Page 42 of The Gin Sisters' Promise

The last person Georgie expected to hear from was Paul Mellon. The call came first thing on Monday morning just as she was sitting at the desk opposite Robert English in the tiny office they shared overlooking the distillery.

‘Well, aren’t you a blast from the past,’ she said breezily, knowing full well that if Paul was ringing her it was because he wanted something.

‘Hey, yourself. You sound different, relaxed – have you been enjoying your break?’

‘Break?’ She laughed. ‘You must be joking, I’m up to my eyes.’ She leaned back on the old leather office chair that had been her father’s. It creaked comfortingly with every movement, so different to the designer chrome and Italian leather simplicity that had cost a small fortune to co-ordinate in her last office.

‘So, you’re working?’

‘Of course I’m working, what did you expect? It’s months since I left. I’ve never been busier.’

‘Oh, I just hadn’t heard, you know…’

‘Maybe marketing circles aren’t as small as you thought.’ She smiled. Paul prided himself on knowing everyone on the London scene and knowing exactly what everyone was up to. She knew it would bother him that he hadn’t heard where she’d landed after she walked out his door. It might even make him feel as if he was losing his edge, which would bother him more than anything.

‘Well, you’re being rather coy. What exactly are you up to?’

‘At the moment? I’ve got a brand-new product, and it’s going to be HUGE!’ she said, drawing out the word. ‘It’s a speciality gin, high-end, luxury market – my favourite place to launch.’

‘So, you’re freelancing?’ It sounded like he was chewing his fingernail; he was under pressure.

‘Yes, much more fun and lucrative than I ever imagined, really, so many lovely clients to approach.’ She gave a tinkling laugh. She was goading him – sweetly, but she knew how to raise his hackles.

‘Well’ – he lowered his voice – ‘if you were to consider coming back to us now, I’d make it worth your while.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. This place isn’t the same without you.’ They both knew what that meant – clients were looking for her. While she might have been considereddifficultto work with, she knew how to butter up a client better than anyone else and she got results.

‘Missing me already?’ she said sweetly.

‘Come on, I’m serious, we need you back here. I know you were upset about the promotion, but we had a great thing going here, good money, the best accounts in London. You were the best in the business – the queen bee of the London marketing scene.’

‘Oh, but Paul, I still am.’ She was enjoying this. As far as he was concerned she was a shark circling the waters and he wouldn’t know how close she was until he started to lose accounts. Let him worry; it was payback time.

‘Have you been trying to take our clients? You know that there are ethics involved in that…’ He sounded tense.

‘Paul, I haven’t approached anyone; if you’re losing clients, then that’s down to you. You had a chance to reward me for my work and you didn’t. I walked out and now I’m doing something that’s giving me more satisfaction than I ever got at Sandstone and Mellon.’

‘So, you’re saying you won’t consider coming back?’

‘As a partner?’ she said softly, then a little more sternly, ‘Or as a director?’

‘Fine. As a director with direct responsibility for some of our biggest clients. If that’s what you want,’ he said grudgingly.

‘As a shareholding director?’

‘Bloody hell, Georgie, what do you think I am?’

‘I think you’re desperate,’ Georgie said, cutting to the chase. ‘I’d say that your biggest accounts are going to walk away because between the lot of you, you can’t keep it all together.’

‘All right, all right,’ he said and then she knew; the clients must be jumping ship like rats in a hurricane. It was nothing she couldn’t sort out with a few phone calls though.

‘Fine. Put something in an email and I’ll get back to you by the end of the week.’ She hung up the phone before he had a chance to say another word and Georgie just smiled. It was, after all, everything she had wanted to begin with, wasn’t it? So why didn’t she feel happier…?

*

It felt as if the seasons here ran into each other far more quickly than they ever had in London, although, sometimes, Nola wondered if she even noticed the changing of one season for another when she lived there. This week, as the new buds on the trees and the sea of daffodils that lined the grassy verges into Ballycove, March was marked out as much by how busy it was at school as it was by any migrating birds that Iris pointed out at the feeder in the old kitchen garden.

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