she asked, as though she had no idea.
‘Have you heard the rumours going around about Lucy?’
She could tell by the look in his eye, the tone of his voice, that he was hoping she hadn’t, meaning that matters might not be as bad as he feared they were. Just a few of the staff disgruntled by his daughter’s idea of leadership, not the majority. Jan nodded and said gravely, ‘According to what’s being said, your daughter doesn’t seem to be making herself very popular, does she?’
He shook his head, grim-faced. ‘Not from what Harry Owens told me, no, she isn’t. According to him she’s acting like she’s the queen bee and all the workers better do as she says or suffer harsh consequences.’ His face screwed up into a mask of mortification. ‘And apparently she’s really upset everyone because she didn’t attend Reg Swinton’s funeral. Never even showed her face or sent an apology. His widow was extremely upset, as you can imagine, Reg having worked tirelessly for the firm for the length of time he had. Harry said that it was very embarrassing for the staff who attended.’
‘Oh, dear,’ Jan mused. ‘That really is unforgivable of her. Anyway, in respect of the way she’s lording it about, in all fairness, Glen, she’s only sixteen.’
‘Seventeen in January,’ he corrected her.
‘Then she’s still sixteen now. When I was her age, I thought I knew everything. Wouldn’t listen to any advice my elders tried to give me but believed everything people of my own age told me, even things that my own common sense should have told me were complete bunkum. One of the things I believed was that the top brass sat in their ivory towers all day, waiting for us minions to keep them in champagne and caviar. Of course, it wasn’t until I grew older and wiser that I realised the truth of what the bosses really got up to when I thought they were idling: handling critical day-to-day issues that affected the success of the company. Didn’t you think that too before you wised up?’
‘No. My father made sure I knew everything about running a successful business. The moment I was old enough, I was shown what went on behind closed doors.’
‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Jan folded her arms under her shapely chest and said matter-of-factly, ‘Well, your ex-wife is to blame for letting your obviously grossly inexperienced daughter have free rein with the company while she’s swanning around on holiday, not giving a damn. Serves her right if she comes back to find the place has gone to the wall.’
Glen eyed her sharply. ‘Wouldn’t be much help to the people who rely on their jobs to keep a roof over their family’s heads and food on the table, would it? I couldn’t bear to see the company suffer, and especially not at the hands of my daughter with her daft ideas about running it. Her grandfather started that company from scratch, put his last penny into it, built it up by working all hours . . . to provide for his family and have something of value to hand over to me when he retired. Or, as it turned out, died. I worked hard to build on what he’d left me. When Lucy was born I vowed to work even harder, to ensure she had a good inheritance. I can’t just stand by and say nothing when she’s doing so much damage.’
Jan frowned. ‘What do you propose then, Glen? If you want to have any hope of building a relationship with Lucy, you need to pick your time and place carefully and be very sensitive in your approach.’
Glen stared at her blindly. His emotions were in turmoil. He might not have set eyes on his daughter for fifteen years but his love for her and sense of parental responsibility had never diminished. He was torn now between a desperate need to protect Lucy from the vicious tongues that would be lashing her for the way she was acting, excuse her behaviour, blame himself somehow for it, while the other part of him wanted to demand from her just why she thought she was a superior being with the right to treat those she saw as beneath her as if they didn’t matter. He vehemently hoped that Lucy’s behaviour was just the result of her immaturity. She was obviously not equipped for the role she’d been forced into. Jan was right and Nerys must be out of her