Fake It For Me, page 6
Not only that, but Lord McConnery was willing to go to any extreme to get his way. And more often than not, that extreme involved psychologically bullying somebody to get whatever it was that he wanted. I would still never forget the time I saw him throw his phone at an intern’s head for chewing too loudly. I would always remember how he’d fired a Personal Assistant from his firm, High Risers, for dodging a potted plant that he’d thrown at his head once.
When his lawyers had warned him that he could get sued for wrongful termination, Lord McConnery fired his lawyers too. All because of a bad mood.
These weren’t just my personal experiences, either, these were the collective opinion of just about anybody and everybody who actually knew Lord McConnery on a personal level. Pretty much everyone at Elegance Refined knew Lord McConnery and his reputation for being a huge dick to pretty much everyone and anyone. Board members at High Risers didn’t last long - two years ago, some of the board tried to buy him out. That didn’t go well, and the board members all ended up fired.
I considered it both my blessing and my curse that I had such a creative mind. On the one hand, I was the firms' best designer. And the best designer in a company called Elegance Refined is a big deal, let me tell you.
“Sandy,” Mr. McConnery said warmly, shaking my hand firmly. “Good of you to meet me here.”
It took all my powers of self-control to stop me from rolling my eyes. Mr. McConnery did this “polite, good guy” bit because it was good for publicity. Very good, in fact. But as a woman who’s had the pleasure (and I do use the word ‘pleasure’ loosely) of working with Lord McConnery before, I can distinctly say with no small amount of certainty that he’s the most demanding client I’ve ever had the misfortune to be stuck with.
That and the fact that McConnery and his spoiled-toddler attitude didn’t come alone, he also brought his good buddies, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin. About twenty billion dollars worth of good buddies, in fact.
“Of course, Lor-Mr McConnery,” I caught myself quickly. “It’s my job to be here.”
“Well, I appreciate your professionalism,” Mr. McConnery said smoothly.
“Likewise,” I inclined my head toward him. “I see we finally managed to coax you down from your big office in Manhattan to come to see us, little people.”
Lord McConnery chuckled heartily at this, but I could tell that he privately agreed with me. “Queens isn’t so bad,” he admitted. “You have the Mets stadium, so that’s pretty cool.”
“You’re a Mets fan?” I asked, even while inwardly admitting that I couldn’t have given less of a shit.
I was only 30% sure that I knew what sport the Mets played, but it was always important to butter clients up like they’re a freshly-toasted slice of wholewheat rye.
“I’m a fan when they’re good,” Lord McConnery shrugged, somewhat abashedly. I was surprised. Shame was not an expression that the McConnery family tended to convey, in any of its various forms. “I’m more of a basketball man, myself, to be totally honest. “Start talking about the Harlem Globetrotters, or the New York Knicks, and that’s when I start getting involved,” he laughed. “I’m a bit of a Laker hater, in fact.”
If it weren’t for the fact that Lord McConnery had a twenty-billion-dollar account, I would’ve burst out laughing at that moment. I took a moment to reflect upon the immense satisfaction that I’d get from saying I didn’t understand any of those words that you just said.
Instead of saying this, however, I gazed around the room. “I take it Nick’s not here yet,” I mused, even though I’d just seen him outside.
“Nicholas likes to make an entrance,” Lord McConnery rolled his eyes. “He’ll be here soon enough, I’m told his car just pulled up.”
“Perhaps we could give the details a quick run-through before he gets here?” I suggested.
“I left all the relevant files with your assistant,” Lord McConnery said, inclining his head toward the corner.
I was surprised - I hadn’t even noticed Michael sitting quietly in the corner, drumming his fingers gently against the conference table.
“Apprentice,” Michael corrected under his breath, but Lord McConnery appeared to have not heard him.
“Morning, Michael,” I said pleasantly, stifling a laugh at how miffed Michael had sounded at Mr. McConnery getting his official title wrong.
“Sandy,” Michael nodded curtly to me.
Suddenly, I heard the distinctive noise of the glass conference room door scraping on the carpet, a subtle cue that someone had entered. As I turned on my heel, I caught my breath. Nick McConnery had just entered the room, looking just as dapper as his father in a jet-black, two-piece Brioni with a matching tie that sported a grey slash. His combination of dark, fringed hair, piercing green eyes, pocketed hands and Devil-May-Care slouch made him look like a moody Harry Potter with just a dash of bad boy.
Whenever I was in his vicinity, I tended not to stare too closely at him, and in that frozen moment, I was reminded why. He was gorgeous.
“Ah, Nicholas,” Lord McConnery said, with the air of someone who was greeting his only child warmly, but with an expression reminiscent of cool disappointment. “So good of you to grace us with your presence, milord.”
He went suddenly and unexpectedly British on the last word. I covered my mouth to stifle a laugh because of the irony of the situation.
“Dad,” Nick said, with all the enthusiasm of a corpse. He suddenly glanced my way with those big green eyes. “Sandy,” he said, in a much softer tone. As soon as I met his gaze, however, he looked away and instead addressed Michael. “Buddy,” he said, either not bothered to use his name, or not knowing it and not being bothered to ask.
“Well, good, so we’re all here,” Lord McConnery said brightly. “Have your assistant run and get us some coffee, let’s get this show on the run.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Michael nod gently at the idea of coffee, but then he scowled as he remembered that he was the “assistant.”
“Apprentice,” he murmured under his breath again.
I snickered. “Michael, be a love and go on a coffee run, would you?”
“I take it black, assistant,” Lord McConnery said. “One sugar, two splashes of vanilla.”
“Apprentice,” Michael said again. This time, Nick heard it too. He smirked privately to himself.
“And you?” Michael asked Nick. “What do you want?”
Nick considered this for a moment. “Get me a cappuccino,” he decided. “Tell them to hold the chocolate sprinkles.”
“Any sugar?”
Nick glanced at me, and we made eye contact. “No, thanks,” he said softly. “I’m sweet enough.”
This time, no amount of self-control could stop me from rolling my eyes. “You already know what I want, Michael. Non-fat latte, cut it with caramel and put cinnamon on top. If there’s no non-fat, go soy or almond.”
Within a few minutes, Michael had returned with the tray of hot beverages, and we began to share them out. Lord McConnery chose to sit across from me on the other side of the table, and Nick hesitated before joining him.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep sip from my coffee cup, then placing it down on the glass conference table. “So, I’m told you’re looking to get the ball rolling on a new development project?”
“Not just any new development project, little lady,” Lord McConnery said imperiously.
I lifted my coffee cup to my lips again, so he wouldn’t see me incredulously mouth the words little lady to myself.
“No, this is the next big thing,” Lord McConnery said, drumming his fingers on the table. “I own an apartment block up on the Upper West Side, in Manhattan. We want to take a few flats and combine them into one, big deluxe.”
I frowned. “Is that it? That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
Lord McConnery laughed. “It’s really not that simple. I’m disappointed, Sandy, I thought you knew me by now.”
I inwardly huffed at this. I did know him, I’d just been hoping that for once we’d have an easy project. I guess that wasn’t happening any time soon.
Nick was tapping his perfectly manicured fingers against the table surface. “The apartment block in question,” he said with an air of someone attempting to appear sophisticated. “Was recently used as collateral in a settlement against Malbus Constructions.”
I frowned. “So…what? You don’t own it anymore?”
Nick rolled his eyes impatiently. “We do. But once our contract expires, we’re legally required to hand it over.”
I glanced from son to father and back again, my eyes narrowed suspiciously. “So…what exactly do you want me to do?”
“We want you to do what you do the best,” Nick said, in that same bored tone. “I mean, you are supposed, professionals.”
I scowled. He wasn’t questioning my professionalism, was he?
“And we want you to do it quickly, too,” Lord McConnery added. “We have a buyer lined up for the apartment, but we need the building process to start ASAP. Sometime within the next three months.”
I nearly inhaled half of my non-fat latte. “Three months?!” I spluttered. “Are you crazy?”
“No,” Nick cut in. “We’re just ambitious. So, if you can’t cut it, we’ll simply find someone who can.”
“Hold up, hold up, hold up,” I blurted. “You realize that we haven’t even started the interior designing process yet, right?”
“We need it done in three months, or we don’t do it,” Nick shrugged. “It’s that simple.”
“I don’t understand why so soon?” I frowned. “Wait, hang on. How long is your contract on this place?”
Nick smirked. “Three months.”
And all of a sudden, the strands were starting to come together. This wasn’t about building a deluxe apartment, this was about Nick and his Dad finding a dodgy way to back out of an agreement at the eleventh hour!
“If construction has already started by the time the contract expires,” I reasoned. “You think that means you’ll be able to keep the building? Newsflash gentleman, Malbus Construction will simply finish the project with their own contractors and reap all the benefits.”
“Not when we file a motion to delay,” Nick put in. “Or more accurately, when our lawyers file a motion to delay. We push back our agreement on the building with the New York City Council, and then by the time the apartment is finished, when Malbus Construction try and sue us for breach of contract, we’re going to turn around and counter sue for contract termination. Because the value of the apartment block when it’s done will far exceed the value of it now.”
“It’s a sneaky plan,” I admitted. “But I have to let you know, I don’t even know if the construction in three months is possible. It takes at least two to even get the construction permit from the council, and even then, we haven’t even started interior design.”
Nick sighed. “Dad, what did I tell you? Let’s just go, we’re wasting our time here.”
Nick’s Dad was irked at this. “Nicholas, stop being an ass! In fact, go and wait outside, I’ll take it from here!”
Nick scowled at his Dad.
Oh, snap! I found myself thinking frantically. Maybe things aren’t perfect in paradise, after all.
Nick stood up, visibly pissed off, and pocketed his hands on the way out. He shoved the glass door open with his shoulder and left. I watched him go, and as I did, a singular thought raced through my mind. Maybe I should ask him.
Chapter Eight
Nick
What’s the saying? Hindsight is a beautiful thing? I don’t think that that saying has ever been truer, at least not for me. As soon as it was too late to change my mind, I began to wish that I hadn’t left the conference room like that. The very moment that I’d left the conference room, I felt a tiny modicum of shame sweeping over me, but as my shoes pounded on the floor of Elegance Refined’s 45th floor, that modicum grew into more of a giant, crashing wave of shame.
I wished I hadn’t stormed out like that. I was Nick McConnery, not some idiot who was ruled by his emotions. I was Mr. Cool, in fact. That was the version of myself that I chose to present to the public, and it was the version that they simply lapped up. But what could I say? How does the saying go? Family has a way of getting under your skin, or words to that effect, at least? My Dad was no exception. He is the person that that saying was written about, in fact. I could comfortably say that he was the one person alive who knew exactly how to press my buttons, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
There’d been many times that I’d wished that I could control myself with my Dad, control the way my Dad made me feel the same way that I controlled how I felt with everyone else. Many times. But it wasn’t so easy. There was too much…feelings there, as much as it pains me to admit. Even to myself.
My Dad was the reason I spent most of my childhood as what other kids in school were only too happy to call moody. I still remembered the times, back when I was a kid when he used to call me “Nichol-ass.” That’s the kind of thing my Dad found funny.
I, however, was far removed.
Dad’s sense of humor, like that of pretty much all dads, left a lot to be desired in the “humor” department. Come to think of it, it left a lot to be desired in the “sense” department too. At least he had the “of” down! One of my life goals was to let my Dad know that the prerequisite for a joke, is that it be funny.
But if I’m totally honest with myself, I know it wouldn’t work. Dad has never listed to another person in his fifty-odd years on this planet, and if, for some outlandish reason, he decided to break that streak, I can say with some measure of certainty that I would not be the person he would listen to first. And especially not about this particular topic. Dad doesn’t need any advice on comedy, as far as he’s concerned, he’s already the funniest guy around.
When I was a kid, for no reason at all, Dad used to say “no lunch on Saturdays.” To this day, I’ve never figured out why he just used to chortle whenever I said I was hungry on a Saturday. Something tells me that he often blurred the lines between a joke and a flat-out lie. I’m not proud of the amount of time it took me to realize that his leather jacket didn’t actually turn into a jet-pack when you pulled the hoodie string, or that he couldn’t actually speak to motorcycles (he called it Motorbikes).
These were all examples of when was a real wise guy, but it wasn’t all fun and games. Being a billionaire’s son was hard enough without being that billionaire’s son. The only thing you needed to know in order to live with Dad harmoniously was that you were always wrong, and he was always right. Unless you agreed with him, of course, in which case you were a suck-up. There was simply no way to win. No way to be on the same side. He was as much a loner as I was, only he was far superior at being a loner than I could ever be, so much so that people actually wanted to be on his side. And he never actually let them, and that just made them want it even more. I watched it happen for years.
I could not lie, Dad was clever than he let on. He was cold and shrewd and calculating and always spoke his mind. He knew the best way to get what he wanted from people, and I couldn’t help but admire that. And it’s hard when someone you admire sees you as a constant disappointment. And I was always a disappointment to my Dad because I wasn’t like him. Not enough. We shared a few of the same facial features, but outside of that, we had wildly different personas. I had too much of my mother in me.
The only thing I knew for sure about my mother and father was that they loved each other more than they could put into words, but they had wildly different values. From what I remember of her, my mother was warm and welcoming, but could also be icy cold. A woman who was very much ruled by her emotions. And my Dad was as far from that as it was possible for a person to be. Not once in my life did Dad ever tell me he loved me, or that he was proud of me. He wasn’t that kind of guy. I understood that. Really, I did. But as his son - his only son - I wasn’t sure that I accepted it.
I wasn’t even entirely sure that it was possible to accept such a thing. But I resigned myself to being the mirror image of my father. It was the best thing I had any idea how to be.
“Nick!” someone called my name.
I didn’t have to turn around to recognize Sandy’s voice - I knew her voice when I heard it. I paused, and then finally, I turned around. There she was, walking toward me from the end of the corridor where the conference room was. She was walking fairly briskly, which all women who work in offices are masters at - watching a chick try to run in a pencil skirt is one of the funniest things on God’s green Earth.
“Sandy,” I said softly. “What can I do for you?”
Sandy didn’t immediately answer the question. She simply stood there, hand on her hip, looking at me with a mixture of disapproval and mild annoyance. A single strand of her mousy blonde hair that she’d tied up in a somewhat elegant bun hung down in her eyes. She casually blew the strand of hair out of her face and continued half-glaring at me out of those light blue eyes.
Jesus Christ, she was sexy.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sandy almost hissed. Then I realized that I was wrong. She hadn’t hissed it at me like she was pissed off. She’d asked it with the same tone that one might use when asking “what’s wrong?”. Her tone was reminiscent of something suspiciously similar to concern. That couldn’t be true. Could it? Was Sandy…worried about me? This day was turning out to be quite…interesting.
“I’m fine,” I said stiffly.
“Try again,” Sandy almost giggled. “You might even convince yourself next time, but you won’t convince me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.”
I turned my back on her and stabbed at the elevator button. It glowed, but the display read ‘G.’ Of course, it was on the ground. Forty-five floors between me and it, about as far apart as an inanimate object and a person could possibly be in an office building in downtown Queens.
