The next morning,Holly still hadn't responded to any of my attempts to contact her. I dressed and went down to my office. I needed the distraction of work.
I was reading through some of the employee comments thatTechBizmagazine had picked out to provide to each company. Several asked for a café in the tower. There was a fine-dining restaurant attached to the hotel, but the employees didn’t like it, and they weren't shy about complaining.
I took a deep breath and called Svensson Investment. They managed the ground-floor retail space in the tower.
“You want a what?” Greg said in a clipped tone. “A restaurant? There's no street-frontage retail spots left.”
“It doesn’t need it. Word of mouth will generate traffic to the establishment, and my employees will use it. They've been begging for a fast casual restaurant in the tower. I think we might be able to carve part of the lobby space out for a café.”
“Is this for Holly?” he asked.
“She helped win us the contest,” I countered.
“I highly doubt that.” I could hear the annoyance in Greg's voice.
In the background, Hunter said, “You can’t just put a permanent restaurant in the middle of a lobby. Would the city building department even allow it?”
“They do it in France,” I said into the phone.
“No.”
Time to use my trump card. “If it's not built in the Quantum Cyber tower, the Holbrooks are going to build her a restaurant in their tower.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, followed by frantic whispering.
“We will invest one million dollars to build her a café,” Greg said. “But you need to put up the other half.”
“I don’t need the money, I just need you to do the legal work to carve up the space, but sure, deal.”
I looked up architects after the call. I wanted Holly to have the perfect restaurant. Surely this was what she wanted, right? She had that subscription baking company. She was entrepreneurial.
“Owen.”
Crap. Sloane.I had left my secretary strict instructions not to allow Sloane into my office. Unfortunately, my secretary was already out for Christmas break.
“Can I help you?” I asked firmly.
“Of course,” she said, sauntering over to me. Her blouse was unbuttoned several buttons too many, her cleavage pushed up.
“We had a deal, Owen.”
“We didn't have a deal.”
“Yes, we did!” She pouted. “I gave you the contest, and you give me everything I want!”
I threw my head back and laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. “I'm not marrying you,” I retorted.
“I don't need marriage,” Sloane said, unbuttoning another button. “Maybe just a little early Christmas present.” She pulled my face down into her cleavage. “I just want my reward for helping you.”
I tried to scramble up, but she kissed me.
There was an explosion of glitter. As it cleared, it revealed Holly's angry face.
71
Holly
Iwoke up the next morning half on the floor, chocolate frosting in my hair. The TV was still blaring holiday movies. Several elves were running around on the screen in a panic. The counter in the corner said two more days until Christmas. I started as a key turned in the door.
