Page 62 of Once Upon a Christmas Night...

Greg grinned and Jess shot him a pleading look. If he didn’t get down to business by the time she’d finished her coffee, and maybe one or two of those rather nicelooking biscuits, she was going to lose her nerve and she’d be out of there.

‘I don’t want to keep you. Perhaps we can start over coffee.’ Greg seemed to sense that she was getting restive.

‘Of course. Dr Saunders… Jess… I assume that Mr Shaw has explained why we’re here this morning?’

‘Actually, no. I’m in the dark at the moment.’ She glanced at Greg, hoping he’d get the message.

Greg chuckled. ‘That’s my fault. Jess, Charles was not only my father’s legal advisor for many years, he was also his friend.’ He paused and Charles beamed across his desk at both of them. ‘My father didn’t discuss his business with me, or my mother, but Charles was one of his closest confidants. That’s why I want you to hear this from him.’

‘This is about your father?’

‘It’s about everyone. Trust me.’ Greg waited for her nod and then settled back in his chair, gesturing to Charles that the floor was his now.

‘John Shaw was an extraordinary man. He was bold, inventive and had an enormous, if slightly unconventional talent for business.’ Charles spread his fingers in front of him on an empty area of the desk. ‘I think that John would forgive me for saying that sometimes that talent didn’t extend to his personal relationships. I knew him well, and liked him very much, but trying to gauge his personal feelings was often a very… shall we say… hit and miss affair.’

‘You mean he could be distant.’ There was no sense in beating about the bush. Jess had nothing to lose here, and it was beginning to look as if she had nothing to gain.

‘Exactly. Which was why Greg needed my help.’

Jess pressed her lips together. If Greg wanted to fall in line with everything that his father wanted, that was up to him but she wouldn’t endorse that.

‘Don’t you want to know why this has suddenly become an issue?’ Greg was frowning at her now. Perhaps she should at least appear to show some interest.

‘Um, yes. I was wondering that, but I didn’t want to interrupt.’

Charles’s gaze flipped quickly between her and Greg, perhaps wondering whether they were about to start squabbling between themselves. A moment of silence appeared to convince him that it was safe to go on.

‘To cut a long story short, Greg has used a management model that his father explored but never implemented, which proposed a radical reorganisation of Shaw Industries. The power base of the company would no longer be one man but is vested in the board of a charitable trust. The company is run by the trust and the profits that would have normally gone to the CEO are used for charitable purposes.’

‘And this was his father’s plan all along?’

‘No, it was just one of a number of feasibility studies. But, as in everything else, he was very thorough. This particular structure was designed along one of the principles of quality management.’ Charles leaned forward slightly. ‘No man is indispensable.’

Greg was indispensable to her. And this… the thought that he might not be to the company… was a glimmer of hope. ‘In business terms, you mean.’

‘Of course. I realise your own profession takes no heed of that aphorism.’ Charles chuckled. ‘In fact, I rather hope that every man is indispensable as soon as he enters your door.’

Charles was wandering again. This time it was almost charming. ‘But Greg’s father never did anything about those plans.’

‘No. He gave me no reason, but he did ask me to store the papers safely.’

‘And the plan would still work?’

‘Absolutely. The paperwork was all drawn up and Greg and I have been reviewing it exhaustively for the last week.’ Charles’s gaze flipped momentarily towards Greg.

‘Yeah, exhaustively. And Charles has been advising me, exhaustively, about the personal financial suicide involved in making the changes that I’ve proposed.’

‘Quite. But my duty is to facilitate.’ Charles turned back to Jess, his expression softening. ‘I imagine you’re wondering why we’re having this conversation here, instead of over a nice lunch and a glass of Chablis.’

‘Um. Yes.’ Jess hadn’t been wondering that at all. She had been too busy wondering about everything else.

Charles laid a small bundle of documents in front of her. ‘It will take some time to effect the change, but these documents will set the ball rolling, to some extent irreversibly. We agreed on them yesterday, and met again early this morning to proof the copies for signature. Greg wants to sign them now, but before he does so he has asked me to explain their implications to you.’

‘I still don’t understand.’ Jess turned to Greg, not Charles. She wasn’t interested in any finagling over the structure of Shaw Industries, she was interested in Greg’s motivations. Whether he could make different decisions from those his father had.

He was grinning. ‘The crux of it is, Jess, is that I want out. But I want the company to survive, because a lot of good people would lose their livelihoods without it. So I had to do the one thing that experience had taught me was only going to be a disappointment and try one last time to get to know my father.’

That she almost dared to understand. Hardly dared to believe. ‘And… what? You deciphered the book he left you?’

---