Net Worth by Amelia Wilde

5

Charlotte

I’m not goingto be defeated by one man in a perfect suit with a cruel mouth and gorgeous eyes. I’m just not. So the new proposal gets every bit of my attention, and none of it goes to thinking about Mason Hill.

I’ve positioned Van Kempt Industries the way I would a piece of my clothing I wanted to sell on eBay. All the good things front and center. It concentrates on how it’ll feel to make a profit off Cornerstone, which is practically guaranteed once it’s finished.

All I have to do is sell it.

I smile confidently at nothing in the waiting room, trying to get the rest of my body on board. The racing pulse is excitement, not nervousness. The ache in my abs is strength, not tension. I don’t know how to categorize the vague sense that I might throw up. Intense anticipation, maybe.

The secretary appears at my side. She’s dressed in slacks and a sleeveless sweater. More casual than I am, but then, it’s a Saturday. The only opening in the schedule when we made the appointment early in the week. “Mr. Morelli will see you now.”

Mr. Morelli’s secretary wears a kind smile while she leads me to a pair of double doors set into the wall. The smile has to be a good omen. I’ll take anything at this point. Any sign this will go well. She pauses with her hand on the handle. “Ready?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

She pushes the door open. “Ms. Van Kempt for you, Mr. Morelli.”

He’s already in motion when I step into his office, striding through a space that’s natural light on dark neutrals. Some men can’t wear black on black without looking like they’re going to a funeral, but Leo Morelli isn’t one of them. Whoever does his clothes has a good hand. Because he’s moving, I can see that the jacket of his suit has been painstakingly crafted to fit him exactly. Not closely—exactly. That kind of tailoring does more than make the clothes more flattering. It also reduces the friction between the layers themselves.

His eyes come up from the folder in his hands. They’re as dark as his clothes. Flecks of gold. Like the wedding band he wears. He snaps the folder shut with one hand and offers me the other. “Ms. Van Kempt. Thank you for coming. How was the traffic?”

“Thank you for taking the meeting. You probably have better things to do on a Saturday, so I appreciate it.” I sound great. So sure of myself. “The traffic—it was fine.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “It was atrocious, but I admire your optimism. Please, sit.”

He motions me into a chair that turns out to be surprisingly comfortable and takes the one at his desk. Leo Morelli has the most perfect posture of any man I’ve ever seen, other than Mason Hill. Though I never saw Mason sit down. I probably never will. I’ll probably never think of him again.

“About the proposal. About the Cornerstone Development.” I fold my hands over my purse and look him in the eye. He looks back, and sweat pricks underneath the ballet bun I’ve worn for the meeting. It feels like he can see right through me, right to my cardboard shoes. Like Mason. Shit. Not again. “I thought we could discuss—”

“I can’t make you an offer.”

No. That’s not what he just said. It’s not. I put on a bright smile, as bright as I can make it. “I haven’t made my pitch yet.”

“One of my least favorite things is having my time wasted on bullshit, so I won’t waste yours by pretending this is going to go anywhere. I hate to be so blunt, Ms. Van Kempt.”

Disappointment comes in waves, lapping against my shins, my knees, my thighs. It creeps into my stomach. “Do you? Hate being blunt, I mean. I thought you were known for that.”

Real amusement flickers into his eyes. “You flatter me.”

“Fine. You’re known for being angry. You’re known for being—” I almost say dangerous, which would be true. From everything I’ve read about Leo Morelli and the Morellis in general, this is one of the riskiest meetings it’s possible to take. “Calculating.”

“And you think I’ve made the wrong calculation.”

“I think you haven’t given me a chance.”

He really doesn’t seem angry, though his face is made for heightened emotion. A beautiful canvas for it. His hair is so dark it’s almost black, and he has the same features as the other Morellis I’ve seen in pictures, but the angles are more refined. It’s hard to look at him when I feel this panicked. This let down.

Better to look at the frame on the shelf behind his desk that holds two photos. One is dark—a blonde woman in the glow of candles on a cake, leaning into him while he grins down at her. The other is light. The two of them in some kind of reading nook in front of a white wall of bookshelves. He’s reclined on cushions, one hand behind his head and the other resting on her belly. She’s curled into him with a book on her knees. He’s laughing, eyes closed, and she’s beaming.

“Your wife is beautiful,” I say into the silence.

“Haley is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, and I realize he allowed that silence. Let me stare at the pictures behind his desk.

It takes all my willpower to meet his eyes again. Every Internet rumor about this man paints him as a violent, cutthroat person with a terrible temper, but there’s no rage in the air around him. No simmering fury.

I felt more of that coming from Mason Hill.

Damn it.

Leo puts his fingertips to my proposal. “You have a worthwhile piece of property here, but my company won’t be investing. You’ll get the same answer from every other branch of Morelli Holdings.”

Their family company. When I asked my dad about it, he narrowed his eyes and told me not to bring myself to the Morellis’ attention.

He was too late.

I swallow curdled confusion. “You’re the last one.”

“Last one of what?” Leo’s hand flattens on the documents, all his focus centered on me. I wish he were more distracted.

“You’re the last meeting. I’ve had eight meetings this week, and—” I’ll resort to tears if I have to. I will cry to get this done. But if I cry, it’s going to be on my own terms and not because I break down in a rich man’s office. “Everyone keeps turning me down. It’s a good property. It will make a ton of money when it sells. This isn’t that complicated.”

Not the sales pitch I wanted to make, but this is beyond frustrating. Beyond infuriating. My face is hot with it for the eighth time this week. More shingles fell off the roof of our house last night. Another contractor pulled out of Cornerstone early yesterday morning. My entire life is coming apart at the seams, and all of New York is conspiring to make it happen.

“I disagree.” Leo Morelli’s tone is shockingly level, shockingly gentle, for a man whose temper is so legendary they call him a beast in his hometown. “The situation appears to be quite complicated, Ms. Van Kempt. I’m not sure you’re aware of just how involved it is.”

“There is nothing involved about this beyond a development project. I know luxury condos need more hands-on management than retail space, but—”

“It doesn’t have to do with the kind of development.”

“Then what does it have to do with? If someone would just tell me, for the love of God, then maybe I could write a proposal that won’t get laughed out of every office building in Manhattan.”

“Your proposal is solid,” he says, and I hate this, I hate this so much. I hate that he’s having to walk me through this problem when I should have been able to see from the beginning that it wasn’t going to work. Except I can’t let myself think that. I have to hope it’ll work, I have to make it work, because I don’t have any other choice. “One of the better ones I’ve seen.”

“Don’t. You don’t have to—” Coddle me. Try and make me feel better. Then again, I don’t get the general impression that Leo Morelli spends a lot of time soothing people’s feelings. “Tell me why everyone I’ve met with this week sends me out the door with a sad smile and some bullshit promise to follow up if anything changes.”

“Ms. Van Kempt—”

“Leo?”

I’m staring at him, waiting for him to reveal the big secret behind everyone’s wholesale rejection of my offer, so I see the way his face changes at the sound of that voice. The gold in his eyes brightens, and there’s a brief flicker of surprise, like he’s thrilled to hear his name. Like he’s been waiting all his life to hear his name said just that way.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and I finally turn to see her. It’s the woman from the photos. His wife. Haley. She’s got the door propped open on one elbow, a gorgeous, sheepish grin on her face. The blue of her summer dress brings out her eyes. One shift of her weight, and I see what else it’s meant to do—show off her baby bump. “I didn’t realize—”

“Excuse me,” Leo says, and then he’s up, my proposal abandoned, this entire embarrassing meeting abandoned.

I stand up after him. There’s no reason to stay and talk this out. It doesn’t matter why everyone is turning me down, only that they are. I’ll try something different.

He pushes at the door with one hand, doing something so that it’s held open. It will be even more awkward to go out the other side of the door, so I don’t. I pretend to search for my phone while he angles her away from me, his hand dropping down to rest for a moment on the swell of her belly. It’s so intimate and sweet that my throat tightens. The way she looks at him makes the rest of the world seem like a painted backdrop.

I get my phone into my hand and swipe at the screen, glancing up one more time to see if there’s an opening to flee.

I don’t see one. I see Haley in her dress the color of a robin’s egg and Leo in his dark clothes, and past them, his secretary’s office and a wide hallway. At the end of that hallway is a glassed-in meeting room.

And in that meeting room is Mason Hill.

He leans against the table, arms folded over his chest.

He’s looking right at me.

A wolfish grin spreads across his handsome face, and my gut plummets through all the floors of the building below me. Frigid cold flashes through my veins. The burn comes next, along with the steep drop of understanding.

This is not a random coincidence. He’s here because he wanted me to see him here. After eight meetings, he wanted to watch the final rejection himself. Well, he didn’t get to see it in person. He didn’t. Because the doors to Leo Morelli’s office are heavy and opaque.

It doesn’t matter. He can see me now. He can see me in my handmade skirt suit and my cardboard heels. He can see me armorless. Defenseless. Defeated.

Screw that. I’ll never let him see me defeated.

I lift my chin and meet his eyes, even though I’d rather sink down to the floor and curl up in a dramatic ball until everyone went home for the day and I could go home in peace.

His grin gets wider. More sharply satisfied. My heart pounds. I tried to forget about Mason Hill, but he didn’t forget about me. He’s been pulling the strings on all these rejections. Getting to each company first. Whispering in their ear about how they shouldn’t trust me. How they shouldn’t sign a deal with me. He probably talked about my cheap shoes and my father’s drinking problem and all the things I’ve failed to keep together.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this building collapsed under my feet, just like everything else.

He would love that.

Mason Hill would love to destroy me.