Bought: A Billionaire Romance (8 page)

Something about plane travel just makes me feel sleepy. I know a lot of people have trouble sleeping on planes but it’s never been a problem for me. When I open my eyes I feel pretty well rested and I check my watch to see we’re three hours into the flight. I look over to Clara and see that she’s sleeping peacefully, curled up on the chair. I can’t help but think how cute she looks.

Damn it Kyan, stay professional!
I think.

My stomach rumbles and I realize it’s time for lunch. I press the button for the stewardess and she appears a few moments later.

“Can we get lunch now?” I ask.

“Certainly. We’ve got red wine braised beef.”

“Sounds delicious. What have you got for vegetarians?”

“Vegetable lasagna.”

“Perfect,” I reply, “the beef for me and the lasagna for Clara here will be great.”

The stewardess disappears towards the kitchen to prepare our meals for us. This is the kind of service you get when there are only two passengers on the plane. I can’t imagine eating the trash they serve on regular airlines now.

The stewardess reappears after a while with two steaming plates of food. The beef smells delicious and I can hardly wait to eat it. ’m not sure how hungry Clara is but I think she’ll be grateful for the food so I tap her on the shoulder. Her heavy-lidded eyes slowly and she yawns and stretches with a small moan.

“Food?” she asks.

“Lasagne. Vegetable lasagna. I thought you would probably be hungry.”

“Thanks. I’m starving,” she says, “How long until we arrive?”

“Eleven hours.”

****

By the time we’re about two hours away from Beijing I’m restless and desperate to get out of the plane. Something about being kept in one place for more than a few hours just doesn’t sit well with me.

I get up and walk to one of the plane’s large windows. Taking a sip of my whiskey I look out on the thick blanket of cloud we are soaring above.

I turn round to see that Clara is awake again. She’s spent the entire flight intermittently sleeping or trying to read the report through yet again. It seems she’s back to reading.

“If you want a shower before we get there, now is probably the time,” I say.

“I didn’t bring a towel,” she replies.

“There are towels in there. Do you want to have a shower or shall I go first?”

“You can go first,” she says without looking up from the report.

“Fine. Try not to walk in on me this time.”

She pretends not to have heard me but the redness rising to her cheeks gives me a certain satisfaction.

****

By the time we’re both showered and ready for the meeting the captain's voice comes over the intercom to say we’re about to land so we sit down and buckle up.

“Once we’re out of the airport in Beijing there’ll a car waiting for us to take us to the hotel and then on to the meeting,” I say

Clara nods. She’s nervous, which is understandable. I hope she manages to keep it together for the meeting though because I think I’m going to need her.

I’ve lived in the city my whole life but from the moment we leave the plane I feel like I’m in another world. The noise, the smells, the traffic: it’s all familiar yet at the same time strange.

The airport is HUGE. Before coming here I read that it was one of the biggest in the world and it’s bustling with people in their thousands.

“This place can get pretty confusing, so stay close,” says Kyan after we get through security, “Our driver should be here to meet us.”

Eventually, we see a guy with a sign reading “Ellis Energy” and head over to him. He leads us outside to a waiting limo.

“You ever been to China before?” asks Kyan once we’re buckled up.

“Nope. The only other country I’ve ever been to is Canada.”

“Canada? That barely even counts as another country.”

“Well, we don’t all have our own private jets that let us just go wherever we want whenever we want.”

That should shut him up.

After a few minutes, Kyan starts pointing out landmarks to me. He’s clearly been here several times before.

The city feels so alien to me. I’m used to streets packed with people and being hemmed in on all sides by tall buildings but this place feels so supersized by comparison.

“…and this is our hotel,” says Kyan when we pull up outside a grand European-style building with columns.

Inside, the hotel is even grander with expensive rugs and beautiful wooden furnishings around the lobby. A night here must cost more than my apartment does for a month but as Kyan will be paying I’m going to make the most of it.

When we check in and get our keys I start walking toward the elevator but Kyan stops me.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“To my room?”

“There’s no time for that. The meeting is in twenty minutes and these guys get pissed if you’re late to a meeting, believe me.”

“Fine, let’s go.”

A few moments later we’re back in the car and heading to the meeting. I can feel the familiar butterflies in my stomach and the thin layer of sweat on my palms.

“Clara,” says Kyan, laying one of his big hands on my arm, “You’re going to do great.”

****

The meeting room is silent when we walk in. I thought we were on time but the three men in suits sitting across the wide, glossy black table from us look like they’ve been waiting a while. It’s one of the newest skyscrapers in a city where a new skyscraper seems to be being built every week. The view from the window is amazing, looking right across the bustling metropolis below.

One of the men says something in Chinese to another and the second man stands up.

“Mr. Ellis, Ms. Young. Please, take a seat.”             

Once the introductions are made, our hosts waste no time in telling us how they really feel about the project.

“We think the project you have envisioned is an expensive waste of money, Mr. Ellis, and we will not be contributing to it.”

“This is a billion dollar project, it doesn’t go ahead without your financial contribution.”

“That is why we have come up with a different proposal, one that will cost only half as much,” says the man who was introduced to us as ‘Mr. Huang’, “I hope you will find it acceptable. We will require your answer today.”

Huang opens a briefcase and removes some paperwork before sliding it across the table to Kyan.

“Today!?” gasps Kyan, “Why didn’t you email this over to us so we could review it before the meeting?”

“My apologies, Mr. Ellis, but the numbers were not finalized until this morning,” says Huang.

“Clara,” says Kyan as he passes me the Chinese paperwork, “can you take at look at this, please? Now?”

“Now?” I whisper to him.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, “Don’t worry, I’ll stall them. Just try to find something we can use to change their minds in there.”

“Gentleman, perhaps you can tell me the benefits of your proposal over ours…”

The conversation between Kyan and the other businessmen fades into the background as I skim through the report. Luckily it’s in English o
1
r I would be really stuck. A lot of the charts and figures seem to be padding, designed to confuse a reader rather than explain their counter-proposal. I flip through the pages, my heart pounding, knowing I have to focus, that I have to find something we can use to save this deal.

“It’s a scam,” I say.

Silence falls in the room. The Chinese businessmen start whispering frantically.

“What did she say?” says Huang.

“It’s a scam,” I repeat, “the numbers they’ve given only work if you assume they’re just putting in the shell of the carbon sequestration works. It will look like it’s working to anyone that doesn’t inspect it too closely, but the plants will still be pumping out carbon dioxide.”

“Ellis, are you going to let your assistant throw these wild accusations at us?”

“Are you sure?” Kyan asks me.

I check the numbers again quickly. I love numbers, they just make sense to me. With words and with people you can never be completely sure of the truth, but numbers can’t lie.

“Yes. I’m sure. The plan seems to be to try to fool the inspectors.”

“Clearly, your assistant doesn’t understand our proposal,” says Huang, “Please, Mr. Ellis, we know the Chinese market and our cost savings will—”

“Shut up for a second Huang,” says Kyan. The room falls silent again as he stands up and stares down the men across the table from us, “Clara here knows what she’s talking about and I think you’re fucking with us and trying to fuck up this deal just to line your own pockets.”

“Mr. Ellis, please, keep calm. If we go about this the right way, we can all save a lot of money here. You should reconsider our proposal,” says Huang.

The hush remains over the room. I look at Kyan, wondering what he’s thinking and willing him to make the right decision. If he goes along with their proposal the company could save hundreds of millions of dollars by breaking the law and destroying the environment. I just want to yell at him, “Don’t do it Kyan!” but the tension in the room is so great I can hardly bring myself to breathe let alone speak.

Kyan begins to speak, his words forming slowly and deliberately, and with the weight of a man who will not be convinced otherwise.

“So, you’re telling me that even though your country is suffering the effects of pollution and global warming–actually visibly and tangibly suffering–you want to continue fucking the environment in a way that is not only unbelievably immoral but completely illegal. You want to keep doing it, regardless of the harm it causes, solely for your own greed.”

I realize my mouth is hanging slightly open as I listen to Kyan talk. The three men opposite sit like stone statues, stunned into silence by his tirade.

“I’ve got a counteroffer,” continues Kyan, “accept our initial proposal or we take your report to the Chinese government. Now I don’t know too much about Chinese law but I seem to recall they don’t look too kindly on corruption. So which will it be? Our offer? Or maybe you would prefer a lethal injection courtesy of your government?”

Kyan sits back down and we all wallow in the silent tension of the room for a few moments more. Eventually, Huang and his two colleagues start whispering among themselves.

“Did you like that?” Kyan whispers to me.

I did like that. In fact, I loved it. For a moment I thought that Kyan might not do the right thing, that he would be blinded by greed and the chance to make an extra few hundred million. In the end, he came through. Perhaps I should never have doubted.

“You want me to congratulate you for not breaking the law?” I reply.

“You’re a hard person to impress, Clara Young.”

“Perhaps. You’re doing a better job of impressing me than you did when we first met.”

“Yeah? I hope impressing you was worth that few hundred million I gave up.”

“Well, you don’t just get my respect. You get to know that you saved several million tons of carbon dioxide from being spewed into our atmosphere every year.”

“I’m not some eco-warrior, but I always do business honestly.”

I notice our hosts have stopped talking so we turn to face them. Mr. Huang stands up and his two colleagues leave the room wordlessly.

“We have come to the decision that we will accept your proposal,” says Huang, “it is regrettable that you would not work with us come to a solution that was acceptable to both parties, but it seems you have us ‘over a barrel’ as you would say.”

Huang extends his hand to shake Kyan’s before we leave. When I approach him to shake hands all I get is an angry glare.

My first proper business meeting and I managed to really piss off hosts. Still, the adrenaline rush I’m getting is amazing.

Holy shit, I feel incredible when we get out the building and into the hot, humid air of the city. There’s nothing quite like the rush of negotiating a billion dollar deal, especially when you have to threaten the other side to get it. Even the haze of pollution that hangs over the city can’t stop me punching the air.

“Pretty happy with yourself, huh?” says Clara.

“You’re damn right. Don’t you feel that rush?”

“Maybe a bit,” she replies with a smile.

I can tell she’s playing it down. She feels the joy of competition just like me, I saw it in her from the start. Her hippy, eco-warrior thing is nice, but the real reason she’s here is just like me, the thrill of the hunt and, ultimately, the kill.

“Feels good to win, doesn’t it?” I say.

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“You were awesome in there, the way you analyzed that bullshit report and then absolutely destroyed them. Go on, punch the air. Just a little one.”

Clara laughs as she half-heartedly propels her fist through the soupy city air.

“There, doesn’t that feel good?” I say with a grin.

“It really does.”             

“Well, you can look forward to a few more of those if you’re working with me,” I check my watch, it’s only five o’clock, we’ve still got the whole evening and we don’t fly back until tomorrow morning, “We need to celebrate tonight.”

“Really? I was hoping to get something at the restaurant in the hotel and then hit the spa before we—”

“Spa? Boring. I’m going to take you to this great dim sum place and then we’re going to hit the hotel bar.”

“Well…bar does beat spa every time.”

“That’s the attitude. Let’s go.”

We stroll down the steps in the shadow of the massive buildings of the financial district towards the waiting car. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a good night.