Chapter 10: The Pitch

I took the phone out of his hand and read it twice.

Seventy million dollars.

Guarantor, Percy Atwood.

"He can't guarantee seventy million," I said. "Dad couldn't guarantee a car lease. The store's been bleeding for ten years."

"I know."

"Then why would he sign his name to Niles's loan?"

Clay took the phone back and set it face down.

"Come to the pitch," he said. "Ask him."

"Niles is going to walk into your boardroom and see me at the table."

"Yes." He smiled slowly in the dark. "That's the part I'm looking forward to."

The Eastman Capital boardroom was on the sixtieth floor of a black tower on Wacker Drive.

The table was one long slab of walnut.

Seven people sat around it in dark suits. Clay's investment committee.

Clay sat at the head.

I sat at his right hand in a cream suit and my mother's pearls, with a legal pad I didn't need.

At five to ten the door opened.

Niles came in with Bailey behind him carrying a laptop.

He had his hand out and his best smile on, ready for Clay.

Then he saw me.

His hand stayed out a second too long.

"Mr. Kenward," Clay said, not getting up. "Thanks for coming. You know my wife."

Bailey's laptop bag slid off her shoulder and hit the carpet.

"This is a business meeting," Niles said.

"It is," Clay agreed. "She's on my side of it. Please. Sit."

Niles sat.

He was good. I'll give him that.

Within two minutes he had his slides up and his voice back.

The Atwood & Sons building on State Street. Twelve floors of old department store. A Kenward hotel with a rooftop bar and a ballroom.

He'd used my renderings.

I recognized the lobby. I'd drawn it on a napkin in Paris on our first anniversary.

"The heritage brand of the Atwood name," he was saying, "married to the Kenward experience."

"Married," I said.

He didn't look at me.

"Kenward's growth story is undeniable," he went on. "Four hotels in six years."

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