Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Maybe that was my naive, new-in-town sensibility, though. Matt and most of the people at his company knew the place better than me. I’d just thought the site had already been decided, and that I’d been a part of that decision making.
“Nope,” he responded, and my heart fell further into my stomach. “I know exactly where I’m going. And you should probably memorize the route, princess. You’ll be taking it a lot.”
I gave him my best hiding-my-tears smile. Maybe if I forced myself to look on the bright side, the change of venue wouldn’t be so bad. And since when had I gotten so invested in this job?
Since Matt had believed in me enough to trust me with it. I wanted everything to be perfect, and I’d already lost some perfect locations.
And as we drove, things looked less and less perfect. When we pulled up to the curb in front of a brick office building, my chest ached.
This was going to be Ascend Manhattan? What had happened to the boutique hotel and all the glamor? Was I being selfish and elitist for mourning that aspect of my vision? Did Matt not trust my ideas and abilities as much as he’d said he did?
“This is it, huh?” I asked and heard the tremor in my voice.
“This is it. I know it doesn’t look like much...” His voice died away. Then, with forced cheerfulness, he pushed open his door and said, “Come on. Let me show you inside.”
It wasn’t much better on the inside. We entered a fluorescent-lit foyer with a cracked tile floor and two elevators with lumpy coats of paint.
“It’s going to take a lot to get this place...” I abandoned the thought entirely. I couldn’t hold back, anymore. “This isn’t going to work. I have no idea why you chose this over the site we recommended, but I can’t see how this matches the vision, at all.”
His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, and an expression of horror washed over his features. “No! Oh my god, no, no, this isn’t that building. You thought I was going to turn this place into Ascend Manhattan? It’s only five stories, there isn’t nearly enough room.”
The weight of my relief made my shoulders sag.
He went on, “I wouldn’t screw with your project like that without you knowing. This is my own thing. This is where my foundation will be headquartered.”
“Your foundation?” It was the first I was hearing about any foundation.
“For childhood epilepsy,” he explained as the light above his head flickered. “Free testing, meds, specialists, the whole deal. I’m throwing down the initial costs and funding it independently for ten years, but Catherine is helping to set up an endowment that will enable it to keep going in perpetuity.”
“Catherine?” My voice went high and thin. Since when had they been able to be in a room together long enough to even sign the form?
“Turns out my ‘meddling’ in her life didn’t have the disastrous outcome you anticipated, huh?” He didn’t disguise his self-satisfied grin. But it was quickly replaced with the excitement over this news. He hit the elevator button and said, “Come on, I’ll show you my office.”
“You already have an office? How long have you been working on this?” Without telling me, I mentally added.
“Oh, about a month.” He gestured for me to enter the elevator ahead of him, then hit the button for the fourth floor. “I wanted everything to be set in stone before I told you, so you wouldn’t think it was a pipe dream I wasn’t going to follow through on.”
“Why would I have thought that?”
“Because I’m a billionaire. And as you’ve pointed out several times, billionaires don’t do things that don’t make them richer. I wanted to be sure this was all going to work out before I told you about it because I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me if we hit a roadblock. I didn’t want you to think it was an excuse or... here we are,” he said as the doors slid open.
As much I wanted to hear more about this foundation, I needed to make something good and God damn clear between us. I took his hands in mine to stop him as we stood in what appeared to be a vast warehouse of empty cubicles. “Why would I have doubted your follow-through? You jumped through about a million hoops to pay all those medical bills off. You finished that project. If you’d told me about this, I would have been your biggest cheerleader.”
“I didn’t need a cheerleader, though,” he said, and lifted our joined hands to his lips to kiss the backs of my knuckles. “I needed some tough love. I needed reality. And you gave that to me. If you’d never called me out on my rich guy bullshit, told me about how the actual world works? I would still be running around spending money on a needlessly lavish lifestyle, trying to please people who can damn well please themselves, and fucking everything that moved.”