Free Payback by Graham Lancaster Page B

noon.’ He avoided her eyes, knowing they would be registering major disapproval. She had been at Management International for over twenty years. In her judgement, nothing ‘came up’ that could ever be more important than major clients.
    Feeling thoroughly in the dog house, he went back to his office, closed the door again and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. Taking out the Lamb’s Navy dark rum, he poured two fingers, added a splash of water, and sipped thoughtfully. A delegation of Malaysian tin-bashers may be very important in its own right, but was as nothing when put alongside Sir James Barton’s terrifyingly dangerous game.
    The man had to be stopped.
    *
    Maddie rarely drank, other than taking wine with a meal. She had never been able to handle alcohol very well, and drinking on an empty stomach was ten times worse. Asking Tom out to dinner had seemed like a good idea at the time. Her husband had left suddenly the day before for his plant in Belize, without even noticing that it meant him missing their wedding anniversary. Dinner at the Savoy, followed by a romantic night upstairs, had been something of a tradition for them, and she had hoped that booking the usual suite might have been the key to rekindling their love life. But then she had got the call—from his secretary ... Furious at James for standing her up, she badly needed not to be alone again that night, and to talk with somebody sympathetic. Someone who really knew James, and would understand. That had quickly thrown up just one name. Tom. Tom would listen. Tom would be able to help her come to terms with James’s violent mood swings and his vicious temper.
    She also needed to feel attractive again. To be treated properly.
    ‘ Well, here we are,’ she said self-consciously, sipping the champagne flute. Her mouth left a thick impression of pink lipstick on the rim. ‘Thanks for coming.’
    ‘ Being seen out with the boss’s wife...You’ll ruin my reputation,’ he smiled.
    She laughed. ‘Dinner for two here, at the very public Savoy, is hardly a walk on the wild side, you know. But I need a good old gossip. Consider yourself an honorary “one of the girls” for the evening. Let’s order, shall we?’
    Tom Bates had hesitated before accepting Maddie’s unexpected invitation to dinner, but he had sensed how badly she needed to unburden herself. And so it soon proved, as she became emotional, spilling out her most private feelings and worries to him. About being seen as a dowry American in a loveless marriage; about James, his business ethics and erratic temperament since his disgrace; about her relationship with Lydia—still her father’s favourite; about the girls...The twins had arrived seven years earlier, difficult births which had left her infertile. But he had so badly wanted a son, an heir for the baronetcy. The title passed only down the male line and, after three hundred years, would die with him if he had no male issue. His reaction to the news that she had been carrying twin girls was to show complete lack of interest. He had not been at the births, and stayed barely half an hour on a first visit the next morning. They had only infrequently shared a bed since, James having moved to his old rooms in the west wing. Initially this had been so he could get some sleep, away from the babies. But somehow he had never moved back.
    ‘ And now look at me,’ she pleaded with Tom, eyes filling. ‘Sagging breasts. Stretch marks...and my hair, nails, my skin have never been the same. I’m thirty-two, but feel fifty. I’m thirty-two, and married to a Philistine bully who never loved me.’
    He took her hand to calm her. They had now finished their main courses and, having started on champagne, had almost got through their second bottle of Krug. Her emotional state, made worse by too much alcohol, was swinging wildly between clumsily flirting with him, and sudden, self-pitying anxiety attacks. ‘Maddie. Look at me,’ he said.