sadie was totally distracted, lagging behind. They were at the children's home, and there was still no sign of Mac. She wasn't really listening to any of the information the guide was relaying, as she was too concerned about Mac. What
was
that commotion she'd witnessed back at the plant? She hated being out of the loop.

‘So without the steady supply of public contributions we could not have provided the care needed to help so many unfortunate orphans, specially following the 2011 Tsunami,' the guide was saying, as the entourage turned a corner and disappeared from view. Sadie, however, did not follow them, because something had caught her eye through a window – something that had her heart pounding once again.

There, out in the yard in the middle of a makeshift soccer pitch, with beaten up metal goalposts and a battered old football, a heated game of soccer was being played. A dozen boys and a few girls of different ages were running rings around a tanned, shirtless older guy who kept falling to the floor when tackled, laughing and rolling about in the dirt.

Mac!

Sadie ran outside into the heat. Mac kept playing. She kept watching. Finally he patted the winning team members on the head, and handed out candy to everyone from his rucksack. And, Sadie noticed, a few coins on the quiet.

He saw her, smiled briefly, then got sucked back into a maelstrom of arms and legs. The raggle-taggle children were jumping on his back, tugging on his arms and pulling on his belt. He must have been playing for some time, given the state of his surf shorts, red face and sweating torso. It was late morning, the sun was beating down, and still the ‘man who hated children' continued to jostle with the kids from Maui Waikoloa Children's Home in a way that took Sadie by surprise.

There was clearly more to Mac than meets the eye. Now it was her turn to be wrong-footed about him. There she was, labelling him as a cold, self-centred, womanising, businessman – a playboy billionaire – and here he was looking every inch like someone's favourite uncle. A hot one at that. She wished he hadn't taken his shirt off. But the lads had no shirts on, so he'd just joined in. One of them.

Every time he tried to get away, a gang of them gripped his clothes and pulled him to the floor.

‘Did you win?' Sadie called, above the hubbub.

‘Actually, I …' but he was whisked away before he could finish that sentence.

Finally he threw a handful of sweets into the yard, escaped, and came over to join her.

‘Sorry about that. To answer you, no,' he said. ‘I never win. Works better that way.'

Sadie found herself lost for words. So many questions, but where to begin. There was a pause.

‘I just—'

‘So, did you—?'

They both spoke at once.

‘Sorry, you first,' said Mac, as he bid the kids a fond farewell and walked back inside the building, dusting himself down.

‘Everything okay?'

‘Yes. Did you enjoy the tour?'

‘No, I mean, you know.' Sadie looked at Mac quizzically but he obviously didn't know. Or didn't want to say. ‘I just wondered if you found out why that Tremain guy was at the plant?'

Mac chewed his lip briefly, looking around him. A couple of people walked by.

‘Sadie, don't take this the wrong way but I'd rather not discuss it right now. Is that okay?'

‘Oh. Sure. Probably spoke about it already with Alexis, huh.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Nothing.' There was a silence. ‘Nice to see you out there enjoying yourself with the children.'

They walked a few paces as Mac shook his dusty shirt then put it back on and picked up his jacket from reception. There was a definite air of tension returning to his shoulders, and he forced a deep breath and then smiled.

‘Two of them remembered me. Still here though, poor kids.' He seemed lost in thought for a second.

‘You've been here before?'

‘Yes. I was visiting the home a year ago when I first sampled the water. Bill Galloway was here at a fundraiser. Told me all about his dream of a new plant and worldwide distribution. Took it with a pinch of salt. Thought it tasted good but that was all. Never realised it would take-off so fast.'

‘Ahh, you knew him – and the water. Which is why you were so quick to accept the meeting.'

Mac just nodded, and pulled out a chequebook from his rucksack. He started writing.

‘And why Simon got in touch so quickly with me when I returned? He told me he'd heard on the investment grapevine, but they were already on your radar.'

The receptionist appeared and took the cheque.

‘Just an extra, Laiana. As I said, buy a new football post and fix the sprinkler system, okay?'

‘Thanks, Mr Anderson.' She disappeared again.

‘So you donate too? What brought you to this kids' home then, Mac? I thought you were based in LA?'

‘I'm based wherever I need to be based. Hence the “boat”.'

She grinned and looked downwards, recalling their first encounter.
Ahh, the ‘boat'.

‘
Don't you mean the superyacht?' she said.

Mac paused, then changed the subject, and Sadie was glad, before too many memories came flooding back.

‘Your first time on a tour like this?' he asked.

‘Yes. The kids seem well looked after, don't they? Well fed? Quite happy? Nice that the Galloways support the home so well, isn't it?'

‘Yes, they and many others. Bill's a good man.'

Another silence fell on them both. Sadie biting her tongue to stop herself firing a million questions at him when he clearly wasn't ready to talk.

‘Listen,' he said. ‘I think I'll let you go on ahead with the others. I'll give the rest of this trip a miss. I've got to go tidy up before the meeting this afternoon, but there's something I've got to do first.'

Sadie put on her best pleading face, ensuring he at least told her what it was.

‘There's a surfboard with my name on it waiting for me after my run, down at the beach.'

Sadie made a perplexed face.
Add ‘enigma' to the list of names I can call you,
she thought. She opened her mouth then shut it again.

‘Don't worry, I'm pulling out all the stops to overcome the obstacles being thrown in our way and I
will
get this deal. I can't talk about it now but leave it with me. I'll see you at the meeting, okay?'

‘Okay. Will Alexis be going surfing with you too?'
Dammit – why did that woman still bother Sadie so much? Gut instinct? But the words were already out of her mouth.

‘No. No idea where Alexis is. Did you need something? I can ask her to call you if you—'

‘No, no it's not that, I just—'

‘What?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Sadie, I wouldn't usually say this to a normal business partner, but I suppose you're not … ahh … a normal business partner. If there's anything troubling you, you would let me know?'

Sadie looked into his eyes, a mixture of concern and troubled waters.
So much she needed to say, so little she'd allow herself to admit.
Anyway, now was not the time.

‘Mac, the deal's still got legs, right? Nothing's changed?'

‘Now who's being paranoid? No nothing's changed – not if I have anything to do with it. Only my determination to see this through and do what's right. And I don't just mean this deal. Trust me.'

Sadie searched for a clue as to what the hell was going on, but the receptionist appeared again with a receipt and so did Mac's full-on poker face. A practised player, aloof once more. Just then his face cracked into a wide smile but his gaze wasn't on her – it was looking behind her.

She turned around to see a little brown-faced girl, flushed from playing football, running up to Mac holding the hand of a smaller boy, who was hiding his face behind her arm.

‘Mister Anderson, Mister Anderson!' she squealed. ‘Lee spoke! My brother – he spoke! He tried to call you when you went off with the lady. Lee, say what you said to me. Mister Anderson wants to listen.'

The little lad emerged from behind his sister's arm and looked at the floor.

Mac left Sadie's side and knelt down next to the boy, who could have been only about three or four.

‘What is it, Lee, what did you want me to hear?' Mac said with a softness to his voice that caught Sadie's breath in her throat.

He looked up at his sister ruefully and crinkled his little brow, chewing his cheek and digging the toe of his battered trainers into the floor.

‘What is it, little man?' Mac said more confidentially, and held out his arms. The boy did the same and Mac lifted him up and wandered slightly off to the side. The little girl followed. Sadie looked on in wonderment.

‘Say it, Lee, say it,' she said.

‘You …' the youngster began, looking Mac straight in the eye and taking a piece of grass off Mac's chin. ‘You pick me next time? Please? You pick me?'

Mac swallowed hard. Sadie saw the impact that question had had on his face.

‘I—'

‘He means the team! He wants to be on your team next time,' Sadie said.

‘I be …' said the little boy, ‘… I be big enough. Next time. You come back, right? You pick me?'

Mac let out a breath and laughed. ‘Yes, I pick you next time. When I come back.'

‘When you come back, Missah Anderson pick me! Missah Anderson pick me!' The little lad beamed, showing a gappy smile. Then he held out his hand for his sister, and Mac put him on the floor, gave them the rest of the bag of candy, and said goodbye. They scampered off into the yard again with the candy, and were met by a cheering group of kids. The look on Mac's face said it all.