Page 7 of Tempting Eden

She walked in, her face pinched. Her injury was taking its toll.

“I could have brought Mr. Poole to your office for you.”

She glared at me, as if I’d crossed some line I didn’t even know was there. “No, I’d rather not have him in my office. We always meet him in here.”

She took the chair at the head of the table. “Mr. Poole is a very important client. His money keeps my projects going, keeps me selling real estate, keeps me—and now you—employed. Just keep that in mind when you speak with him.”

“Got it.” I didn’t intend on speaking at all if I could help it. Being a listener was one of my hardest-won traits, especially because it didn’t come naturally to me. But it always served me well.

There was a brief rap at the door, and then who I assumed was Mr. Poole entered. He looked in his early forties, fit, blond hair and tanned skin, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors. Ms. Rochester rose. I did the same. He took her hand in a familiar shake.

“Rochester.”

“Good to see you, Gray. Did you have a smooth trip back from Atlanta?”

He took the seat opposite me, at Ms. Rochester’s right hand. I sat along with them, ignoring him ignoring me.

“I always do. The private jet helps; turns the trip into a taxi ride. I was only sorry that you left too early to share the flight back with me.” His tone was familiar, as if he knew more about her than he should.

He smiled, his teeth white and even, too even to be natural. He turned to me. “And who is this?”

“Jack England. He’s my new assistant.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jack. Don’t let her run you off too quick. She has a habit of doing that.” He had the sort of Southern accent that seemed fake. The one from old movies. Or the one from new movies where the Southerners were played by British people—too strong, too Old South. He winked at me.

I forced a pleasant smile onto my face which he didn’t see because he’d turned back toward Ms. Rochester. I was dismissed. I didn’t mind. His attention wasn’t what I was after.

“So, let’s talk about new business,” he said.

Ms. Rochester clasped her hands in front of her on the table. Then she seemed to spy the coffee stain on her sleeve and thought better of it, placing her hands in her lap. “Belle Mar.”

Mr. Poole shook his head and took a leisurely drink from his coffee cup before pouring in the sugars. “Oh, I don’t know, Rochester. I haven’t decided where I’m going to place that project. I may not use Thornfield at all.”

She leaned forward. “Gray, you know Thornfield is the only company capable of selling such a luxury complex on the coast.” Her voice had grown higher, almost girly.

Mr. Poole smiled a little. She clearly knew how to work him. She continued, “And really, where else could you get a bigger bang for your buck than with us? We have all the best stagers, access to all the high-end clients. No other broker in the Southeast will be able to put together the total package for you like we can.”

Mr. Poole drummed his fingers on the dark wood of the conference table. “All that may be true. And youhavealways done me right in the past. But even if I do choose Thornfield, there’s no guarantee that I’ll give the project to you. There are several other vice presidents, that new Emily for example, who need to get a taste of what the business is really capable of.”

He smiled again. Like his accent, it seemed fake. Apparently, Ms. Rochester wasn’t the only one who knew how to toy with people.

Ms. Rochester furrowed her delicate brow. “I don’t think that’s what you want, Gray. Inexperience breeds mistakes.”

She ran a hand through her hair, fluffing it along the front of her blouse. I followed her movements. So did Mr. Poole. He licked his lips.

They were speaking English. But they were speaking something else, too. There was a deeper negotiation going on, one it seemed they had done before.

He leaned back, expanding his chest. “Maybe you’re right. But, I’m worried about my profits. I’ve been giving you my projects to sell for years. We’ve had a good run, but I can’t help but wonder if I could do better elsewhere.”

“Unlikely,” I said.

Mr. Poole raised his eyebrows and gave me a stern look. “No offense,Jack, but you just got here. And I don’t make business decisions based on the opinions of secretaries.”

Ms. Rochester shot me an acid look. “I’m sorry, Gray, he’s new—”

I pulled a spreadsheet from my pile of papers. “This documents the profits you’ve gained for each of the past dozen projects you’ve done with Ms. Rochester. It shows your investment, the time frame your capital was used in the project, the eventual gains, and how close to asking price each of the units sold. As you can see, your profits have risen with each subsequent deal, only dropping slightly in 2007-2008 during the real estate crash. After that, the increase in the amounts you’ve made have been far higher than the gains in the real estate market in general and, obviously, far higher than the gains you would have earned in the open stock market, especially given the too-big-to-fail market of 2008. Also, note that on several deals, she got you more than asking.”

Mr. Poole drew a pair of drugstore reading glasses from his inner coat pocket and perched them on his nose so he could follow along. I pulled another spreadsheet from my stack. “This one shows your return on investment when you’ve put money in projects at Thornfield that were supervised by VPs other than Ms. Rochester. Here, when you chose to give a Mississippi high-end condo project to VP Cheryl Ingram, the project barely broke even. You would have had a better return betting blind on the stock market during that same time period. There are a couple of other examples on there where you did earn a profit, but nothing approaching the same results as Ms. Rochester provided.”

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