AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 6
Cameron actually looked a little impressed by the elevator exclusive to the penthouse. From what we could dig up, she’d been living in a house the past five years—relatively modest at a measly one million, compared to her new budget—and I was pleasantly surprised to find our bet to impress her with penthouse luxuries was off to a good start.
“Controlled by electronic keycard,” I said, flashing the sleek silver card for her before tapping it to the elevator panel. The elevator chimed, doors opening to an elevator with a glass wall, currently looking out into the back wall of the shaft. “Elizabeth Carson, the current property manager here, was kind enough to fabricate a six-hour card for us, so… for the next six hours, this card gets you in and out of the suite for the tour.”
“Six-hour tours are that common here?” she said, stepping into the elevator with me, looking around, taking it in.
“Not unless you fall asleep in the middle of it. It’s mostly a fancy gesture to make a client feel important.” I hit the button for the penthouse, and the elevator picked up pace quickly, doors shutting and moving up to where the glass wall opened to the city, the ocean spilling out around the banks of Miami Bay before us. I spotted the sleek towers of Fontainebleau, the hotel that housed LIV, and I tried not to think about it.
“Do people often do this kind of thing just to feel important?” she said, watching the view expand as we went up.
“It’s not unheard of. Luckily for us, it’s pretty easy to spot people who aren’t serious about buying.”
She gave me a sidelong smile. “And your read of me?”
Well, wasn’t that the sixty-million-dollar question? I didn’t have an answer, but if she was asking, I was going to seed the thought in her head—set her to convince herself that she was genuine about buying.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe. Standing this close to her in the privacy of the elevator—it felt suddenly intimate, and I wasn’t even any closer to her than I’d been on the yacht, but I felt like I could count every individual fleck of color in her eyes. “Shall I give you the honest answer,” I said, “or the customer-service answer?”
A glint flashed in her eyes. “I think I can take the honest one.”
“Oh, can you? Bold decision, when you don’t even know yet what it is.”
“Please,” she laughed, smiling wider. “You’re killing me.”
“You might not like it.” My voice came out more teasing than I’d meant it to. I didn’t regret it like I should have.
“Try me.”
I turned back to the view, feeling a smile on my lips. “I think you’re genuinely interested. I can tell from the way you’re looking out the window.”
“Can you?” Her curious tone said it was working. I wasn’t questioning it.
“People who are trying to feel powerful put on appearances like it’s all mundane to them, to impress upon everyone just how important and used to luxury they are. You… look like you’re seeing what’s actually there and are genuinely reacting. For someone willing to create an entire alter-ego to hide herself, you’re pretty honest.”
She gave me an odd look, a smile and furrowed brows. “No wonder,” she said.
“No wonder what?”
She turned back to the door just as we slowed to a stop, the elevator chiming overhead. “No wonder you have those eyes that seem to see through anything.”
My body flushed again under the weight of the comment—the context from LIV of thinking about her naked—and it took my entire force of will not to lose myself in the thoughts again. The door opening to the penthouse hallway helped distract me, and I gathered myself to walk ahead of her, just focusing on keeping my chest out and my shoulders back.
“We learn to be a bit perceptive,” I said. “Well, Cameron—this would be your entry hallway. Straight ahead is the living room suite, but you can make a right into the kitchen or a left into the office, in case you’re bringing business clients or hiring staff. Or if you just want to head straight into the kitchen after a day at work for a drink. All the doors are unlocked via your keycard, for extra security. We’re going straight ahead, into the living room suite.”
“For the dramatic entrance?”
“For the dramatic entrance,” I said, tapping the keycard to the scanner. The door clicked, and I pushed it open into the two-story expanse of the living room, a full wall of windows overlooking the bay. Just as Elizabeth Carson had promised, the systems had been set up beforehand, and the lights flicked on as I opened the door, and the speaker system started up with a light, ambient electronic soundtrack.
“Oh, wow.” Cameron stepped into the room behind me, turning slowly, looking at it all with—there was almost like a childlike wonder in her eyes, a gleam, a sparkle in her expression like a kid’s first time seeing a big Christmas display. There was something uncharacteristically… cute about it, something I wasn’t used to seeing from clients. She let out a small laugh, walking quickly, a bounce in her step, to the wall of windows, turning her gaze slowly to take it all in. “Oh, you weren’t messing around with this one.”
“This is a large, east-facing window, which isn’t your typical ideal—south-facing windows are generally the gold standard, of course—but here in Miami Beach, the view of the sunrise over the ocean is spectacular.”
“I can imagine. Look at it.”
I could look at it, but frankly, I was more interested in looking at her. She was a completely different person from earlier, a look in her eyes like she was moved to deep emotion, and I suddenly found myself wondering about her story. She’d come from a solid middle-class upbringing, according to our research—not extravagantly wealthy, but not wanting for much—but the way she looked was the way some people who had made it from nothing looked at some of the properties we showed. We’d had a client once who was an ex-con and had been homeless for almost a year once, and he’d still been so humble even after his success starting a company that he’d cried in the middle of a tour of a luxury house. Cameron looked like she was close to that. Too close for it to make sense why.
It boded well for our ability to sell. Just maybe… too well? Something didn’t seem right.
