At The Edge of: Desire

Chapter O: Dinner before Dinner

Shelby was a young attractive businesswoman, she was ambitious, dedicated to the grind and more than familiar with the sacrifice which made this new reality happen for her. She was determined to make herself even more of a relatively unknown yet wealthy woman, than she already was. She didn't see fame as a good thing at all, even though in the past she had thought it a necessary component, for success. The older and more powerful she became; the more she understood why the senior business people, she received mentoring from, kept a wide berth from cameras and flashy events.

Margaret Allison was one of Shelby's mentors, a brilliant business woman well into her seventies who still maintained majority shares of her own company a fashion house which produced clothes and also licensed big names and made makeup products for them in the same vein as 'Luxottica' in the eyewear industry. She was very wealthy and had maintained her business empire for 5 decades, never losing the competitive edge or the focus which got her there.

The two ladies had been having a late lunch at the Shangri-La Hotel in London, whenever the two of them were together, at least once a month, the conversation lasted for a minimum of 3 hours. Margaret summed it up best on the subject of fame by saying "the more you are in the public eye, the more scrutiny, the more people dig into you and your past, the more points of contention and vectors of attack they eventually find. We all have skeletons and things we would rather the neighbours not know but the press will destroy your sense of privacy with an honest to got revelry and joy at your suffering." She said with a small mirthless laugh.

"Most people think the money is a shield to all there problems, as if somehow life is perfect on the other side of the fence...but please continue, don't let me interrupt."

"Very much so darling, but we all have problems, some of them only exacerbated by the presence of wealth. And the judging eyes, don't care about the lucrative business contracts you might have lost or the hard conversations which you might have to have with your family. What about the marriages which they break up? If you were a public figure, you are a target and a chew toy for the mongrels to play with until they are bored with you."

Young Shelby with far less wrinkles and all the colour in her Black curly hair and stunning green eyes which never stopped glistening had been intently listening. She was blessed in more ways than one and thankful to have such wise council, they talked about many different things between the two of them and at times Shelby literally took notes to better retain the priceless diamond being passed onto her.

She told Margaret that she was making good money and the older woman told her she had potential to make so much more. She told her to be grateful for the niche of success she had managed to carve out for herself but also to never stop hunting for more, the pieces of cheese cake were out there but had to be found and jealously guarded.

They also talked about one of the biggest mistakes that Shelby had made in business. Margaret wasn't particularly open on this side of things but she liked to hear and share a little bit from her own incredible story.

Shelby had been taken advantage of in the past by someone who she had thought a trusted business partner but had turned out to be a career scammer and she told the story as best as she could to Margaret who sat in rapt attention across the table, occasionally sipping from her tea cup and dabbing at her lips with a handkerchief when she took a bite from her cake.

One of the earliest businesses she had tried to get off the ground had been a sportswear business which she had formulated with an old Friend Patricia Stillwell, they had met at a Corporate Licensing Conference in the Excel Centre in London and instantly hit it off, partly because they were similar in physicality at 5 foot 8, both had dark hair and bright eyes.