“I meant at the Sanctuary club. I’ll be conducting some business there tonight, and you both should be present.”
The schedule micromanaging irritated me. Michel was acting as if I had nothing better to do than attend to him during the week.
John and I were booked for several business meetings while we were in the States, including the one starting in a few hours. Hopefully, I’d have time to shave in my suite at the Sanctuary before it started.
I flipped the strap over the top of the courier bag and buckled it. “I didn’t know you’d taken an interest in the family finances.”
“Well, there are other matters that people like me attend to.”
Which was what,spendingthe family wealth on depreciating assets and baubles to show off our wealth to the other billionaire denizens of the world? This wasn’t even Davos, where flying in on last year’s private jet model was terribly déclassé. “Your contribution is noted.”
He fixed me with an icy stare, his pale blue eyes just like my mother’s and mine. “Not all of us fiddle with numbers, Nicolai. Some of usbringthe money to the table.”
And there it was, reminding me that my father had married Michel’s sister for her family’s immense but common wealth, as our family had done in every generation since World War I. “Yes, I’m well aware.”
“Interesting times, aren’t they, Nico?”
“They all are.” I absolutely was humoring him.
“Yes, but money is on the move, streaming upward. A new era of kings is beginning. We wouldn’t want to be left out. In that way, it’s good that we’ll be here in Las Vegas this week. Quite the opportunity.”
“With what, gambling? A sucker’s game for fools.”
Maybe that was waving the red cape in front of the notoriously testy bull that was my uncle, but the plane was rocking backward as it stopped. The flight attendant who’d been trying to catch my eye the whole flight was disarming the door and about to flip the steps down to the tarmac.
After the car ride and freshening up in my reserved suite at the Billionaire Sanctuary private club, I could escape to John’s hotel for a business meeting while we were in the States anyway.
The main bachelor party nightclub blowout wasn’t until the tomorrow night, though a smaller reception after supper that very night had been scheduled at the Sanctuary bar for the core of us who’d been at boarding school together.
Afterward, I planned to lock myself in my own suite at the Sanctuary, attend to business and John’s festivities as necessary, and hopefully dodge my uncle until we returned to Paris in a few days.
“No, Nicolai,” my uncle said. “Not gambling.Otheropportunities. Opportunities to network and be seen. To form beneficial relationships.”
Ah, he meant what my father’s family had brought to the table,access,in lieu of liquid cash reserves.Our wealth was tied up in property and antique jewelry.Michel and other members of the Pictet family had immediately taken advantage of our family’s rarefied connections since their marriage and never paused. “Yes, true.”
“The meeting tonight is very important. I’ll need your presence. Konstantin, too.”
Probably with subtly shady members of his lower social class and the blue bloods of mine.
In the meantime, I had other business to conduct and a cavalcade of black SUVs waiting for me just off the runway. “I suppose I can pencil you in.”
CHAPTER 11
business
NICOLAI ROMANOV
Summoningworld business leaders to Las Vegas was easier than to, say, Sweden, where I was born and still ostensibly a citizen.
Forcing said leaders to concentrate on business while in Las Vegas was, however, more difficult.
Especially when John’s bachelor party week was commencing and he was already in his cups at two in the afternoon. “I thought tonight’s gathering at the Sanctuary club didn’t start until eight.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” John Borbon sprawled on the wide white couch in his suite at the Waldorf Astoria on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. As with most Waldorfs, the art deco golden circle motifs and upholstery in the colorway of blizzard conditions in the Alps were reminiscent of the slightly gauche Jay Gatsby, rather than the filthy rich of the Gilded Age or true old money.
John’s long legs were splayed, and the vodka tonic in his hand was likely his third or more. “The party started yesterday, Nico. You’re late.”
I dropped my courier bag on the end of the couch and rubbed my neck, which ached and was radiating a headache into the base of my skull. Working instead of sleeping on the plane had been a mistake. “We need to meet with those New Jersey real estate developers at three.”
