Sunset At Sarsen Stones (What Dreams Are Made Of)

Chapter 2

If looks could have killed, Nikloi Swaroski would have been a dead man right then. Chrissy felt disgusted by the man standing in front of her. He had kissed her only to avoid meeting another woman. She felt used by him. The man was an insult to all women, she thought.

She wanted to hit him hard on his face and wipe off that arrogance. Instead she just answered, "Oh don't worry. That kiss was hardly worth remembering. I wouldn't waste my time on it."

If she felt there was a flicker of emotion on his face, it was gone before she could blink. She wasn't even sure if she saw something. He turned around, took a seat at the head of the table and said, "So, why are you here?"

Now he is asking! She hated to talk to him after what had just happened but knew she didn't really have any choice.

"I came here to talk about my shop," she answered but didn't add, and my life.

"What shop?" He snapped.

Chrissy could feel her blood boil in her veins, but she needed him to listen to her. She controlled her feelings and with lot of restrain said,

"My antiques shop is at the Regiment Estate, where your luxury hotel is being constructed. Your company has bought the shopping complex as it is situated next to the hotel site. I have been told to vacate the shop since the whole complex is being removed. If you remember, I had met you at the site last month, but you didn't wait to hear me. So, I asked your office for a meeting at your office and was given an appointment for the afternoon today."

She said it in one breath, stressing on the word afternoon, to emphasize how long she had been waiting for him. She also kept the construction site plans on the table in front of him to see. Those plans showed the proximity between her existing shop-her sole source of earning a living and his future luxury hotel–a place where people with all money in the world could squander it away.

It wasn't fair, she thought. She had been working her ass off for her shop, not to be told one day by a rich snob that it can no longer exist. She would never let it happen, she vowed silently again.

"There is nothing to discuss. The shop has to go," he said as a matter of fact, without even looking at the plans on his table.

"You can't do that. I have been paying rent for that shop for a full year. I have all the papers," she struggled to keep her voice calm.

"I can. The complex your shop is in, is my property now. I plan to raze it down to the ground and develop that space into a lavish green park. It would provide far better view to the guests at my hotel, than to look at people buying their groceries," he said arrogantly.

He looked the complete money-minded, ruthless businessman that he was known around. Chrissy didn't know what to say or how to tell the materialistic man that she needed that shop. If the shop was lost, she would have nowhere to go, no one to seek help from. Her whole life and that of her younger sister, Alice, along with their mother depended upon the existence of that shop.

The thought of her younger sister made her heart squeeze. She felt a terrible fear of what would happen to Alice if they were to lose their source of living. No, she couldn't let that happen. She had to make him see her proposal. And make him accept it.

She drew a large breath to fill her lungs with the much-needed air to make up for the energy in her body that was dropping with every passing second. Slowly, she started, "Mr Swaroski, I understand you have well thought of plans for your luxury hotel, but if you would just listen to my proposal, we might have a solution to our problem."