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The conference room door burst open. Dane should have been there, but instead, Will—and all his brothers—were delightfully surprised to see Fernsby rolling in his tea trolley with another mind-boggling delicacy. The man must spend every waking moment in the kitchen.
Cammie Chandler and Dane followed, but not a single Maverick cared about them.
“Do you travel with that trolley, Fernsby?” Will asked.
The man looked down his nose. “Of course, sir. A butler is always prepared. I keep it in the trunk of the car, which we left at the airport.”
Then he began pouring coffee and dishing out another of his creations.
Around a mouthful of delicious cake covered in warm custard called a jam roly-poly, Sebastian said, “Okay, so is there a butler registry, like Butler-dot-com or something, where we can find someone just like you?”
Dane laughed. “There’s no one like Fernsby.”
Fernsby, with as straight a face as ever could be, said, “There’s no one on this planet who can handle bosses who are too big for their britches the way I can.”
Each and every Maverick laughed himself sick. Fernsby was so right—they were all too big for their britches, as their mom often told them.
Mom and Fernsby would get along great.
* * *
Cammie ran through the slide deck demonstrating their ideas, from a pickleball court to basketball hoops to activity rooms, along with art classes for painting to metalwork, and even a dance studio. Her tummy had done flipflops on the drive from the airport when Dane had said he wanted her to take the lead, claiming most of the ideas were hers.
And now she found she couldn’t look at him. As if one look would make her stumble.
Or remind her of that island kiss, and then she’d become completely flustered.
She concentrated on the conference room full of Mavericks, all seated at the big table, their arms folded. The blinds behind them were pulled to cut the glare on the large display screen from the sun shining through the windows overlooking San Francisco Bay. She was glad they’d dressed informally, making her feel better about the fact that she and Dane still wore casual clothes. When they’d been heading to the Caribbean, she hadn’t thought to take business attire to change into.
As she clicked through the last slide, Sebastian breathed in deeply, letting it out in a long sigh. “Don’t you think we’re asking a lot of these kids—dancing, painting, metalworking?” He might have been wondering how much time Charlie would have to devote to teaching special kids how to create art out of scrap.
But Cammie had an answer. “Our guests will rise to the level of their capabilities. We talked to Harper.” She glanced at Will. “She feels that these kids need to be given all the opportunities their contemporaries have available to them.”
Daniel looked at the practical side. “So how much land do you think you’ll need for this, if we’re building from the ground up?”
Cammie nodded, grateful for the question. She wanted these men to know she’d thought of everything. “We don’t necessarily need to build from the ground up. We want to be in Tahoe—that was a great suggestion, thank you.” She tipped her head to Daniel, giving credit where credit was due. “But as the Maverick Group is committed to its environmental policies, there are a few long-vacant old resorts or casinos with lakefront property that might work, with existing roads, power, and water.” She clicked to a slide with a chart showing square footage for every activity area they’d talked about adding to the resort. “If we can do it all on the same level, the footprint could be a lot. But there’s no reason we can’t have a multilevel facility and still have room for outdoor activities. Our main objective is to be on the waterfront with the forest at the back, making hiking trails available to our guests.”
“What about skiing in the winter?” Matt wanted to know.
“Rather than having our own slopes, we could work out deals with ski resorts for day trips.”
Matt nodded his approval.
“So how much money do we need to start?” Gideon asked.
Cammie didn’t hesitate. She felt good about the material, confident in her presentation. “The lowball figure would be two hundred million to start, if we do this in stages. But to do it right, we need at least five hundred million.”
Not a single Maverick choked or guffawed or batted an eyelash, not even Cal, who was the Mavericks’ business manager. With the billionaires, it could be all pie-in-the-sky, but Cal was down to earth. “We’ll sure as hell have our work cut out for us.” He paused, looking at the square footage slide a long moment. “But it’s doable.”
Cammie smiled and finally looked at Dane. She saw pride gleaming in his eyes. Little did he know it had taken every ounce of confidence she possessed to run the meeting. But she’d really done it.
