“I’m so sorry we’re in this situation,” Cecily said.
“Don’t apologize. We had to have that money and we didn’t have any other offers.” Cecily Fragrance had become successful almost too quickly and a year ago we had needed a lot of money, fast, to be able to fulfill the orders we were getting. Cecily might have signed the loan documentation because I’d been out of town, but it was as much my decision as it had been hers. “We knew it was a short term thing. Who knew we’d be this successful?” The loans were due to be paid back but we had to keep any cash we had to continue to invest in the inventory. We needed the loans replaced. Next month. If we didn’t get them our cash flow would disappear. “And Westbury hasn’t changed its offer?”
“It’s still all or nothing. They take the whole business, they hire us as employees and we lose our shareholding.”
Westbury had a reputation for being shrewd and successful. “The money’s better though,” she said, sounding more positive.
Most investors were happy to take a minority stake in the company, but Westbury Group wanted the lot. Cecily and I had started this business. We’d handpicked each one of our employees. Hell, I’d even chosen the coffee machine. We didn’t want to just walk away. But was Cecily wavering? Was she on the ropes?
“What do you mean, better?”
Her eyes flickered over the surface of my desk. “Enough to pay all the shareholders what we’d hoped to get at the end of year three.”
I snapped my mouth shut. That was a lot of money.
Cecily and I could start again. But I loved Cecily Fragrance. It had become something I never thought a job could be—a passion.
It had provided distraction while I was grieving the loss of my marriage. I’d never understood it when my friends talked about their work like it was a hobby until Cecily and I started our business. It never felt like work for me. I loved it. And Cecily Fragrance had been the only good in my life since my divorce. I had needed a change, to not just see the hole where my husband had been wherever I looked. Marcus walking out had rocked my world, but a drive to prove he’d made the wrong decision had lit a fire in me. It was proof to my husband that I wasn’t as predictable, boring and safe as he thought I was—he’d no doubt expected me to stay in a corporate job at an investment bank with a steady monthly salary for the rest of my career. Setting up my own business, with no structure and process unless I created it and taking a chance on getting paid every month was something he never would have thought I was capable of. And not something I’d ever imagined for myself. But when your world is on its ass, sometimes, you’ll try anything. I might not have been able to save my marriage, but I wasn’t ready to give Cecily Fragrance up.
“What do you think? You want to walk away? Give up everything we’ve worked so hard on and let someone else reap all the success and rewards?” Say no. Please say no.
She winced. “Well, not when you put it like that. But I’m not sure we have a choice. None of the other offers pay off our loans in full.”
Had she given in so easily?
I certainly hadn’t. My brother was a wealthy guy and would want to help us out if I told him the situation. But I knew his company had taken over a rival recently and he didn’t have a lot of cash at the moment. Besides, I wanted to do this on my own. I didn’t want my brother to have to save me.
“I understand that you’d rather see Cecily Fragrance continue without you than fail with you.” I didn’t think it would have to come to that. I knew we could make this work. We’d brought it this far.
As the face of the company, Cecily handled all the major business meetings, while I concentrated on keeping the wheels turning on the day-to-day operations. I’d heard plenty of horror stories of management getting distracted with new investment and I was determined not to let that happen. I’d not dealt with the investors but if Cecily was being beaten down, it was my turn to step into the ring. “We may still get other offers, might even be able to use those to increase some of the offers we’ve already had.”
She picked lint from her skirt. “Maybe. I just really don’t want us to go under and we’d still have jobs.”
“How about I meet with all the bidders and try to negotiate?” I suggested. “I worked for an investment bank. I might have learned a couple of things on the way.” Surely there was a way Cecily and I could keep running this business with the loans replaced.
“You think you might change their minds?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows? But it’s worth a try, isn’t it? We still have some fight left in us, don’t we?” I wanted to know I hadn’t lost hers.
“The next instalment on the loans is due in a month—we don’t have long.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the twitch under my eye telling me it was an almost-impossible task. “We can’t give up, Cecily. This is our baby.”
She smiled half-heartedly. “It’s taken so much energy to get this far, I’m not sure I have enough to finish the race.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here. I’m going to get us both over the finish line. Whatever it takes.”
I was going to save Cecily Fragrance.
And I was going to cancel on Andrew and Peter and call my sister, Violet, for drinks. I wanted to have the evening I wanted to have, rather than the one I thought I should have as a twentysomething in Manhattan.
“I hope to God you’re banging them both. And at the same time every Tuesday,” Violet said as I explained to her about my double-booking. My sister told me nothing but the truth, and she believed in me more than anyone I knew. If I was going to fight Westbury Group to retain a shareholding, then Violet was the perfect pre-match pep squad.
“Shhhh,” I said, glancing around to check if anyone had heard her.
The bar, one of my favorites, felt like a private member’s club from the fifties with its low lighting, Chesterfield sofas and American standards coming from the grand piano in the corner. It represented how I’d imagined Manhattan would be rather than the realities of dating, long hours and traffic that weren’t quite so glamorous.
“Well, really, what were you doing bringing me to a place like this?” she asked.
She was right. This was the sort of place Harper and I came with our best friend Grace. Violet and I normally ended up going for burgers in midtown. “I like it.”
“So?” Violet asked. “Are you banging them both? I know it’s too much to hope that you’re doing them at the same time.” She squinted at a party of suits across the bar who I’d noticed had checked her out as she’d wafted in earlier. “I think I’d like to try a three-way before I’m old. Two men, though,” she clarified. “I did the two girls and a guy thing in college and it didn’t work for me.”