Set Me Free (27 page)

‘Over the years, I
gradually got involved in more and more of the business. When I started to
suggest different ways of doing things, Dad and Keith shut me down immediately.
They had no reason to change anything. The money was still rolling in.’

‘I decided to bide
my time and prove myself first,’ Craig continued. ‘Once I’d had a few wins and
established myself, I could have another crack at shaking things up.'

‘They didn’t give
me my first project until after I graduated. It was a housing estate they
wanted to build on reclaimed swampland on the western fringe of the city. I
knew it was a terrible idea from the start, but I kept my head down and played
the game. Then, when the environmental impact statement showed there was a rare
species of frog in the area, the project looked set to be scrapped.’

Craig paused and
took a deep breath.

Charlotte sipped
her wine, eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to continue.

‘I was working on
wrapping it up when Dad walked in to my office late one afternoon, and told me
it had been approved. It defied all logic. I pushed him to explain how it had
come about, but he refused to give. That night, while I was at Mum and Dad’s
picking up some plans, I answered their phone. It was the local councillor
looking for Dad. They were out, so I offered to take a message. I guess the
councillor assumed I knew what was going on. He knew I was the project manager
and that I was Dad’s son. He asked me to let Dad know the cost of the approval
had gone up one hundred thousand.’

Craig looked to
see if Charlotte was following. Eyes wide, she shifted in her seat.

‘Your dad was
bribing him,’ she said.

Craig nodded. ‘I
was furious. This was my first project, and he and Keith had promised me I
could run it how I saw fit. I’d made the call it was to be pulled.’

He sighed. ‘Dad
always used to say, ‘you can’t stop progress’, and suddenly I knew he really
meant
nothing
stops progress. If something gets in the way, then you pay
your way around it. He and Keith went around the EIS, and they went around me. And
they’d dragged me into the muck with my very first project. If it was ever
uncovered, I was a party to it whether I liked it or not. Who would believe the
company director’s son had nothing to do with it?’

‘It does seem
implausible,’ agreed Charlotte.

Craig continued. ‘I
phoned Dad at his function and let rip. We’d argued before, but nothing like
this. He told me I was nothing but a disappointment. He told me I owed him
everything he’d spent on my ‘useless’ degree. And he told me if I couldn’t
handle things the way they were, then it was time for me to go. I promised to
be out of the office the next day, and he told me not to come crawling back
when I stuffed up.’

He paused a
moment.

‘Then, five hours
later, the police were on my doorstep telling me he and Mum were dead.’

‘Holy shit,’ said
Charlotte. Her hand was shaking as she picked up her wine glass.

‘I hadn’t told
anyone about the fight. Nana was hospitalised almost immediately, unable to
cope with the grief. As she got stronger, she told me how much it meant to her
that I was there to take Dad’s place at Morgan Carmichael. She was so fragile,
I was terrified I was about to lose her as well. So, I decided to keep quiet,
stay on and step into my father’s shoes.’

‘Keith was a mess
too,’ said Craig. ‘He’d lost his oldest friend and closest confidant. I don’t
think he quite knew what to do with me, so he let me do what I wanted to. When
I set up the Infill Development Division, I thought it would help me let go and
move on. Forget what happened with Dad and focus on doing what I really wanted
to do.’

‘Keith immediately
regretted giving me free reign, but he let me go for a while, and I did succeed.
But it has always been the infill development itself that bothers him, and he’s
constantly been on the lookout for a reason to shut it down. I brought in a
decent profit for quite a few years, but we’ve been on a gradual decline over
the last twelve months.'

‘When we came upon
the Boundary Street site, I couldn’t have been any more chuffed. West End is
still booming, and your building isn’t in the best of shape.’

Charlotte’s eyes
sparked. She opened her mouth, drawing in a sharp breath.

‘Hear me out,’
Craig said, holding up his hand. ‘I’m not having a go at you, just trying to
give you the full picture.'

She pressed her
lips together and nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Opportunities
like this were rare. People hold on to inner-city property. You won’t often
find something like it on the market. So I jumped. We got some secure financial
backing, and it was full steam ahead.’

‘The day I came to
see the tenants, Keith and I had a heated disagreement in front of the
leadership team, which ended up in an ultimatum that the project had to
succeed, or I was out of the company.'   

Charlotte
considered this. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you’ve had your career riding on this all
along. But didn’t you want to get out anyway?  You just said you only stayed
because of your nana.’

‘At first, I
didn’t want to be there
at all
. But I made the most of it, and as the
division grew, I thought I might eventually get what I want. Even after Keith
started sabotaging the Boundary Street project, I thought I could still come
out on top.'

‘And that’s why
you fought so hard.’

‘I know I’ve been
an arsehole at times, and I’m sorry. Keith has been pulling all manner of
strings behind the scenes, and it’s been tough to stay ahead of him.’

‘Was the bribe one
of those strings?’

‘The bribe, the
plans, the finance.’

‘They weren’t your
plans, were they?’

‘No.’

Charlotte smiled. ‘Well
that makes sense. So what happened yesterday?  How did you go from giving us
notice - ’

‘I didn’t - ’

‘Okay, okay. From
Keith
giving us notice, to the project being canned?

‘Last weekend I
came across an email between Keith and Wally, and that’s how I found out about
the bribe. It dragged up all the memories I’d worked so hard to suppress, and
at first I was paralysed by it. I didn’t know what to do. But there had to be a
way to stop it, and get myself out of it with something, in the least my
reputation, intact. The answer wasn’t coming to me, and then when you called on
Thursday night and asked me about it, I knew I was out of time. In the end, it
was with a bit of help from Keith’s own ruthless daughter that I came up with a
plan.’

‘Cassette knows
what’s going on?’

‘Yes. What I did
in the end was her idea.’

Charlotte turned a
suspicious eye on him. ‘So does that mean what you did was all above board?’

He smiled slowly,
thinking he might delay answering that question for now. They’d hardly touched
their food. The wind was gently blowing in through the French doors, and the
music was soft and relaxing. He didn’t want to eat. He wanted to hold her.

‘Dance with me,’
he said, reaching across the table for her hand.

‘What?' She left
him hanging.

‘Dance with me.'

He came around
behind her chair and pulled it backwards. When he reached for her hand again,
she accepted, though with uncertainty.

He led her into a
loose slow-rocking West Coast swing dance. He drew her in slowly, rolled her around
his shoulders and released her, only to pull her back into his embrace again. It
was slow and sensual. There was no space between them as there should be with
swing. But it was right, because they were finally dancing together. He almost
had her as close as he wanted her. Needed her.

‘I didn’t know you
could swing,’ she said, looking up at him.

‘Well, given I’m
still a relative novice, I’ll take that as a compliment.’

She raised an
eyebrow, waiting for further explanation.

‘I made a deal
with Cassie a while back,’ he said. ‘She needed me to be her handbag to help
cover her affair, so I traded her for swing lessons. I followed her out to
clubs and the like, and she came to lessons with me.’

Charlotte nodded
slowly. ‘So that’s why you were everywhere all of a sudden.’

‘I soon realised
the added perk was that in amongst those crowds, I might find you, so I went
along with Cass for longer than I usually do. Plus, after I saw you dance, I
wanted to be the one making you light up the floor. I couldn’t bear the thought
of you in someone else’s arms.’

To press the
point, he pulled her closer, rocking her gently in time with the slow jazz. When
she nestled against him, he decided to continue his story.

‘When I spoke to
Keith, I told him I was willing to walk away, forget what I knew, the evidence
I had, if he was willing to make a new deal. He was. So in exchange for my
silence, he’s handed over a few key pieces of real estate and a payment
equivalent to the budget for my division. I’m going it alone.’

She pulled back
and looked up at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Hmm, so not all above board, then.’

‘There’s crime,
Charlotte, and then there’s justice,’ Craig explained. ‘Keith got what was
coming to him.’

‘I suppose that’s
reasonable.' Charlotte tightened her grip on his shoulder and in his hand. ‘So
is that what you've been doing since Cassette dropped your phone in the
toilet?’ she asked.

‘It is. And it’s
legally binding.'

‘Wow,’ she
breathed. ‘That was quick. And your first order of business was to stop the
Boundary Street development. For now, or for good?’

‘I haven’t thought
that far ahead yet. I did see some good designs I might consider,’ he said,
grinning down at her. ‘Regardless, I won’t be going near it until after the
next council election.’

‘Well, that will
give me time to work on the locals. And convince you to keep the current
tenants.’

‘Does that mean
I’ve brought you around?’ Craig asked.

Charlotte’s
smile was coy.

‘In a fashion,’
she said. She'd been listening intently, allowing him the time and space to
explain himself. It was worth the wait. Rocking gently to the soft music and
spinning in and out of his arms alone would have made it worth the wait. But
understanding what had been driving him was the icing on the cake.

Though now it was
time to do some explaining of her own.

‘I’m definitely
glad that monstrosity is not going to be built, and the pressure has come off
Ben and the Hoangs,’ she said. ‘I’m glad the locals are happy.’

‘Why do I sense
there’s a ‘but’ coming?’

Charlotte met his
gaze. She took a deep breath. ‘But… I’m going to close the gallery regardless.’

Craig baulked, but
he didn’t seem annoyed, as she’d thought he would be, especially after
everything he’d been through over this wretched development. ‘Why’s that?’ he
asked.

‘You don’t mind?’

‘Why would I
mind?’

‘I thought you
might have stopped the development because you thought it was what I wanted.’

‘It is what you
want, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. For Ben and
the Hoangs.’

‘I know that,
Charlotte. It’s always been about everyone else for you. But I’m keen to know,
why are you going to close the gallery?  What are you going to do for you?'

Charlotte sighed. That
was just one of the reasons she loved him. He wanted to know about her, what
she wanted, and he made her feel it was important. She smiled at him.

‘Emily doesn’t
need the Evans Gallery any more. Without her, I don’t have the drive to keep
going, to keep struggling just to make the rent. It doesn’t mean enough to me.’

‘What does mean
enough to you, Charlotte?’ he asked.

You
.

She held his eyes
as he gently tossed her backwards, before pulling her back to him again. ‘I’m
going to do what I should have been doing all along,’ she said. ‘What I lost
sight of until you came along and unstitched my life.’

‘You’re not
scowling at me. Can I take it to mean you’re okay with me doing that?’ he said.

Charlotte grinned
and snuggled back into his waltz hold. ‘The development proposal forced me out
of my safe, steady little world. I had to open my eyes to other possibilities. At
first, it was just about relocating, but when I was looking at other spaces for
lease, I felt this overwhelming need to draw again. When I was sketching those
designs for Boundary Street, it was the first time in years I felt like there
was promise in the world. That something I was doing, something I enjoyed
doing, was going to make a difference. The thought of going back to the gallery
after that is just so…so suffocating.’

‘What are you
going to do?’

‘The first step
will be finishing my degree.’

‘That’s great,
Charlotte. You’re brilliant, you know. It would be a crime for you not to.'