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My heart both hurts and soars as I watch him laugh and smile. When I finally cry myself to sleep, I dream about him and the life we were supposed to have together. And like every dream I have about him, he’s there, telling me, showing me how much he loves me. When my alarm clock goes off in the morning, I wake up cold and alone, wishing I could close my eyes and go back to sleep, so I could be back in his warm embrace, where I belong. Because even though I’m not ready to move on, some days I really hate being cold and alone.
CHAPTER TWO
HAYDEN
“Hey, Hayden, Mr. Shea is asking to see you in his office,” Carly, the receptionist who handles everything on our floor, says over the intercom. “And, fair warning, he’s in a ripe mood,” she adds wryly, making me chuckle.
“Thanks, I’ll be right there.”
I finish the email I’m typing to the property appraiser’s office and then close out of the program, taking a deep breath to mentally prepare for whatever my father needs to speak to me about. I consider texting my sister to ask if she knows what’s going on, but ever since Dad announced he’s retiring at the end of the year and will decide then who will be stepping into his shoes as the new CEO, my sister’s competitive streak has taken over. Instead of working together, she thinks we’re competing against each other.
“Hayden, did Carly tell you that I needed to see you?” my dad asks, walking into my office not even thirty seconds later.
“Yeah, I was just about to come see you.”
Since he’s now dropped into the visitor seat on the other side of my desk, I make no move to get up.
“I need you to put whatever you’re working on to the side and handle the wellness center project,” he says, getting straight to the point.
“You know I’m in the middle of the—”
“And now you’re handling this,” he says, cutting me off. “Whatever you’re working on, give it to someone else or put it on hold. This takes priority.”
I sigh in annoyance, then remember something… “I thought Gretchen was handling the wellness center.” At our Monday morning meeting, my older sister said she had it all under control. And since her main goal in life is to convince our dad that she should be given the CEO position, she would never agree to hand a project as important as this one over to me. She practically begged to be given the lead on this project.
Dad clears his throat. “She is…”
“So you want me to go behind her back?” I raise a single brow in question. “If Gretchen finds out, she’s going to be pissed.” My sister is the most competitive person I know, and my moving in on her project will be the equivalent of starting WWIII.
“If we don’t close on the deal soon, Atwater Investments will pull their backing,” Dad explains. “Your sister fucked up, and I’m going to deal with her later, but right now, we need to save this deal.”
I nod in understanding. “All right, so what’s the issue?”
Dad spends the next thirty minutes getting me caught up to speed. According to him, the building owner passed away recently, and his son inherited it. When he put it up for sale, not wanting to deal with it, we put in a bid so we could build a state-of-the-art wellness center and spa.
In order for the deal to go through, though, the tenants had to agree to be bought out of their leases, and all have done so, except for one. And since New York is all about the tenant’s rights, we can’t move forward without the agreement of this tenant.
“If it’s only one tenant, couldn’t we just finalize the sale and, once the tenant’s lease is up, not renew it?” I ask the obvious question. How long could the lease be for? The standard length is one year.
“The lease is for ninety-nine years,” Dad says, shocking the hell out of me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I choke out a laugh. “Are you serious?”
Dad glares, not seeing the humor in this like I do. “There are forty-nine years left. I need you to make the tenant see reason. I don’t care what it takes. If we lose the contract with Atwater, our reputation will take a huge hit. You know how big of a player he is in the game.”
Not to point out the obvious but… “Shouldn’t this have been handled before you guys put in thousands of man-hours and dollars toward this project?” Rule number one in real estate is to have all your ducks in a row before you bring a deal to the table. Something like this should’ve been considered beforehand.
“I thought it was,” Dad growls. “Gretchen said it was under control, but it clearly wasn’t. And then she hid it from me, thinking she could handle it even though she was in over her head. If it hadn’t been for the building owner following up and me being given the call by mistake, I wouldn’t even know about the issue.”
