CHAPTER 24
Remy
Life was great right now. I had Danica back, business was booming, and summer was well on its way; the days were getting longer and warmer, the sky was blue, the parks were green and full of color...
My phone rang, so I walked over to my desk, sat down in my chair and answered it.
“Hey, Remy, MacFey is on the line. I'm guessing he wants to discuss the Parkside Mansions. Shall I put him through or tell him you're busy?”
“Put him through, please,” I said.
“All right.”
There was a beep and then MacFey was on the line. I smiled as I heard his gruff voice; if I negotiated this successfully, I would be able to net four hundred thousand dollars in profit.
“Speak to me, Remington,” he said curtly. “I'm in no mood to beat about the bush right now, so just tell me straight: has the Chinese developer put in an offer on the Parkside Mansions?”
“They have, yes.”
“Well, are you going to tell me what it is, dammit?!”
I chuckled. It was funny to drag this out a bit. I could just picture MacFey's chubby red face turning crimson on the other end of the line, and I knew that when he was frustrated and angry, he didn't think too hard about the decisions that he made. I was pretty sure I could get him to make a very generous offer on the Mansions.
“Just hold your horses there, MacFey,” I said calmly, “I'm getting to it.”
“Well, can you get to it a little more quickly, for God's sake? I'm a busy man! You know that!”
“All right, all right. The offer from the Chinese is twenty-eight million.”
“Those sneaky damn foreigners,” he grumbled. “Soon half of this city is going to be in foreign hands! Well, not if I can help it. How much of a margin do you need me to up their offer on to guarantee me the sale?”
“Twenty-nine million would be great,” I answered.
“Twenty-eight is already too much for the property, and now you're asking me for twenty-nine! Get the hell out of here.”
“No problem. I'll call the Chinese representative when I'm done talking to you, and I'll tell him the Parkside Mansions are theirs.”
“No! Don't sell to them, Remington, don't do it. Damn it, all right, all right... How about twenty-eight million three hundred. How about that?”
“Hmm... I'd be a lot happier with twenty-eight and a half.”
“You're a real son of a bitch, Remington, you know that? Twenty-eight million four hundred. That's my final offer. If you don't want it, call the damn Chinese and give them the damn building.”
I smiled – I had gotten my price.
“No, actually, MacFey, I think twenty-eight million four hundred sounds just fine to me. You can take the Parkside Mansions.”
“Excellent.”
“I'll get my assistant to start on the paperwork right now. Pleasure doing business with you, MacFey.”
I put the phone down and leaned back in my chair, grinning. I loved it when a deal turned out so well. I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it was almost five o' clock; Danica would soon be finished her shift at the dance studio. I left my office, said goodbye to Carly and drove my Aston Martin over to the dance studio. Thankfully, there was an open parking space right outside, so I pulled up, parked and got out to wait for her.
As I did, her manager walked out of the studio. She saw me and smiled and walked over to me. “Hi, you're Danica's boyfriend, aren't you?”
I shook her hand and smiled warmly. “That's right. I'm Remy.”
“Gwen. Lovely to meet you.”
“Danica is almost finished, right?” I asked.
“She is, yes. She's just having a quick practice session in the studio while it's free between classes. Have you ever seen her dance, Remy?”
I shook my head. “Unfortunately, I haven't. I know that she's incredibly passionate about it though.”
“Talented doesn't even begin to describe how good she is. Honestly, she's got more raw talent than a lot of the top dancers in this country, and I'm telling you this as someone who has been involved in the world of dance for almost thirty years now.”
“Wow, that's amazing to hear!”
“It's just such a shame that she had to cancel those lessons she won. As I said, she has a vast amount of raw talent. She just needs a skilled instructor – such as the instructors we have here at the studio – to help her polish this talent and become the best dancer she could possibly be. If she could just get some training, she could really unleash the full measure of her potential, and I strongly believe that she could go really far as a dancer.”
I nodded, thinking deeply about this. “Well, I'll see what I can do about getting her into one of your classes, Gwen.”
“Please do, if you can. She would benefit immensely from it. Anyway, I must be off now. It was lovely to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too. I promise I'll do everything I can to get her into a class, okay?”
“Please do... please do.”