4th January 2015
"Sir, the Pendragon group are here to see you," his secretary announced over the intercom. Cenred blinked in surprise, he had only been expecting Arthur. Across the room Morgause, his lawyer, raised her eyebrows in speculation.
"Maybe he's brought the boyfriend."
Cenred huffed and pressed the button to reply. "Thank you, I will be there in a moment."
"How long will you make them wait?" Morgause asked. Cenred glowered at her. "Did you really think that you would waltz in and knock this little twink off his pedestal?"
"No," Cenred snarled. "He couldn't domesticate Arthur more than he already has, even if he put him on a lead."
"Why are you so bothered? Because he walked away from you?" Morgause. "Or just because someone has him instead of you?"
Cenred didn't answer, it was probably none of the above and also all of them. It had been years since he and Arthur had had any dealings with each other , business or personal, but he never expected Arthur to be inclined to settle down. He presumed them to be similar in that respect. Cenred supposed things could change over the years but it had surprised him, especially when he had met Merlin and on seeing him couldn't quite understand how the hell the dark-haired, skinny boy had managed to catch someone like Arthur.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Morgause smirk which only raised his ire. He turned to glare at her.
"I'm not bothered about Arthur."
The brightening smirk on her face meant that she knew otherwise, and was entirely right.
"I want to make money off him."
Morgause raised her eyebrows and shrugged, she again flicked through the copy of the contract that Arthur and Cenred had devised years ago.
"I can't argue the thing is watertight, you are guaranteed to get the investment from that sector of his business, and from what I can see from the information at Companies House the business is in good shape. You can exercise your right to have the contract honoured. I just fail to see why it is so important, and if it is just business why you would be so bothered."
Even as she spoke Morgause knew the answer. Cenred simply didn't like being beaten. Although the situation was not exactly a competition Cenred would see it from that perspective. Morgause didn't care either way, she got paid to do a job, so she would just do it.
Cenred stood up and stalked out, opening the door and walking away from Morgause. He paused in the corridor as Arthur looked up and taking his appearance as an opening stood up. Behind him the two people sat reading also stood up. Arthur smiled as he looked at Cenred, and indicated to Cenred's office.
"Shall we?"
Arthur knew he had off-footed Cenred. He intended to do that every step of the way. Merlin wasn't bothered. Merlin had come face to face with Cenred and not been intimidated. In fact Merlin had been almost casual about it.
"This was before me, way before me," Merlin had said in the early hours of the New Year. It was quite prophetic if you wanted to look at it that way. They had talked about it minutes after Big Ben had heralded the 1st January 2015. It seemed a good time to get it off Arthur's chest and Merlin took it with casual aplomb, simply saying, "This was when you mixed business with pleasure, when it was convenient to have sex with the businessman next door."
"I don't think it was quite like that Merlin."
Merlin had shrugged. "Whatever. Point being, why are you beating yourself up. You have a past, so have I. You're not being unfaithful to me if you have to be in business with this guy. I don't think you are going to shag him the moment you have a...whatever. Arthur, please be less ridiculous."
Arthur was trying to be that, but it hurt, it hurt to look at his mistakes. They were before Merlin and because of them he didn't want to get this wrong, because this was now he had Merlin, and Merlin was important, and he didn't want to do something to embarrass himself, or make Merlin thing that he was stupid. Not that he could do that.
"Thank you for coming," Cenred said. "I don't know if you know Morgause, my lawyer."
"I don't think so, nice to meet you," Arthur smiled and extended his hand. That was most definitely a Merlin move. Morgause looked intrigued and met his hand, shaking it firmly.
"You too," she drawled. Arthur straightened up.
"Can I introduce my sister Morgana and my foster son Mordred. Morgana is taking over the entertainment section of my business structure and Mordred is setting himself up as my heir so both of them have a strong vested interest in this negotiation. Once the basics are sorted then you will be dealing with Morgana, I am passing this part onto her."
"Of course you are."
"I am."
"And Mordred won't get a look in, I'll pass this onto my own offspring," Morgana snarled at Arthur, but her eyes darted regularly to Cenred.
"Good, I have other things Mordred can manage," Arthur said smoothly. "For now he's learning, so I like to bring him along to these things, when he has the time, around school."
"We're not a training facility," Cenred snapped. Arthur looked surprised.
"I don't see why not? I am looking into apprenticeships at the moment since Mordred wants to take up my level of business, and also I have Gwaine who could train people up in the building trade, and I'm hoping to find a way to work on helping the people in Social Services."
"That's is so Merlin's influence," Morgana said.
"Yes," Mordred told her from Arthur's far side. "And me, and Elena and you and Gwen and Lancelot and Uther and... everyone. We're like a children's cartoon."
Morgana stuck her tongue out at him. Mordred grinned.
"Enough," Arthur said. "Shall we sort this out. I have spoken to Bayard and I know he contacted you," he turned to Morgause. "Cenred has no claim on the current nightclub I run, our contract was a proposal to set up further clubs in the hope of pooling our resources and creating a chain. My club is successful as it is, so I know what works, but that one will remain independent of any further ventures, should the worst happen."
"I have various locations in consideration. Two of them are already clubs that just couldn't make a profit, but they were not run effectively," Cenred said. "I was thinking to start with those, using whatever skill you had to keep yours going, and then work on from there."
"Fine. However, most of that is Morgana's skill. And her return on the initial investment is what we need to start up this venture so she will have final say."
"Because I was right," Morgana told Arthur.
"Yes, you were," Arthur conceded. He looked up at Morgause and Cenred. "Morgana knows the market, she's part of it, she just chose what she liked as a customer and it all worked. Now she just needs to learn how to take business decisions, and the best way for her to see why I made my decisions is to see them in action, or even make mistakes herself. With you and me backing her, she can't go wrong."
Arthur smiled at Cenred. As much as he hated to admit it, the contract was good, could make a good deal of money and set Morgana up in a well established business.
"So, shall we have a look at it?" Arthur asked.
XxxxxxxxxxxxxX
As much as Arthur wanted to hate her, he couldn't dislike Morgause, she had a business mind, and he trusted her to do what was best. He also got the feeling that the blonde woman liked Morgana, who was tactlessly vocal but kept the woman's interest. By the way her eyes were moving Arthur made assumptions, also noting that Morgause didn't sport a wedding ring. That meant nothing regarding the inclination he was assuming and it was impolite to assume and even more impolite to exploit it for business purposes. Merlin would be cross if he did so, especially using Morgana in the middle of it. Also Merlin would point out that his assumptions could be wrong. Arthur stopped assuming and looked over the roughly drawn up business plan.
"I think this is workable. For Morgana's sake I want to stay on as a partner, and nothing can be done without my say so, but I don't think it will go wrong, all of us want this to work and..."
And Arthur stopped the moment his phone played a tune. He scrabbled into his pocket and pulled out his mobile.
"Sorry, I had better take this..." Arthur ran from the room.
"Merlin?" Cenred asked with a smirk.
"No," Morgana said with a glower, still looking over the notes. Mordred glared at Cenred.
"Social Services," Mordred announced scathingly. "It's important, and Arthur doesn't ignore that."
"I have to go," Arthur said a minute later as he came back in, his phone was still in his hand and the call still active. "George's mother is back in hospital, they need someone to take him and she might be there a while. I need to deal with that. Morgana, can you drive Mordred home?"
"Yes, fine, do that. We can do this."
"I have final signature. Take minutes," he ordered Mordred. "I will look them over and query anything suspect but I think you can finalise the agreement today. I need to get to George. I'll call Merlin on the way."
"Go, fine, whatever," Morgana said still reading, Arthur ran from the room. "He loves that doesn't he?"
"Oh, yes," Mordred said. "That's a bit weird in the contract what is that meant to mean? Third parties cannot benefit from the contract, or whatsit here..."
"That means people not involved in the business venture, so if Arthur tried to pass on profits to you, that would violate the contract. Morgana is legally bound in the venture, and she can take in profits. The contract on the first club is similar, Arthur has say so, and can put money back into the business but can take no profit for himself. That goes exclusively to Morgana. But Arthur holds the purse strings, as it were, which he cannot exploit to his own ends," Morgause said. "That's protects her rights as it would each person involved in this, in this case, Arthur is extracting himself, he holds sway over where the money might go within the club, but won't go beyond that. Profits are exclusive to Morgana and Cenred.
"Right," Mordred drawled, staring at the long winded clause again. "We still need to let Bayard look at this."
"The Alsatian," Morgana mused reducing both her and Mordred to giggles. They both paused as Mordred heard his text alert. He pulled his phone out.
'Taking George, annexing games room, you don't mind'.
"No I don't," Mordred said. Morgana looked at her phone.
"I'm vibrating too. I'm driving you home, which we knew, and we are picking up pizza, when we leave, we let people know."
"Cool," Mordred said.
"Is that all you care about?" Cenred asked.
"Arthur's priorities have changed," Mordred said. "He's done making money, he won't stop, but now he wants something to do with it. Merlin makes him see that point and they have children to do that for. I'm guessing you don't see that point."
"What, a nice little wife and two children?!"
Mordred nodded calmly. "yeah, that."
XxxxxxxxxxxxxX
"Hi, Elena."
"Nice to see you," she said, presenting her polite face. "Considering this, we have called George's father, but he can't make it back for a week at least. They always had this arrangement and he just needs looking after now and..."
"And dad's career is more important than his child?" Arthur murmured. Elena gave a murmur and a shrug.
"He does care, he does pay and comes to see him whenever he can but, yeah, I think he is married to the army. Never George's mum and it's not his fault."
"No, poor guy," Arthur said watching as Merlin wrapped his arms around the little boy. His mother lay in the bed.
"They have sedated her for the time being. She had a fairly bad turn and George called the paramedics. I don't think she's coming out from this and he knows it. If they can try and do something to ease her pain but George's father may decide to pull the plug, or may listen to what's being said."
"Any chance of doing anything?" Arthur asked.
"You can get a specialist in, it might make George feel better, but I think even he knows. What we need to do is find out if...?"
"Yes, we can take him, when his father is not here," Arthur said. "Mordred is not technically a foster child and he's happy to ship out to my dad's if needed. My dad doesn't mind, I think he likes the company. So we do have two rooms free, George doesn't mind sharing with Mordred in the attic rooms anyway."
"I think, for the time being, Mordred stays. Company and comfort, Mordred's kind of good at that."
"Just because he doesn't advertise his heart, doesn't mean to say that Mordred doesn't have one. Let's face it the fact that he came out the way he did is..."
"Sort of down to you."
"No, Mordred was already like he was, he just couldn't show it. He still doesn't. He cares and he finds it painful, so he tried to stop, and maybe Merlin got to him in time."
"I think more you," Social Services Elena said.
"No, most definitely Merlin."
"Can I see Mummy tomorrow?"
"Course you can, Arthur will bring you?"
Arthur was free that morning so Arthur nodded. "Without a doubt. Does your mum still like pineapple?"