Matthew and Helen got into the car, pulling away and driving down Fifth Avenue.
“Everything’s going well,” Helen remarked. “Today’s eting yielded a lot of favorable terms for the upcoming negotiations.”
Of course, the initial contact hadn't gone entirely smoothly. The Marvel executives were too tight-fisted to imdiately agree to his proposal, which involved tens of millions of dollars. He would later form a team, led by Helen, to begin formal negotiations with Marvel.
“There’s one thing I want to make clear, Helen,” Matthew said. “They can make concessions elsewhere, but you have to secure the investnt rights for subsequent Marvel superhero films for . The more, the better.”
Helen was calm. “I know what to do. You’re investing forty million dollars. Will you be able to co up with that amount?”
Matthew shrugged. “I have so cash on hand, plus the money I got for I Am Legend. I figure I’ll have about twenty million, which should be enough for the initial investnt.”
Helen nodded. “During the negotiations, I’ll ask for a phased-in investnt.”
“As for the remaining twenty million...” Matthew ntally calculated the last two paynts for I Am Legend and added, “I’m afraid we won’t get them in ti, so I’ll have to find another way.”
They continued to discuss the details of the negotiation until the car pulled up to Matthew’s hotel.
When the rcedes arrived at the hotel, Matthew prepared to get out. He asked the driver to take Helen wherever she needed to go next, as she had other work to attend to.
Before stepping out of the car, he reminded her, “If the Iron Man movie does well, Marvel’s stock will probably shoot up.”
Helen gave a slight nod. “I understand.”
Without another word, Matthew got out of the car and headed into the hotel. Once back in his suite, he called his stockbroker and instructed him to buy as much Marvel stock as he could get his hands on in the near future.
In truth, it was already a bit late to be buying, but while he had a good sense for Hollywood films themselves, he wasn’t as attuned to the related investnt opportunities. After all, he didn’t have an extraordinary mory or access to Google, so it was impossible to know everything.
In any case, he already held a pile of Apple stock, and if he rembered correctly, the iPhone launch was only a few years away. So even if his Marvel investnt failed, he’d still be able to make ends et.
He had the courage to pour so much money into Iron Man in one fell swoop because, on the one hand, he had his mories to guide him, and on the other, he had already prepared an exit strategy.
However, Apple stock was hard to co by these days. The company’s performance had been on the rise for the past two years, and although no major news had broken yet, the stock was showing a clear upward trend.
Matthew had no intention of selling. He planned to hold on to them for the long term, especially since the dollar was steadily depreciating.
After hanging up, he thought for a mont and then dialed David Ellison’s number, prepared to borrow so money.
Over the phone, Matthew got straight to the point, explaining that he might need to borrow around ten million dollars. After a mont’s thought, David replied in a joking tone that Matthew would have to pay him interest at bank rates.
If David was willing to lend him the money, Matthew would of course pay the interest. And if other film investnt opportunities arose in the future, he would be sure to present them to David as well.
Perhaps ten million dollars wasn’t such a large sum for David, anyway.
Of course, if that didn’t work out, he could always go to a bank and take out a twenty-million-dollar loan against his property.
As for selling his stock to raise the cash, that was sothing he would never do.
Matthew knew he had to proceed one step at a ti. He couldn’t rush an investnt involving tens of millions of dollars, as that was a surefire way to make a mistake.
Back in his suite, sitting on the sofa, Matthew hoped for a good outco. Forget the next twenty films—just negotiating for the next five or six Marvel superhero movies would bring in a fortune.
****
anwhile, in a hotel not far from the park, Maria Sharapova sat in front of her laptop, her phone connected via a data cable.
She moved the mouse, clicked open her phone’s mory, found a few photos featuring Matthew, and copied them to her desktop.
Next, she opened a browser, logged into her blog, selected the clearest of the photos, and uploaded it.
After a mont of thought, she found a photo of her US Open won’s championship trophy on her phone and uploaded it to the sa blog post.
“September 9, 2006, the two most important victories of my life—the US Open and love!”
Maria had grown up mostly in the United States and, like many Arican girls, wasn’t shy about her romantic life.
After typing out the text, she hit the publish button, and the blog post went live imdiately.
“What’s Matthew doing right now?” Maria stared for a mont at the photo on her computer screen. “Is he thinking of , too?”
She pulled out her phone and found Matthew’s number in her contacts but hesitated to call. It was only midday, and he was probably working.
‘I’ll call him later,’ she decided, ‘and invite him to the US Open celebration dinner tomorrow.’
Looking back at the screen, Maria saw that in the short ti since she’d published the post, several comnts had already appeared.
“The guy in the photo looks familiar. He’s a celebrity, right?”
“That’s Matthew Horner, the Hollywood star.”
“No way! Are Maria and Matthew dating?”
“How could you fall for Horner? He’s a notorious womanizer!”
“Don’t make
laugh. Matthew is handso and famous. Maria would fit right in with his type.”
However, most of the comnts were from her fans, asking for more details.
“Tell us more!”
Seeing this, a thought struck her: it would be great to take an intimate photo with Matthew and post it. That would certainly make things clear.
She ignored the questions on her blog, shut down her computer, and got up to head to the n’s final. She hadn’t planned on going, but the organizing committee had just called and invited her to make another appearance at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
That morning, Matthew had been photographed by paparazzi as he saw Maria off from her hotel. With all the commotion of the previous night, it was inevitable that rumors about them would start popping up on the quickest gossip sites.
Many lanted that the new US Open champion and Russian beauty had fallen right into the clutches of a playboy.
Of course, the most common speculation was that Matthew and Maria had fallen in love at first sight and were now officially dating.
That evening, as the n’s final at the US Open began, Matthew’s fans went wild and flooded her blog.
Matthew was oblivious to all this. He was in his room when Ilana called to inform him that the rumors about him and Maria were heating up.
He genuinely hadn’t expected her to take him seriously. Didn’t she know he had a reputation as a womanizer?
Reviews
All reviews (0)