Chapter 11: The Aftermath in Manhattan
While the Vance household slept in peaceful obscurity, the penthouse suite overlooking Central Park was a theater of panic and recrimination. Beatrice paced the length of her expansive living room, her black evening dress rustling angrily against the Persian rug, her glass of scotch clutched so tightly her knuckles were stark white.
"He ruined us, Victor! Do you understand what this means?" Beatrice shrieked, turning to face her brother, who sat slumped in a leather armchair, staring blankly into the cold fireplace. "Our stock drops three points the moment the market opens tomorrow because of the patent severance. And for what? Because I asked some homeless-looking pregnant woman to move away from a reserved table?"
"She wasn't homeless, Beatrice," Victor said quietly, his voice devoid of its usual booming authority. He rubbed his temples, feeling the onset of a stress-induced migraine throbbing behind his eyes. "She was his wife. And we completely misjudged the man we were dealing with."
"His wife!" Beatrice scoffed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Since when does a man of Julian’s stature marry a nobody? She looked like she bought her clothes at a church basement sale. She had no place in La Mer, and she certainly had no business ruining a fifty-million-dollar merger!"
Victor stood up slowly, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling windows to look out at the glittering expanse of the Manhattan skyline. The city lights seemed less impressive tonight, dimmed by the realization of their own hubris. "Beatrice, listen to me very carefully," Victor said, his tone turning ice-cold. "Julian Vance is not a man you can bully, and he is certainly not a man you can underestimate twice. He didn't just walk away from our deal tonight; he surgically removed us from his future without blinking an eye. If we try to retaliate, if we launch a smear campaign or try to tie him up in frivolous litigation, he will bury us under every regulatory and patent violation he has documented."
May you like
Beatrice stopped pacing, her breath catching in her throat as she looked at her brother. The sheer realization of Julian’s tactical brilliance finally penetrated her shell of arrogance. "So we just... do nothing?" she whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief.
"We do nothing," Victor confirmed, turning back to face her with a grim expression. "We lick our wounds, we adjust our portfolios, and we pray to God that Julian Vance is too busy building his new life in the country to ever look our way again."
