The Love Box Experiment

Chapter Eleven. House rent.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Author's Note: This is another chapter where I left the scenes in the new book but edited them to make them perfect for the publishers. Here's an extract from the manuscript sent to the publisher to be included in London Red.

The walk from the rented house into the centre of Carmel took five minutes, but Katie was on a mission. 

Before she left San Francisco three days ago, Wilson, the chauffeur, had let her into a secret. 'Sorry to see you leave the Mandarin Hotel, mam?' he said. 'Paul stays here all the time. I hope to see you again with him.' Wilson smiled and stepped towards her. 'You know it's Paul's birthday in a few days?' 

Katie didn't know, surprise surprise. 

'Yes, mam. Hotel records indicate in four days. Thought you might like to know.' He had nodded his head as if to say, it's our secret, he doesn't know you know. 

She tucked away this gem of information. That had been three days ago.

She continued heading to the shops of Carmel. So, she thought, Paul would be twenty-eight tomorrow. He didn't mentioned it, but she resolved to buy him something as a surprise. The jewellery shop was in the main street. Expensive, but they had some gold neck chains, thin, and delicate. She chose a chain with a small cross. She loved it and felt it would be something he would wear. She fished out her debit card and the purchase completed on her English bank account. The smile on her face indicated the pleasure she would get from giving him his present at midnight. A double celebration, as he was expecting to sell his business interests today. 

          ***

With a sense of excitement, Paul had left early that morning to drive his hire car to the head office of a large company in Silicon Valley. The text on Katie's mobile said this would be the IT company who would purchase the business interests from Paul and take over all the patents. He had already done a check on the stock exchange, and a Dunn and Bradstreet analysis, to make sure the company was genuine. The majority shares were owned by the Government, with the directors also owning stock. 

Mac and his team were really pleased to have a buyer and four of the techies had spent time at the IT company offices in discussions and demonstrations. All had gone well.

Now he finally sat in their boardroom and listened to the CEO of the company. 'I gotta congratulate you, Paul, in developing the first stage of something big. We been talking now for three straight days, and we've done tests on your prototype. I'm authorised to buy you out, your whole business, patents and all.' The CEO nodded. 'And that's why we are offering you fifty million dollars.'

Paul did the calculation, converting dollars into pounds sterling. His team in San Francisco would take fifty percent to make each one in the team a millionaire. He kept his face from giving away his true feelings . . . relief at proving to his father he could do it; a father who made his own success as head of a large corporation; a father who quit home because Mum had an affair; a father who lost interest in his adopted son at the age of sixteen when Dad left. The burning desire in Paul to also succeed had never faded. 

The CEO continued, 'to save ourselves having to pay State dollars, we will give you the equivalent value in shares in our company, quoted on the stock exchange, and you can sell the shares whenever you like.' It took another hour to finalise the details plus instruct lawyers to draw up a contract.

By lunchtime, Paul was on the road back to Carmel. He couldn't wait to see Katie again.