Page 73 of Wilder at Heart
Spoon her.
Inhale her.
Fall asleep with my arms full of her and rock her awake in the morning against my hard-on. Just like I wanted to do this morning. God, I can’t wait to entangle myself with her for a whole?—
‘Anyway.’ Miles sits down heavily on a lounger and gestures to me to do the same. The pool is mirror-still in front of us, the sea sparkling pink-gold in the distance. It’s spectacular. ‘I didn’t pull you away from your Siamese twin so we could talk about your love life.’
‘What then?’ I grunt.
He shifts and holds out his glass. ‘Cheers, mate. Good to have you here.’
‘Good to be here.’
We clink. Avoid eye contact. God forbid I should share a meaningful moment with my brother.
‘Anyway.’ He clears his throat. ‘Dad mentioned you had some ideas for Manhattan. He suggested I get more detail off you.’
I perk up. Now’s the perfect time for my pitch. Miles is relaxed. More pliable than usual.
‘Did he tell you what I proposed?’
‘Not really. Something about a membership club. But go for it. Because, honestly, I’m tearing my hair out.’
This isn’t the Miles I know. Admitting vulnerability? He’d rather let hell freeze over. I throw him a bone.
‘Well, at least my ideas can’t be worse than what Kurt’s been doing.’
‘It’s been a hell of a challenging time, these past couple of years,’ Miles says feebly. ‘He’s done his best.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘Okay, yeah, he’s a useless fucking tool.’ Miles coughs out a laugh and shakes his head.
‘Thank you.’ I widen my legs, rest an elbow on my knee. ‘So the way I see it is…’
I lay it all out for him. The vision I have. I know that while Miles is forward-thinking, he always protects his downside when he’s experimenting. Something he says he picked up from the ultimate diversifier, Richard Branson. So I know how I need to frame this for him. How to ignite that entrepreneurial excitement while reassuring him that the risks are explicitly ring-fenced.
Allowing Battery Park and Madison to stick to their core customers while using the SoHo asset as our test site.
Approaching SoHo as a valuable but flexible asset, rather than a hotel by default.
Treating every storey as its own opportunity that should work as hard as possible, rather than lumping the building into one homogenous site.
Brainstorming on diversifying revenue streams away from tourism and business, so if international travel screeches to a halt again, we still have a viable business on our hands.
Homing in on structural trends like the rise of entrepreneurship, social media and flexible working so Montague Group can carve out a piece of that wallet share.
Exploiting my connections among the wealthy, powerful, younger generation Manhattanites, and identifying exactly what would be required to entice them to our hotel.
Using the positive cash flow of having founding members for a members’ club to part-finance and de-risk any big-budget remodelling we’d need to undertake.
Keeping in our back pocket the idea of turning entire floors of our buildings into lavish serviced apartments should hotel occupancy rates remain structurally lower.
It’s a high-level pitch, but the more I warm to my theme, the more the vision makes sense to me. I know this is the way to go. I can feel it in my bones.
I have Miles’ attention the whole way through. He’s sitting forward, taking the odd sip of his drink, expression rapt.
‘Do you have any of this down on paper?’
