“Good morning, Mary,” I said, my voice as friendly as I could make it.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said by way of greeting, but still leaned toward me to bestow a flashy air kiss against my cheek. It would never do for her to fail to uphold form.
“Oh, Luce,” she said, as if surprised. “I didn’t see you there.”
She repeated the showy kiss with Lucy, who I could tell was struggling to keep a smile on her face. Poor Lucy. It was bad enough to see Mary every day at work, but it would be much, much worse to be related to her, even just through marriage.
“How are you, Mary?” Lucy asked brightly, and I wondered if Mary could sense how much her husband’s little sister disliked her. Then again, self-awareness had never been Mary’s strong suit.
“You’re late,” Mary said, turning her attention back to me, ignoring Lucy’s question. “I’ve been waiting.”
I swallowed, hard, knowing it would do me no good to mention that she rarely made it into the office before ten. She wouldn’t care. She was here early today and I wasn’t, and she would hang onto that small victory for as long as humanly possible.
“Sorry,” I said, pointing at the pile of files in Lucy’s hands. “Lots of work last night and this morning.”
I gestured Lucy ahead of me toward my office so she could drop off her heavy load. Mary followed us, chattering on about the Covington Group and what her husband, Charlie, our CFO, had to say about them last night.
“I really think I should be in there,” she went on. “I mean, this is where I shine, you know? With people. Why doesn’t Emma ever get that?”
“She does,” I soothed. “She’s always sending you into one-on-one situations.”
This wasn’t a lie, not technically. Emma did often send Mary into one-on-one situations—just not with clients. Or investors. Or anyone who we really needed to impress. Mary was better dealing with vendors, the high-end places that were happy to cater to a rich girl packing both a company credit card and her husband’s platinum card. She spent as much time shopping for herself as she did for the company.
“I still think I should be in on this meeting,” Mary insisted as we reached the door to my office.
“It’s Emma’s meeting,” I explained, setting my bags down and powering on my computer. “She’s the one who made the contact with the firm. I’m sorry, Mary, I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“Talk to her!” she cried, making Lucy wince as she arranged the files on my desk.
“Thanks, Luce,” I said, meeting her eyes. “Can you go check on the conference room, make sure the handouts are ready?”
“Sure,” she said gratefully, scuttling past her sister-in-law. “Bye, Mary,” she called over her shoulder, relief at her escape evident in her voice.
“Why can’t you talk to her?” Mary asked, her voice more calm.
“Mary, come on. You know that this is her area. I don’t like to step on her toes.”
She threw her hands up. “I just want to help.”
“You do help,” I said quickly, mentally crossing my fingers. “You do so much for this company—”
“Why doesn’t she see that?”
“She does! Of course she does. She had you handle the entire design on the champagne bar last month, didn’t she? Would she have done that if she didn’t count on you?”
I didn’t point out that the design of the champagne bar was specifically described by the investors down to the last detail—totally streamlined and simplified, modern. Stark even. All Mary had to do was go out and pick up some platinum candlesticks and decide on the barware. Hardly high-pressure stuff.
But my soothing seemed to appease her, at least for now. “That’s true.”
“So let Emma have her meeting,” I urged. “You know she’s just stressed out. She’ll be leaning on you hard when we get to the planning stages.”
It was a flat out lie, but Mary only smiled smugly. “Absolutely.”
I sank down in my desk chair, eager to be rid of her and get to work, but she perched on my desk, wrinkling her nose at the stack of folders Lucy had carried up. “What’s all this?”
“Financials. Rundowns of what a project this size should cost. Reports on what they can expect for their return on investment.” Mary looked at me blankly until I rubbed my hand over my forehead—that earned me a frown.
“God, Annabelle. You’re going to give yourself wrinkles. How many times have I told you this?”
“I have a headache,” I murmured, continuing to knead my temples.
“Well, getting a bunch of lines won’t help that.”
It took a lot to keep from rolling my eyes. “You’re right, Mary.”
The phone on my desk jangled, and I grabbed it, relieved to have an excuse to shoo her away.
“Hey,” Emma said, her voice as calm and collected as ever. Most people would have no idea that she was nervous at all.
“Morning,” I said, mouthing a Sorry to Mary who jumped up from the desk, pointing her finger at her smooth forehead as a reminder of the danger I was exposing my skin to, before heading out the door.
“I thought we should go over some of those financials before they get here,” Emma was saying. “Do you have everything?”
“Of course.” I didn’t point out that while she was out on a date last night, I went home to work.
“Well, I’m in my office whenever you’re ready.”
I looked back at the stack of files, feeling tired suddenly. “I’ll be right there.”
I gave myself one moment to close my eyes, to try and get myself centered, ready for the day ahead. Meeting with this firm would determine if we had a chance to bid on the hotel project. Bidding on the hotel project would determine if R&E would sink or float. R&E sinking or floating would determine what I could do with the rest of my life.
But no pressure.
I sighed as I stood, rolling my neck, trying to get my head in the game. I stacked the pile in my arms as neatly as I could before taking a deep breath and heading down to my best friend’s office.
***
After the Covington Group people left, no one spoke for a full minute. My chest felt tight, like there suddenly wasn’t enough air in the room.
“Well,” Charlie said cautiously, looking around at the rest of us. “It wasn’t a no.”
No, it wasn’t a no.
But it sure as hell wasn’t a yes, either.
“I can’t believe this,” I muttered, fiddling with the rim of the water glass in front of me. “After all that time you put into networking, to developing the contact. We have a relationship with these people!”
Emma nodded absently, her gaze fixed on some point out the picture window. I could practically see the gears in her mind spinning, trying to figure out the best way through this.
“Look, this isn’t a terrible thing,” Charlie went on. “So they want us to bring in some help—big deal.”
It probably wasn’t a big deal, not really. Though we had an in-house creative team of architects and interior designers, the people from Covington requested that we bring in someone from the outside. “You’ll be up against some of the top development firms in the country,” Mr. Clay, our main contact, said. “You need to stand out.”
When Emma had tried to argue that we were perfectly capable of standing out on our own, Clay was blunt. “You’ve never done a resort hotel before. How do you even know your team is capable of putting together the bid?”
There wasn’t much point in arguing after that. We hadn’t done a hotel before—which was partly why we were so desperate to get this project. It would put R&E on the map in a way a dozen club and restaurant openings could never do.
But that was only half the problem. The reason they wanted us to bring in outside help was because they were opening the bidding process to a number of firms, instead of the one or two Emma had heard about in her weeks of networking. In other words, we were going to have a hell of a lot of competition.
“Maybe we bring in someone from out of town,” Emma said, finally turning away from the window to look at us. “Start putting our feelers out in New York and L.A.”
I felt a mad urge to laugh. Who did I know in New York or L.A.? All of my networking had been done with Emma. All of my connections had been made through our work with this company.
But Charlie was nodding thoughtfully. “I’ll call a few guys through the alumni network,” he said. “Maybe someone will have an idea.”
Emma scribbled something in her diary. “I’ll call my father. I’m sure he knows someone.”
I sighed, not wanting to be the odd man out. “I’ll make some calls, too,” I said vaguely, but Emma didn’t seem to be listening. She finished the note she was making in her calendar and looked up at me, fixing me in a serious gaze.
“Annabelle, let’s talk about the numbers.”
I glanced down at the folder in front of me, confused. We had been through the numbers several times that morning, before the meeting and once the developers were in the room. “What about them?”
“Is there anything you can do? Any holes you can fill? Any tightening you can do?”
I swallowed. I had spent the past several weeks going over and over our proposal, trying to get the numbers as tight as possible. I couldn’t see anywhere else I could cut.
But I also couldn’t see us losing this bid and staying solvent. “I’ll try.”
She nodded, looking grim. “Maybe if we can bring the numbers down a little that will put us ahead.”
Charlie cleared his throat. “Not to mention that we’ll need some money up front if we’re bringing in a big name architect.”
Shit. Our operating budget was as streamlined as I could possibly make it. Where was I going to find money for an architect?
We sat in silence for a moment. I wondered if they were as scared as I was. Emma was a smart girl—I was sure she had to have some inkling of what our balance sheet was foretelling. Charlie… Well, Charlie was the CFO, so if anyone should have an idea of what we were facing, it should have been him. But Charlie had shown a propensity for being overly optimistic when it came to money; a symptom, I suspected, of having so damn much of it. I had watched him on countless occasions laying out lavish sums of his own cash to buy rounds of drink, expensive meals, and games of golf for our clients, like it was little more than Monopoly money. I often wondered how real our problems could seem to someone like him.
“What do we do if they don’t like the proposal?” I asked, voicing my largest fear. We had been developing a partnership with this group for years. Sure, there were other projects we could move on to, but nothing that would give us such a big return. And we needed a really big return. And we needed it fast.
No one at the table responded for a long moment. Finally, Charlie looked at Emma, his expression nervous. “What about… Could we ask family to invest?”
His meaning was clear— Can’t you just ask your dad? And it wasn’t unheard of. The Russells had given us our start-up cash right out of school. Without them, there wouldn’t be an R&E. But Emma had agreed with me that paying them back their investment—with interest—would be our first priority, and we hadn’t gone to them for money since, even after things started getting so tight.
Emma stiffened, and I didn’t envy Charlie being subjected to the steely glare she directed at him. “I’m not going to my parents.”
He nodded, looking chastised as he shuffled his papers. “Right, right. Just an idea.”
“Why don’t you go make your phone calls?” she suggested, her voice still on the icy side. “Our first priority is finding an architect we can work with.”
He nodded, gathering his things, looking relieved as hell at his dismissal. Once he was gone, Emma sighed, slumping back in her chair slightly. Emma never slumped.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for, Em? This isn’t your fault.”
She shook her head. “I mean about my parents. I wish I could just ask them for a loan.”
A little chill went through me. “Is something wrong?”
“The economy,” she mumbled, again, turning to stare out the window. “They’re in the same position as we are—too much going out, not enough coming in.”
My throat, already dry, went positively desert-like. “Are they… Are they okay?”
She waved her hands dismissively. “It’s not all that dramatic. They’ve had to sell a few assets, but nothing they can’t live without.” I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I had been imagining them selling the house or something. “Daddy is an excellent businessman,” she went on, sounding almost defensive. “They’ll get through it. I know they will. I just don’t feel right asking them now.”
“I completely agree.” I knew full well that if Emma went to them for money—investment opportunity or not—they’d say yes, regardless. Even if they couldn’t afford it. They had never been able to refuse her anything.
“We’ll figure this out, Emma,” I said, sounding much more confident than I felt. “I know we will.”
She turned back to me, smiling faintly. “It kind of feels like the early days, you know. Me and you, up against the world. Trying to beat the odds.”
I grinned in spite of the pit of worry in my stomach. “We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again.”
She nodded, her smile almost wistful, before seeming to shake herself. “Well. I suppose we should get to work then, eh?”
I stood, gathering my papers. “I’m going to go over these financials again.”
“Good. I’ll start making calls.”
We paused in the doorway of the conference room, looking at each other. “We’re going to be okay, Annabelle,” she said, her voice soft. “I promise.”
I nodded. “I know.”
She laughed a little before squeezing past me. “Besides, you’re not getting off that easy. You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future, babe.”
I walked slowly down to my office, feeling even worse than I had before. Her words reminded me that even if we got the developers behind us, even if we got the bid for the resort, that the complicated part was just beginning.
How in the hell was I supposed to tell my best friend I wanted to leave the company we had started together?
I was relieved to make it to my office without having to see Lucy. I wasn’t sure I could handle the disappointed look on her face when I told her that the meeting hadn’t been great. I locked the door behind me, taking deep breaths to still the heavy thudding of my heart as I collapsed into my leather desk chair.
I knew I needed to get going on the financials, but I couldn’t shake Emma’s words from my head. You’re stuck with me. She had been joking, of course, but it was hard not to take the words literally. The truth was, I did feel stuck. Not with our friendship—Emma would always be my best friend. And I was proud of the work we had done here, of the company we had built.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting to leave.
It had only been in the last few years that I had let myself entertain the idea. For a long time, I managed to convince myself I was happy, that I was doing what I wanted, where I wanted, with the right people. I got to work in a fancy office building right off the Strip, live in a gorgeous, modern apartment, wear nice clothes everyday, rub elbows with the rich and well connected. Lots of people would have killed to have my life.
But I wasn’t happy. If I really thought about it, which I tried not to do, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been happy. Sure, it had been exciting starting the company. The hours Emma and I had put in, especially in those early days when it was just the two of us, had felt like the best kind of productive—like we were creating something real and important. Turning a profit in our second year had been a massive accomplishment I was still proud
of. But the longer I worked there, even as our reputation grew, even as people started to want to rub elbows with me at the fancy parties, the more I realized that the excitement was giving way to stress. Massive stress.
I was constantly anxious. Constantly tired. I’d been diagnosed with an ulcer when I was only twenty-six, for God’s sake. And the migraines seemed to get worse with each passing month.
I wanted out.
At first, it had been an idle thought, a passing musing while sitting in a mind-numbingly boring meeting with our attorneys. I don’t want to do this anymore. I had pushed it away, scared of what it meant, sure I was just in a bad mood after a sixty-hour workweek.
But it persisted, popping up at random moments over the next few months. While presiding over a staff meeting with the entire office. While touring a restaurant site with our architects. While listening to Emma flirt expertly with a potential investor. It didn’t matter what I was doing. Every aspect of the job felt unappealing.
I reached down into my bag and pulled out a thick, black portfolio. I usually kept the folder at home, paranoid someone might see it. But I’d stuck it in my bag that morning at the last minute, wanting to feel close to the plan that had become like a lifeline to me.
This portfolio held the details of the life I wanted to lead. A life that would take place far away from Las Vegas. Far away from the company Emma and I had started together. What had started as a whim—a way to pass time, a little daydream fantasy—had become real for me. Tangible. Something that could actually be within my reach.
All I had to do was get the company back on its feet first.
That was a must for me. I wasn’t going to leave Emma in the lurch, no matter what. Whatever I felt about it now, I still had a great amount of pride in the firm we had started. I wouldn’t abandon it to failure. We had to get this bid. We had to.
Plus, my cut of the proceeds should be enough to eke out my savings to the point where the plan could become a reality.
I ran my fingers over the bound leather cover of the portfolio. I didn’t need to open it to know what was inside. Each page was memorized, to the tiniest detail, as if etched upon the very fabric of my mind.
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