“My office,” I growled as I walked past my assistant. Her desk was just outside my office. She was my gatekeeper.
“Uh oh,” she groaned.
I threw open my office door and sat down at my desk. Carly walked in behind me. “Before you say anything—”
“Why?” I asked her. “Why would you set up a meeting with that man?”
She sighed and looked down at her feet. “He’s a family friend. My dad asked me to get him a meeting with you.”
I looked at her for several long seconds. “Carly, have you seen my calendar this week? Next week?”
“Yes. I know you’re busy, but—”
“No, there are no buts. My business is not here for you to dole out favors for your friends or family members. I’m busy. There are hundreds of other people that want to get a meeting with me. Those people might actually have worthy business proposals. I just wasted thirty minutes listening to a guy that I would never do business with. Thirty minutes. Do you know how much money I make in a day? When you do a little math, you can calculate what I make in an hour and then down to half an hour. That favor just cost me about ten grand, give or take a thousand.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize his proposal was garbage. He’s been in business for a long time. I thought he was solid.”
“Trust me, he’s not solid and he will be out of business within six months.”
She looked shocked. “Oh.”
“What do I have next?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “You’ve got a conference call in twenty minutes and a meeting at four. That’s all I have.”
“Good, thank you.”
“Oh, I need to know when you want me to schedule the meeting with the new company you just bought.”
I thought about it. “Friday. I want to go when people are in good moods.”
“Morning or afternoon?”
“Schedule it for midmorning in case it takes a while.”
She nodded. “Got it. Anything else? Coffee?”
“No thank you. I’m good.”
She left me alone to filter through the stack of papers piled on my desk. I remembered how long it took me to make my first million. The hard work had been daunting but here I was sitting at the helm of a very successful business and now people wanted me to show them the way. They wanted me to help them reach the same success. I held the power to give them the hand up they were asking for.
At the end of the day, I grabbed my things and headed out of my office. Judging by how quiet it was, everyone was already gone for the day. I was the captain of the ship and I didn’t expect everyone to stick around as long as I did.
I went downstairs, and as was my usual, I headed for the bar in the building. It wasn’t exactly conventional, but it sure as hell was convenient to have a bar on the bottom floor of the building. I owned the building, and the bar was just an extra revenue stream.
It catered to the people that worked in the building and the many corporate employees that worked on the block. My bar was designed to be relaxing. It was a place a guy could go after a long day of wearing a tie that was too tight. He could loosen it, sit in a comfortable chair, and drink the good stuff.
The music was low, and because I knew my clientele, there were several TVs mounted around the bar with the news on. A lot of the people that came into the bar were the Wall-Street type, and even when they were supposed to be relaxing, they were always watching what was happening.
“Barkeep,” I said and slapped my hand on the smooth bar that had soft LED lights running the length of the semi-circle.
Davin looked up and rolled his eyes. “Asshole. No one says that.”
I smirked. “I did.”
He left the pretty lady he’d been talking to and walked over to where I was standing. “Why are you in here on a Monday? Don’t you have millions of dollars to count?”
“I need a drink.”
He winced as he pulled a glass from under the bar and grabbed the usual bottle from the shelf. He poured two fingers of scotch and slid the glass toward me. “What’s going on?”
“Just the usual.”
He laughed. “Still crushing the dreams of young entrepreneurs’ who want to grow up and be you? Telling