Wild Oats by Veronica Henry Page A

his future, and had almost been driven mad by his father. Advancing old age and a dicky hip were making Eric irascible and cantankerous, and what was even worse, smug and ‘Itold you so’ about Olivier’s lack of prospects. Their values were poles apart. The older Eric got, the more he became driven by the pursuit of money and the subsequent spending that proved to the world how successful he was. Everything had to be the best, from his Jermyn Street haircut down to his silk socks and handmade shoes.
    Olivier, on the other hand, had never had the urge to earn money; as long as he had enough to eat and a few quid left over for a pint, he was happy. It wasn’t that he was work-shy, for he’d always worked hard, but he made sure he did things that he enjoyed so he could live for his work. He would happily have taught skiing and tennis for nothing.
    And he loathed London. There was nothing there to unleash his boundless energy on to. He reluctantly helped his father out at the dealership, a huge emporium of ‘previously enjoyed’ prestige cars that attracted the sort of clientele Olivier particularly abhorred – aspirational and eager to show off their success. Eric was horrified that he preferred washing and polishing the cars to serving customers. But sitting behind a desk dishing out bullshit and brownnosing potential purchasers was anathema to Olivier. He was a physical being; London and the dealership and his parents were caging him in.
    Eric was frustrated with his son’s attitude. Time and again he sat him down and tried to fire him with some ambition.
    ‘By the time I was your age,’ he was particularlyfond of saying, ‘I’d made my first million. Only on paper, admittedly. But a million was –’
    ‘Worth a lot more in those days,’ Olivier would finish the sentence for him wearily. ‘I know. So you keep telling me. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.’
    ‘I’m only telling you for your own good. You can’t bum around the world for ever.’
    His father obviously had no admiration for what he’d been doing. And no sympathy for the fact that his injury meant he could never go back to what he loved so much. Olivier grew weary of the nagging and the taunting and being constantly put down. And being compared to his older brother and sister, who were a hot-shot lawyer and head of PR for a Parisian fashion house respectively. His parents positively worshipped the ground they walked on.
    ‘Of course, neither Emile nor Delphine will want to take over the dealership, as they’re both so successful in their own right,’ Eric said one day, and Olivier’s blood froze. Didn’t his father understand? He had no interest in it whatsoever. He’d probably run it into the ground within months. He had no head for figures, no head for doing a deal. OK, the cars were beautiful, he appreciated that. But Eric might as well be selling lawnmowers or tractor parts for all the interest he actually took in his commodity. All he cared about was the profit. Olivier didn’t find his mother any more supportive or sympathetic. She spent most of her time travelling over to her native Paris to stay in Delphine’s apartment. She’d become thinner andmore chic and more brittle than Olivier could ever remember.
    Eventually, however, he became resigned to the fact that he had no choice but to step into his father’s shoes as he was little qualified to do anything else and Eric, annoyingly, did have a point about him not being able to bum around for ever. He couldn’t live on fresh air, after all, and his savings weren’t going to last long. So he tried to take a more positive approach to the business, get his head around sales figures and targets and selling techniques. He consoled himself with the fact that there probably were worse ways of earning a living.
    One November afternoon, he was sitting in his father’s office at the showroom going through yet more tedious paperwork when a tiny newspaper cutting fell out of a