Chapter 20
Anton
I’m back in the room at Alchemy where Genevieve first interviewed me. Only this time we’re not alone. There’s no big board table here—I suppose it would be odd if a sex club had a boardroom.
Instead, we’re on the huge modular sofa where I sat last time.
Its three sides more than accommodate us—that is me, Max, my good friend and Wolff Enterprises’ Senior Counsel, David, Genevieve, and four of her colleagues.
Rafe, who I met at Alchemy on my first night, and three others.
I’m introduced to them as her co-founders Zach, the FD, and Callum, who runs their events, as well as a startlingly beautiful younger brunette called Maddy who’s apparently their social media manager and is sitting in on the meeting to ‘get experience.’
I’m not sure that’s strictly necessary, but she’s so easy on the eye that I’ll happily allow her presence.
I don’t miss anything, though, and I’ve already seen Zach stroke her bare arm when he thought no one was looking, as well as a fair amount of mutual eye-fucking, so I suspect there’s more to that relationship than a purely professional one.
Fair play to him—she’s a stunner, if a little on the slim side for my liking.
The immaculate blonde in the curve-skimming sleeveless dress is far more my style. She’s fucking magnificent, and she even deigned to break her no-touching policy long enough to give me a brisk, schoolmarmish handshake when I came in that did nothing to dent my interest level.
I’m glad she has some professional courtesy, at least.
She’s currently sitting on the opposite side of the sofa and trying her best not to look at me.
That’s fine. It’s her prerogative. She can ignore me all she wants, but it won’t undo the fact that she stood there last week and watched me eat and then fuck another woman while her gorgeous face told me far too much about how aroused that made her.
David’s presence today is probably no more necessary than Maddy’s, but I’ve wheeled him out to show the Alchemy team I’m serious about this.
Besides, I’d be amazed if Genevieve didn’t try to find a million ways to kibosh this project before it even began, so having a lawyer here to out-argue her will be both helpful and gratifying.
‘Thanks for making time to see us,’ I say to kick things off. It’s not faux humility. Everyone has time constraints, and they seem to be a small team. From everything I’ve seen at Alchemy so far, they run a shipshape operation.
‘It’s our pleasure,’ Rafe says.
‘I’ll get to the point.’ I lean forward, elbows resting on my spread knees and fingers steepled.
‘We’re interested in licensing the Alchemy brand and taking it to the South of France this summer for a pop-up club during peak season.
We’d do all the work, but we’d use your name and your brand attributes, your network, and, of course, your membership vetting policy.
Think of it as a low-risk way for you to size up the market in Europe. Deliver proof of concept.’
Callum’s entire face breaks into a grin, and I know he’s already mentally there, fucking any amount of hot European chicks.
My kind of guy.
Rafe and Zach’s faces are impassive. Maddy’s eyes widen, but she clamps her lips together like she’s trying to stay quiet.
Genevieve lays her pen on top of her notebook and watches me steadily through her clear blue eyes.
I sit back and spread my hands wide. ‘Thoughts?’ I won’t give any more away until I’ve heard their knee-jerk reaction.
Rafe speaks first. ‘Time frame?’
‘First weekend in July to the end of August.’
‘That’s seriously tight,’ Gen says. ‘What’s the rush? Why not plan it properly and try for next year?’
‘Because then we’ve wasted a year,’ I tell her. I lean forward again. ‘In my experience, it’s best to act fast, pilot these things fast, and fail fast if you’re going to fail. I have no idea what expansion plans you guys have, but if you wait till next summer you’ve wasted a year.
‘If this goes well, you have a minimum viable product, as it were, by the end of the summer that means you could take it wherever you want next year—Ibiza, Mykonos, The Hamptons. Anywhere. I’m offering you the perfect opportunity for a dry run at no financial risk.’
‘There’s a lot of reputational risk, though,’ Genevieve says. ‘If we try to rush this through and it goes wrong. Especially on the application side. All we need is one incident and our brand takes a massive hit.’
‘You’re one hundred percent correct,’ Max cuts in smoothly.
‘That’s by far the most important thing to get right.
The rest of it—licences, staff, venue—we can execute on easily.
But this experiment lives and dies on Alchemy’s brand.
Which is why we’d propose a couple of things.
First, you guys oversee the membership selection process, or at least commit time to training up staff at our end who can handle them appropriately.
‘And second, we’d start with your own black book. Anton tells me the clientele here feels very European heavy. Am I right?’
‘You are,’ Genevieve says.
He flashes her a winsome grin. Sleazy twat. He knows exactly what my dynamic with her is, and he’s attempting to charm the pants off her anyway. ‘I hope to find out for myself someday soon. David and I applied this week.’
Gen smiles, cat-like, and I can already tell he’s in.
Motherfucker.
‘The most effective way to duplicate the culture you’ve built here is to offer your members automatic access to the French club if they’re willing to pay an add-on fee,’ he says. ‘Or you could reduce the fee. I’m sure things quieten down around here over the summer, right?’
‘It’s dead,’ Callum says. ‘Especially in August. And yeah, a lot of our members are from Southern Europe. I suspect a tonne of them end up on the C?te d’Azur.’
I take over again. ‘So make them founding members, if you like. It keeps the culture intact, they get their friends to sign up—it helps with word of mouth and with reputational risk. And you guys get a financial boost during the quieter months. What do you think?’