Chapter 11 - The Ghosts of High Society
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Two weeks after the shelter opened, a thick, cream-colored envelope arrived at the studio of Cole Community Design.
Nathan stared at the embossed return address. It was from the Sterling Group, one of the massive luxury development conglomerates his father had once done business with. He hadn’t heard from them since the scandal that dismantled Hale Capital and his father’s legacy.
Grace walked into his office holding a roll of blueprints.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said, setting the prints down.
“Just an old one,” Nathan replied, sliding the letter across the desk.
Grace read the heavy cardstock.
“They want you to bid on a new waterfront high-rise in Boston. A hundred and fifty luxury condos. Penthouse suites.”
“It’s a fifty-million-dollar contract,” Nathan said, his voice completely flat.
“That is a lot of money.”
“It’s blood money, Grace. They know my father is gone. They know Charles is disgraced. They think because the dust has settled, I might be hungry enough to step back into the old world. They want the Cole name attached to a shiny new tower to prove that nothing really changes.”
“What are you going to do?”
Nathan picked up the letter, tore it neatly in half, and dropped it into the recycling bin beneath his desk.
“I already have a job,” he said.
Grace smiled, a slow, deep expression of pride that warmed the small, drafty office.
“Good. Because the city just approved our bid for the old library annex. It’s a fraction of the budget, the roof is caving in, and the plumbing is a nightmare.”
“Sounds perfect,” Nathan said, standing up and pulling her into a brief kiss. “Are we keeping the original brick?”
“Only the parts that can hold the weight.”
May you like
“Then we have work to do.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon drafting plans for a public space that anyone could enter, far away from the glass towers in the sky.
