The Invitation Page 6

  I didn’t have to read the entire thing.

  Just one little entry.

  That would be it.

  I flipped through from the first page to make sure I was at the very beginning, and then scanned the two simple words on the first line.

  Dear Diary…

  Just one little entry.

  It couldn’t do any harm.

  I had no idea then just how much those words would come back to haunt me.

  CHAPTER 7

  Stella

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Stella. It’s Olivia.”

  I switched the phone to my other ear so I could finish putting on my earrings. “How are you, Olivia?”

  “I’m good. But my day is a little busier than I’d thought. Do you think you might be able to come by my office today with the perfumes? I’m not sure where you live, but if downtown is a giant pain in the ass for you, I can send a car.”

  My apartment was on the Upper East Side, so getting downtown was actually pretty inconvenient. But I owed Olivia, so I wasn’t about to complain. “That’s fine. I have some errands to run downtown anyway.”

  “Oh, that’s great. Thank you. Is around two o’clock okay?”

  “Sure, that’s perfect.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you then.”

  It sounded like she was about to hang up. “Wait—I need the address.”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought you had it.”

  Why would I have her office address? Did she think I’d stalked her thoroughly before showing up at her wedding? Jesus, just when I’d started to get over being embarrassed. “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s Fifteen Broad Street. Fourteenth floor.”

  I shut my jewelry box. Broad Street? That’s where Hudson’s office was. “You work in the same building as your brother?”

  “Oh, I assumed you knew. Hudson and I actually work together. Rothschild Investments was our father’s business.”

  I hadn’t known. And it shouldn’t have made any difference, but I’d be lying if I said the thought of possibly running into Hudson didn’t make my pulse race.

  When I went quiet for a minute, Olivia wrongly assumed why.

  “It’s a pain in the ass to get to, isn’t it? Let me send a car for you.”

  “No, no—it’s absolutely fine. I’ll see you at two.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. But thank you.”

  After I hung up, I looked in the mirror above my dresser. I’d gotten out of the shower and put my wet hair into a ponytail. Suddenly I thought I might be in the mood to take it down and give it a nice blow-dry.

  ***

  “Hey!” I stood from my seat in the reception area, and Olivia swamped me in a big hug. “Sorry to make you wait. I’ve had an awful morning.”

  I wished I looked as bright-eyed and chipper as she did having a bad day. “It’s fine. I wasn’t waiting long.”

  She waved toward the inner sanctum. “Come on back. Do you have to leave right away? I was hoping we could talk. I ordered us some salads in case you were hungry.”

  I still couldn’t get over the turn of events—that the woman whose wedding I’d crashed wanted to be my friend. “Sure. I’d love that. Thanks.”

  I followed Olivia, turning left and then right. I knew from my visit to pick up my cell phone that the last door on the end of this hallway was Hudson’s office. As we walked closer, my mouth grew dry. His door was open, so I attempted to sneak a look inside without getting caught. Disappointment set in as we passed, and I saw it was empty. But it was probably for the best. I’d wasted enough time on a man who hadn’t called.

  Olivia’s office was located around the corner from her brother’s. It was large and sleek, but not quite the proverbial corner office with the floor-to-ceiling windows looking down on the city like her brother had. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be thrilled to sit in a closet in this building. But I found it interesting that his space made it appear he was higher on the corporate food chain when Olivia had said they worked together—not that she worked for her brother.

  “I skipped breakfast. Do you mind if we eat before I take a look at the perfumes? I’m dying to get my hands on it, but I’m also diabetic and shouldn’t skip meals.”

  “Sure, of course.”

  Olivia and I sat across from each other. I unfurled the cloth napkin that held the utensils and laid it across my lap.

  “This looks great.”

  “I hope you like it. I ordered a chopped salad that had some of the same ingredients that were in your lunch the last time we got together. Just to be safe.”

  God, she was so thoughtful.

  We dug into our salads. “So any better news about Signature Scent?” she asked.

  I forced a smile, trying not to let on how miserable I was. “Not really. The launch is going to be more delayed than I’d hoped since the SBA loan fell through.”

  She frowned. “I’m sorry about that. I kind of thought it might not get approved when we talked at lunch. But I didn’t want to say anything and jinx it. I’ve worked with them before, and they’re not really as start-up friendly as they claim to be.”

  “Yeah. They basically said come back once you’re up and running and have some sales history.”

  “Would you…consider taking on a private-equity investor? It’s part of what we do here. Rothschild Investments is a wealth-management company. We offer typical money-management services, like managing stock-investment portfolios, but we also have a pool of investors who invest capital in exchange for a piece of a new or expanding company.”

  “So, you’re selling a piece of your company to a bunch of different people?”

  She nodded. “Yes, sort of. But you usually keep controlling interest. And since the investors have a vested interest in your success, they don’t just hand you the check. They also provide management help, like using their buying power and other resources. Our venture-capital division has a whole team whose sole responsibility is to support the businesses they invest in.”

  “Hmmm... Would I even qualify for something like that? I’ve invested a ton of my own savings, but I don’t have a steady income anymore. To be honest, I’m going to have to get a job soon if I don’t start turning over some of the inventory I bought.”

  “Working with a VC is different than a bank. It’s not based on an owner’s income, but on the potential of the business itself. I could set you up with an appointment if you wanted to explore it as an option.”

  “Could I…think about it a bit and get back to you? It’s very generous of you to even consider my business for such a thing. I just want to make sure it’s the right decision for me.”

  “Of course. Absolutely.”

  Olivia and I finished our lunch, chatting away like old friends. After, I showed her all of the perfumes I’d made for her wedding party, and she literally squealed over each one. Her excitement was contagious, and as I got ready to leave her office, I felt more pumped than I had in weeks—at least since the bank had yanked my line of credit.

  “Thank you for lunch, again, Olivia.”

  “Anytime. It was fun.”

  “And I’ll get back to you as soon as possible on the private-equity investment possibility. Just out of curiosity, if I decided to try that route, what would be the first step?”

  “You’d meet with the VC investment team and tell them about your business, do a little dog-and-pony show here at the office, and answer whatever questions they might have.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

  Olivia walked me back out to the reception area, and we hugged goodbye. “Let me know what you decide, and I can probably get you on the calendar for next week. I think Hudson is going out of town, but not until Thursday.”

  “Hudson?”

  “Yeah. He’s the head of the VC investment team. Didn’t I mention that?”

  No, you definitely did not.

  ***

  “I asked around and heard nothing but stellar
things about Rothschild Investments,” Fisher reported.

  I poured a glass of wine and sat down at the kitchen table across from him. He’d come straight over after work, so he still had on a suit and looked all dapper.

  Two days had passed since I met with Olivia, and I still hadn’t come to a decision on the possibility of selling part of my business to an investment group. The law firm Fisher worked at had a corporate division that did a lot of work with IPOs and financing, even though Fisher worked in entertainment law. So after he educated me on the realities of working with a venture capitalist, he put out feelers to get some references for Olivia’s family’s company.

  “Prince Charming has a reputation for being tough,” he said.

  I sipped my wine. “Well, I guess there’s a reason Evelyn used to call him GQ Prick.”

  “But he also has a pretty damn impressive track record of success for the businesses they take on. It’s something you may want to seriously consider.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s holding you back?”

  “Selling a piece of my business before it even gets off the ground.”

  Fisher nodded. “I get it. I really do. But realistically, what’s your alternative? It will take you years of going back to work full-time to save the type of money you need to launch the way you’d planned. And you said yourself that a lot of the inventory you have won’t make it that long.”

  “I could save for a little while and launch at a much smaller scale.”

  “But then you’d be working full-time while trying to make a go of a business that needs your full attention.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I know.”

  “You were going to borrow from the bank, so technically they would’ve owned your ass until you paid them back anyway. I spoke to the partner in charge of the business division at my firm. He said venture capitalists don’t want to own the businesses they invest in forever. They’re in it to make a nice return and get out—on to the next one. They need to liquidate or they’d wind up just owning a bunch of companies and no longer have capital ready for the next big thing that comes along. The average venture capitalist has an exit plan to be out within seven to eight years. And you can negotiate a first right of refusal, so when the time comes for them to sell, you get first crack at buying their ownership back.”

  “Really?”

  Fisher nodded. “A bank loan would take you that long or longer to pay off anyway.”

  He had a good point. The reasons to not go this route were quickly shrinking. Though I still couldn’t imagine that the man who had called me out for crashing his sister’s wedding, only to ask me out and not call, had any desire to go into business with me.

  I sipped my wine and juggled my thoughts. Basically a venture capitalist was my only choice left. Of course, I’d found out there were thousands of them when I’d done some research on my own. I could give a shot to working with another firm. I was certain Rothschild Investments wasn’t the only game in town with good references. But on the other hand, they had Olivia, who seemed almost as excited and passionate about my business as I did. That was a huge plus. Then there was Hudson. At this point, he went into the minus column. However, what was that old saying? Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t—or something along those lines.

  I took a deep breath and looked across the table at Fisher.

  “What would you do?”

  My cell phone sat in the middle of the table. He reached out and slid it over in front of me. “I’d make a call before your new friend changes her mind.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Hudson

  “What the hell, Olivia?”

  “Calm down. Calm down. This is why I didn’t tell you until now. You overreact to things.”

  I tossed the file I’d been working on to the side of my desk. “I’m overreacting? A woman opens someone else’s mail and crashes your wedding—a wedding that cost me a small fortune, I might add—and you want us to go into business with the loose cannon? I think it’s more like you have a couple of screws loose than I’m blowing things out of proportion.”

  I left out that I’d asked said loose cannon out on a date. Luckily, it seemed Little Miss Wedding Crasher hadn’t shared that tidbit either when she’d talked to my sister.

  I shook my head, still digesting that my sister had invited Stella to present for the investment team. “No, Olivia. Just no.”

  “My God, Hudson. I remember when you weren’t such a perfect person. If my memory serves me right, Dad had to bail you out after you were arrested for breaking and entering once.”

  “I was seventeen and drunk and thought it was our house…”

  My sister shrugged. “What about the time you blew up a porta potty on a construction site? The only reason you didn’t get arrested that time is because Dad agreed to buy the contractor three new ones.”

  “I was also in high school. It was the Fourth of July, and Jack lit the M-80, not me.”

  “You know what your problem is?”

  I sat back in my chair and sighed. “No, but I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

  “You’re no fun anymore. Five years ago you would have laughed if someone had crashed a wedding you went to. Now you’re uptight and bitter. Your divorce sucked the sense of humor right out of you!”

  My jaw flexed. A woman I’d recently dated a few times had told me I didn’t smile enough. I’d been polite and refrained from telling her she just wasn’t very funny, but her comment had nagged at me. The week before, Charlie had drawn a picture of her family at school. Everyone was smiling—her, my ex-wife, the babysitter, even the damn dog—except for me. I was frowning.

  I shook my head and picked up my pen. “Go away, Olivia.”

  “She’s coming in to do her presentation for the team at two o’clock today. They can vote with, or without you.”

  I lifted my chin toward my office door. “Shut the door behind you.”

  ***

  “Evelyn.” I nodded as I walked into the conference room.

  Stella frowned, and my sister glared at me.

  “What?” I shrugged.

  “You damn well know her name.”

  I smirked and looked to Stella. “Ah, that’s right. Evelyn is your alter ego, the one who commits crimes. Apparently Stella is an upstanding businesswoman I have yet to meet. Do you change in a telephone booth or something?”

  Since they hadn’t started yet, I took my usual seat at the head of the conference room table. I was curious to see how Stella would handle my jabs. She surprised me by walking over with her hand extended.

  “Hi, Mr. Rothschild. I’m Stella Bardot. It’s very nice to meet you. I appreciate the opportunity to present to you today.”

  I shook her hand and held her eyes. “Can’t wait.”

  After telling myself I wasn’t going to bother showing up for this meeting, I went to the front reception area a little before two o’clock. I’d gone to put some mail in the outgoing bin, but as I walked down the hall near the conference room, I caught a whiff of perfume and knew Stella had arrived. She smelled even better than I remembered. The scent brought back some other memories I didn’t care to recall—her phenomenal smile, a spunky personality, and the way I couldn’t take my eyes off the slight hint of a pulse I could see in her neck when she laughed. The woman made me feel like a vampire, I wanted to suck on it so badly.

  Back in my office, I’d attempted to ignore what I knew was about to start in the conference room. But ten minutes later, I gave in, knowing I wouldn’t get any work done anyway. Plus, I never missed a pitch meeting, and it was probably best that I kept an eye on my sister. Someone had to keep her bleeding heart from giving away the kitchen sink.

  Stella returned to her seat. I could tell by the way she kept shifting in her chair and twisting her ring that she was nervous. Though she did her best to pretend she wasn’t, which I respected. The VC investment team was comprised of three senior analysts, th
e director of marketing, Olivia, and myself. But I generally led the team and did most of the questioning.

  From the other end of the table, my sister caught my eye and gave me what I knew was a warning look. She wanted to remind me to be on my best behavior.

  “Why don’t we get started, shall we?” I asked. Looking to my left, I gave Stella a curt nod. “The floor is yours, Ms. Bardot.”

  She took a deep breath, not unlike the way she’d steadied herself after taking the mic in front of the crowd at my sister’s wedding—and not unlike the image I’d conjured up on more than one occasion over the last few weeks while in the shower…

  Those gorgeous green eyes, full, pink lips, and innocent face—Stella Bardot was beautiful. There was no doubt about that. But it was the way she rose to a challenge, pushing through to say screw you at the end, that made me want to sink my teeth into her flawless, ivory skin.

  Today her hair was up, pinned into some sort of a twist in the back, and she wore those thick, dark-rimmed glasses. I had the strongest urge to push her up against a stack of books, rip her hair down, and toss her glasses over my shoulder.

  Mature, Rothschild. Very mature thoughts.

  Not to mention professional, too.

  Luckily, at least one person in the room seemed to have their head screwed on straight.

  Stella cleared her throat. “I brought a few sample kits, a demo of the website, some details of what I’ve invested so far, and a report of the inventory on hand. It’s probably best if I start with the sample kit.”

  I nodded once, but said nothing.

  For the next half hour, I listened to her presentation. Surprisingly, for a woman who acted on impulse, her business planning had been well thought out. The website was professional, with good branding and simple navigation. Most of the time when new business owners came in, they’d get the pretty right, but hadn’t given any thought to the importance of remarketing. But not Stella. She talked about metrics and follow-back advertisements, demonstrating that she was thinking long term instead of short. The amount of capital she’d invested was also impressive, though it made me wonder where she’d gotten that kind of cash.