The Paler Shade of Autumn (11 page)

Every now and then Autumn will find an inspirational story like this, told to her with unspoken words. She can glimpse brief moments in someone else’s life that offers her new perspective and reminds her that each and every person, regardless of appearance, has a unique narrative.

Autumn puts her hand on this man’s arm. “It’s wonderful to meet such a hardworking man, Robbie. Your wife and children are blessed to have a man in their life who always has their best interest at heart.”

Robbie stares at Autumn and then beams. “Thank you, Miss Leone.”

She smiles at his genuine face and giggles with happiness. Being in Robbie’s presence is uplifting. He chuckles heartily, resting his hand over her hand.

“Come,” Robbie says, still beaming, looking from one to the other. “Your table is ready and the other gentlemen have already arrived. They’re waiting at the bar.”

Autumn and Jet follow the concierge to a side hall leading off the main foyer. Jet looks at Autumn, his eyes narrowed, as if to say, ‘What was all that about back there?’ Autumn waves her hand dismissively.

They are led through double, glass doors into the restaurant—empty of patrons aside from four men in expensive suits sitting at the bar. Each of the men turn their heads and watch their entrance, but only the eldest gentleman with white hair and full mustachio stands.

“Jethro,” he says effusively, walking toward them.

Jet smiles, thrusts his hand towards the pale, heavy-set man. “Paul,” he says. “How are you?”

“Well tanks. Yourself?” he replies with a thick Irish brogue.

“Very well, thank you. I’d like to introduce my associate, Miss Autumn Leone.”

Paul presents a broad smile and nods. “Aye, tis lovely to meet you, Autumn.”

This man doesn’t expect a handshake, preferring a slight nod of the head. In any social situation, if no handshake is prompted, Autumn certainly never offers any invitation for one.

“Please, come and meet my business partners,” he says, gesturing to the men lining the stools at the bar, who in turn stand.

Paul introduces them both to Conor, Sean and John, each shaking Jet’s hand powerfully and all following Paul’s lead, giving Autumn a polite nod. She can’t believe her luck; four introductions at a business meeting and not one handshake needed.

Until two o’clock they all sit at the bar eating canapés and drinking Guinness, which Autumn has never drunk before, but is unexpectedly enjoying. By the time they move to the large dining table, elegantly set with shiny tableware, sparkling, bulbous glasses and a fresh but masculine flower arrangement in the centre, not one word has been spoken about work or the purchase contract.

Even as they eat their three course lunch, so exquisite with attention to detail and taste and move from Guinness to whiskey, conversation centres only on current world events, politics of Ireland, Gaelic football and its relationship to AFL, boats they own, golfing prowess and holiday destinations. By three-thirty, Autumn is drunk, as is Jet and as is the rest of the table, now creating such a din in the otherwise silent restaurant with their over-exuberant laughter and light-hearted, heated debates.

At four o’clock a cheese board, fruit and petite fours are placed on the table, along with alcoholic dessert cider. For Paul, this seems the appropriate time to get down to business. The room comes to a professional hush and Paul finally raises the topic of the purchase contract, the sole reason they are having lunch despite it taking three hours to get to it. He emphasises, a number of times, that there is interest from another party, not mentioning names, and how Jet should take this opportunity to revise or come to a settlement on his final offer so that they can take it to the board and make a decision.

He butters up Jet, acknowledging his philanthropic efforts and his renowned ethical business practices. Paul, in no few words, emphasises that it is Stark Consulting he and the board wish to have taking over McCaffey Consulting Co, but that they are not going to let it go without a fight or a healthy profit.

Throughout Paul’s sales-pitch, Jet remains stoic. His face, his demeanour gives nothing away, bar a waft of unfaltering confidence.

“What you are asking for the company is beyond what it’s worth. In the last three quarters your profits have fallen by seventeen per cent giving you the lowest profit figures since 2003. I know there are global influences at the moment, which will subside in the years to come, and I know this profit issue will be turned around when I take the company over, but that is the future. I am buying the company now. And as the company exists presently, I am not offering a higher bid than what has already been recorded.”

Paul nods, his brow furrowed. “Aye. Then I shall leave the offer as it stands?”

Jet takes Autumn’s hand under the table and stands, lifting her gently with him. “I will confer with my associate for a short moment in private if you don’t mind.”

Paul makes a sweeping motion with his hand towards the doors of the restaurant. “Please take your time. I want you to get this right.” He turns to the waiter standing against the back wall. “Another round of ciders, tanks.”

Although Jet releases Autumn’s hand as soon as she is standing, it is enough to receive some vague, but unexpected insights. Usually when Autumn has been drinking the mental pictures she receives from others are not clear, as though her drunken state somehow convolutes and swirls the energies and she can only observe a jumbled mass of noise and colour, unless she really concentrates. But with Jet, it is still strong. She could feel his distrust, his suspicion. He feels that Paul is hiding a very pertinent fact. Somehow Tanya, Autumn’s boss, is also connected to all this suspicion but she can’t decipher how. Autumn is intrigued and concurrently anxious.

Jet leads Autumn through the doors, down the hall and scans the large foyer for Robbie. When he catches Robbie’s eye he beckons him over with a subtle flick of his head.

“Robbie,” Jet says as soon as he is in ear shot. “We need a private conference room. It only needs to be small.”

Robbie nods. “Follow me.”

He leads them to a room on the opposite side of the foyer. It is a large room with a fridge and coffee service and with a gigantic board table in the centre of the room, surrounded by tall leather chairs.

“Will this be adequate?” asks Robbie.

Jet nods. “Fine.”

Robbie ushers them both into the room and shuts the door quietly behind him on his way out. Jet takes a seat at the head of the oval table and Autumn nervously sits in the chair beside him.

“What’s going on, Jet? I, you, you think they’re hiding something?”

Jet raises one eye brow and stares at her for a long moment. “Yes.” He runs his fingers tensely through his dark brown hair. “I don’t trust Paul. I don’t know why—a sixth sense. I think if I put that offer in it is going to bite me in the arse.”

Autumn nods. “Tell me what Tanya has to do with all this?”

“Tanya?” he questions. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

“Isn’t that the purpose of you holding my hand back there?”

Jet narrows his eyes and nods, but lets the subject drop.

“Jet, as you well know, I have a good way of getting information covertly out of people.”

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“Let me go back in there, alone. I’ll, um,
talk
with them for a while and see what I can find out.” By talk she means touch a few of them. She only hopes that her alcohol-muddled mind won’t distort things too much. “I’ll tell them you’re on the phone and I’ll text you when to come back in and what I think about the situation.”

“It sounds like a fucking episode of, I don’t know,
Medium
.”

Despite his curt voice, from her lack of sobriety, Autumn laughs aloud. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve had so much to drink today and really, I’m not used to it. I’m surprised I’m still standing actually. Surely you can forgive the odd manic laugh?”

He grins. “It’s nice to be reminded that business, and life, doesn’t have to be so serious.”

She places her hand gently on top of his and looks him in the eyes. Eyes she has forgotten were such a beautiful shade of brown, belonging to a face she has tried to ignore is so utterly handsome. She feels his energies stir and shift. Only vaguely present, sitting in the background of his thoughts, are his suspicions and concerns about this deal, more dominantly he is remembering their time together those years ago. If she is going to maintain some level of professionalism at this moment she has to let go. Autumn lifts her hand and says with earnest, “Trust me, Jet. I’ll get the information you need.”

Jet looks at the door and then back to Autumn. “You’ve got five minutes to work your magic.”

She plugs his mobile number into her phone and leaves to face the four Irishmen back in the restaurant.

Autumn breaths in deeply as she walks back through the noisy foyer, down the hall to the restaurant.
How am I possibly going to do this?

By the time she pushes through the double glass doors, she has a plan and is a bundle of nerves.

All the men lift their heads as she walks back into the room. Their eyes are questioning the whereabouts of Jet.

Autumn shoots them her widest, most sincere smile. When she reaches the table she moves around to Paul’s side. “Jethro’s on the phone with another of our associates at the moment and will be back in as soon as he can.”

Paul nods and the other men mumble their understanding.

“I, unfortunately, have let time get away from me today. I have another engagement I need to get to, so I am going to have to leave you gentlemen now. I do apologise.”

She thrusts her hand out towards Paul, not giving him the option of denying her a handshake this time. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Paul,” she says as he takes her hand and shakes it limply.

“Aye, as with you, Autumn.”

Concentrating and aligning the swirl of images Paul effuses in the brief moments they touch, she moves from one man to the next, shaking their hands, giving her apologies for leaving. By the time she shakes the last hand, she has received some significant information. In her current state of insobriety it is difficult to make sense of each man’s images alone, but having all four of them hand over the same information in four different ways, she has been able, albeit with a little of her own intuiting, to pull it all together.

She glances at her watch. “Jet shouldn’t be longer than a couple of minutes. I’ll catch him on my way out and tell him to hurry. Once again it was a pleasure to meet you all and thank you for a fine afternoon.”

Autumn strides out of the restaurant, the men none the wiser that she has pilfered their secrets—one secret in particular that Jet will find very useful indeed. She hurriedly texts him:
Stay where you r. I’m on my way. A

Jet stands when Autumn pushes through the door of the conference room.

“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and eager.

“I know what’s going on.”

One eyebrow raises a fraction. “Tell me.”

“Hansen and Hansen withdrew their bid this morning and Paul and the rest of the board were hoping to hide this little fact from you in an effort to get a higher sale price.”

Jet sinks back down into his chair and breaths out loudly. “Fucking underhanded—” He doesn’t finish his line of profanities, for her benefit she assumes, regardless that her sentiments would have been the same. “Anything else?” he says after a long moment of silence.

She sits down in the chair next to him. “Tanya’s husband works at Hansen and Hansen and has been giving them details about your bid.”

Again Jet angrily huffs, his chest rising and falling. “I knew her husband worked there, I knew she was compromising the deal somehow. That’s why I sent her to South Africa. So Paul knew about Tanya?”

Autumn nods. “He knew about it and he was playing it to his own advantage as best he could. But with Tanya out of the loop, Hansen and Hansen had no choice but to pull out, without the inside information it was too risky a deal.”

“Are you certain about all this?” he asks.

She nods emphatically. “Dead sure.”

He stands, breathing deeply, trying to shake off the anger. “Stay here for me, please. I want to talk to you after I’ve dealt with McCaffey.”

She nods, giving a tense smile. “Sure.”

He opens the door and storms out, not even bothering to close it behind him.

Autumn stands to close the door, her stomach clenching, but glad she doesn’t have to go back in there with him.

Jet returns from his meeting with the McCaffey board, pushing quietly through the door. Autumn raises her eyes to him and offers a tense, questioning smile.

“What’re you reading?” he asks, unexpectedly jovial, nodding towards her iPhone.

Autumn can feel her cheeks blush. “Um,
Anne of Green Gables
.”

He smiles. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s never too late to be reminded of imagination and opportunity.”

He sits down and nods. “This’s true.”

She clicks her phone off and shoves it in her bag. “How did it go in there?”

He smiles. “Very well. Thanks to you.”

Autumn can feel the tangible relief wash over her. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

“I didn’t tell them what I knew. I simply put in my offer, a lower offer that is—five point four mil—and told them to take it or leave it.”

“And, I’m guessing they took it?”

This time he laughs. “They accepted it on the spot.” He shakes his head, his lips lengthening into a serious, straighter line. “They know it’s a fair price. If they had any sense of morality at all, they had to accept it. It’s funny how when you know the truth, things wrap up quickly.” He reaches for her bottle of water. “May I?”

She nods and watches as he unscrews the cap and skols nearly all the remainder of the contents of the bottle, no regard at all to the fact that her mouth has already been on the bottle or that it they may be again.

Jet looks at his watch, a Rolex no less, and then to Autumn. “Join me for dinner?”

Autumn glances at her own watch, a Seiko, which seems to pale in comparison. Seven o’clock. “Oh my goodness. I didn’t realise it was this late.”