Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
“Forget it,” my brother says, standing. “We’re the gorilla in the room. We could make a deal with anyone; we shouldn’t even be taking a meeting with this guy.”
This is going down the drain faster than I thought. “Let’s just listen to him.”
My brother gives me a derisive look. “Go back to your spreadsheets.”
“The spreadsheets in the proposal?” Castille raises a dark brow at me. “You made those? They were well done. I appreciate a good spreadsheet.”
There’s no reason the word spreadsheet should sound suggestive, but the way the word rolls off his tongue makes it sound explicit. It occurs to me that I’m the only one at the table with a padfolio. The contract is printed inside, along with other important numbers from our business. Things we’d have to discuss if talks got serious. Castille notices, too.
“Perhaps Miss Bradley and I could conduct this meeting by ourselves.”
My father laughs. It’s a real laugh, which makes it worse. “Oh, Isa loves spreadsheets. She’s always trying to show them to me. There’s a time and a place. A time and a place, but we’re here to talk about ideas. Now that chef you have at the villas, where did you—”
My brother’s still standing. He wants to storm out, but he knows we won’t follow him. “I’m next in line to be CEO. If you want to talk about the future of Bradley Hotels, I’m the one you conduct a meeting with.”
“I don’t think so,” Castille says, his voice steel beneath velvet. “My inside line on this company says that the daughter’s the one who makes the decisions around here. I’d rather deal with one person than three.” He gives a bland smile to my father. “But I’ll pass your compliments along to Chef Bautista. He’ll be happy to know he has a fan.”
Silence frosts the room, and I suck in a breath. Three years ago my mother called me to “do something” with my college degree. We were on the brink of bankruptcy. I spent every night dropping thousands of dollars in Los Angeles. Of course men would offer to buy me drinks. They’d buy me the entire club if I wanted them to, but I always turned them down. Not even a shot. Money makes people think that they own you. One drink leads to another, and then the man expects to escort you home. No, I paid for my own drinks. And when my family needed help, I dropped everything to make it work. A huge loan that we paid back ahead of schedule. Tightening of the budget across all the hotels. And the hardest part, higher standards of luxury and comfort even as we spent less.
No one has ever acknowledged what I do in the company. The average person probably remembers my stunt base jumping off the Hollywood sign. I’m the celebrity punch line.
America’s pretty little capitalist princess.
No one cared that I graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.
No one knows that I spend twelve hours a day working.
Except apparently Francisco Castille.
My brother explodes. “Your inside line? Inside line? Does that mean you have a spy here? I need a name. A goddamn name before you walk out that door.”
“It’s the way things are done,” my father says, chiding, relaxed in his chair. A nuclear bomb could go off on the conference table, and he’d take it in stride. It’s part of what’s made him so successful. It’s also what’s brought his company to the brink of collapse. He winks at Castille. “Business would be boring without a little corporate espionage. We have someone on the inside of Castille Enterprises, of course. You never know when it will come in handy.”
“We don’t,” I say to Castille.
“I’ll speak to Isabella alone.” He nods his head toward my father. “And I’ll throw in Chef Bautista. If he wants to relocate, he’ll have his choice of Bradley Hotels. It will be a condition of any arrangement that she and I conclude.”
My brother tries to protest, but my father ushers him out of the room. He gives me one last look before he closes the door—and I read the instructions plain and clear: make the deal. He wants that chef, and he’s willing to do anything to get it. Castille clearly understood that.
Quiet descends on the room. It’s different from the cold shock earlier. This is contemplative.
Castille leans back in his five-thousand-dollar corporate conference table chair.
I slant him an unamused look. “What’s that going to cost us?”
“The chef? I’ll throw him in for free.”
“Not when you paid a fortune to put his six kids through college, you’re not.”
“So you do have spies. I’m impressed.”
“If you want to be impressed, let’s discuss Bradley Hotels. My brother may like to boast, but he’s not wrong about our connections. Or our infrastructure. You know that or you wouldn’t have asked for this meeting.”