They were halfway through the nine-course meal at Per Se when Liam got sick of trying to pretend this was just another friendly dinner and decided to steer the conversation around to business.
“So the skyscraper project,” he said, cutting to the chase. “What kind of competition am I up against?”
Mark Harrington, the silver-haired real estate magnate they were dining with, smiled and took a sip of wine. “Who says you’re even up for it?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Liam could see Hana shake her head. Up until that moment they had all been pretending to be two couples enjoying a very expensive dinner together, but now Liam had spoiled it by rushing in.
Liam knew that there was an art to this. It was like a seduction—no matter how much you wanted it, you didn’t just reach over and grab a woman’s tit. You complimented her hair. You asked about her day. You made her a sandwich and held her hand first, told her that she smelled good. You waited for her to come to you. Jay had coached him, time and time again, that, at the beginning of negotiations, he should at least wait for dessert, and multiple glasses of wine, before ever bringing up a job. But Liam never bothered listening. Jay had always done all the foreplay and then Liam crunched the numbers with the estimators and sealed the project in the field.
And this crazy restaurant? This was Jay’s world, not Liam’s. Jay had grown up at ease in private clubs and fancy hotels; he’d been born to hang out on two-hundred-foot yachts and winter in St. Bart’s. Liam had been born in a three-story walk-up, to an alcoholic mother and a father who left before he turned two.
Actually, he mused, most of the men in this industry didn’t hold this against him. His South Side backstory played almost as well with titans of industry as it had with college girls. They liked Jay because Jay was one of them, born into the business just like the rest of them were, but they liked Liam because he actually was as tough and street-smart as they all imagined themselves to be. Plenty of clients had followed him out the door when he had split from Jason and opened his own place. Maybe not as many as he would have liked, but he was going to change all that tonight.
He swiped the heavy linen napkin across his mouth. “Okay, so if not me, then who is?”
Harrington looked at him, amused. “You mean Russo?”
Inwardly, Liam cursed, annoyed that he was so transparent. But outwardly, he shrugged and kept his cool. “Sure. Them and anyone else. I just want to know who my competition is.”
Harrington twirled some pasta onto his fork and then chewed slowly. “This is a huge and important project,” he said, after he swallowed. “The anchor tenant insists that we consider as diverse a cross section as possible. I’m bringing in all sorts of qualified construction managers to see what they have to offer.”
No use in pretending now. “But one of them is Russo, right?”
Next to him, Liam felt Hana press her arm to his; a warning to ease off. He forced himself to take a sip of his wine and tried to look relaxed.
Per Se was the kind of restaurant that many people would only go to once in a lifetime. And, let’s face it, most people would never dine in at all. The chef and owner were world-renowned. They brought ballerinas in to train their waitstaff to be more graceful as they served. They only offered two nine-course tasting menus, and a lesser, five-course menu at the bar. The menu changed every night—chef’s choice—either vegetarian or not.
Harrington’s date, a Latvian model named Iveta, who looked like Gigi Hadid with Anna Nicole Smith boobs, frowned as she pushed her pasta around with her fork. It was hand-cut tagliatelle showered in a generous pile of shaved black truffles. It cost one hundred and twenty-five dollars extra per portion, on top of the already astronomical price tag for the prix fixe meal. So far, Iveta had ordered all the extras, but hadn’t eaten more than a bite of anything that had been put in front of her.
“Is this a date or business meeting?” she pouted in her thick accent. “I thought we were having nice double date.”
“Agreed,” said Hana firmly. She shot Liam a stern look and then turned to Iveta. “Iveta, no kurienes tu esi Latvija?”
Iveta smiled, delighted. “But you speak Latvian! How wonderful!”
Hana held up her hands. “Just a little. My family spent a year or so there when I was a teen. It’s a beautiful country.”
Thank God for Hana, Liam thought as the two women chattered on about the small village Iveta had grown up in. She can smooth anything over. Hana was perfectly at ease in this rarified environment, wearing a sleeveless black leather Balmain sheath, her hair pulled back and gathered at the base of her neck in a thick knot, highlighting the enormous ruby earrings that he had given her for Christmas. This restaurant was full of the most powerful men in Manhattan, all of whom had ridiculously beautiful women sitting at their sides. Liam thought that Hana outshone them all.
Liam saw Harrington brush her with a frank look of admiration and he quelled a jealous surge in his chest. He reached over and took her hand. Hana’s ring finger was empty, but there was still the faintest light mark where her wedding ring used to be. Liam hated that mark.
I’m going to marry her, he thought, imagining a stone the size of a sugar cube covering up that spot, something that would leave no doubt that this extraordinary woman was his.
It wasn’t the first time he’d thought this. In fact, he’d asked her to marry him the moment her divorce was final, and five times, in more and more extravagant ways, since then. The top of the Empire State Building, in a floating cottage in Bali, on the cliffs of Lake Como under a full moon, waist-deep in the ocean on the Cayman Islands, on a rooftop of a private riad overlooking Marrakesh... And every time she had shaken off his grand gestures with a tender kiss and a small smile of regret. “Too soon,” she always said. “I’m happy the way things are.” And he had backed down, secretly planning something bigger and better for the next time, wondering what he could do to change her mind.
A phalanx of waiters silently slid their pasta dishes away and replaced them with a playing card–size slice of Miyazaki Wagyu beef dotted with honeycombed morel mushrooms and tiny wild onions. Another hundred dollars extra, each. Liam did a quick calculation in his mind. With cocktails and wine, the bill would be nearly four thousand dollars.
Liam felt a rush of frustration as he looked at Mark Harrington cutting into his steak. He needed this project. It was a skyscraper. The kind of building that he’d done a dozen times over with Russo Construction, but that South Side Construction hadn’t landed yet. One skyscraper was all it would take. Then they could eat in this stupid restaurant every night if Hana wanted to. He could buy her the moon, and maybe she would finally see just how serious he really was.
He was startled when Hana gently slid her hand out from under his so she could eat. He’d forgotten he was holding on to her.
“Try a bite,” she whispered to him. “It’s delicious.”
He smiled at her and dutifully picked up his fork and knife, certain she was right.