His phone rang and he plucked it from his inside jacket pocket. It was his PA, Judy.
‘Liam, Ray is in the shop waiting for you.’
‘Thanks Judy. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.’ Ray was his marketing manager.
‘I’ll let him know.’
‘Judy?’ Liam paused. Moments passed. The phone was silent as Judy waited.
‘Yes?’
‘I want you to do something for me. There’s a small café here. Goes by the name of Four-Leaf Clover. Can you please let me know what you can about the owner? A Miss Clover Loveday.’
‘Is there something I should know before I start searching?’ Judy was always proficient, but more than that, he had a genuine regard for her. An older lady, he’d felt comfortable with her as he would a favourite aunt, the mother he never had. ‘You know I think you work far too hard. Lately I come into the office to find you’ve worked the night there. I know I’m going on, but you need to get out and have some fun.’
Liam chuckled, knowing where her motherly instincts were taking her. ‘Judy, I know you’re constantly on the lookout for me, but it’s nothing. I just want some background information. That’s all.’
‘Oh, I’ll have that for you in the morning.’ She sounded disappointed.
‘Thank you, Judy.’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing more to this?’
‘Good-bye, Judy.’ Liam ended the call with a smile on his mouth. He placed his phone back into his pocket and crossed the road, but not before glancing back at Four-Leaf Clover.
He asked Ray to every shop fit-out and spent time to see the competition in the local vicinity. From Ray’s observations he would generate a plan to keep Upper Crust in dominance over any competition. It worked well for him. Until now. He wished Ray wasn’t coming to this one.
He stepped through the threshold of the shop into a barrage of noise and workmen. Plaster dust coloured the air, the floor was scattered with bits of off-cuts and multi-coloured electrical cords. The work inside was in full tilt.
In the middle of the chaos stood Ray, his unease clearly evident on his face. His navy business suit had white dust on the shoulders and he brushed at a line of wood-chips on his leg. Honestly, he should have thought about wearing something casual coming here. This was a work area. Liam frowned; he’d never actually seen Ray wearing anything casual. The man seemed to live in white shirts and dark suits.
When Ray saw him, his face slipped from agitation to relief. Maybe that was why Ray usually came when the fit-outs were more finished. Ray just about ran towards him, holding out his hand and pumping it when Liam offered his own. ‘Glad to see you here, Ray.’
He gave the impression of a lap-dog. The guy did a good job, actually a fantastic job and had significantly raised sales in the two years since he’d been in this marketing position, but he’d never really felt a hundred percent comfortable with Ray. Their working relationship had never progressed from professional to something more easy as it had with other senior members of his staff. With Ray there was an invisible line he hadn’t wanted to cross.
‘Mr. Sinclair, good to be here.’
‘What are your thoughts?’ He indicated the room.
Ray looked around at the mess. ‘Can I talk to you outside? It’s a bit…noisy in here.’
He didn’t really want to go back outside. He saw the foreman looking at him. He was needed here, but due to Ray’s discomfort he conceded.
‘Thanks for letting me come here now. I couldn’t postpone my earlier engagement,’ Ray said.
It wasn’t a case of Liam letting Ray do anything, but he ran with it. ‘Glad to see you here.’
‘I wanted to run through the results of my competitor survey with you. I have some interesting results. There’s something you need to know.’
‘Go ahead.’
Moments passed. ‘It’s the café directly over the road.’ Ray indicated the café with a twist of his head.
Liam frowned, glancing at Four-Leaf Clover and back to Ray. ‘What is it?’
‘My research has shown that little cafes like that, especially in areas such as Kallista, will mean we’ll have some serious competition. It might mean making some changes to our production list to cope with opening in such an area.’
Liam crossed his arms. ‘Why hasn’t this come to me sooner, before we started to fit-out? Surely that would have been the first thing you would have looked for.’
Ray’s blinked with confusion. ‘It wasn’t here when we first started planning. It’s just shot up in the past weeks when the plans were going through council. It’s a surprise to me as much as you.’
‘Do you really think it’s a great concern?’ Liam said.
‘Not if we make some changes to what we offer.’
Liam crossed his arms. ‘Upper Crust has a menu that’s standard across Australia. We don’t make changes. Customers know what to expect nation wide. That’s what Upper Crust does best.’
‘I’ve made a list of menu items that would steal the competition. Just at first. Then we could go back to supplying our usual items.’
Ray gave Liam a paper with an itemised list. Most of the items on it were the same as Four-Leaf Clover offered that Liam had seen in the display case. When he got to the list of muffins, there had been a huge change to the list. Ray had changed the menu to engage the competition. Liam pointed to the list. ‘I want to talk about these suggestions with the Upper Crust chefs.’ Liam had a team of chefs that baked and tested all the items Upper Crust offered.
‘I can do that. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘I said I’ll do it. Just keep with our schedule for now. Breads. Rolls. Just while we break into this new market.’
Ray’s mouth fell open. He quickly shut it. ‘We can sustain competition, where that,’ he indicated Clover’s café, ‘will never last. We have the size to outlast any competition.’ There was a dispersion of shadow in Ray’s eyes, a flash of displeasure, there for only a moment before it disappeared behind a blink.
Although only an instant, Liam had definitely seen it. He leant closer to Ray. ‘Understood?’
Ray swallowed. Liam could be intimidating when he wanted to be. It had been that trait that had seen his first to his thirtieth Upper Crust built and succeed. His tenacious capacity had left others far behind. Liam waited for Ray to nod.
‘Good. I need to get back to work.’
‘I’ll have a report to you first thing in the morning,’ Ray said.
Liam nodded and returned inside. He knew Ray was protecting the business. Liam should be too, but in this case he felt protective over Clover’s little café. It was a complete mystery. Usually, he didn’t care, just let Ray do what he wanted to do. And that was to run the competition to the ground, ensuring the survival of Upper Crust. Usually he was satisfied with that.
Ray’s suggestion made good business sense and he’d probably confused the hell out of him not to make good use of his idea. After all, Ray was looking out for the business. That’s what Liam paid him for, and well.
Liam shook his head, suddenly too tired to be confused. He just had to run with his gut. That had served him well all these years. Right now he needed to get a job done and concentrate on this fit-out. People relied on him to put Weet-Bix on the table for their children. He put Ray from his mind and called the foreman over.
* * *
‘Why’d you give him the muffin?’
‘Old saying; keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ Clover said. ‘And I know you’re rolling your eyes.’
Holly had followed Clover to the front window to watch Liam’s retreating back cross the road and into the Upper Crust shell.
Clover snapped her fingers. ‘I need a bigger sign.’
‘You already have one that takes up the entire front of the café,’ Holly said.
‘I need to go higher.’
Holly rested a calming hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Let’s wait and see what happens; after all, we do things differently around here. They don’t offer the same things we can. And besides, people have been known to travel across Bass Straight for your cooking.’
Clover responded with a mono-sound. It wasn’t just the sign, or the fact that Upper Crust was a well known bakery. She was prepared to fight for her little café, so the fact there was a new business over the road meant competition on. She would be prepared for it.
It was much more than that. Much deeper. Upper Crust was everything that she wasn’t. It had no right opening up in the suburbs like this. There was no sense of community about it. It was big. Impersonal. And although it turned over thousands of loaves and dollars, none of it went back to the people who might really need the help it could provide.
‘Didn’t you read the paper the other day? A homeless man was taking day-old bread from the Upper Crust bin in Fitzroy, and the manager ran him out. I heard that Liam Sinclair himself ordered his mangers not to give away day old loaves.’
‘Why on earth would they do that?’
‘Profit. What else. Better to save money than to feed starving people.’ She knew what it was to starve. Personally. You didn’t forget that kind of thing. Although she owed a lot of money and had worked hard, she still had more than most, and Liam Sinclair had more than anyone. And did his best to keep it all to himself.
‘He doesn’t seem the sort to do that.’
‘You met him for five minutes on his best behaviour.’
She half listened to her friend defending Liam Sinclair, but the other half of her mind tortured itself with what-if’s. She’d borrowed money, serious money, to finish the café. She’d plunged all of her savings too. If this didn’t work out…She didn’t want to think about it, but her mother would be the one to suffer the most. Clover shuddered with the thought. The worst couldn’t happen. It already had many years ago, but she didn’t think her mother could survive another hit like that one.
She had no choice. She simply had to make this work, even if it went against all the things she stood for. She noticed a movement over the road and Liam and another man dressed in a formal suit came out of the door in rather a terse conversation. Clover touched Holly’s arm and indicated them.
‘Looks bad,’ Holly said.
Clover nodded. ‘I don’t trust him. They glanced in our direction. They must be talking about us.’
‘He’s rather handsome though,’ Holly said.
Clover gasped. ‘You can’t be serious. No matter how good looking he is, he’s the owner of Upper Crust.’ She pointed a finger in Liam’s direction. ‘They’re the competition in more ways than bread rolls.’
‘They’re not evil.’
Clover snorted. ‘That’s only a matter of opinion.’
‘I saw you looking at him. Like he was Christmas and you were about to open the largest present.’
‘I was not!’
Holly raised her pale brows. ‘You like him. I know you do.’
‘Rubbish!’
‘Tell me you don’t think he’s good looking.’ Holly challenged.
Clover grabbed the broom and started sweeping up the coffee beans. ‘He’s not ugly, by any means. But I don’t really go for his type.’
‘What, the type who’s as handsome as sin with the body of a Greek god.’
‘He’s still a Sinclair and those types are known for their ruthlessness. You don’t know how many other poor people they’ve trodden on just to make a dollar. He may be okay looking, but there’s much more to attraction, believe me.’
Holly took the broom from Clover. ‘Give him the benefit of the doubt. There’s something about him that isn’t like that. Maybe you should let someone in. You’ve been alone for a long time.’
‘I’ve got Mum…’
‘You know I love your mum, Clover. But she wouldn’t want you to put your life on hold because of her.
A hard lump knotted her throat. How often had she longed for someone to listen to her, to help her? How long had she hugged herself to sleep thinking how wonderful it would be to feel the warmth of the man she loved lying beside her? How wonderful it must be to share the good as well as the problems. Together they would be a team to deal with the hardness of life.
She shook her head. It would never be. The only consistency in life was that her mother relied so heavily on her. That was a task she wouldn’t ask to share. She owed it to her mother. Her mother had worked hard to feed and clothe her as a child, and now she would repay the favour. When her father had died, her mother and she relied on hand-outs to survive. It was the only way they survived. Clover smiled away her pain and laid her hand on the broom handle. ‘Well, maybe I can watch him and dream about our life together as I sweep.’
Holly returned her smile. ‘Maybe you should tidy the kitchen while I sweep and close up. We’ve got an early start tomorrow. First day open for breakfast. And you need all the rest you can get.’
It was going to be busy tomorrow. It would be first day she would open for breakfast. A flutter of nerves touched her stomach as she worried about how many patrons it would attract. Hopefully enough to make a little profit. Holly was right. She needed to prepare, otherwise she’d be here all night and she’d pulled a few of those recently getting the café painted and ready for customers.
Clover glanced at Liam. He wasn’t just handsome. He was divinely masculine. Just the thought of being in his arms sent a thrill hurtling through her insides. Her traitorous body had sat up to attention and panted when he’d walked through the door. Just as well she had control over her mind. And her mind was telling her body that no matter how attractive he was, under no circumstances would she allow it to give in to him.
No matter how strong the attraction or how glorious it might make her feel. He’d certainly never felt hunger or feel the way it was to need other people’s help. Freely given, certainly. Grateful, of course. But at the same time she always wished she never been put into the situation.
Liam disappeared through the Upper Crust door, leaving Suit-Guy alone. He faced her café and stared at it. She knew he couldn’t see in, but all the same she stepped back from the window.
Clover retreated to the kitchen to prepare for the morning. Liam was obviously the man in charge. She knew for sure she’d been the topic of conversation and Suit-Guy didn’t look happy. She wondered what the specifics of the conversation had been. It hadn’t looked good. Liam had obviously said something Suit-Guy hadn’t liked hearing.
The guy looked like he worked in an office. Maybe some type of executive. Liam’s executive. She was competition. Liam would have a plan for competition. A sick feeling entered her stomach as she put the rolling pin back in its place. Maybe Liam was telling the man to put the plan in place. He’d said something the guy didn’t like.
No doubt she wouldn’t like it either.
Maybe the Upper Crust competition was going to be tougher than she thought. Handsome or not, Liam was a business man and he was out to make a profit. Why else would someone like him be in business? She put her hand over her stomach to stop the heaviness swirling around inside. This was going to be a fight for survival. And there could only be one winner in a small street like this. The thought made her even more apprehensive.