08-04-2022, 11:58 AM
She seemed amused by his pointed assessment. Adrian was right to assume she was stubborn, but he was wrong about her motivations. It was refreshing that he was straight-forward about it, though. If some part of her was disappointed he did not chase a little harder, a bigger part of her was relieved to find the way he approached business was unadorned by the bloated social niceties that made her want to gouge her own eyes out.
“You think there isn’t a price the Custody’s elite would pay to save its daughters?” Given the extremes her own family went to in order to sweep her from harm’s way (and the rumour mill had plenty to say about that) she was surprised he hadn’t considered it. But then, calling it a school was precisely the point; it sounded harmless, and easily dismissable. “You’re right, though; financial profit isn’t the point. But we both know that’s not the most valuable currency in Moscow. I don’t need help to build it, but need and want aren’t the same thing.”
She watched him slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the floating orb above.
“You’ve already had successful hotels, Adrian,” she said. “Another would be forgettable.”
He didn’t want to hear he was ordinary. He didn’t want to hear that this was chance, opportunity, indulgence, whim, though it was all those things. Proving herself reckless would not enamour him to her cause, and any flattery was entirely without foundation. She didn’t know him. “Because you’re the first person I’ve encountered in this bloody political battlefield that didn’t make me want to slit my own wrists just to escape.” She said it with no small sense of sly irreverence, but was surprised to realise she actually meant it.
“You think there isn’t a price the Custody’s elite would pay to save its daughters?” Given the extremes her own family went to in order to sweep her from harm’s way (and the rumour mill had plenty to say about that) she was surprised he hadn’t considered it. But then, calling it a school was precisely the point; it sounded harmless, and easily dismissable. “You’re right, though; financial profit isn’t the point. But we both know that’s not the most valuable currency in Moscow. I don’t need help to build it, but need and want aren’t the same thing.”
She watched him slipping in and out of the shadows cast by the floating orb above.
“You’ve already had successful hotels, Adrian,” she said. “Another would be forgettable.”
He didn’t want to hear he was ordinary. He didn’t want to hear that this was chance, opportunity, indulgence, whim, though it was all those things. Proving herself reckless would not enamour him to her cause, and any flattery was entirely without foundation. She didn’t know him. “Because you’re the first person I’ve encountered in this bloody political battlefield that didn’t make me want to slit my own wrists just to escape.” She said it with no small sense of sly irreverence, but was surprised to realise she actually meant it.