Draco did stick to his script, as it happened, but he was clearly distracted and his usual nonchalant charisma was rather strained. Luckily for Hermione's guilty conscience, however, his less than best was still better than most, and his speech seemed to be well-received – if the slowly softening looks of their investors were anything to go by.
Once his part of was over, Malfoy returned to his seat – sod's law, it was directly opposite Hermione. He caught her eye as he sat, and, determined to be mature, she tried for a brief smile of encouragement; it came out as more of a grimace, and she looked away before she could see his response.
Needless to say, she spent the rest of the morning carefully avoiding his gaze.
Apparently Malfoy felt the same way, because the moment the meeting broke for lunch, he was up and off without even a glance in her direction. He seemed to have recovered his charm though, and Hermione watched from her seat as he began moving around the room, schmoozing the intimidatingly powerful businessmen and women with a confidence and magnetism she envied.
Not in the mood for mingling herself however, Hermione made her excuses and went to double-check the catering arrangements, before escaping upstairs to eat her lunch in her office. Malfoy and his other executives were conducting a series of smaller meetings with the investors this afternoon, so she didn't think she'd be missed. Quite frankly, she didn't have the energy to organise anything more.
The majority of her management colleagues were downstairs, so the fifth floor, usually a veritable hub of activity, felt much quieter than Hermione was used to. Under normal circumstances, she might have enjoyed the peace, but today she just felt isolated.
Still, it meant a couple of hours' worth of uninterrupted work, which she doggedly made the most of. Once or twice she caught herself replaying the morning's events – her anger, that letter, the look on his face – but banished it all from her mind before she could work herself up to superhuman levels of mortification.
And she was mortified. Dreadfully so. After all that agonising over how she was going to approach Malfoy - how she was going to wait until after the meeting so she wouldn't distract him - she'd gone and thrown it in his face minutes before that all-important moment.
We'll talk later, he'd said ominously. And later came at three thirty that afternoon with a curt knock on her door.
"Granger, are you in there?" He sounded impatient.
She picked up a few files to casually flick through so she wouldn't look like she'd been brooding. Which she hadn't.
"Yes," she called. "Come on in."
She winced slightly as Malfoy slammed the door shut behind him.
"Is everything okay?"
"No," he said. "I need a drink."
It took her a moment to comprehend – that was hardly what she'd been expecting him to say – but when she did, she couldn't help a snark.
"There's a jug of water on the sideboard," she said primly, and he shot her a dirty look.
"Not that kind of drink," he said grumpily, but stomped over the cabinet anyhow. She watched guardedly as he poured himself a glass and took a huge gulp.
The silence that followed was discomforting. Hermione wasn't sure what to say, and it seemed Draco wasn't entirely at ease either; he downed the glass of water like a shot of firewhisky.
"What's wrong?" she asked when he finally came up for air.
His lips narrowed.
"We're going to Marseille," he said. "Gouin rang. He's threatening to ditch his shares."
Hermione slumped back in her chair.
Self-made business tycoon Benoît Gouin was one of Malfoy's biggest muggle investors. He had been invited to today's meeting, but had refused to make the journey to London from where he was based in Marseille. Aside from being perhaps the most difficult man to walk the planet (quite a feat, Hermione often thought, with wizards like Draco competing for the title), Gouin was also unfathomably influential in the arena of international business. If he withdrew his support from Malfoy Inc., it could prove catastrophic.
Hermione wasn't surprised Malfoy was dropping everything to meet with him in Marseille. What worried her was that he seemed to expect her to go with him.
She hated Gouin. And Draco knew it.
"We?" she asked suspiciously.
He sauntered over to perch on her desk.
"You and I," he enunciated. "I need you to organise a portkey and book a hotel. We leave tonight."
Tonight?!
"I can't go tonight," she said tartly. "I have a date."
Draco looked unimpressed.
"Cancel it."
"No," she said. "That's not fair." She realised she sounded like a spoilt child the moment she said it, and pinked as Malfoy arched a single blond eyebrow. "It's too last minute," she amended. "You can't expect me to just cancel my plans at the drop of a hat."
Malfoy fixed her with a stern look.
"This meeting with Gouin could mean the survival of this company," he said. "You may not care about that long-term, but last time I checked, you still work for me – and I do."
Hermione sucked in her teeth. So that's what this is about, she thought sourly. Revenge.
"I care about the survival of the company," she said.
Malfoy apparently took that as assent.
"Good," he said, standing and striding towards the door. "See if you can book us each a suite at The Opera House Hotel. Ask for Monsieur Dimont and mention my name. Then head home. You'll need to pack."
Hermione pushed back her chair and rose.
"I haven't agreed to go yet, Malfoy," she said, just before he reached the door. "And we need to talk. About my reference."
He stopped, just as she had hoped he would. A long, tense moment, stretched as thin as elastic, and then he turned.
"Consider it done," he said quietly.
Hermione just stared. That was it? No outrage? No bargains? No... nothing?
What was his game?
"I'm sorry you have to cancel your plans today, Granger," he continued, uncharacteristically hesitant. "But I need you there. There - there's no one else I trust as much as you to help me with this."
His words and the self-conscious look on his face startled her. Godric knew it wasn't often Draco admitted how much he needed anyone's help, let alone hers. But he was clearly being honest with her - he wouldn't look half so uncomfortable if he wasn't.
"Okay," she heard herself say. "But I get first choice of rooms."
He looked relieved.
"Deal."
...
Ginny wasn't best pleased when Hermione owled her to cancel her blind date, but she agreed to see if Dugan was willing to reschedule. Hermione made a valiant effort not to tally up the many dates Draco had (indirectly, she hoped) made her cancel.
Before he left her office, Malfoy had told her he expected to be in Marseille until the end of the week, so she booked tonight's private international portkey with a return for Friday evening (an appallingly expensive luxury, but Malfoy flat out refused to take a muggle plane) and reserved them rooms at the stately wizarding hotel he had requested, before doing what he suggested and taking the floo home to pack.
"You're going where?" Harry asked incredulously when she flooed him a little later.
"Marseille. I won't be gone long," she added. "Till Friday at the latest." She put on her best beseeching look. "Please pretty please could you or Ginny feed Crookshanks for me? He only needs fresh food and water once a day, and maybe let out for a little bit of exploring."
Harry didn't take much persuasion, and since he'd looked after Crookshanks before, she only quickly reminded him where she kept the cat food and the back door key.
"I can't believe Malfoy sprung this on you like this," he said once he'd assured her he knew what he was doing. He looked suitably miffed on her behalf, which Hermione appreciated – but she once again felt she had to defend Malfoy.
"Well, to be fair," she admitted. "He didn't know about it until this afternoon either. It's a bit of a crisis really. We've got to sort it out or risk losing one of our biggest investors."
Harry pushed his glasses up his nose.
"Still," he said. "He asks a lot of you."
Hermione sighed.
"I know, I know," she said. "I should quit."
Harry looked surprised.
"I don't think you should quit. Can't stand the git myself, but you and Malfoy work well together. Plus," he added wryly. "I know you enjoy his dramatics more than you let on."
His words stayed with Hermione as she said goodbye and busied herself packing a small travel bag. Did she enjoy Draco's dramatics? Maybe she did. She would roll her eyes and sigh, but when it came down to it, she thrived on organising people - and Malfoy gave her a lot to organise.
They still hadn't really talked about her reference though, she realised as she zipped up her holdall – about what it would mean for her, for Malfoy, if the Ministry offered her the job. Not that she'd accept any counter offers he made. This trip to Marseille wasn't his fault, but it was the last straw.
She'd need to let him know that sooner or later, of course. Then again, he'd promised her he'd write the letter, and the man she'd gotten to know over the last few years was not someone who would let her down. Even if he sometimes acted like he might.
Hermione hadn't scheduled the portkey to leave from Malfoy Inc. until quarter past seven that evening, so she had some time to spare after she finished packing – time that, on a regular day, she would spend in the office. But today was not a regular day, and she took the opportunity to slump on the sofa with a sneaky glass of wine.
As she relaxed, boneless, into the cushions, her eyes landed on a small stack of paperbacks beside her. She picked up the topmost book – a muggle murder thriller she'd picked up from a local store a few weeks ago. She'd started it straight away, but any spare time she'd had recently had been spent catching up on missed sleep or making sure she didn't just live on ready-meals and takeaways. Consequently, the bookmark sat only halfway through the wedge of pages.
Feeling deliciously indulgent, she let herself sink into a world of rugged American cops, blood-soaked crime scenes and forensic mind-games. So absorbed was she in her reading that she very nearly fell off the sofa when the grandfather clock tolled seven.
She spent a few mad minutes racing round her house, checking doors, windows, and the location of her spare key, before kissing Crookshanks goodbye, grabbing her bags and her book, and taking the floo to the office foyer.
"Cutting it a bit fine, aren't you?" Malfoy said as she lurched out of the fireplace the wrong side of ten past seven, almost tripping over her long cloth scarf in the process.
She straightened, pushing her unruly and, quite honestly, slightly sweaty mass of curls back from her face to glare at him.
He cut an urbane figure, leant casually up against a pillar in his grey suit and black woollen overcoat, blond hair slicked back in a loose quiff. He looked… good, and the realisation made her prickle.
"I'm not late yet," she said tersely.
Her irritation grew when he pushed off the pillar and approached her, a decidedly impish glint in his eye.
"Whatever happened to Little Miss Early-bird?" he teased, reaching out to take the holdall from her hand. "You were the only member of the Golden Threesome to ever make it to class on time."
"Trio," she snapped. "You know full well they call us the Golden Trio."
"Not in the papers I read," he said with a wink.
Hermione swept her scarf over her shoulder with a humph.
"I dread to think what you read in your spare time," she said. "The Prince? Mein Kampf?"
"Ouch," he said with an exaggerated wince, then smirked when he saw her expression. "Don't look so surprised. Malfoy Inc. began in muggle Europe, remember?"
She did. His exploits away from London and across the Continent made excellent small talk at business meetings, and he recounted them frequently.
"How could I forget?" she asked drily. "Speaking of Europe…" she glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was very nearly quarter past. "I presume the travel company owled you the portkey?"
"They did," he said, digging a copper coin the size of his palm from his coat pocket and holding it up in front of her nose. "Shall we?"