Free Canada Square (Love in London #3) by Carrie Elks Page A

Daniel says. “The technical specs are important, and my team will need to go into the finer detail, but that's not the game winner here.”
    Callum doesn't flinch. “What is the game winner?”
    Nobody says a word. It's as if we're all watching the climax of a movie. Collective breaths are held.
    “You,” Daniel replies simply. “Whether I can work with you, whether I can trust you. An army is only as good as the general leading it. That's why I flew over to meet you, not to hear all the details, as exciting as they may be. I want to see if you're somebody I can do business with.”
    For some reason my heart's racing in my chest. All those times I've watched boys square up—hitting the shit out of each other in beer-fuelled fist fights—they have nothing on the testosterone fest I'm witnessing here. Two alpha males circling, sizing each other up. Trying to work out if they're enemies or friends. Though it only takes seconds, it feels like full, heavy minutes have passed before Callum smiles and shrugs his shoulders.
    “Everybody can go. Thank you for your time.” Nobody moves. Like me, they all assume he's talking to somebody else.
    “John, Mike?” he prompts. Suddenly they're scrambling to disconnect laptops and gather up folders, sheaves of A4 paper fluttering to the carpeted floor. I bend down and help them, earning a grateful smile from Mike, then I pick up the phone and call catering, asking them to clear away the coffee cups. By the time I'm finished only Callum, Daniel and his two employees are left. I turn off the screens and retrieve my note pad.
    “Can I get you anything else?” I ask Callum.
    He gives a languid, half-curve kind of smile that makes him look sleepy and vital all at the same time. It's the sort of smile that leads into something else, like a partly-filled promise. It waits and it lingers.
    Then he turns to Daniel. “Do you play racquetball?”
    It seems an odd sort of question, yet Daniel doesn't blink. “I do.”
    “Can you call my club and reserve a court, Amy? The number’s in my address book. Oh, and make sure they open the shop, we're going to need some gear.” He glances at Daniel. “You up for a challenge?”
    “If you're up for an ass-kicking.” Daniel grins, then shoots some orders at Brian and Saul. They're both nonplussed, standing in a foreign boardroom, being dismissed while their boss leaves with a man he might possibly award a multi-million pound contract to. It's only now that I realise exactly why an internship is so integral to my degree, because all the lectures and textbooks in the world would never be able to accurately describe this.
    Some deals are the result of blood, sweat and tears. It appears that this could be one of them.
     

8
     
    Though it's light outside, I can see through the huge window in Callum's office that the dark blue of evening is slowly encroaching, stealing away the sharpness of day. There are a few clouds in the sky—the wispy, just-torn from a roll of cotton wool sort—and their edges are tinged with orange and pink. At 6:00p.m. my desk phone rings and I snatch it up, bringing it to my ear as I answer with a breathless hello.
    “Amy, it's Callum. I need a favour.”
    “Of course,” I reply. “What is it?”
    “Have you got time to bring some papers over to the gym? I want to talk them through with Daniel before dinner. I'd come and pick them up but I'm covered with sweat and smelling like a dog. I need a shower.”
    I glance at my watch. The two of them must have been playing for almost an hour and a half, no wonder he sounds exhausted. “Tell me where to find them and I'll bring them over on my way home. I was just leaving anyway.”
    “You're a lifesaver. Thank you.”
    Half an hour later I'm walking into the Trafalgar Club, a private gym about a hundred yards from Embankment tube station. The building echoes to the sound of balls slamming against walls, and the muffled noise of the swimming pool. It's surprisingly