Chapter 10 - The New Queen Of Real Estate Faces Her Toughest Business Partnership Yet
I stepped out onto the stone patio, letting the cool autumn mist brush against my face as I walked down the curved pathway toward the rose garden pavilion.
Richard Sterling turned around as my heels clicked against the damp flagstones.
He wasn't wearing his usual formal corporate overcoat; instead, he wore a simple dark wool trench coat, looking less like an intimidating Wall Street titan and more like an observant elder statesman.
“Claire,” Richard greeted me, offering a polite, respectful nod of his head.
“Mr. Sterling,” I replied, stopping two paces away from him under the glass canopy.
“I’m surprised to see you here after the disaster your family tried to pull off at the wedding.”
Richard let out a low, gravelly chuckle that echoed softly against the glass walls.
“My family, fortunately, does not include Vanessa or Arthur Hawthorne anymore,” Richard corrected me smoothly.
“Daniel has moved out of our family estate in disgrace, and his mother is still trying to figure out how to explain to our social club board why her son’s wedding ended up on the front page of every national newspaper.”
“As for me?”
Richard stepped closer, resting his hands on the stone railing of the pavilion.
“I’ve spent forty years on Wall Street sniffing out frauds, grifters, and incompetent executives who masquerade as geniuses.”
“When I negotiated that seventy-million-dollar waterfront deal three years ago, I thought I was talking to Arthur Hawthorne through encrypted legal channels.”
“It wasn't until your father stood up in that ballroom and tried to blame you for his own incompetence that I finally put two and two together.”
“You single-handedly saved that deal, didn't you?”
“I protected my grandfather’s investment,” I answered evenly, meeting his grey eyes without flinching.
“And in doing so, you made Sterling Capital thirty percent higher returns than our original projections,” Richard added with a faint grin.
“Which brings me to why I’m standing out here in the freezing rain on your private estate.”
Richard reached into his trench coat pocket and pulled out a thick, heavy manila folder bearing the official red wax seal of Sterling Capital's board of directors.
He placed it on the stone table between us.
“What is this?” I asked, looking down at the folder.
“That is a proposed partnership agreement for the upcoming international smart-city development project in Singapore,” Richard explained, his voice turning strictly professional.
“Fifty-five billion dollars in total capital valuation.”
“Our board wants Hawthorne Heritage to act as the primary real estate developer and managing trustee.”
“And our board insists on one non-negotiable clause in the contract.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
“What clause?”
“That you, Claire E. Hawthorne, sign every single page as the sole managing director and signing authority,” Richard said firmly.
“No intermediaries. No proxy signatures. No corporate middlemen.”
I looked down at the wax-sealed folder, then up at the most powerful investor in the country.
The girl who had been pushed to the ballroom floor in a cheap ninety-dollar dress was gone.
In her place stood the undisputed owner of a multi-billion-dollar empire.
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“I’ll review the terms tonight, Mr. Sterling,” I said, resting my hand on the edge of the folder.
“If your numbers are correct, we have a deal.”
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