She sensed the man beside her quietly get up as dawn was just breaking.
She did not wake with him.
She had no idea how much time passed. The light leaking through the gap in the curtains still lacked the brightness morning ought to have. Sleep had long since drained away. She groped for her lingerie, slipped it on, then padded barefoot to the window and pulled open the floor to ceiling curtains.
Outside was a bleak scene blurred by fine rain.
The sky, the lake, and the city skyline across the water were all wrapped in that same heavy gray.
Yet her mood did not turn gloomy with it. If anything, she enjoyed the feeling.
A chill crept in.
She stepped into that cold, bracing air and left the bedroom, leaning against the terrace railing to look out at everything without worrying about being seen.
This was a villa on Mercer Island in the middle of Lake Washington, in Seattle. A mansion sprawling over more than two acres, surrounded by greenery, while the city across the lake was still veiled behind rain.
Back in college she had majored in advertising and art. She had not picked up a pencil in a long time, yet right now she felt an urge to paint the scenery around her.
But it did not belong to her.
At thirty three, she did not feel old, and yet a wave of frustration rose up all the same.
How wonderful it would be to have a house like this of her own.
Like the dreams she had when she first left school. Starting her own ad agency. Owning a beautiful home. No material constraints, living freely.
And then reality, and the gap between it and those ideals.
In school, she had been the cheer captain. She had been the homecoming queen. She had been the girl other girls envied and resented. She had been the target boys admired and chased.
Once she stepped into the world, suddenly she was nothing at all.
Then she thought of yesterday afternoon, of the way that little man had invited her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He was too domineering, and yet she could not summon much resistance.
Maybe she wanted it.
Wanted to touch a world she had never once reached.
So after wrap, she deliberately went home to change. She waited for the car that came for her, climbed in with a sense of resignation, and fantasized about what the night would be like.
The reality still exceeded her imagination.
Dinner had been on his Boeing 767. She had never experienced anything like it. It felt almost unreal.
A truly luxurious aircraft.
Yet she did not feel him showing off.
Or maybe a young man already crowned with so many halos simply had no need to show off anything.
It was just… effortless.
Like, yes, the way he had "invited" her so matter of factly.
As if all of Hollywood belonged to him.
As if he were a king.
Free to take whatever he wanted.
And she, an unremarkable little woman, facing a king's demands, did not even have the courage to pretend at modesty.
By the time dinner ended, the plane had already landed in a Seattle night.
The airport was in Renton on the south shore of the lake. After leaving the airport, they boarded a speedboat nearby, crossed Lake Washington, and then entered this mansion.
It almost felt like coming home after work.
Except it was not that kind of homecoming, crawling through traffic for two hours, arriving exhausted to the bone.
This was smooth.
Even though…
Fine. This was a thousand miles away from Los Angeles.
Lost in endless wandering thoughts, she suddenly felt a thick cotton robe wrap around her.
She turned to find the man smiling at her, warm and gentle.
Letting herself be bundled into the robe, letting him pull her close by the waist, she hesitated. Then, from her slight backward lean, she leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss on his lips.
"Morning."
"Morning," Simon said, looking her over. Her brown hair had been dampened by the rain. "I really hate to interrupt your sightseeing, but trust me. Catching a cold is not a pleasant experience."
"It's beautiful here," she replied. She was not sure if it was an explanation or something else. After a pause, she looked into his eyes. "So, what are we doing today?"
"Breakfast first, then back to Los Angeles."
"Huh?"
Simon said patiently, "I'm afraid so. I'm very busy. I can't stay here with you for the weekend."
She wanted to say she could spend the weekend here alone.
But that felt too forward.
So she simply nodded, obediently.
Simon glanced at her damp hair again. "Go take a shower first. Don't actually catch a cold. I'll wait for you downstairs."
He took her by the hand, led her off the terrace and into the bathroom.
As he was closing the door, she finally worked up the courage to ask, "Do you want to join me?"
Simon smiled and shook his head, then reached out and gently closed the bathroom door for her.
Half an hour later, Sela Ward walked out of the bedroom wearing yesterday's outfit again, a black coat with a cinched pencil skirt that showed off her figure.
Women in black often made men keep their distance. She had worn all black on purpose yesterday.
It had done nothing to him. If anything, he seemed to like it.
She walked down the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing, looking around with curiosity.
Downstairs, she saw a young woman in a pale blue business suit arranging the cushions on the living room sofa. Noticing her, the girl greeted her with polite restraint and a faint chill.
"Good morning, Ms. Ward."
Sela calmly withdrew her hand, nodded, and replied, "Morning, B."
This was one of the flight attendants from his private jet. Blonde, tall, young. He called her "B." There was another one called "A." Last night, the man had introduced them casually. Their real names were Becky and Allison. He seemed to like short, simple names.
She wondered if there were "C" and "D."
Probably.
And she…
Well.
She was probably "S."
But he did not call her that. He did not really call her by name either, and he did not use pet names like "Honey." He simply spoke, and she knew he was speaking to her.
The girl's attitude toward her carried a clear coolness, even hostility, along with envy she could not quite hide.
Of course Sela knew why.
They were younger and prettier, yet he was more interested in her.
A sudden little surge of pride rose in her. Calling her "B" the way he did was deliberate.
She enjoyed that sense of superiority she had rarely felt since leaving school. She lifted her chin slightly and asked, "Where's Simon?"
Becky's tone cooled further, though her professionalism remained. "In the dining room, Ms. Ward. Please come with me."
Simon was at the dining table, reading a newspaper.
When he saw her enter, he greeted her and gestured for Becky to bring breakfast.
Sela sat across from him. Resting her chin in her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, she asked, "Anything interesting in the news today?"
Simon glanced at The New York Times in his hands. "Saddam Hussein called yesterday at the Arab Cooperation Council member states meeting for Middle Eastern countries to unite and use their unparalleled energy advantage to form an interest community capable of standing against Europe and North America."
Sela blinked a few times, a faintly aggrieved look creeping into her expression. "After men get what they want, do they all become this perfunctory?"
Simon nodded with a grave face. "Yes. A cruel reality."
Sela wanted to grab something and throw it at him, but the tabletop was spotless, so she gave up and asked instead, as if surrendering, "What's so special about that news?"
Simon said lightly, "There's going to be a war."
Sela frowned, puzzled. "Why? Just because Middle Eastern countries want to build an energy alliance? The Soviet Union has faced off with us for years and it still hasn't turned into a war."
"It's different," Simon said, shaking his head. "The federal military might not beat the Soviet Union, but beating Middle Eastern countries is easy. And besides, there's oil."
Sela's brows drew together. After a moment, she asked, "Simon, do you want a war?"
"I don't," he said. "I'm a firm anti-war person."
"Then, Simon, you could use your influence to try to stop it."
"I think self-destruction is humanity's inevitable ending," Simon said, shaking his head. His gaze dropped to the newspaper, and as if remembering something, he murmured, "War… war never changes."
Sela went still.
Those few words, spoken like a private mutter from the young man across from her, carried a bleak, inexplicable despair that washed over her.
There had to be a long, long story behind that sentence.
Yet she had never heard it before.
Allison and Becky brought breakfast. Simon folded the paper and smiled again, as if the conversation had never happened. He said to her, "You seem to like it here. How about this, you can stay for the weekend. I'll have someone come pick you up tomorrow afternoon."
She had thought about it. But hearing him offer, she instinctively shook her head. "No. If I'm here alone, I won't even know where to go."
"There are plenty of places," Simon said. "The Space Needle, the University of Washington, Olympic National Park. Oh, and I heard Pike Place has a gum wall. You can go look at it, and stick a piece on yourself."
Sela took the utensils Allison handed her and laughed, shaking her head. "That sounds disgusting. And it's raining. I'll just go back to Los Angeles with you."
After breakfast, they took the speedboat off Mercer Island to the airport in Renton on the south shore, boarded the plane, and flew back to Los Angeles.
From Seattle's endless gray drizzle to Los Angeles's bright sunshine took less than two hours.
Sela got off the plane at LAX and realized Simon had no intention of leaving the airport with her. Only then did she understand he had other plans.
Riding in the car he had specifically arranged to take her from the airport, Sela watched another plane roar up into the sky, and suddenly it felt like the pumpkin carriage and glass slippers had vanished.
Cinderella could still wait for her prince.
But for him, she was probably only ever going to be a passerby.
That awful man.
From Seattle to Los Angeles, then from Los Angeles to New York, more than six hours of flight time in total, Simon did not waste a moment. The entire way, he read through the preparation materials Cersei Capital had compiled.
After this round of negotiations, Cersei Capital and the Blackstone Group reached an agreement: 75 million dollars to purchase Blackstone Financial Management's 50% equity stake. The three billion dollars under management and Laurence Fink's team would transfer in full under Cersei Capital.
In addition, Janet reorganized the subsidiary structure under Cersei Capital. Three subsidiaries were now confirmed: Cersei Fund Management, Apollo Management, and BlackRock Asset Management. Cersei Fund Management would naturally be the core, most direct arm of Cersei Capital. The other two names were chosen by Simon, based on what he remembered.
BlackRock needed no explanation. Apollo Management also existed in Simon's original timeline.
In terms of equity structure, all three subsidiaries would be jointly held by the parent company Cersei Capital and the operating teams, with each having its own business focus.
Cersei Fund Management would mainly handle hedge strategies. Apollo Management would focus on leveraged buyouts and vulture investing, among other alternative strategies. BlackRock Asset Management would handle mainstream securities, equities, and fixed income, low risk investments.
Once the three subsidiaries were established, Sub-Funds No. 6 through No. 10 would again be fully controlled by Cersei Capital, with capital allocated to the subsidiaries as needed.
The greatest advantage of this structure was that, on paper, the capital Cersei raised would still sit under Sub-Funds No. 6 through No. 10, while each subsidiary team was only responsible for managing the money.
If a subsidiary team ran into losses or other issues, Cersei Capital could flexibly pull the funds back and prevent the situation from worsening.
Going a step further, it could even dissolve the subsidiary team entirely and wind up the subsidiary itself. Meanwhile, the capital would not bleed away due to turmoil inside the subsidiary.
This adjustment was actually inspired by Janet's experience during the acquisition of Blackstone Financial Management.
Blackstone Financial Management had raised its own capital independently. If Laurence Fink's team wanted to leave together, the Blackstone Group had no way to cut them off at the source. It could only compromise and sell its stake.
Wall Street was watching Cersei Capital's recent moves with intense interest, and investor appetite was highly active. Clearly, many people expected Cersei Capital to continue producing the kind of profit miracles Simon had pulled off in the past few years.
Facing that anticipation, Simon felt little pressure.
Because Simon understood one thing very clearly: Cersei Capital did not need to keep producing miracles. As long as it delivered performance better than most of Wall Street's peers, it would be able to grow steadily and expand for a long time.
With a twenty-plus-year advantage of foresight, and with a roster of outstanding teams to execute, Simon felt very confident about achieving that.
Besides the teams for Cersei Fund Management and BlackRock Asset Management, over these past days Janet also poached the M&A team from Drexel Securities, which had filed for bankruptcy in early January, and used them as the foundation for Apollo Management. The team lead was named Leon Black. After receiving Cersei Capital's offer and a promise of 30% equity, Black quickly abandoned his original plan to go solo and brought his team into Cersei Capital.
Everyone involved was smart. Going independent, with their recent Drexel bankruptcy history, Black's team would have had a hard time raising much money from investors in the short term.
By contrast, Cersei Capital promised Leon Black an initial operating pool of one billion dollars, and had already prepared their next stage project: vulture investing in the still-turbulent U.S. junk bond market.
The U.S. junk bond market totaled around two hundred billion dollars, and a significant portion of it still had strong repayment security.
But because the overall bond market conditions continued to deteriorate, even bonds from companies with repayment capacity had seen their prices collapse. If they could identify those bonds and buy them at prices far below face value, then when conditions improved and companies recovered, investors could earn exceptionally rich returns through the bond repayment process.
Finding valuable assets in what looked like financial ruins ready to turn to ash, that was the core logic of vulture investing.
Janet had done extensive research on the U.S. junk bond market last year and accumulated a great deal of material. That was why she had brought up vulture investing specifically with Laurence Fink at the Rebould cocktail party not long ago.
However, when it came to understanding the U.S. junk bond market, no one likely knew it better than Drexel's team.