Chapter 18
HOLDEN
Istood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my executive boardroom, an espresso in one hand.
I looked out over the city that had made me and nearly broken me at times too.
The skyline stretched in every direction, towers of glass and steel catching the early morning sun, cranes dotting the horizon like metal skeletons mid-resurrection.
Down below, traffic crawled. The eternal view of red brake lights stretched as far down the street as I could see.
Eleven years ago, I would’ve been in one of those cars, grinding away to prove myself.
To my dad. To the few advisors he’d had who hadn’t understood why I wanted to try so many new things.
Now, I was about to convince a dozen people in two thousand-dollar suits to let me reshape another entire city block. Not bad for a kid who once slept in his office chair at least four nights a week.
Behind me, the boardroom filled up. I heard the quiet murmurs, the rustle of paper, and a faint metallic click as someone fidgeted with their pen. Draining the last of my coffee, I turned around and smiled at the board of Langton Development.
All eyes were on me, some curious and some resigned. Some smiled back and others merely glanced at me before looking back at their phones.
I inhaled a deep breath. It’s time to sell the dream.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I began, stepping to the head of the long glass table in the center of the room. “Thank you for being here. I know your calendars are packed, but I promise this will be worth it.”
A few more polite smiles. Still a few skeptical ones too.
Good. I like a challenge.
I reached for the little white remote and clicked it, half-turning to see the first slide of my presentation illuminate the screen. The Renewal Initiative.
“This isn’t just going to be another development project,” I said, pacing slowly as I got started.
“It’s about preservation. Giving new life to the bones of this city.
We’ve got historic buildings that are barely hanging on.
Small businesses are closing up every month.
As a city, we’re losing the essence of what made this neighborhood special in the first place. ”
I gestured toward a series of photos that came up on the next few slides.
Cracked facades, empty windows, and For Lease signs hanging like tombstones in front of doors that had seen better days.
“This block used to be the beating heart of Upper East Side commerce. It can be that again, but not with patchwork fixes. It needs a full restoration. Our restoration.”
The next slide showed renderings of revitalized storefronts, cobblestone walkways, flower boxes, cafes, and life.
“We invest in the block, modernize infrastructure, and offer new retail spaces that blend old-world character with modern energy. The community wins. The city wins. And we make a healthy return while doing it.”
I caught Jimmy’s eye at the end of the table. He gave me a grin that said he thought I was killing it, but one of the board members, Prescott, an old friend of my dad’s who’d worked with him since the inception of the company, leaned forward.
“And the tenants?” he asked with an expression on his face that told me he thought he already knew the answer, but he was old-school that way. “What happens to them?”
I kept my tone even. “We’ll negotiate fair buyouts where necessary and offer priority placement for returning tenants once the construction is complete. Nobody will get left behind. This isn’t a demolition. It’s rebirth.”
“Will they even go for something like that? You know as well as I do the priority placement you’d offer them won’t mean anything if they can’t afford the new leases,” he pressed, his head cocking as he folded his arms on the table.
“Not every community wants to be saved. Some don’t think they need to be, especially when they know they won’t be part of this rebirth. ”
“That’s true, but I’ve asked Jimmy to put out some feelers for that exact purpose.
We wanted to test the waters to see if this would be possible at all, and so far, the response has been encouraging.
The tenants are struggling and the building owners can’t keep up with maintenance.
This is a lifeline for all those people and they’re grabbing onto it. ”
Prescott nodded slowly. That was as close as I was ever going to get to approval from him, so I finished my presentation and took a few more questions. When the votes came in, the decision was unanimous.
Approved.
Polite but genuine applause followed and I exhaled deeply, a sense of satisfaction lodging deep inside my chest. “Gentlemen. Ladies. Thank you. You won’t regret this.”
There were more smiles and a few handshakes as they left, and I waited until they were all gone before Jimmy and I went back to my office.
Maia had a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket when we arrived, the real stuff.
French, crisp, and probably older than my last few booty calls.
I popped it, pouring us each a glass and handing Jimmy’s over.
“To the Renewal Initiative,” he said, raising his flute in my direction with a smug smirk on his lips. “To legacies and getting rid of the rot.”
“To making history,” I replied, clinking with him before taking a long, slow sip of the bubbly.
Once I’d swallowed, I grinned at him, loosened my tie, and walked around my desk.
“Alright, well, that went exactly the way we thought it would, so that’s great.
Talk to me about next steps. Where are we with the tenants? ”
Jimmy sank into the chair across from my desk and set his champagne down.
He reached into the folder he’d been carrying and handed me the first batch of contracts.
“Lease acquisitions, purchase offers, and redevelopment rights. We’ll start buying up the properties right away.
The faster we own the block, the sooner we can break ground. ”
I flipped through the paperwork, barely glancing at the tenant names. They were just lines on a spreadsheet to me, and frankly, I didn’t care who they were or what business they ran. This was nothing personal. My eyes were on the future, not the past.
Picking up my pen, I signed my name a dozen times, each signature neat and practiced. When I was done, I set the pen down and reached for my champagne again. “There we go. The official start of something big. Let’s get those tenants out of there.”
Jimmy grinned. “You’ve just bought yourself a piece of the city, boss. I’ll jump right in.”
“Do it,” I said before tossing back the rest of my champagne. “Let me know if we hit any roadblocks or holdouts. There are bound to be one or two who are going to try to stand in the way of progress. Don’t let them, but if you need me to step in, tell me.”
“You got it.” He poured himself another glass of champagne and leaned back in his chair, the wide grin never leaving his face. “Man, you smashed it back there. For a second, I thought Prescott might get in their heads, but you handled him exactly right.”
“I’ve been handling that man since I started here.
He’s part of the old guard. He bought his childhood home from his mother when she got too old to maintain it and he’s still living in it.
He’s one of those real community-minded people.
Probably buys his morning coffee from the same guy he’s been buying it from every morning for the last forty years, and if that guy ever just didn’t show up that day, he’d perish. ”
Jimmy chuckled. “I’m sure we’re going to run into a few more of those on this project. None of the people we’ve approached so far have been eager to sell, but the generous offers have helped. That block has been falling behind the times for too long to catch up any other way and they know it.”
“That’s why we chose it. Well, that, and it’s a prime location. It should never have fallen as far as it has.”
“The economy, man. What are you going to do?” He winked at me and sipped his champagne. Then he leaned forward and talked me through the remainder of the contracts that still needed to be signed.
After his third glass of champagne, he left me with a stack of paperwork to review, but I turned my chair, staring out at the city again but from my office window this time. The skyline hadn’t changed in the last few hours, but somehow, it felt smaller.
We’d finally done it. After months of research, planning, and convincing the board this wasn’t just another vanity project, they’d said yes. I had the official go-ahead for the project that would be my legacy. Leave another part of me etched into the very skyline I was looking at right now.
It should’ve felt bigger than this. Instead, the victory felt thin. Hollow around the edges.
Jimmy had hurried off to get started just like I’d wanted him to, but now that I was sitting in my office alone, it dawned on me that this was, perhaps, the greatest anti-climax of my life.
There was no party planned to celebrate.
No fancy dinner. Not even drinks with a few friends.
I’d been so focused on getting it done that I hadn’t thought about the after at all.
I pulled out my phone before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: I know there’s no class until next week, but I just had a win at the office. I thought maybe we could celebrate. No complications.
I stared at the message, debating whether to hit send. Ellora had been distant in class. Polite but cold. I couldn’t blame her. I’d made things messy when I’d ordered that breakfast for us, I supposed, but damn it, I missed her, so I hit send.
For a few long minutes after that, there was nothing but the soft hum of the city below and the ticking of the clock over my desk, but then my phone buzzed.
Ellora: I can get away for a few hours.
The effect of her message was immediate, the hollowness cracking open and something warm filling the space it’d occupied. I grinned. Board approval, a multimillion-dollar project, and my legacy for the future cemented, but none of it lit me up the way that single text did.
It was dangerous territory, but with her, danger didn’t feel like something to avoid. She was worth the risk.