Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes Read Free Book Online Page B

analysis. Believe me, if I’d thought the South African site was going to work better in the long run, I wouldn’t have been so glad to let it go. But I like to go a layer deeper –’
    ‘Your bedtime reading is all very interesting, Mike, but it would be useful if—’
    ‘– and it’s really all about the margins. That’s the bottom line.’
    ‘No one cares about the margins more than us, but—’
    Dennis held up a pudgy hand. ‘Tim. No. Not a word – because there’s something else I’d like to show you before we go any further. In fact, gentlemen, if you’d like to follow me through to the next room, we have a bit of fun lined up before we tell you exactly where it is.’
    Venture capitalists, I mused, as we followed them, didn’t look as though fun was a high priority on their agenda. Some were positively disgruntled at having been uprooted from their comfort zone of boardroom table and leather-backed chair, muttering uneasily to each other. Then again, having come in half an hour late, I wasn’t sure what Dennis had in mind. Please don’t let him have asked Tina to dress up in a bikini, I prayed. I was still haunted by memories of the Hawaiian Hula Proposal.
    But what Dennis had planned was quite different. Boardroom Two had been emptied of its table, chairs and pull-down screen. There was no two-way video link, or a tea trolley in the corner. What sat, huge, squat and foreboding, in the centre of the floor was a large piece of machinery, surrounded by inflatable blue tubing, its centrepiece a florid yellow surfboard.
    We were all stunned into immobility by the sheer unlikeliness of the thing.
    ‘Gentlemen. Remove your shoes, and prepare to hang ten!’ Dennis held out an arm towards the machine. ‘It’s a simulator,’ he announced, when nobody said anything. ‘You can all have a go.’
    The room was silent, bar the low hum of the surf simulator. It sat, an alien creature in this sea of grey, its flashing buttons gamely advertising that, should they want it, their surf experience could be accompanied by a Beach Boys tune.
    I registered their expressions, and decided that the best way to rescue the situation was to divert them. ‘Perhaps the ladies and gentlemen would like a bite to eat first? A drink, perhaps? Tina, would you mind?’
    ‘Whatever you say, Mike,’ she said, catching my eye lazily. I could have sworn there was a sway to her walk as she left the room, but Dennis didn’t notice.
    ‘I just want to give you gentlemen an idea of how irresistible our proposal is. I had a little go earlier,’ he said, kicking off his shoes. ‘It really is quite good fun. If no one else is brave enough, I’ll show you how it works. You stand on here and . . .’ He had removed his jacket and the barely restrained bulk of his stomach hung over the waistband of his trousers. I was grateful, not for the first time, that Vanessa had inherited her mother’s genes. ‘I’ll start off with some little waves. See? It’s easy.’
    To the strains of ‘I Get Around’, my boss, who in the past three years had overseen seventy million pounds’ worth of property investment, and has on his desk photographs of himself shaking hands with Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, stood on the surfboard. His arms were raised in a parody of athleticism to reveal two dark patches of sweat. His buffoonish exterior was renowned for masking a razor-sharp business brain – although sometimes I had to wonder.
    ‘Switch it on, Mike.’
    I glanced at the men behind me, trying to smile. I wasn’t sure that this was a good idea. It wasn’t the image I thought we should portray.
    ‘Just switch it on at the plug, Mike, and I’ll do the rest. Come on, Tim, Neville, you can’t pretend you don’t want to have a go.’
    With a low whine, the surfboard jolted slowly into life. Dennis bent his knees and stuck one hand forward, wiggling his fingers. ‘What – I – haven’t – told – you, gentlemen, is that simulators