the idea, and had no trouble selling it to the McKinley board. It was the Wrexall board that was always going to be tricky. Or so Sasha thought.
‘How’d it go?’ Joe Foman called her the second her meeting was over.
‘Believe it or not, it went well,’ laughed Sasha. ‘I thought they’d throw me out of there on my arse, but by the time I finished the pitch they actually seemed kind of excited.’
‘What did I tell you?’ said Joe. ‘Sure, they’ve got their pride. But eighty-five per cent of seven hundred million dollars buys you a lot of pride. So will they sign?’
Sasha sighed. ‘No. We’re short one vote. Jackson Dupree. He’s out of town on business.’
‘When’s he back?’
‘Tomorrow. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll never go for it.’
She’d hung up the phone from Joe Foman feeling deflated. She’d come so close, so close she could smell it. But of course Jackson would have to be the spanner in the works. It wasn’t until much later that night, in bed, that it came to her. Using her security card to get back into her office, Sasha sat at her desk, poring over the company statutes into the small hours. At 6 a.m. she was on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard.
The Duprees, Mitzi and Walker, had homes all around the United States, but they spent most of their time on their ten-acre compound on the vineyard. In the last five years, since Walker’s health had declined, they had rarely left the island, preferring their own company and that of old friends to socializing in Manhattan or Palm Beach. Walker had a round-the-clock nursing staff living in at the house, a classic, white clapboard Cape home with dark green shutters, to-die-for ocean views and the most exquisite gardens Sasha had ever laid eyes on.
‘It’s so kind of you to come all this way to see us. You’re a friend of Jackson’s, you say?’ Mitzi, an elegant woman in her early seventies with swept up grey hair and Katharine Hepburn cheekbones, poured Sasha a glass of hot homemade apple cider.
‘Um, sort of, yes,’ said Sasha guiltily. ‘We work together.’ She felt bad lying to this kind old woman. It didn’t help that every inch of polished mahogany furniture seemed to be covered with silver-framed photographs of Jackson, reproaching her from all angles. There was Jackson as a baby, looking surprisingly fat in an old-fashioned, Oxford pram; Jackson, gap toothed and grinning on his first day at kindergarten; Jackson on horseback, endlessly, holding polo sticks or trophies or both; Jackson graduating college, looking more like his dissolute, arrogant self with his long hair tied back in a ponytail and a taunting, admit it, you want me look in his dancing brown eyes.
‘He’s a good boy,’ said Mitzi lovingly, noticing Sasha staring at the pictures. ‘And so good at business, just like his father.’
Sasha glanced at Walker Dupree, the man who had once run Wrexall with an iron fist and whose name was still spoken of in the halls with a combination of reverence and fear. She knew of the rift that existed between father and son. Jackson never spoke of it, but it was common knowledge. Even so, disapproving of your child’s lifestyle did not necessarily mean you stopped loving them. Sasha wondered what the old man’s true feelings towards Jackson were. The mother clearly still doted on him. Sitting in an old-fashioned bath chair with a plaid blanket over his knees, Walker Dupree seemed barely aware she was there, gazing out of the window at the grey, misty ocean, pausing occasionally to smile at his wife.
‘Walker and I are alone here most of the time now, but that suits us just fine,’ said Mitzi, patting her husband’s knee affectionately. ‘Of course we’d like to see more of Jackson than we do. But he’s so busy with work, it’s not easy for him.’
Sasha thought of how easy it had been for her to hop on a plane from JFK this morning and wondered how such sweet, kind, normal people had produced such a selfish, egotistical son.
‘But listen to me, prattling on like an old woman. You said you needed to talk to Walker about something?’
‘Yes. It’s nothing to worry about. We’re trying to push through a deal, something that should make a lot of money for the company.’
‘That sounds exciting, doesn’t it, Walker?’
The old man’s face remained impassive.
‘It is exciting. But because of the size and nature of this deal, we need unanimous board approval, and the deadline is at one o’clock today. Unfortunately Jackson’s away travelling and can’t be reached.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mitzi wrung her hands. ‘I do hope he’s not pushing himself too hard.’
I expect he’s been pushing himself very hard indeed, thought Sasha. Right between some socialite’s thighs. Aloud, she said, ‘We need another shareholding family member to vote in his place. I have all the paperwork with me, if you want to see it. But all we really need is Mr Dupree’s signature, right here on the last page.’
Walker Dupree cleared his throat. Sasha jumped, as if a waxwork dummy had suddenly come to life. ‘Mitzi, honey,’ he said in his soft, gravelly voice, ‘let me talk to the young lady alone, would you?’
Mitzi looked as surprised as Sasha. ‘Sure. Of course, darling, if that’s what you want. Would you like Mary Anna or one of the other nurses?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine. We won’t be long.’
Once Mitzi was gone and the living room door was closed, Walker Dupree looked Sasha in the eye for a long, long time. When eventually he spoke, he was not only lucid, but sharp as a tack and very, very mad.
‘Now you listen to me. The next time you set foot in my house and try to get me, or any member of my family, to sign some bullshit piece of paper we haven’t even read, I will set my dogs on you. Is that clear?’
Sasha blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Mr Dupree. I thought …’
‘You thought I was mentally incapacitated. Yes, I know. That’s what makes it such a shitty thing to do. However, as you can see, I’m not.’
A frosty silence fell. Sasha didn’t know whether to get up and leave, or apologize again. After what felt like years, but was probably less than a minute, Walker Dupree said, ‘Show me the documents. All of them.’
Sasha did as she was asked. She sat and watched for twenty minutes as the old man read and reread the deal memo, his rheumy eyes scanning the figures and graphs, carefully extracting every ounce of meaning. At last he looked up.
‘Explain to me in no more than three sentences why I should sign my name to this deal.’
Sasha took a deep breath. ‘I can explain it to you in one sentence, Mr Dupree. Because it’s the best deal you’re going to get.’
For the first time since his wife had left them, Walker Dupree smiled.
‘And if I don’t sign?’
‘Wrexall will lose the McKinley deal. And I’ll leave the firm and take the retail group with me.’
‘Take them where?’
‘Jones Lang LaSalle, probably.’
‘What makes you so sure they would go? Wrexall could counteroffer. Double their salaries if necessary. We could cut you out of the picture.’
Now it was Sasha’s turn to smile. ‘You could try, sir. But you won’t succeed. You see, unlike every other business at Wrexall, we are a team and we watch each other’s backs. It’s not a concept your son believes in, but it’s worked for me.’
Walker Dupree frowned and Sasha inwardly cursed her big mouth. What did I have to go and bring up Jackson for? He’s the man’s son, for God’s sake. Of course he’s going to take his side over an outsider’s, rift or no rift. But Walker Dupree surprised her.
‘You say you’ve been unable to reach Jackson. Where is