“Hello?”

“Hi, Stella. It’s Helena.”

“Hi, Helena.”

“I’m sorry Hudson didn’t call you back. He was, uh, busy today. I passed along your message, and he told me to let you know the reason he decided not to go forward with the investment was because he didn’t care for the sample he received. It made him uncertain of the product, I guess.”

“Oh, I see.” That was complete bullshit. Because I’d made him the same scent I’d been wearing the night of Olivia’s wedding. And he’d told me twice how good I smelled. A few weeks ago, I’d been ready to give up and accept putting everything on hold for a long time. But I no longer felt ready to accept defeat. All of my planning talks with Olivia had gotten me too pumped up to let it go so easily this time. I wanted to give it one last-ditch attempt since I knew he was lying about the reason.

“Do you think it would be possible to make an appointment to speak to Hudson in person?”

Helena’s voice lowered. It sounded like she might be cupping the receiver so no one would hear. “I don’t want to get in trouble, but I’ll be honest, I think if I ask him, he’s going to say no.”

I sighed. “Okay, thanks, Helena. I get what you’re saying.”

“But…I’ve worked for Hudson for a long time now. His bark is much worse than his bite. Now, if you were to just show up… He might not have a choice. And he does respect people who fight hard for what they want.”

I smiled sadly. “Thanks, Helena. I appreciate the advice. I’ll give it some thought.”

 

***

 

The next morning I arrived at Rothschild Investments at 8AM. “Hi. Is Hudson Rothschild in?”

The receptionist smiled. “He is. Do you have an appointment?”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t. But I only need two minutes of his time. Would it be possible to get in to see him?”

“Let me see. What’s your name, and what is this in reference to?”

“Stella Bardot, and it’s in reference to Signature Scent.”

She picked up the phone, and I listened to one side of the conversation.

“Hi, Mr. Rothschild. I have Stella Bardot here to see you regarding Signature Scent. She doesn’t have an appoint—”

He’d definitely cut her off. I heard the boom of his deep voice through her headset, though I couldn’t make out what he was saying. But when her face fell, I knew it wasn’t a good sign.

“Umm…okay…would you like me to tell her that?” A pause and then she raised her eyes to meet mine. “Okay. Thank you.”

She clicked a button on her keyboard and gave me a discouraging smile. “Mr. Rothschild said, ‘If you have nothing better to do with your time, take a seat.’ If he finds a spare two minutes in his busy day, he’ll see you.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine—don’t shoot the messenger and all.”

She motioned to the waiting area. “Would you like me to get you some coffee while you wait?”

“No, thank you.”

“Okay. I’m Ruby. If you change your mind, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Ruby.”

I sat down on the couch and took out my phone to catch up on emails. My instinct told me I was going to be sitting here for a while. I had a feeling Hudson would enjoy making me wait.

And I wasn’t wrong.

Three hours later, the receptionist came out from behind the desk and walked over to me.

“I just wanted to let you know, I called back and reminded him, to make sure he hadn’t forgotten you.”

I smirked. “And how did that go?”

She laughed and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was around. “He was sort of snippy.”

“I bet. But it’s okay.” I waved to the glass coffee table in front of me. “At least you have all these great magazines.”

By five o’clock, I figured he was going to make me stalk him on his way out of the office, just to be a jerk. While I’d debated leaving after the first hour or two this morning, I now had so much time invested, there was no way I was giving in. I popped in my earbuds, settled back into the couch, and turned on some classical music to relax. I was going to outlast Hudson if it killed me. But at 5:30, the receptionist came back over.

She frowned. “I’m getting ready to leave, so I called back to Mr. Rothschild again. He said to let you know it turned out he didn’t have two minutes to spare today.”

What a bastard. That had been his game plan all along—make me waste the entire day. Well, lucky for me, I had no job and no place to go. So rather than get upset, I decided to dig in. I stood and lifted my pocketbook to my shoulder.

“Could you let Mr. Rothschild know I’ll be back again tomorrow? Perhaps he’ll be able to spare the two minutes then.”

The receptionist’s eyebrows jumped, yet she smiled. “Sure thing.”

The following day I came more prepared. I brought my laptop, some snacks, a charger for my cell, and my to-do list. When the morning went by again, and Hudson still couldn’t find a couple of minutes to speak to me, at least I’d knocked off a bunch of things from my list and cleaned out my emails—two things that were long overdue.

In the afternoon, I updated my resume and uploaded more than a thousand pictures from my phone to a storage website and organized them. I then spent an hour and a half online planning a dream vacation I could never afford—picking out luxury hotels and a private, captained sailboat to get me between the Greek Islands I wanted to explore. Again at 5:30, the receptionist came over.

“Good news. I think…”

“Oh?”

“I just called back and told him I was leaving and you were still here.” She shrugged. “He didn’t tell me to ask you to leave.”

I chuckled because I’d clearly lost my mind now. “So I should wait?”

She pointed to the glass doors. “He has to walk out that door sometime…”

I nodded. “Okay. Have a good night, Ruby.”

“You, too, Stella. Hopefully I won’t see you sitting here tomorrow.”

I smiled. “I hope not, too.”

By 6:45, I’d watched most of the staff at Rothschild Investments leave, and a cleaning crew walked in and started to vacuum around me. I’d taken a break from dream vacation planning to text with Fisher for a while. When I was done, I again opened my laptop and went back to vacay-planning mode. Mykonos was the last island I still needed to find the perfect hotel on. As I sifted through photos of the incredible scenery, trying to decide if I wanted to be on the north or south side of the island, I must’ve become engrossed in what I was doing.

Suddenly, a deep voice scared the crap out of me, and I jumped from my seat. My laptop went flying to the floor, and my hand flew to my chest. “You scared me to death.”

Hudson shook his head. “I should’ve just walked out the door. You wouldn’t have even noticed.” He bent and picked up my laptop, which luckily was still illuminated and not broken. Looking at the screen, he said, “Going on a vacation to the Greek islands? Good business plan. Have fun at…” He squinted. “The Royal Myconian. Looks expensive.”