Terrence straightened his shoulders. The deal is off. Effective immediately. Five words. That's all it took.
Five words. And $1 billion vanished from the Whitfield family's future like smoke through an open window. Victoria was standing near the champagne bar. Her glass was frozen halfway to her lips. Her face had turned the exact color of the marble floor, pale, cold, and cracked.
Her friends had stepped away from her. Not far, just enough. Just enough to make sure that when the photographs were taken, and they would be taken, no one was standing next to her. Gregory grabbed the back of a chair to keep himself upright. His knuckles were white, his lips were trembling.
A man beside him, one of his senior investors, leaned over and whispered something. Gregory didn't respond. He couldn't. The man whispered again, then simply stood up and walked away. Senator Howard Graves rose from his table.
He buttoned his jacket and in a voice loud enough for the entire room to hear, he said, "Mr. Cole, you have my full support tonight and going forward." Elaine Prescott, the hotel's general manager, stepped forward next. On behalf of the Grand Meridian, I want to offer my sincerest apologies, Mr. Cole. What happened in this room tonight does not reflect who we are. Terrence nodded to both of them.
Then he stepped down from the podium. He didn't rush. He walked across that ballroom floor the same way he'd walked in. Shoulders back, chin level, eyes forward, the wine stain still dark across his chest, visible to everyone. He reached the ballroom doors, stopped, turned one last time.
That stain on my suit will wash out by morning. The stain on this evening, that's going to take much longer. Then he walked out and the doors closed behind him. The moment those doors closed, the ballroom erupted. Not in applause, not in outrage, in panic.
Gregory Whitfield stood frozen for exactly 4 seconds. Then his legs gave out, and he dropped into the nearest chair like a man who had just been told his house was on fire, with him still inside it. His hands were shaking, his phone was buzzing. It had been buzzing for the last 2 minutes straight. his CFO, his board members, his lawyers, all of them watching the same clock start ticking toward zero. His senior partner, a man named Philip Aldridge, grabbed him by the shoulder.
Gregory, talk to me. Is this real? Did he just cancel the deal? The entire deal? Gregory couldn't answer.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out. He just stared at the podium where Terrence had been standing, like a man staring at the spot where lightning had just struck. Philip shook him harder. Gregory, $1 billion, our entire development pipeline, the bank commitments, the contractor deposits, everything was tied to Pinnacle Horizon, everything.