Page 2 of Finale (North Security)
Castille manages a benign smile. Can’t my brother see the powerful mind working behind that calm expression? I want to warn him, but we’re on the stage now. This is a performance, this meeting. Every word scripted. Every movement matters.
“Naturally we’re very proud of what we’ve built,” my father says.
“Come into the office,” I say, moving so they’ll have to follow me. We need to get this conversation out of the foyer. Even though it’s private here—we trust Molly implicitly after all this time—no deals are signed in a hallway. I glance back and find Castille’s gaze on my ass. Heat rises in my cheeks. He’s definitely not the first man who’s ever checked me out. After my party scene years I almost became immune to it, but I wasn’t expecting it here. Not with my father and brother a few steps behind him. Not with a billion-dollar deal on the table.
We settle around the table. My father sits in the center, directly across from Castille. They’re the main actors in this play. My brother and I sit on either side.
“About your proposal,” Castille says. “I read it. I reject it.”
My father laughs, unfazed, though I feel my brother stiffen on the other side of him. “Now, those are just starting terms. Brainstorming, if you will. I want to hear your ideas. Your work in Bali was incredible. If we can bring some of that talent into the Bradley umbrella—”
“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.”
