As he had imagined, raising the finance on the terms that he had set out in the business plan was plain sailing. In fact, he had managed to better them by narrowing down the offers that he had received from a plethora of financial institutions. They had fallen over themselves to get a foothold in the action, impressed by his proposals to tap into the huge marketing potential behind the goodwill of Rebecca Talworth’s name.

Two weeks after the financial package had been finalized, he had negotiated a five-year lease, with an option to buy after that period, on 10,000 square feet of office space in a converted flourmill on the north side of the River Thames, just west of the Wandsworth Bridge. Being on the top floor, it had an abundance of natural light flooding in through the large Velux windows that ran the full length of the roof, and there was ample room for the offices and large studio where the cutting and machining of design samples were to be carried out.

Within three months, Rebecca had closed down her two shops in King’s Road, laying off all but two of her sales assistants, and had moved into the new premises. The shops were not part of the business plan. To begin with, retail was to be handled from rented floor space within one of the more prestigious department stores in the West End, depending on which was able to offer the better deal. Once manufacturing was in full swing, then units in similar department stores were to be sought in major cities throughout the world.

And it had worked. The base of the letterheading of Rebecca Talworth Design Ltd. now listed London, New York, Paris, Stockholm, Frankfurt, and Madrid, and if his negotiations proved fruitful, then Tokyo would be added within the next month.

However, from the moment that the new company had started trading, there was one problem that Stephen had found hard to overcome, and that was his working relationship with Rebecca herself. She was still the creative genius, but still hopeless with money, and she displayed a wild extravagance with this new injection of finance. Having been on the receiving end, on a number of occasions, of her quick temper and irrationality of thought, Stephen knew that he had to handle Rebecca with the softest pair of kid gloves in order to maintain a measure of civility between them.