We sit back, taking in the crashing waves in front of us. The sun is covered by the clouds, giving the sky a light gray hue.
“Have you enjoyed your time off?” Aiden asks.
I let out a long breath. “More than I could’ve imagined.”
Aiden grins. “Look at you. To be honest, I don’t even recognize you. You don’t have bags under your eyes, and your shoulders are straight, like you no longer hold the weight of the world. I can see why, though, after how many times Wolfgang has called me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I knew your overall appearance would benefit from some quality time away from him, I would’ve made you do this years ago.”
I slap him on the shoulder. “You’re a good friend, Aiden. One of the best.”
“Oh, tell me,” Aiden says, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other, “who have you met while you’ve been here?”
“Quite a few people, actually,” I say. “I’ve met Mike the plumber, Gina from the cafe, Avery the coffee shop owner, and I hired Talia to help me finish out the apartments that your guy Rusty never did.”
“You, uh, you hired Talia Bernsen? How did you know about her?” Aiden fiddles with the ring on his middle finger, looking lost in a memory.
“You know her?” I ask.
“She grew up here, and I got to know her over the summers we stayed. I didn’t think she’d take over her father’s company.”
“Well, you must have thought wrong, because she’s fierce at what she does. She runs a construction site like a battlefield commander with a tape measure.”
Aiden nods, a strange smile on his lips.
“Rusty screwed up the one apartment he finished, and I want to fix it. Talia said there are some things we can try before gutting the place.”
“Let’s hope that’s all it is,” Aiden says, looking at me with curiosity.
He stares out at the sea, and I’m surprised at how much more relaxed he looks as well. As someone over one of the biggest social media platforms, he’s under as much pressure as I am, if not more.
“I’ve always kind of kept tabs on this place, and when I saw a few articles about a big developer wanting to buy up the land and tear everything down, creating a mega-resort area, I knew I had to step in. I included you guys because I could only buy a few assets with the open cash I had on hand. As you can see, they needed a major overhaul before we could get rid of the developers completely.”
“So do we basically own the entire town?” I ask, completely surprised by his words.
“No, but a good portion of it. You own four buildings, I ownten, and then twelve others are all split among the other guys in the IBC.”
International Billionaire Club. It was something we’d come up with after a few years of being out of college. A group of us in the same fraternity had gone on to run successful companies, and since we’re from all over the world, it made sense.
“Aiden, why didn’t you tell any of us this sooner? I thought this was just one of your pet projects, and I was helping a bit.”
“I didn’t think pitching the idea of a dying beach town would be the best way to get you all to invest. Then everyone would request way more information and reports than I had time to produce. I said I had a project that might not produce at the beginning, but it would eventually.”
“Well, I guess we all blindly trust you, so that’s something,” I say with a laugh.
It looks like they’ve done a lot of maintenance on the other part of town, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ve had some people here working on it for the past couple of years. It’s a slow deal, but it’s something, and the people in town are grateful. It would be easier if we could bring in other contractors that live farther than a twenty-mile radius, but it’s helped the town so far. I know the hardware store has been looking at a bigger space to hold more inventory.”
This piques my interest. “Is there a space for it?”
Aiden rubs his chin with his hand. “Yeah, but it’s going to take some time to get it ready. It’s south of one of your buildings. The ten story one, I think?”
“How have you been able to handle all of this without Roman?” I fold my arms and wait for his response.
Aiden laughs. “Roman helped on the last few sales. Maria Matthews got to the point she was calling me almost weekly to see if I was ready to purchase another property in town.”
