Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59659 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
This one should be easier, though, I thought. This one is strictly business. Sure, it’s in his apartment, near his bed and around all his stuff. But it was still just business. Just two people talking about their investments and how to make them better. If I got that through my head, then being at his place was no different than a coffee shop or a restaurant. It was just lunch at a business partner’s home.
Nothing more.
13
VICTOR
Ihad been doing a lot of thinking that morning. When I called Melanie, it had been with the intention that I wanted to talk to her—not just about the ideas she had for improving the store, though. I wanted to talk to her about how we could transition things back to her in time.
The idea had been rolling around in my mind since I found out about what the board did to her, and while I hadn’t wanted to just come right out and say it when she was being combative, it seemed like the right thing to do and had been weighing on my mind. So, I wanted to tell her that I did plan on it, for sure, and go over how we would do it after we talked about some of the concrete plans that we could hammer out together today.
As for if we picked up where we left off the night before, well, that would just play itself out, wouldn’t it?
I didn’t want to meet up somewhere public. Doing that would both put us on display for other people but also possibly prevent either one of us from being honest with our actions. If we were somewhere more private, it would allow for that honesty. If that led to something, then it led to something. If it didn’t, I also was already home and could lick my wounds in private.
In the kitchen, I spent a good portion of the time between the call and when she would show up making an array of sandwiches. Much like I told her, I could slap stuff together between bread with the best of them. Toasted warm chicken sandwiches, cold cucumber sandwiches, I had them all. One of the things that had been left behind by the previous tenant was a three-tiered serving plate, which I employed to make a centerpiece and stack the sandwiches on.
With the food ready, I went into the bedroom and made sure I looked presentable. A polo shirt wasn’t my normal favorite, but the one I had on was nice and fit well over my shoulders. It looked business-casual, which was what I was going for. If things happened here today, I wanted it to be organic.
I had just washed my hands and decided that I looked as good as I could under the circumstances when the doorbell rang. I crossed over into the living room and opened the door. Melanie was outside, looking curious and confident, a big smile across her red lips and her eyes wide and focused on mine.
“Afternoon,” I said. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you,” she said, brushing by me as I held the door open for her. Her perfume hit my nose, and I felt my knees weaken. It was a unique smell, one that I couldn’t quite decipher, but was the same as she had worn the night before. My stomach tightened at just a whiff of it.
I watched as she passed by me and went into the living room. She was dressed like she was going to work, I guessed, khaki pants, a blue button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. It wasn’t a particularly sexy look, but somehow, she made it sexy anyway. I got the impression everything looked sexy on her.
“The sandwiches are in the dining room,” I said. “Please, help yourself. I made enough for several people.”
“Got carried away?” she asked as she walked into the dining room and saw the massive stack.
“I told you. I like bread,” I joked.
She pulled a small plate to her from the stack beside the sandwiches and put a couple of the halves together. I was politely surprised to see she wasn’t being dainty either. She was stacking them up, and I happily followed behind her and did the same.
“So, I was thinking,” Melanie said as we took the sandwiches to the living room and sat down with them. “What if we took out that wall on the left side like we had spoken of last night, but put in a drive-through? I know it sounds weird, but lots of stores have them for their pharmacy. It could be a pretty unique thing that if you only had less than ten things on your order, you could call ahead, we could do the shopping for you, and you could pick it up at the drive-through, right?”