The meeting （his pov）
(Hi everyone!
Thank you so much for reading my book. I'm really happy to have you here and I appreciate every single reader.
I hope you continue to enjoy Sophia and Lorenzo's story! )
"You know what, Alex , just for the next ten minutes, try not being a hormone driven idiot and start running the errands."
I hang up before he can answer.
A glance at my watch. Four hours until the party. I roll my wrist back and let my arm drop against the leather seat. Whether she shows up or not is her problem.
But I doubt it after her Aussage.Either way, we are celebrating , a clean win over the Hawks.
The match itself has been fine. Decent, even.
But fine isn't the same as sharp, and the team knows it too.
There is a certain edge you only get from a real opponent.
Someone who actually makes you work for it.
The Hawks haven't been that. Not even close.
"Did you receive the documents, Lorenzo?"
Kingsley ask me but I don't look at him.
Instead I turn to my father, who sits beside me with one leg crossed, a newspaper open across his knee like we are on a Sunday morning and not in the back of an armored SUV cutting through midtown traffic.
A cigar between his fingers, smoke curling toward the tinted glass.
He hasn't asked a single word about the game. Not one.Not that I ever remember.
"We won't be signing the contracts today," I say
Not a question. A statement.
My father's eyes don't move from the page.
The Calloway centennial is approaching. One hundred years of a name that has survived three recessions, two wars, and more political headwinds than anyone in this car has years on their life.
Moments like this one don't come back around.
The partners you choose now, the alliances you lock in before the anniversary makes every number on our balance sheet an international headline those choices will echo for the next decade. Maybe longer.
The Ashwell family is not one of those choices. Not even close.
"There's no time to wait," my father says, and turns a page.
I exhale through my nose and look out the window.
Grey sky. I have had exactly five minutes after the final whistle to shower and change before the car pulled around five minutes, which means I have spent the entire drive still half in game mode, mind running plays while Kingsley briefs contracts I haven't agreed to read.
My motivation to argue is somewhere in the negative numbers.
"The Ashwell family represents a strong opportunity for your father's long-term plans," Kingsley says from the front, because apparently my silence has looked like an invitation.
I let my eyes drift to the window and say nothing. If he admires my father's decisions that much, he is welcome to take my job. I have somewhere better to be.
My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.
"Put the phone away, Lorenzo." My father's voice, flat and even. He still hasn't looked up.
I type fast — no limit — and flip it to silent.
Ten minutes later, the Calloway Tower comes into view.
Eighty-seven floors of glass and steel, the name carved into the facade in letters that don't need to be large because they have never needed to compete.
The car rolls to a stop. The door opens before I reach for the handle .
Marcus, our head of security, already standing at the curb with two others flanking the entrance. He nods once at me. I nod back.
Inside, the lobby does what it always does.
The conversations stops and everyone is lokking at us.
Heels click a little faster toward the far end of the lobby.
The woman at the front desk straightens almost imperceptibly.
Two men in suits near the elevator look up from their phones and find something more interesting to examine on the marble floor.
My father walks through it all like weather. Like he doesn't notice because he has never had reason to.
We clear security. And take the private elevator to the upper floors .
"Today's meeting is important, Lorenzo."Which in my father's language translates to: do not embarrass me, do not deviate, do not have opinions that inconvenience the room.
"I'm aware," I say quietly, fixing my jacket.
The elevator opens.
The hallway greets us with the precise, climate-controlled cool of a space designed to keep people alert and compliant. The conference room doors are already open. Through the glass panels I can see the long table with every chair filled.
Except two.
When we walk in, the room stands.
I have grown up watching this. Grown up on the other side of tables just like this one, small enough that my feet didn't touch the floor, learning what a room full of powerful men looks like when they want something from your family's name.
" Vito "The voice belongs to a man in his mid-fifties.
Silver at the temples. A suit that costs more than most people's cars and has been tailored to make sure you notice.
Gerald Ashwell. I've met him once, three years ago, at a charity dinner my father used to build connections he'd never acknowledge publicly.
My father passes me without a glance and moves toward the head of the table.
I pull out the chair to his right.
Sit down.
Pick up the water glass in front of me and hold it loosely.
My father opens the meeting the way he always does with numbers first.
Company data, revenue projections, market positioning.
Charts materialise on the screen behind him, one after another, and he moves through them without hesitation.
Future projects. Expansion targets. Growth models that make the men around the table lean forward almost without realizing it.
Then he arrives at the actual point.
The centennial.
"Gerald." He turns to Ashwell directly and gives him this best Buissnes smile "My old friend."
I roll my eyes and slip my phone out from under the table.
My father gestures toward the screen behind him, where the next slide has loaded. An architectural rendering. Sweeping fairways, a clubhouse that looks more like a museum, manicured greens stretching toward a manufactured horizon.
A golf resort.
The kind of project that exists to be photographed, not used.
I stare at it for a moment and think about the housing shortage downtown. The neighborhoods twenty minutes from here where families are on three-year waitlists. And then I look back at the rendering of the golf resort.
What a waist of time
"This is the flagship project to be unveiled at the centennial celebration," my father says, his voice carrying the particular weight of a man who has already decided the outcome of every conversation in the room. "A project that will write the Calloway name into history."
"And the Ashwell name," Gerald adds, and the shine in his eyes is the exact same shine as my father's.
"Of course, my dear friend."
I scroll through Instagram.
I am not looking for anything in particular it's just the familiar motion, thumb moving on autopilot until I land on a profile that makes me slow down.
Private account, the small lock icon sitting neat beside her username. I stare at it for a second and feel something close to amusement pull at the corner of my mouth. Miss Innocent has a private account. Who would have thought.
"My son will walk you through the business partnership terms before we move toward closing the contracts."
My father's voice pulls me back to the room. I straighten in my chair, pocket my phone, and let my expression settle into something neutral and attentive.The face I have been trained to wear in rooms like this one since I was old enough to understand what training meant.
I check my watch once.Less than an hour until the party.
Somewhere across the city, the question is already answering itself whether she will show up, whether Weststar will hold its shape around her or whether tonight will be the last time she sets foot in my world.
Either way, by the time this meeting ends, I will know which version of the story we are in.
I fold my hands on the table and look at Gerald Ashwell.
"Shall we."