Chapter 21
Anton
Zach, who’s been nodding and processing, speaks up. ‘It’s a decent hedge. I’m surprised we haven’t thought about doing it before.’
‘Cal and I have thrown it about,’ Rafe tells him. ‘We didn’t think you’d go for it.’
‘We’d put up the money,’ I point out. ‘There’s no need for you to find room in your budget. You take a flat licensing fee or a revenue split.’
‘Revenue split,’ Zach and Rafe say at the same time, and I grin. Not only is this proving far easier than I expected, but these are my kind of people. There’s no way they’d leave potential upside on the table.
Neither would I.
‘Are you thinking St Tropez?’ Callum asks. I give him my full attention. He’s a good-looking guy—I can appreciate that. He has party boy written all over him, too. I reckon he’s the most hedonistic of the lot of them.
‘Cannes,’ I tell him. ‘St Tropez’s tempting, but the infrastructure in Cannes is a lot better, and it’s easier for Monaco.
We’d have our pick of venues. We could go for a classic club concept, like Jimmy’z, or we could stick with the aesthetic you’ve got here but transfer it to a Belle Epoque villa.
Alchemy, but with half the action outside. ’
I know we’re onto a winner. We have a proven brand and formula prime for transference to one of the sexiest, most exclusive party destinations in the Med.
It’ll be a fucking money-printing machine, and this little pilot is merely the beginning. Because I may not be angling to buy these guys outright, but acquiring the rights to any future overseas operations could fit nicely into the Wolff Property Holdings portfolio.
‘Look, it’s an interesting idea,’ Rafe says. He holds up a hand like he’s trying to slow things down. ‘But Gen’s the COO. She’s the execution expert. You make a strong case, but at the end of the day, she’s the one who’d have to do the bulk of the work at our end to make it happen.’
So she’s Gen to these guys.
Hmm.
I love the name Genevieve.
It’s feminine and elegant and timeless.
Just like her.
But now I have a new goal.
To get on Gen terms with Genevieve Carew.
She is, predictably enough, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Talk to me,’ I order. My voice is sharper, my tone more commanding, than I mean it to be, but she responds instantly, even if that response takes the form of her straightening up and glaring at me.
‘It’s one of those ideas that looks great on paper but would be a total nightmare to execute in the space of two months,’ she says, twirling her pen between her fingers.
She breaks eye contact to look down at her notebook.
‘The reason Alchemy works well is that we’ve taken our time to make every detail perfect.
Rushing this through could be an unmitigated disaster.
You don’t mess around with stuff like this. ’
I don’t want to patronise her, but it’s clear this club is a passion project for the four of them, and they’ve done a great job. But this is the big leagues, and I’m not sure they understand what’s possible.
‘When you have deep coffers, like we do,’ I explain carefully, ‘we can make a lot of the problems go away through sheer force of manpower. Two months sounds like a short amount of time, but we can put as many people on it as we need, and we can hire the best people on the ground. My team has launched fully fledged companies in the past in less time. David?’
David shifts forward beside me and brandishes a folder. He’s quieter than Max is, an eagle-eyed observer. ‘This isn’t a contract, but we’ve drawn up a list of the issues we’d foresee both parties wanting to include in any legal agreement.
‘Anton’s right. Two months is a generous amount of time where we come from.
There would be a time commitment required from you and your team to transfer knowledge so our guys can execute.
The attached is extremely comprehensive, but we’d consider any additions your lawyers would want to make to the final contract.
‘If you see fit to transfer any salaried staff to the pop-up for the summer months, we can adjust the revenue share agreement accordingly to reflect staff costs at your end. All we ask is that you turn any paperwork around as quickly as possible, because clearly time is of the essence. I’ve got a big legal team—we can draft all the terms for expediency and your lawyers can make edits.
But we’d need contracts finalised and signed within a week so we can crack on. ’
‘Would you take our advice on events?’ Callum asks.
‘Let me make this clear,’ I tell him. ‘This is your brainchild. You’re the experts—you know what works. We’re the executors. You control the details. We make them happen, down to every last, I dunno, cocktail napkin. Every condom. Got it?’
I’ve deliberately planted the word condom to remind them what’s at stake here.
We’re talking about taking the best orgy in London to the home of the Med’s most beautiful people.
It’ll be fucking amazing. And if Genevieve continues to freeze me out, I’ll up sticks to my pad in Antibes for the summer and fuck every European in sight.
‘I still think St Tropez would be amazing,’ Callum says with a sigh. ‘Like Nikki Beach, but with people fucking everywhere.’
‘If you don’t think people fuck everywhere at Nikki Beach, you haven’t been paying close attention,’ Genevieve says drily. ‘Besides, I far prefer the idea of a mansion. No one wants sand in their vagina, Cal.’
That raises a laugh around the room.
And as for me? Genevieve just said two dirty words and openly praised one of my suggestions.
I’ll take that as a win.