Page 75 of Fierce-Matt

She walked behind them and listened to Calvin sugarcoat the building. He made it sound good but at least didn’t blatantly lie about anything. That’d be idiotic to do in her presence.

She found it funny that he’d been emailing Paula for weeks while he searched for locations for them and they’d found this one on their own. She didn’t know the game he was playing, but it was frustrating.

She spent another forty minutes answering questions about the building’s clearing schedule following a potential sale, and the speed at which they could close the deal.

“I’m glad you love the building. I can see your studios here along with a gallery up front,” Calvin said. “I should warn you, I’ve got a few other people interested in the place.”

Anya was going to need to see a dentist after this visit because she was damn sure she’d chipped a tooth with the way Calvin was treating the two women.

“Oh,” Sally said.

“Yeah, big names and with money to throw around. If you’re serious, make sure you’ve got your funding in place.”

“We are set there,” Paula said. “We told you that before. It’s deciding if this is the best location and how much money we’d have to put in to get it to the way we need it.”

“The price is competitive,” Calvin said. “Anya, if you could excuse us?”

“Sure,” she said, moving to the front.

He thought he was lowering his voice, but she still heard him say that she priced this for a bidding war.

That hadn’t been the intent. It was more about getting out from under it.

The last thing she wanted to do was take advantage of these two women just trying to live their dream. Just like her father had done when he’d bought the building.

Calvin walked the two women out and then returned.

“You shouldn’t have started without me,” Calvin said.

The charming bullshitter smile was gone and a derogatory one replaced it. His sneer was enough to set her back up.

“Then you should have been here on time. Or better yet, reached out yesterday when the two women said they wanted to see it. I didn’t have plans that couldn’t have been moved around.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, they said you told them I was unavailable yesterday and that was a lie. I would have made the time.”

“I wasn’t in town yesterday,” Calvin said.

“Then be honest and say that. Don’t cast the blame on someone else.”

He sent her a belittling laugh. “You haven’t been in the game long enough. Never take the blame for not meeting with your clients.”

“Oh. It’s better to lie than say you had something else going on? Or to make up shit? How about the excuses of other people holding you up when you and I both know you’re hungover from being out last night and most likely didn’t want to get out of bed any earlier? Paula said they had to rearrange their schedule to meet at eleven when nine would have worked better.”

“You’re too nice and accommodating,” Calvin said. “That doesn’t get the deal done. If you last in this line of work, you’ll have to figure it out.”

She pulled the keys out of her pocket and moved to shut off the lights and lock up.

When they were outside, she turned to say, “I almost forgot. There is a retail chain interested in the building. They reached out to me on Friday. We’ll be talking tomorrow on a possible offer and contract.”

“Who is it?”

“Why would I tell anyone who it was before it was finalized?” she asked innocently. “Didn’t you teach me that?”

Calvin hesitated. “How serious are they?”

“I’ll find out more tomorrow. The faster close we get, the better,” she said. “So keep that in mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some things to do this afternoon.”