Sea of Greed

“True,” Kurt said. “You were supposed to be otherwise engaged this evening. But plans have a way of changing and I was confident that yours would. After all, your last text referenced fate and I’m confident that fate meant for us to be together.”

“You must be insane,” she replied. “Did you swim out here from Hamilton?”

“No,” Kurt said. “My yacht, the Lucid Dream, is anchored out in the sound.”

“Well, you got all that exercise for nothing,” she said. “There haven’t been any changes to my plans. Now, if you’ll kindly…”

As she was talking, her digital watch beeped, flashing brightly as it delivered a message. Tessa rotated her arm and read the words flowing across the small screen.

Kurt couldn’t see them, but from the look on her face, he knew Joe had succeeded in diverting Oliver Warren and sending him home to regroup. He tried not to look too pleased.

Tessa read the message twice, tapped the screen to send off a preset reply and then paused. For several long seconds, she stared into the distance before slowly turning back to Kurt.

“I don’t know whether to be aggravated, offended or flattered,” she said. “I’m feeling a little bit of each, to be honest.”

“Why don’t we discuss your feelings over a drink?” he replied.

Careful not to startle the guards, he reached toward the waterproof pack and pulled a bottle of chilled champagne from inside.

Tessa took a good look at the bottle and then turned back to Kurt. The tension left her forehead and the corner of her lips turned up ever so slightly.

“The driven soul will always succeed,” she said, quoting him from earlier in the evening. “Apparently, you’re a very driven man, Mr. Hatcher. Just how did you persuade Oliver Warren to break his date with me? He was very keen on being the first to talk business.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Kurt said. “Fate must have intervened. Now… shall we have a drink to fate… and anything else we can think of?”

He offered the bottle for her approval.

“Pol Roger,” she said, studying the bottle.

“Favorite of Sir Winston Churchill,” he added. “Another driven soul.”

She studied the bottle and the label. “What year is this?”

“It was bottled for Churchill in 1940 as a celebration of his becoming Prime Minister of England,” Kurt said. “I recovered it from a wreck off the coast of Ireland. The seal has never been broken.”

“You recovered it?”

“Like you, I’m interested in history,” Kurt said. “I’ve salvaged a few ships in my time. Like you, I’m interested in changing the world. Unlike you, I prefer to remain anonymous. I think we might make a very good team.”

The smile grew, making her lips seemed fuller. She turned to her security team, who were standing there dumbfounded. “Gentlemen, you can leave us now.”

The men nodded and walked off.

“You’re not exactly dressed for dinner,” she said.

“Drinks by the pool?”

“Which means, I’ll have to change.”

“Don’t,” Kurt said. “You look stunning.”

“And if we go for a dip?”

“We can worry about that later.”

An hour later, the twenty-thousand-dollar bottle of champagne was empty, replaced by a rare bottle from Tessa’s own private collection in a silver bucket of ice. The new offering was almost as expensive, if not nearly as exotic, as the Pol Roger, 1940.

By now, talk of business and investments had given way to talk of changing the world.

“The difference between you and me is obvious,” Kurt said. “You want to change the world for the sake of changing it. I’m only interested in change if it makes money. Lots and lots of money. You’re not making money at this point or you wouldn’t be looking for investors.”

“We will be soon,” she said. “Price of oil is climbing, supply is dropping, demand is increasing. All at the same time. That combination of factors will propel Novum Industria to become one of the largest corporations in the world. Invest a billion, you’ll have ten more by the end of the decade.”

Kurt poured more champagne. “That certainly qualifies as a lot of money. But every alternative energy company makes the same promise. Plenty of them have gone bankrupt doing so. I’m already wealthy, why risk it all on something so unproven?”

“Because that’s how we keep score,” she said.

“That’s greed,” Kurt said.

With that, Tessa pushed her chair back and stood. “I make no apologies,” she said briskly.

“I mean that as a compliment,” Kurt said. “Without a little greed, we’d still be living in the Dark Ages.”

Kurt put his glass down, stood and stepped toward her. “Now tell me about your technology. Is it real or just pie in the sky?”

“I’m not sure you’d be able to understand the technical explanation,” she said.

“Try me,” he said, moving closer.

“I’m not that intoxicated,” she replied. “You can see the designs after we have an agreement in place.”

“Wise,” he said, moving even closer. He put his hand softly on her cheek, brushed her hair back and kissed her. Her lips tasted of champagne. Her hair had the scent of jasmine “So, if you can’t show me your technology, what can you show me?”