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“Here’s what I think. Sit out this season and make some money.”
The amount I need to run my foundation and a stable is so beyond anything I could make, especially as a horse trainer, I don’t know where to begin. I’d have to work foryearsjust to save enough for a single polo season. “I have no skills other than horses. No business sense. No way to make my way in the world. This is what I do. What I know.”
She snorts. “You ride like an angel.”
She’s far nicer than I imagined when I first met her. And I can see, under the Botox and lip filler, she was a glitteringly beautiful woman in her day. How hard it must be to let that go. Better to have been average and not see it fade the way she’ll have to. “Angels don’t have bills, Juliette.”
“If you’ll allow me to make a couple of calls?” She flips on her stomach and leans her arms on the lip of the pool.
“What am I agreeing to?”
She raises her eyebrows, every bit the coquette, and fishes her phone out of her bag. “You’re going to let me save you, Mariano Arias. You’re going to let me be of service to the horse-loving world. Which, let me tell you, is huge! And you’re going to be glad you did.”
That’s not an answer, but it would be ungallant of me to say so.
She scrolls through her contacts. “There she is.” She hits dial. “All you need to do now, Mr. Arias, is to trust me.”
I’m in the penthouse suite of one of the most luxurious hotels in the city with a woman who has managed to take an impossibly humiliating situation and turn it into a lifesaving mission.
“Gwen! Daaaaaahling. It’s me.” She pauses while the woman on the other end of the phone burbles a greeting. “I have the perfect solution to your little headscratcher.”
I can’t hear the other end of the conversation, but watching Juliette’s face I know that somethinghugeis transpiring. She’s lit up from the inside. There’s nothing coy or calculating left in her features. She’s simply enjoying herself.
“Thrills, Spills, & Killsis doing well, no?” She nods and taps her champagne flute. I hop up, uncork the bottle, and pour her a glass. “What would you say if I told you I had the one thing that would take your company to the next level?”
The knot in my stomach twists. Being the face of some company isn’t the worst outcome I could imagine, but I don’t like the sound ofThrills, Spills, & Kills. What would I be lending my face or my name to?
“I have with me, right here, right now, the top polo player in the world.”
There’s a squeal on the other end of the line. Juliette is wreathed in smiles. “No, not kidding. I can send him to you, pre-wrapped.” Her hand goes to her throat. “Oh, dahling, no. More’s the pity. I didn’t get my mitts on him. No, what I mean is he could do the circuit. Train up some of your clients. Appear in each of your—what are they called? I forget.”
She nods for a couple of minutes as the woman—Gwen, I think she called her—blathers on the other end of the line.
“Exactly what I was thinking. Pump up the brand and get some razzle-dazzle going. They’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand by the time you’re through with them.”
The mood of the conversation, her tone, and the sounds I can hear from the other end of the phone give me a moment of hope. But who can afford the price tag I need? Maintaining a tier-one polo team costs millions per season, my charity less but not an insubstantial amount. My gut lurches. I’m selling myself for a price that won’t achieve my goals. But how do I put the brakes on? It’s all happening so fast.
“Gwen…” Juliette puts her glass down. “I don’t want you to have a cow when I tell you the price tag.”
The water laps at the edges of the pool and I’m suddenly aware that I want a drink. My future teeters in the balance, and Juliette Parkinson is talking to some woman I’ve never met about tipping it my way.
“I want an after-tax payment of five mil for this boy.” She grins and winks at me. “For the season, yes.”
My mouth falls open. I can’t help myself. Polo players don’t command those prices.
“Well, I can try, but…I make no promises.” She holds the phone at an arm’s length and whispers. “She wants to know if you’ll take four?”
Four? Four million dollars? No, she has to mean pesos or rubles or some other currency.
She puts the phone back to her ear. “Sorry, darling. I tried. He’s sticking to his guns. Five million dollars, after taxes, or he’s going to go work for Eli.”
Juliette raises her eyebrows and signals for her glass, which I deliver, though my insides are turned to Jell-O and my hands barely work. “You’re not going to regret this, my dearest. Truly. And when he delivers the goods and the clients come running and you’re simply rolling in dough, we’ll go for a little celebration, yes?” She laughs and the woman on the other the end of the line laughs with her. “Ciao, darling. Kisses.”
Juliette ends the call and knocks back her champagne. “There, you see. Not so difficult, was it?”
I listen, but I can barely understand what I’m hearing. I don’t know any Elis or Gwens, and two days ago I didn’t know Juliette, but within the space of a few minutes I believe I have a job. Riding? Teaching? Both? Being the face of a company I’ve never heard of? All of the above?
Juliette hands me her phone and I stash it back in her handbag.
