‘He’ll use it to undermine the board’s confidence in me. We need a win to regain the board’s trust. Something that will make them forget about the Klein debacle and give us some leverage.’ He sat forward, his grey eyes intense. ‘Have you managed to secure a meeting with Royce yet?’
Ramon felt his spine tighten.
Speaking of failures.
‘Not yet,’ he said carefully.
Xav leaned back, the intensity in his eyes dimming. He breathed out heavily. ‘It was always going to be a long shot.’
His tone was dismissive enough to needle under Ramon’s skin. Setting his sights on The Royce—one of London’s oldest, most prestigious and highly exclusive private clubs—was ambitious, but his brother shouldn’t be so quick to underestimate him.
‘Have a little faith, brother,’ he said. ‘I’ve hit a minor roadblock, that’s all. Nothing I can’t handle.’
‘A roadblock?’
‘Royce has a gatekeeper.’ He downplayed the matter with a one-shoulder shrug. ‘Getting access to him is proving...a challenge.’
Xav’s frown deepened. ‘Do they not know who you are?’ His voice rang with a note of hauteur. ‘Surely the de la Vega name is sufficient to grant you an audience with Royce?’
Ramon nearly barked out another derisory laugh.
The importance of the family name had always carried more weight in Xav’s eyes than his. Their mother and her siblings were distant cousins of the King of Spain and directly descended from a centuries-old line of dukes. Marry that blue-blood lineage to the vast wealth and success of their father’s industrialist family and the de la Vega name, since the early eighties when their parents had wedded, had been inextricably linked with affluence and status.
‘Are you forgetting the clientele The Royce serves?’ He watched Xav silently bristle over the fact that their family’s power and influence, while not insignificant, did not merit any special recognition in this instance. Not from an establishment that catered to some of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world.
‘And yet if there is truth to the rumours you’ve heard, Maxwell Royce is not selective about the company he keeps. Surely a meeting with you is not beneath him?’
Ramon sensed a subtle insult in that statement. He gritted his teeth for a second before speaking. ‘It’s not rumour. The information I received comes from a trusted source. It’s reliable.’
As reliable as it had been surprising, for the discreet disclosure had come from his friend Christophe completely out of the blue. ‘Royce has a gambling problem and mounting debts,’ he said. ‘It came from the mouth of his own accountant.’ Who apparently, after indulging in one too many Manhattans in a London cocktail bar with a pretty long-legged accountant—who happened to be Christophe’s sister—had spilled the dirt on his employer. Christophe’s sister had relayed the tale to her brother and Christophe, never one to sit idly on useful information, had called Ramon.
‘Where trouble resides, so does opportunity,’ he said, voicing a belief that had served him well over the years when scouting out potential acquisitions. People resistant to selling could quickly change their tune when faced with a financial crisis. A buyout offer or business proposal that had previously been rejected could suddenly seem an attractive option.
The Royce had been owned by the same family for over a hundred years, but it wasn’t uncommon for third or fourth generation owners to opt to sell the family business. For legacies to be sacrificed expediently in favour of hard cash. And if Maxwell Royce needed cash... It was an opportunity too tempting not to pursue, long shot or not. Ramon’s clubs were exclusive, sophisticated and world-class but The Royce was in a whole different league—one that only a dozen or so clubs on the planet could lay claim to. An establishment so revered would elevate his portfolio to a whole new level.
Xav sat forward again. ‘I don’t need to tell you how much an acquisition of this nature would impress the board.’
Ramon understood. It would be the win his brother was so desperately seeking. A way to cut Hector’s critical narrative off at the knees, wrestle back control of the board and regain the directors’ confidence.
‘Deal with Royce’s gatekeeper, whoever he is, and get that meeting,’ Xav urged. ‘Soon.’
Ramon didn’t care for his brother’s imperious tone, but he bit his tongue. Xav was under pressure. He’d asked for Ramon’s support. How often did that happen?
Not often.
Besides, Ramon had as much desire as Xav to see Hector at the company’s helm.
He thought of the obstacle in his path.
Not a he, as Xav had assumed, but a she.
A slender, blonde, not unattractive she who had, in recent weeks, proved something of a conundrum for Ramon.
He’d readily admit it was a rare occasion he came across a woman he couldn’t charm into giving him what he wanted.
This woman would not be charmed.
Three times in two weeks she’d rejected him by phone, informing him in her very chilly, very proper, British accent that Mr Royce was too busy to receive unsolicited visitors.
Ramon had been undeterred. Confident he could net a far more desirable result in person, he’d flown to London and turned up at the club’s understated front door on a quiet, dignified street in the heart of fashionable Mayfair.
As expected, security had been discreet but efficient. As soon as he’d been identified as a visitor and not a member, a dark-suited man had ushered him around the outside of the stately brick building to a side entrance. Like the simple, black front door with its decorative brass knocker, the black and white marble vestibule in which he’d been left to wait was further evidence of The Royce’s quiet, restrained brand of elegance.
Ramon had got quite familiar with that vestibule. He’d found himself with enough time on his hands to count the marble squares on the floor fifty times over, plus make a detailed study of the individual mouldings on the ornate Georgian ceiling.
Because she had made him wait. Not for ten minutes. Not for twenty, or even forty. But for an hour.
Only through sheer determination and the freedom to stand up, stretch his legs and pace back and forth across the polished floor now and again had he waited her out.
After a while it felt like a grim little game between them, a challenge to see who’d relent first—him or her.
Ramon won, but his victory was limited to the brief surge of satisfaction that came when she finally appeared.
‘You do not have an appointment, Mr de la Vega.’ Grey eyes, so pale they possessed an extraordinary luminescence, flashed at him from out of a heart-shaped face, while the rest of her expression appeared carefully schooled.
Pretty, he thought upon first impression, but not his type. Too reserved. Too buttoned-up and prim. He preferred his women relaxed. Uninhibited. ‘Because you would not give me one,’ he responded easily.
‘And you think I will
