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“Are you sure? Because that’s not how it looked. I know you.”
“He’s just a friend. And he has a few issues he’s working through. And he’s not gay.” But he had let me kiss him. And his soft lips had clung to mine like outstretched fingertips scrabbling for a life belt.
“I’ve bored him with the Selco paperwork, like you told me not to. He works in big business. He may have some ideas.”
“Do you think you have a chance of winning?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. How would you feel if a corporate outfit wanted to take over your family business?”
Nico’s family had farmed oysters since a crazed, starving fool had first prized open a shell and decided the piece of soggy snot floating inside might be edible. They made a pretty penny out of it too, even if it was the most antisocial and foul-smelling job on the planet.
“I’d say stick your corporate takeover up your arsehole and don’t bother coming back.” He puffed on his fag. “And if all members of the family weren’t in agreement, I’d tell them they could go fuck themselves too. I can’t believe Jerome’s father thinks any differently, to be honest. He needs reminding what matters in life. We live in the most beautiful place on earth—as long as we have enough money to eat and to buy tobacco and beer, and to pay the bills, it’s enough, isn’t it?”
Nico told me which holiday house Charles rented—Loix was a small place, his whereabouts hadn’t been difficult to discover. The house was a chi-chi villa, tarted up a few years ago by a wealthy local family who’d moved away and could afford to rent it out not sell. Way too big for one man on his own, he must have been rattling around in it.
He welcomed me with a degree of enthusiasm I liked to believe he’d have struggled to fabricate for an unwanted guest. Worries I’d overstepped the mark by kissing him evaporated as he ushered me into a nook of the cavernous kitchen used as a comfy seating area. Paperwork and a laptop weighed down a coffee table dividing two squishy sofas.
“I’ve been looking at the Selco bid for you,” he said, “So I’m glad you came over.”
I would have preferred the I’m glad you came over to have been preceded by I want you to kiss me again and take me to bed, but hey, at least glad gave me something to work with.
“Are you going to tell me they’re a bunch of crooks and show me the proof?”
He indicated I should sit next to him on the sofa, then placed a pair of wireframed glasses on his nose, smiling at me over the top of them. Ah merde, I now had a thing for the stern bank manager vibe. Concentrating on the papers he laid out in front of us suddenly became an immense challenge.
“Not exactly, although I wouldn’t be in a great hurry to get into bed with them.”
How about getting into bed with me?
He pushed the glasses up his nose, then tapped on a piece of paper. “They’re a reasonably sized company. Not with much activity outside of France, but they hover quite comfortably on the edge of the CAC 40, and on studying the summaries of their returns over the last ten years or so, it’s pretty evident they’re not shy of making a bold investment or three. Shrewd ones too; their five-year financial growth projections have a stable basis. The CEO has a good pedigree. I’d back them to exceed it.”
“I don’t entirely understand what any of that means.”
None of it, to be truthful. “Although I think the information in the company accounts bundle they forwarded to us said roughly the same thing. That they are a financially sound, growing company?”
“Yes, it did. Exactly.” He beamed at me like I’d just recited my times tables correctly. “That’s exactly what it all means. If I was looking to diversify my personal stockholdings into France, I could do a lot worse than taking a punt on a few of their shares.”
My heart sank. Charles was going to tell me Selco were one hundred per cent above board, that the deal would make sound financial sense and we’d be idiots to decline it, even if that meant forfeiting our souls.
“So why shouldn’t we take their offer then?” I queried, praying he’d come up with a fabulous reason.
And then he did, and I fell in love with him a little bit more.
“Because they are corporate sharks of the worst kind.” He peered at me over the top of his sexy glasses. “Baby sharks at the moment, maybe, but as we all know, a baby shark is still a shark.”
With a few efficient clicks of his keyboard, he brought up a complicated-looking screen, filled with squiggly lines and graphs with bold circles drawn through them.
“I’ve done a deep dive into their financial projections,” he continued, pointing to the screen with the tip of his pen. “Marcus and I purchased a company a few years ago that developed a rather useful tool not at most people’s disposal. It enables us to analyse the veracity of their forecasts extremely accurately, using patented confidence algorithms. Over the next eighteen months, Selco are aiming to take over two more companies similar to your cooperative. They’ve already swallowed up four in the last three years.”
“I know they have taken over a cooperative the same size as ours up in Guéronde,” I said.
He nodded. “Yes, and with an offer very similar to yours. That was coming up to nearly three years ago; let me walk you through it.”
I hadn’t seen this side of Charles before, and as impressive as it was, dissecting and assimilating the financial data as easy as shelling peas, I wasn’t sure if I liked it. This flip into businessman mode only served to highlight the vast gulf separating his high-flying existence from mine.
“So, the Guéronde cooperative ran on similar lines to yours, which is to say, really badly.”
I bristled, and he shot me an amused smile. “No need for that. What I mean is that you are in desperate need of a better accountancy service than the one you currently employ, and along with it, you also need to invest in up-to-date accountancy software. Pay for some financial advice regarding how to grow the little pot of gold that sits stagnating in your company accounts. You should probably nominate a formal board too, assign roles, have more structured agendas.”
