Page 4 of Meet Jon, the Billionaire

“You won’t distract me with Drew Carrey’s intensely erotic sexual charisma,” Petunia said, her wrinkled face splitting in a grin. “If you can just route the calls upstairs to my apartment—”

“You’re supposed to be taking it easy. Go sit in front of the television, drink some tea, and leave the bakery to Pedro and Sascha and me, okay?”

“Well, my knees are kind of swollen…”

“Yeah! You just got them ripped out and replaced with bionic ones.”

Petunia laughed. “I guess Drew Carrey awaits me after all. But if you need anything—”

“I’ll give you a call.”

Once I’d dealt with that crisis, I went out to the sales counter and helped fill orders. I glanced across the stainless-steel shelf separating the kitchen from the sales counter as Yerkov slid two sandwiches out.

“Mr. Goldstein said you were a national treasure, Yerkov.”

Yerkov stared at me stonily, as he always did. He made a grunt I chose to interpret as ‘huh, isn’t that nice?’

Gradually, the breakfast rush died down, and we recovered the bakery before taking a breather. We didn't get much of a lunch rush, more of a steady trickle and special orders for the rest of the day, until around dinner time when we had another rush. That was the cadence of Breadcetera. You rarely got a chance to sit down, but sometimes things slowed enough you could sort of relax. Sort of.

I stared at the corner lot adjacent to our store and sighed.

“What are you sighing about?” Pedro asked.

“I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be great if we could buy the corner lot and expand? We could have two registers, maybe even more.”

“Ah, that’s a pipe dream,” Pedro said. “That’s primo real estate right there. Must be a hundred people vying to buy it.”

“Yeah,” Sascha added as she made her bank deposit drop. “The only way to get that lot would be to go down to city hall and schmooze the zoning board committee.”

“Schmooze, huh?” I grinned. “I work on Wall Street. I can schmooze with the best of them.”

Pedro and Sacha exchanged glances, then looked at me.

“Are you serious?” Pedro asked, a strange mix of incredulity and hope in his voice.

I stared at the corner lot and set my jaw hard.

“As a heart attack, Pedro. As a heart attack.”

Chapter Three

Amelia

When I went to bed that night, all I could think about was the corner lot. If we acquired it, I would be able to expand the store and the kitchen, hire new staff, and make everyone’s lives easier.

I wasn’t after the corner lot to be greedy, you understand. I genuinely wanted to help Breadcetera be the best place for its employees and guests it could be. I know that sounds cheesy, but that’s where I was at mentally.

I stayed awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling and imagining the ways I could increase our chances of being the winning bid to purchase the lot from the city. I knew right away that money wasn’t in our favor. Other people could probably raise a lot more capital.

Instead, I had to figure out a way to make us look like the most attractive option possible. When I awoke the next morning, I dove into the internet and gave myself a breakneck education in all things related to municipal development. Complicated? You’d better believe it was complicated. I mean, there were so many factors I’d never considered.

My head was swimming with facts and figures at the bakery all day. I began to seize on one aspect that I thought I could play to my advantage; Breadcetera qualified to be a historical landmark based on the fact it had been in place for forty years.

I considered this a great stroke of luck, something literally no one else would be able to bring to the negotiating table when it came time to decide who got the corner lot. However, I also knew that it wasn’t going to be enough on its own.

I had to schmooze. I had to get the zoning board members to know my face and think fondly of me and Breadcetera when push came to shove. The only problem was, I didn’t exactly run in the same circles.

When things slowed down at the bakery, I ducked into the office and doxed the zoning board members. I tried to identify people who would be the most sympathetic to my cause so I could target them directly.

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