Page 52 of Broken Brothers

“Hi, is this Claire McLendon?”

“Yes, who am I speaking with?”

Direct and to the point. It’s going to be hard to do something stupid when someone is this to the point and professional.

“Hi Claire, my name is Chance… er, Hunt, and I’m Morgan’s younger brother.”

“Oh!” she said, her voice immediately levitating, albeit returning to normal with her next words. “And how can I help you today, Chance?”

“I understand that you are looking for outside investors to help grow your business, Rising Sun. Morgan and I have just started an… investment firm.”

It sounds better than acquisitions. We’ll build our way to the top and then we can call ourselves an acquisition firm.

“We would love the opportunity to invest in Rising Sun and help grow your business from the ground up.”

“Interesting,” Claire said. “Morgan did mention something to this effect the other day. Tell you what. I’m supposed to be interviewing multiple investors later this afternoon, but as a favor to Morgan, if you come over now, I can get this done. My address is 44 East 22nd Street.”

“Done,” I said.

“Great,” she said, and then, without another word, she hung up.

It was… it was definitely abrupt, even by New York standards. Goodbye was a word than many New Yorkers didn’t know existed, or if they did, it was often muttered as a throwaway for people who might have valued it more. I didn’t even get that from Claire.

But hey, business was business, and she was now supplying that to me in a way that I had not gotten yet. I had a chance to atone for what had happened with Layla Taylor. I swore to myself that even if Claire looked like Jennifer Lopez or Jennifer Aniston, I would not so much as compliment her watch. I would treat this as a professional meeting and nothing more.

I closed my laptop, pulled up my phone, and mapped the directions. I would need to take a couple of trains over, but the whole trip wouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. I could be there before 9 a.m. I could start my business investment career before many people on the West Coast had even woken up.

Huh, I guess maybe I do owe you some thanks, Morgan, I thought with a sly grin.

On the walk over, I began to research Rising Sun as much as I could. The company, which worked in virtual reality for patients who needed to reconnect with nature, had already gotten some press and signed some contracts with hardware VR distributors, seemed to be on the up and up. Though only two years olderthan Morgan and I, Claire McLendon had graduated from Columbia at the age of 20 and had started the business just two years after working in Morgan Stanley.

To say that she would be successful someday was an extraordinary understatement. If Morgan had an entire network of people like this, then there was absolutely no reason we couldn’t also be successful with investments and acquisitions.

I didn’t want to say this out loud, but it also helped that Claire was not some incredibly sexually attractive woman. She was cute, took care of herself, and pretty, but she was not so overwhelmingly gorgeous that I would not be able to control myself. She was exactly what I needed for my first business deal recovering from the horrible mistake with Layla.

I didn’t want to say it too loudly, but I was beginning to think maybe things were looking up. Morgan had found quite the opportunity.

In fact, I almost began to wonder if he would have proposed this to me even if all the bullshit of the last couple of weeks had not happened. It seemed too good of a chance for me not to jump at.

So, strangely, maybe getting fucked over as I had was the best thing that could have happened to me.

I just wished it hadn’t caused so much emotional turmoil and heartache.

And I also wished that if I could have some business success, maybe I could have some peace of mind and a strong relationship someday.

Someday.

I came out of the station and found the address. It looked like a typical, tiny NYC office—it was at the bottom of some stairs, looking like a former apartment that had been repurposed into an office. Three people were in the open, typing away and staringat their screens, while in the back, an open door led the way to the person I presumed was Claire.

“Hi,” a man in his mid-20’s who looked like one of the computer programmers said. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, my name is Chance Hunt, and I’m here to meet Claire McLendon?”

As if on cue, Claire stood in the doorway of her office, beckoning me in. Admittedly, she was cuter than the photos had shown—as weird as it was for someone who was just 24 years old, she had aged well, looking much more mature and together than the college photos the news releases had cobbled together. She wore a black suit, a white button down, and pants, but her long, curly red hair and her polite smile suggested someone more akin to a southern belle.

“How are you?” she said.

Her voice sounded much nicer than it had on the phone. I began to suspect that she might be charming me with her kindness to procure proper deals of an investment, but at least now I was aware of it and wouldn’t fall for it like I had with Layla. Plus, two could play that game.