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She was, he recognised on a sudden sharp spear of pain, exactly what Deborah would be in fifteen years’ time.
‘Odd, isn’t it?’ Stephanie commented drily. ‘You think that by running away from something you’re escaping but still somehow it manages to come after you.
‘What is it exactly you’re running from, Mark… or is it a someone rather than a something?’
‘Both,’ Mark admitted.
‘Ah… And you don’t want to talk about either it or her? Well, why should you?’ she asked drily. ‘After all none of us likes admitting to a failure…’
A failure… Mark frowned. What was she implying? How could she know…?
‘If you’re running from a woman, a relationship, there has to have been a failure,’ she told him, apparently reading his mind. ‘A failure of communication… understanding… sharing… loving…’ She gave a small shrug. ‘That’s something we women tend to forget far too easily—that when we embrace a lover we’re also embracing the risk of failure and of loss.’
‘You make it sound as thou
gh women are always the victims in relationships.’
‘Most of the time they are,’ she told him succinctly. ‘We bring it upon ourselves, of course… take on far too willingly the responsibility for making it work, for being the one to nourish and sustain…’ She stopped and shook her head.
‘I’m sorry. I’m getting too maudlin… Now, where are those balance sheets?’
She went over to her desk, picked up a file and came and sat down opposite him.
‘On the face of it the purchase of this company will be a good asset for us. They have a good distribution network for the flowers they grow, selling into the areas where we don’t as yet have much penetration, but I have a feeling, an instinct, if you like, that they’re hiding something from us. If the figures are as good as they seem, why are they so anxious to sell?’
‘It’s a family business, with no one to take it over,’ Mark reminded her.
‘Not true.’ Stephanie shook her head. ‘There’s a grandson, born illegitimately to the daughter… and besides… bear with me, Mark; I have a gut feeling about this one… it’s too perfect… too tempting.’
‘Without a few more acquisitions you could be very vulnerable to takeover yourself,’ Mark warned her.
‘Don’t remind me…’
The company had fought off a takeover only the previous year and Mark knew how determined Stephanie was that it remain under her control. It seemed incredible that she could have built up such a successful business in so short a space of time, almost by accident.
She had initially started doing dried-flower arrangements merely as a hobby, and it had been curiosity initially which had led her to seek out suppliers direct as she searched for flowers that were not readily available.
She had bought her first wholesale business, ailing and run-down, from a small legacy left to her by her parents. Now she owned not only several wholesale businesses, but their suppliers as well—the growers. Her company owned growing fields in England and abroad, particularly Holland.
She was, he reflected, a very clever woman; a very shrewd woman; a very sexy woman… Like Deborah.
He fought to pull his attention back to what Stephanie was saying to him.
‘You must be very proud of all that you’ve achieved,’ Mark commented later.
‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’ She put down the file and gave him a level look. ‘That’s a very sexist remark,’ she told him. ‘And one you wouldn’t have made were I a man.’
Mark flushed uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry. I…’
‘Don’t apologise,’ she told him. ‘Yes, I am proud… proud and lonely.’
She saw the look on his face and gave him a small half-smile.
‘What is it, Mark? Did you expect me to behave like a man and claim that I’m better off without my husband? It isn’t because I hate him that there hasn’t been anyone else in my life, you know…’
She got up and walked over to the window.
‘The year I made my first million I bought myself a Mercedes sports car. Not so much as a reward for doing so well, but as compensation for losing so much…’ She turned round. ‘My husband… he grew tired of being the husband of a successful woman, of having publicly to take second place, of feeling that my success demeaned him in the eyes of other men. In the end it was easier for him to bow to that peer pressure, to prove that he was still a “man” by leaving me for another woman, a younger, prettier woman—trophy wives, they call them in America, I understand—than to stay with me…
