Cass did not react. Gary, even more irritated her cool than usual, banged his head on the edge of his desk. Still she refused to look away from her screen.
`Let's hope the earth moves for you both, then,' Sam said from the other side of the row of desks. He was momentarily between phone calls and thoroughly enjoying the prospect of Cass's disaster and what it would do to her team leader. Gary muttered an unintelligible insult and gave him the finger.
Cass ignored their antics. All her attention was on the Reuters' screen in front of her. Her heart was thudding, and she could feel the sweat trickling down her back and arms under her shirt. But her face was calm and her breathing even; there was a small, confident smile lifting the corners of her lips.
Neither of the men had any idea of the willpower she needed to keep the smile in place as she controlled her fear, riding it, refusing to let it beat her. She was aware of Gary's anger and Sam's Schadenfreude, just as she was of the phones ringing and the voices that flung mockery like snowballs from desk to desk, but she was blocking them out.
Silence spread as news of her deal rippled through the room; then the voices started again. Jokes spluttered like sparklers all around her. The insults were riper than ever, and the laughter more manic. Even Sam thought he might last the day without stuffing something up his nose.
It was the biggest gamble Cass had yet taken, writing 15 million put options, at ten pence per option, on sterling dropping against the Deutschmark when the Chancellor made his announcement about the Euro.
Each option was for a thousand pound's worth of sterling, entitling the client to sell at 2.90 and buy back at 2.65, so that he had the chance to make a profit of nearly £150 million at a cost of only one and a half. If the client turned out to be wrong about which way the Chancellor was going to jump-as Cass believed he must be-he stood to lose his one and a half million. But if he were proved right, the bank would have to write a cheque for his profit, and Cass would have thrown away her future. She'd be out of Stogumber's without any right of appeal, and she'd never get another job like it.
She couldn't think about the future now. All she could do was watch her screen and keep her fear under control and out of sight.
`Cass,' said Gary, moving up behind her to look at her screen instead of his own, as though that could make it any better.
She did not answer, surprised he was letting himself sound nervous. It was bad for morale-and for his reputation. Letters appeared across the top of her screen: `Chancellor's announcement expected 11:05.'
Gary's eyes flicked upwards so that he could see the clocks high on the wall above the rows of dealers' screens, finding the one that showed UK time. There was still a whole minute to go. Cass's gaze had not wavered. He could feel the heat of her body from where he stood, but for once he couldn't find the words to mock her for it.
When her client had phoned to say what he wanted, she had asked him to wait and swung round on her chair to check with Gary that the team was prepared to write options at that level. She'd had to ask him; he was the team leader and she was still on probation. Not for the first time, he cursed the system. It wasn't only her career she was risking; it was a fair chunk of the team's profits and probably the whole of his bonus, if not his job.
He'd have stopped her if he could, but only yesterday Michael Betteridge had told him to give her more freedom to deal. It was make or break time, he'd said, and the directors needed to know which before they took their gamble on her. But she was on Gary's team and her losses would be his responsibility. He loathed her for that even more than he loathed her for her cleverness and her legs and her exasperating aura of success.
Cass wished he would move away, but she couldn't spare the energy to say so. There were only seconds to go. Her hands were lying relaxed on her short black skirt, but inside her smile her teeth were clamped on a small piece of lip. Her eyes lost their focus just as the words at the top of the screen began to change. She blinked, once, twice, brushing fluid over her dry eyeballs. And then she saw it:
`No intention of taking Britain into Euro in first phase, says Chancellor.'
Gary put his hands on her shoulders to hold her down in her chair as they waited for the currencies to move. Sterling was still at 2.90 against the Deutschmark as the Chancellor's announcement appeared.
Cass wasn't sure if the trembling of the numbers on the screen was real or something happening to her eyes. Her teeth were still clamped together with part of her inside lip between them. She could not feel the pain. The figures flashed and moved upwards. And then upwards again. Gary's tight fat fingers dug deeper into her shoulders, through the pale-pink shirt that was plastered against her back. At 2.98 the figures stopped moving-and held. When they'd stayed rock steady for long enough to confirm that Cass had won, she let her teeth unclamp and felt the blood flooding back into the pinched flesh.
Gary's hands left her shoulders to punch the air as he yelled out her triumph, but she sat almost still, just allowing her muscles to relax and her lungs to expand. Her back straightened into its normal shape. Her breathing quickened slightly and she licked her lips.
`Shit, Cass, you bloody did it,' said Gary, wanting a more visible reaction.
`I know, but it's all in a day's work,' she said, her voice not even quivering, although she felt as though there was a washing-machine drum in her gut, churning and screaming on its ball bearings.
`You're a fucking psychopath, you know,' he said admiringly. `Aren't you even a little relieved?'
`Relieved?' Cass shook her head. `No. Why? I knew we'd be OK.'
As she slowly came down, she began to feel again, to notice the wetness of her back and the pain in her lip, to hear the excited buzz all round her, and to feel the ache of adrenaline withdrawal in her taut legs and hands. At last she let herself push the flyaway dark hair out of her eyes. She smiled.
`One great step for womankind,' said red-headed Sally, from the other side of the bank of screens. She was the nearest thing Cass had to a friend on the dealing floor. `That was really cool.'
Cass grinned at her, then turned to look up at Gary. Foreshortened, his neck and chin looked even fatter than usual, and his eyes piggier. There were black hairs poking out of his nostrils.
`See?' was all she said, and even that was redundant. She knew he had seen what she-or any other woman-could do. They weren't wimps or girlies, and they wouldn't crack. There was relief in his expression, but disappointment, too. He'd taken against her from the start and had done his damnedest to scare her off with his sexist jokes and his savage criticism. But his bonus depended on her performance, so he had had to hold on to the cruellest of his impulses.
Cass had occasionally wondered whether that was why she'd been put in his team. Not that the directors would have cared about his attitude if they hadn't been slapped with a huge sex-discrimination suit from one of her predecessors.
`Not bad for a girl,' Gary said, trying to sound as casual as she, then adding, `I suppose.'
A door at the far end of the dealing room opened and Michael Betteridge yelled: `Cass! Get in here.'
She pushed her chair back, knowing it would ram into Gary's fat gut if he didn't move quickly enough.
`Fuck it, Cass,' he said. `There was no need for that. I let you do it. I supported you.'
`Didn't realize you were so close, Gary. Sorry. Got to go. Michael's waiting.' She was flinging the black jacket of her suit around her shoulders. The phone rang. Tempted to leave it unanswered, she knew her client might want something more. She tucked the receiver under her chin and thrust her right arm into the jacket sleeve.
`Cass Evesham.'
`Cass, I ...'
`Alan.' Her lips curved into a far sweeter smile. She took hold of the receiver again and held it comfortably against her ear, thinking he must have a spy at Stogumber's to have got on to the news so fast. `How did you ...?'
`Cass, not now. There isn't time, but I must see you. I ...'
`You're going to see me tonight and all day every day for the next two weeks.' There would be hot sun and crisp sea and time to bask alone together without any risk of calls from work for either of them or demands from his ex-wife to pick up the children or write ever bigger cheques to pay for her uncontrollable greed. Cass couldn't wait; nor could Alan the sound of it. `What's the rush?'
`I'll explain when I see you. I've booked a table at the Blue Print Café for one o'clock.'
Cass had loved the Blue Print Café ever since their first lunch there and wished she could say yes.
`Al, I can't. Not today. There's just too much on. Can't it wait a few more hours-till this evening?'
`No. Be there. Don't be late.'
Even more than the Blue Print Café, she loved the urgency of his need. She loved him, too, cynical and hardened-and occasionally a little rough-though he was. Perhaps even because of that. The contrast between his outward spikiness and the depths of vulnerability she knew it concealed really got to her. She would have done anything for him.
`OK,' she said, longing to be in a place where she could tell him how much she cared.
`Cass!' yelled Michael. `Where the hell are you?'
`Got to go, Alan.' She put down the receiver and slid her other arm into the jacket, buttoning it as she walked down the length of the dealing room.
As she went, noticing that her right kneecap still wobbled from the slackening tension, she heard her friends' and enemies' voices, deliberately audible despite the whispers:
`That was a grade-A killing.'
`Beginner's luck.'
`Sexy isn't she? Look at those legs. No wonder she got the job.'
`Pity about the tits though. Raisins on a pastry board if you ask me.'
`Seen them, have you?'
`Not yet, worst luck.'
Cass paid no attention. It was the sort of thing they all said every day. She rarely let it worry her, any more than they let jokes about big swinging dicks bother them. Today she'd taken a risk as big as any of theirs, and won. Nothing, not even skiing the sheerest, iciest black run had ever given her anything like the same high.
`Hey, Cass, you did great,' called a voice she did not recognize. She turned and smiled generally at the line of animated twenty-something clones in striped shirtsleeves, not knowing which of them had said it.
With the accolade ringing in her ears, she moved into the director's grey office and shut out the frenzy. There was silence now, and a calm that was no more real than her outward coolness.
`Have a seat, Cass.'
`Thank you, Michael.' She sat down, remembering not to tuck one long leg under her bum, and smiled confidently.
`I thought I ought to tell you that we've decided to cut your probation short.'
Sadist, she thought, watching a flicker of pleasure in eyes that were almost as dark as her own. He smoothed his already pristine hair back from his high forehead and exuded all the sleek satisfaction of one who has scoured every rust-like patch of weakness from his public persona.
`And confirm your job.'
`Great, Michael. Thank you.' Cass hoped her voice sounded gracious as well as grateful. Then, just in case it had sounded too grateful, she added: `Salary?'
When he told her, she couldn't stop her eyes widening momentarily and wished she'd had more self control.
`Yes, I thought you might be pleased.' He looked amused. `It should make for a good holiday. Going somewhere nice?'
`The Seychelles. We wanted somewhere that would still be hot.'
`Yes, it's a tricky time of year, October, but we couldn't let you go any sooner. Had to be sure of you, you see.' Michael's smile loosened a little and for a moment seemed more real. `And now we are. You did well this morning, Cass. Confirmed what I've been telling the other directors ever since I picked you out: you've got a real killer instinct and a nice icy nerve.'
Cass just nodded; she'd already thanked him and she didn't want to gush.
`I've a feeling this is the beginning of something good. You could go all the way.'
`I bet you say that to all the girls,' she said, laughing at him.
`Aren't you supposed to call yourselves "wimmin" or something even more liberated?' he asked, sharing the joke with an air of equality that was new.
`You know what I mean.' She looked him in the eye. `Are we talking main board director or what?'
`I don't see why not.'
She laughed again. `But Stogumber's has never promoted any women beyond subsidiary board level.'
`I could say there's always a first time,' Michael started and then shrugged.
`But?'
`But I won't. Such a cliché, Cass. I've often wondered: why did you choose us? I know you had other offers from banks that have shown themselves much more woman-friendly.'
Hoping she looked as sleek and killer-confident as he, and not nearly as mischievous as she felt, she said languorously: `Impossible challenges turn me on. Hadn't you heard?'
`Isn't that what they call sexual harassment, Cass?'
`Not unless I've been sexually harassed every day since I arrived,' she said tartly, remembering her second interview and the answer she'd given when one of Michael's co-directors had asked her how she would stand up to `the joshing rough and tumble' of the trading floor. She'd told them that she always gave as good as she got and wouldn't faint at being called a tart or sue if someone tried to feel her up.
But she hadn't realized then how much she would come to detest it from people like Gary.
`It's time I had a turn, Michael.'
`Determined to have the last word, aren't you? OK. Just this once-as a reward for a good piece of work. But don't forget, it's only one piece of work. You've got to do it over and over again every day for years. Think you can hack that?'
`I think I might like it.' Cass licked her lips seductively as she stood up, laughed at his mock-furious expression and aligned her chair neatly with his big desk.
* * *
She was five minutes late getting to the cool white restaurant with its low ceilings, excited clattering noise and spectacular view, and she still tingled from the morning's charge. Her job had been confirmed; she was about to start earning a vastly increased salary; and Alan couldn't wait even a few hours to see her. There was nothing else she wanted in the world.
He was sitting at one of the tables against the wall with his back to the room, and so she took a minute more to gaze at him and prolong the anticipation. At thirty-seven, he was ten years older than she, and a partner in one of the biggest of the City solicitors' practices.
He had a fascinating face, thin but lively because he was nearly always laughing. Someone had broken his nose years earlier so that it had a most endearing bend in it, and his light-brown hair was infinitely strokable. Cass's stomach lurched as reminiscent pleasure slid through her mind.
Still unaware of her, Alan lifted his tall glass of iced fizzy water and she saw the smooth, palely tanned skin of his long sexy hands and couldn't help thinking of the first time he'd taken her to bed. As he drank, she watched the movement of the liquid down through his throat and wondered how she would survive the whole of lunch without touching him.
That was the worst of restaurants without long tablecloths: you couldn't slip a foot out of your shoe and slide it between his sock and trouser leg, trying to pretend that your breath wasn't catching in your throat and your insides liquefying.
A waiter came to ask her if she had a reservation. She blinked and then nodded to Alan's table and walked towards it, waiting for the moment when he would turn and see her and his face light up as it always did.
He sensed her presence at last, and looked over his shoulder, frowning. He beckoned impatiently.
`Hi, darling,' she said as she sat down, dumping her shoulder bag on the floor and pushing her cheek forward for him to kiss.
He didn't see it, already signalling for the waiter to take their order.
`I can't stay long, Cass,' he said, sounding unlike himself.
`Nor me.' She had pulled back and was staring at him. It sounded as though the news about her job would have to take second place to whatever it was he had to say. `What's so urgent that it couldn't wait until we go away?'
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Clutch of Phantoms by Clare Layton Copyright © 2002 by Clare Layton
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.