f a man who seemed to have no sense of humor. What had started as a grueling, pointless, time-wasting and frustrating re-creation of Lost in Translation quickly lightened into a high-spirited and very productive back-and-forth as James went through the financial agreement piece by piece, point by point, moving with a speed and skill that would have made even his legendary father proud.
People walked out of their offices and stared at him with a hushed kind of reverence. Robert watched from an office down the hall, but he tried to pretend he wasn’t, in spite of the bullets his forehead was sweating all the while.
Instead of frantically scribbling down numbers like we all did, James worked them all out in his head. He only wrote the final sum on a Post-it, then stuck it playfully to my forehead. When I pulled it off and looked at it, my mouth fell open in shock; it was a full ten times higher than the percentage we hoped to get.
That settles it. He really is a god. That’s not just unlikely. It’s...impossible!
The Japanese started winding down, and James stood up with a soft chuckle. He offered a few parting words before finishing with a cheerful, “Sayonara!” A second later, he picked up his jacket and hung up the phone in a single motion, then tossed the latter back to me. “Now that that’s all settled, are you ready to go?”
I blinked, stared down at the Post-it, then blinked again. “What the hell just happened?”
He glanced at his brother with a touch of irritation before glancing at his watch. “To put it simply, I guess our lunch date just became a dinner, so—”
“No, I mean this.” I slapped the sticky note down on the desk, staring back at him in wonderment. “How the hell did you do that?”
“Oh, that?” James shrugged it off casually and led me to the door. “Mirosaki’s a good friend. I helped him renovate his pool house last year.” His voice lowered comically as we bypassed the rows of staring employees on our way to the elevator. “I also sang at his daughter’s bat mitzvah the year before. If the two of us can get past that, we can get past anything. Now, where to for dinner? And please don’t say you prefer Japanese!”
Chapter 6
“THE DORCHESTER?” I asked in amazement, staring up in awe at the gilded doors of London’s most exclusive restaurant. “Are you serious right now?”
James led me up the stairs with a proud little smile on his face.
“Well, I figured it would be best to avoid finger foods. I’m afraid you’ll start to think I don’t know how to use a fork,” he said with a grin. “Besides, my brother was kind enough to book me a table here, so...”
Never in my life had I set foot in such a swanky establishment. It was like walking onto a movie set for some ridiculously over-the-top Hollywood epic, the kind that would have had me on the edge of my couch biting my nails as I watched it.
The second we stepped inside, someone rushed over to take my coat, so discreet that I didn’t even notice him coming. Another appeared to offer complimentary glasses of champagne. The tables were set with gold-plated utensils, an array of crystal stemware sparkling atop the starched white linens, and a live orchestra played tastefully in the background.
Thank goodness Madison and I didn’t go for casual dress today, I thought, looking down at myself in relief. After my weekend binge session and the Doritos, I was lucky I didn’t show up to the office in my most well-worn Levi’s.
As if the venue itself wasn’t intimidating enough, there were the other patrons to worry about, a veritable who’s-who of London high society, a Forbes cover just waiting to happen, though my dinner date would have done much better to grace the pages of Playgirl or GQ. Film stars, British heiresses, and the mayor himself feasted beneath those dazzling chandeliers, and I was sure that if I dared to snap a picture with my phone, any tabloid would have offered me a year’s rent for it. Even stranger than the horde of rich and famous was the fact that they were all staring, at me no less.
“You okay?”
I glanced up quickly and saw James staring down at me with a look of concern. At first, I didn’t understand why, but then I realized that my fingernails were digging into his skin. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said and retracted my hand quickly, blushing all the while. “Sorry.”
He studied me for a moment, locking those lovely eyes on mine, then finally dismissed the whole room of VIPs from their stares with a casual wave of his hand. “We can go somewhere else if this isn’t your cup of tea,” he said. “There’s a little Italian place down by the—”
“James!”
He glanced up in surprise as a tuxedoed man sauntered up to us, with a beaming smile plastered across his face. “As I live and breathe. James Cross?” Without a word of warning, he yanked James suddenly forward, pulling him in for an ostentatious embrace, fully aware that all eyes in the room were glued to him as he did so. “I half-expected that I’d never lay eyes on you again, my boy. I thought you went all American on us. Hanging out with Nicholas Hunter.”
“Unhand me, you lunatic!” James said, wrenching himself free. “I come in peace.”
The two shared a fleeting grin before the man promptly forgot him and turned his roving eyes on me. “And who might this stunning creature be? Come, James. Surely you will properly introduce me to your...friend.”
James flashed his eyes to the ceiling with a pained grimace, one that could have easily been genuine but clearly wasn’t. “Only if I must.”
I stepped forward with great trepidation as the man held out his hand.
“Delilah Jones, Charles Branson. There. Consider yourselves introduced.”
“Come on!” Charles whined like a little schoolboy. “Introduce me properly, would you?”
“For the last time, Charlie, no one cares that you’re a duke.”
I giggled nervously for a moment, but when I realized that he actually was a duke, my eyes widened infinitesimally, and I took a step back. My mind rushed through my admittedly short list of facts on English history, but I certainly didn’t have a lot to go on. Wait. They still have dukes?