Page 47 of Return Billionaire to Sender

The next day’snegotiation session is uneventful, or at least, on the surface it is. I’m getting to know a lot more about Gerrold and his son.

Our executive coaching session is also uneventful. Elle has gone back to her maroon suit, though she wears a new butterfly tie with tiny hedgehogs on it, and she starts the video up right away and allows no chitchat, shutting me down whenever I ask a question in the faux-bold manner of hers that I so enjoy. She’s so intent on her program, so serious.

Today’s program features a woman who bakes stupidly themed cookies; later, John, the Korean War vet, voices approval of the building’s boiler system. I’m buckling in for a lot of jibber jabber, but then the unseen filmmaker asks him to describe a typical day overseas in the Korean War, a seemingly innocuous question that has him telling a moving story about a dear friend of his.

Elle ends the session as soon as the hour is up, escaping the Blue Flame conference room like the place is on fire.

The Germantown negotiation rolls on a third day. We’re talking about side issues, and Gerrold Jesperson and his son are revealing a great deal of themselves.

In the world of negotiation, ablack swanis a term meaning an unknown, unseen factor at work behind the scenes. A black swan is something like a hidden corporate history, an owner’s secret belief, an unknown need that drives the negotiator. In current events, it’s typically an unexpected circumstance or a catastrophe that radically changes everything going forward.

People have black swans too—a person’s black swan might be a secret burning desire, or a trauma that drives them. Understanding a person’s black swan gives you insight into why they do the things they do, and lets you predict what they’ll do next.

So in this part of the negotiations, Gerrold and his son think they’re telling me all about their company, but they’re actually telling me about themselves, and hopefully revealing a black swan.

I need their black swan, no doubt about it. I made a massive acquisition last year that will be a total loss if he doesn’t sell. In other words, I stand to lose a pile of money if this doesn’t go my way. Nothing like an uphill battle, right?

So I’m in these sessions bleeding out tens of thousands of dollars a day to keep the team on site, needing to be on my A game…and what am I spending my mental energy on? Thinking about Elle. Wondering about Elle’s black swan. Imagining the different ways in which I’d pull off that bow tie, which seems to be my new obsession.

If the bow tie’s a clip-on, well, it ruins things slightly. At some point, I’d need to find a way to make her replace it with a regular women’s bow tie, just so that I can have the pleasure of pulling it off. It comes to me that I should buy one, just to be ready. Like having a condom at the ready.

And after I pulled it off, I’d undo a button and kiss her neck. And I’d gather up the silky softness of her hair, closing it greedily in my fist as I press my lips to that side-of-the-mouth freckle, after which I’d devour her mouth.

“Boise,” Gerrold says. “Boise, of course, would be an exception.”

He’s watching me, waiting for my response. What was he talking about? How is it that I wasn’t listening? “An exception,” I say.

Luckily this puts him back on the road of what he was talking about. “Yes, exactly,” he says, and he proceeds to re-explain his point in greater detail, allowing me to catch up. He wants me to fully grasp the breadth of the network, I suppose. I just need that black swan. What drives him? What keeps him up at night?

What keeps Elle up at night? Why turn down so much money?

I force my focus back on the proceedings.

I can feel Walt at my right, shifting feet, bored. Across the table, Junior’s bored, too, if not downright hostile. He’s useless to watch, as are Germantown’s minor players—admins and lawyers. They give me nothing. It’s possible there’s nothing to see.

My gaze slides to Elle, sitting four seats to my left. She’s staring at the tray of pastries again. She always takes one almond croissant during each session; not quite at the start, mind you; she stares at it for a while first, but then, inevitably—most often when people are fussing or gathering papers—she rises demurely from her seat, takes the tongs, and deftly transfers one to her small plate, then quietly sits back down. She eats it slowly, tearing off little bits, chewing with intense concentration—or so it seems; I can’t fully see her from where I am.

Sometimes after she’s finished eating her croissant, she seems to fix her gaze back on the pastry platter, as if she wants to take another one, but she never does. Why not take another one? Does she have a sweet tooth she’s trying to tame? Is it out of some sense of propriety? Nobody ever takes two; most people don’t even take one, but that doesn’t mean it’s forbidden. Is that why she didn’t take the money? An idea that it’s forbidden? It seems improbable, but Elleisimprobable—deliciously improbable.

Silently I will her to take another.

Of course she doesn’t. It’s not like her to give in to temptation, but I think she wants to. God, what I wouldn’t give to watch her yield to desire, to cross a line just once.

I have a lunch meeting after this, and then Elle and I have yet another afternoon emotional intelligence session scheduled for the Blue Flame room.

Will we get another postal-themed quiz or anecdote? I’m trying to think how to goad her into that. I need to know about her—not the people in that building. It’s possible that Corman warned her not to let me ask too many questions. He knows what I can do.

I glance at the time. Our session is in just under three hours—a hundred and sixty-five minutes from now.

I straighten up right then. Am I literally counting the minutes until my court-ordered executive coaching session instead of finding my opening with Gerrold?

I call for a break at the next acceptable interval and order an espresso to be brought to me on the roof. I drink it up, sucking in the cool air, hoping to cattle-prod my psyche back to the business at hand. Energized, I head back down. I get the guys rolling on my business vision and close out the session soon after.

I arrive at the Blue Flame room to find Elle already there, taking pictures of the view out the window. Who does she send them to? Or does she post them? She wears the same business suit as she did in this morning’s negotiation session. Does she wear her business suit while lounging around in her own hotel room? Does she take off the jacket? What about the tie? I close my eyes. The fucking tie!

I settle into an upholstered armchair. “Did you have a nice lunch?” I ask.

She spins around, smiles. “More or less,” she says mysteriously. She sets up the iPad on the table in front of us.

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