Page 113 of One Indian Girl
‘I don’t mind,’ Philippe said, ‘just that your price of fifty million is too high. How about forty?’
Neel looked at me. I shook my head.
‘Too low,’ Neel said.
‘Let’s lock at forty-five,’ Greenwood said.
Neel looked at me.
I nodded.
‘Done,’ Neel said. ‘Can we close the docs soon, please?’
‘This is fantastic,’ Maddox said. ‘We have a deal.’
‘Super. We’ll go down to the Philippines and close it with El Casa next week,’ Neel said.
The call ended.
‘Congratulations,’ I said.
‘How much is the final profit?’ Neel said.
‘Twenty million, net, to us,’ I said.
Neel and I high-fived each other.
‘How did you guys do it?’ Marcos said, as he flipped through the documents. Even though he tried to hide it, the smile wouldn’t leave his face. He had a bankrupt business that faced foreclosure and mass lay-offs. Now he would get five million dollars next week in his account as a settlement fee for his cooperation. Not to mention a global buyer who would keep his resorts alive.
‘That’s what we do. We close deals, Marcos,’ Neel said.
‘Wonderful. You are staying for several days this time, I hope,’ Marcos said as he signed the documents. ‘Stay on a different island each night.’
‘I wish,’ Neel said. ‘But there’s a lot of work back in Hong Kong. We will leave tomorrow.’
‘Same place then? Pengalusian?’
‘Yes,’ Neel said.
‘You saved my people their jobs. Thank you so much,’ he said.
I collected all the documents Marcos had signed. Neel shook hands with Marcos.
‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ Neel said.
I stood in front of the mirror at the Pengalusian Island Resort and turned from side to side. I wondered if my black shorts and the white gunjee over my pink sports bra revealed too much. Neel had suggested a run before our deal-closing celebration dinner. ‘Let’s burn calories before we consume them,’ he had said.
‘It’s fine. Be cool about it,’ I said to myself and checked myself out one last time. Okay, so the shorts were a little too short. The gunjee was, well, a little too short too.
I met Neel at the reception area. He wore a blue workout T-shirt and black cycling shorts. He also had blue mirror-tinted Raybans on.
‘Wow, you’ve transformed,’ he said. The sunglasses covered his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was staring at me. I thought he did. Maybe I wished he did.
‘I haven’t run in the longest time,’ I said.
‘We’ll just jog. Three rounds of the island?’
‘Two, please.’
