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I was out of time, so I blurted without thinking. “Two hundred and fifty thousand would be a nice increase?”
His mouth pressed into a line for a moment. “Quite an increase.”
I thought I’d lost him, but then he asked, “Is a twenty-five-percent increase normal? What range do you usually see from donors?”
I released the breath I hadn’t meant to hold. “Some people stay flat.” Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested that option. “But generally we see an increase of between five and fifty percent.”
He nodded slowly with his lower lip stuck out. “Do you have a card?”
The change of subject surprised me. Had he just ended our meeting without agreeing to anything? After only two questions? I looked to Diane, but her face didn’t give anything away.
I’d met with rich, asshole businessmen before, but this treatment set a new standard for abrupt and discourteous. “I think you should at least give me a chance to—”
“Card,” he repeated with his hand out.
I fished one from my cardholder and rose to offer it over the desk. I settled back into my seat after he accepted it. He was going to have to try harder if he wanted to run me out of his office.
He put the card face down on his desk without even reading it.Asshole. “Tell me, Alexa, do you make a habit of jumping to rash assumptions?”
“Pardon?” I was proud that I was able to keep my response civil. He’d been an arrogant ass, and I hadn’t retaliated. Point for me.
“You suggested I should give you a chance.” His eyes didn’t waver as he held me in a stare.
“I just thought—”
His finger jutted out quickly, pointed directly at me. “No. You didn’t think. You jumped to a conclusion—a rash one, I might add—and reacted without thinking.” The nerve of this man. “In another setting, that could cost you the sale. Listening and thinking are more important than talking in any negotiation.”
My hands tightened on the chair.Keep it together, girl.Even if he insisted on showing the world the jerk he was, I could be a professional.
He turned over my card. “Three Sisters Cancer Fund,” he said, reading slowly.
I nodded. “Yes.”
He wrote on a card he produced from his desk. “I requested your card,” he said very deliberately, “so I’d be able to contact you later if I have any follow-up questions.”
My cheeks heated with embarrassment. He might be a first-class ass, but he was spot on. I had been rash—exactly what he’d accused me of—and opened my mouth when I shouldn’t have. Give the man a point.
He slid the card he’d written on across to me. “My cell is at the bottom.”
I picked it up. “Thank you.” I could be professional, even in the den of the devil. The card had the title crossed out and a phone number added at the bottom—a number I never intended to use.
“In case you need to reach me. Now, tell me about it, the Three Sisters Fund.”
Reaching out to him beyond this meeting was the last thing on my list. Best to make it entirely unnecessary. I recrossed my legs and began. “We started when Alpha Kappa sorority sisters from three New York colleges—Columbia, NYU, and Fordham—banded together to raise money for the cancer treatment of four children, nominated by the sororities.”
He nodded and wrote a note. “The name of the first child?”
“Pardon?” The question wasn’t one I’d been asked before.
“The first child’s name?” he repeated at a slightly raised volume, as if that would make it easier for me to understand.
“Talia, Talia Hobbs.”
“And the outcome?” It sounded so clinical the way he asked it.
“She’s now cancer free.”
He nodded and made another note, keeping his eyes on me while his hand moved over the paper. That gave me trouble. I had no issue typing without looking at the keyboard, but not when writing freehand. Maybe it was my anal need to keep the line of writing straight, but my eyeballs always guided my fingers.
