I would stop at nothing to buy that property.
But Stella London was my last hope.
“Karen’s godfather?” she asked.
I had to hold myself back from pinning her to the chair and asking her whether she had met him. This could work out even better than I’d hoped. “You know him?”
“A bit. He was always around for her birthdays, and we went to his place in the Bahamas when we were seventeen, but I don’t see why you need to go to a wedding to buy a building. How do you know me and what—”
“On planet Earth do I want?” I finished for her. “I’ve been trying and failing to get a meeting with Henry for months. That wedding will provide an opportunity to speak to him, to convince him to sell his Mayfair property.”
“I don’t get what that’s got to do with me.”
“I did my research. I know you were invited—I want to go as your plus one.”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, like I said, I’m not going, so you need to find someone else.”
I hadn’t counted on her refusing the invitation just like I hadn’t expected her to laugh in my face when I offered to help make her partner. I never fucked up like this. Every sign I got was telling me to walk away from this deal. But I couldn’t. This building was a symbol of bad luck for my family. It just made me more committed to buying it and making it mine. “I would make it worth your while.” She could have the entire nine-point-four million in profit I was projected to make for all I cared. Well maybe not the entire profit.
“Like I said, I’m not going to the wedding and I don’t care about getting Foster and Associates new work.” She stood again. “And this time, I’m really leaving. Florence, I’ll call you later, and man with the Dom—Beck, whatever—thanks for the champagne.”
Christ, I was losing her. Maybe I’d come on too strong. I should give her space. Try again on a different day when she’d had time to think about it. I pulled out a business card. “You don’t care about getting Foster and Associates new business,” I said. “I get it. But consider what it is you do want. Even if it’s just a check. I need to get into that wedding.”
“A check? No amount of money could convince me to celebrate the marriage of Matt and Karen.”
Why couldn’t I catch a break, have a stroke of good luck? It was like someone was deliberately trying to sabotage this project. I was used to my hard work paying off. I’d never put so much time and effort into securing a property and yet I was stuck—making no progress. It was as if the development was punching me invisibly and in slow motion over and over.
“If not a check, maybe I can do you a favor,” I said. “I know a lot of people. If you w
anted to move jobs, I might be able to help. Or maybe you want a holiday of a lifetime. Have a think.”
“I’m not interested,” Stella said. “Going to that wedding would be like a holiday in hell. Worse.”
“Stella,” her friend said. “Take his business card.”
Stella shot her friend a look that could kill. “I’m not going to that wedding. I don’t care about getting a shitty promotion. Or a holiday. Nothing is worth enduring that for.”
“I know. But there are things you do care about,” her friend said. “You don’t lose anything by taking the guy’s business card. That way if you think of something you want that’s worth going to that wedding, you can call him.”
I wanted to write Stella’s friend a check right there.
She grabbed my business card out of my hand like a child resignedly eating its carrots. “This day is out of control. I need it to be over.”
I knew that feeling.
Six
Stella
“Think about it as if he’s the genie.” Florence’s voice crackled out from the speakerphone as I finished up brushing my teeth.
I took a sip of water from my glass, rinsed my mouth, and spat it out. “Have you been drinking?”
“I’m serious. Hot Suit’s the genie.”
“What? And I’m the lamp? Well, he’s not getting inside me.”
“No, you crazy pervert. You’re Aladdin.”