Chapter 3 Chapter two

On this day a year ago, Lara Cameron's schedule was as hectic as ever. By the time her fitness trainer Ken arrived, she was impatient in her tracksuit. "you are late." "I'm really sorry, Miss Cameron, my alarm clock didn't go off this morning, and besides..." "I have a lot of things to do today, let's get started." "OK." They did stretching for half an hour, followed by physical training. She had the shape of a 21-year-old girl, and Ken thought, if only he could sleep with that body.He was happy to come here every morning just to see her, to be near her.He was often asked what kind of person Lara Cameron was, and his answer was: "She gets a perfect score."

Lara finished the heavy exercise with ease as usual, but today her mind was not on the exercise. When all the workouts are done, Ken says, "I'm going to go back and watch 'Morning America' today." "What did you say?" Lara forgot for a moment her arrangement with the "Morning America" ​​TV program, and her mind was always thinking about the meeting with the Japanese banker. "See you tomorrow, Miss Cameron." "Don't be late again, Ken." Lara took a shower, changed her clothes, and had breakfast alone on the balcony on the roof. She ate grapes, wheat porridge, and green tea.After eating, she went straight into the study.

She called the secretary on the buzzer, "I'll call overseas when I get to the office," Lara confessed, "I have to get to ABC at 7 o'clock and ask Max to bring the car over." ※※※ The "Morning America" ​​festival is going well, with live interviews from Joan Lundin.As usual, she was courteous and graceful. "The last time you were on the show," says Joan Lundin, "you happened to break ground on the tallest skyscraper in the world. It's been almost three years since then." Lara nodded. "Yes, the Cameron Building will be completed next year."

"What's it like to be in your position? I mean, you've had an amazing career and you're still so young and beautiful. You're such an amazing idol to a lot of women." "You're too generous," Lara smiled brightly, "I don't have time to think about whether I'm an idol or not, I'm just too busy." "You are one of the most successful industrialists in real estate development, which has historically been considered a man's domain. How do you run your business? How do you make decisions? For example, how do you determine the address of a building?"

"It's not me looking for addresses," Lara said, "it's addresses looking for me. I drive past vacant lots, but they're not vacant lots to me. I see beautiful offices and lovely apartments in those places , the apartment is full of people who live comfortably and in an elegant environment. I love dreams.” "And you made the dream a reality. Well, after this commercial break, we're on to the interview." The Japanese bankers were invited to arrive at 7:45, having flown in from Tokyo the night before in New York.Lara scheduled the meeting early in the morning, making it impossible for them to adjust to jet lag after a 12-hour flight.When they protested this, Lara said, "I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but this is the only time I can spare. As soon as the talks are over, I'm going to South America."

The Japanese reluctantly agreed.There were four of them, small and courteous, but scheming as sharp as a samurai sword.Over the past decade, the U.S. financial community has underestimated the capabilities of the Japanese, a mistake that will never be repeated. The talks were held at the Cameron Center on Sixth Avenue.These Japanese plan to invest 100 million U.S. dollars in a hotel city project that Lara is building.They were ushered into a spacious conference room, and each Japanese brought a gift.Lara thanked them all and gave each one a gift in return.She has told the secretary to wrap the presents in light brown or gray paper.White is death to the Japanese, and they don't like fancy wrapping paper.

Lara's assistant Tricia brought tea to the Japanese and put a cup of coffee in front of Lara.Customers would actually prefer coffee, but they are ashamed to bring it up.When they had drained the tea from their cups, Lara had someone pour it for them. Howard Keller walked into the conference room.He is Lara's deputy, about 50 years old, pale, thin body, coarse hair.He wears a wrinkled suit, purposely giving the impression he's just woken up.Lara introduced him to the guests, and Keller sent each guest a copy of the investment proposal. "As you can see, gentlemen," Lara said, "we've got our first mortgage. The hotel town will have 720 guest rooms, approximately 30,000 square feet of Parking lot for cars…”

Lara's voice was full of energy, and the Japanese bankers tried their best to cheer up and study the investment plan carefully. The meeting ended in less than two hours, and the result was quite satisfactory.Lara figured out early on that it was much easier to do a billion-dollar deal with someone than to borrow $50,000 from him. As soon as the Japanese delegation left, Lara met with Jerry Townsend immediately.The tall former Hollywood adman is in charge of PR for the Cameron Group of companies. "You were amazing on 'Morning America' today. We haven't been out of calls since the show aired."

"What does Forbes say?" "It's settled. The People quarterly is going to put you on the cover next week. Did you see your article in The New Yorker? Is it great?" Lara walked to her desk, "It's not bad." "The interview with the monthly magazine "Happiness" will take place this afternoon." "I'm already ahead of time." He looked taken aback, "Why?" "I invited the reporter of the magazine to lunch." "Frustrating his sharpness?" Lara pressed the internal communication button, "Come in, Casey."

A voice that seemed to be separated from the body and soul replied: "Yes, Miss Cameron." Lara Cameron looked up, "That's it, Jerry. I hope you and your men will concentrate on the Cameron Building." "We've done that..." "It's going to be even higher. I want it to be in every newspaper and magazine. After all it's going to be the tallest building in the world. Watch out, tallest in the world! I'm going to make it the people Talk about it, and when the building is built, I'm going to see everyone begging for a place in Cameron Tower apartment floors and commercial buildings."

Jesse Townsend stood up. "Yes." Kathy, Lara's executive assistant, walks into the office.She was a beautiful black woman, neatly dressed, in her early thirties. "Have you figured out his taste?" "He's a big eater, and he likes French food. I've called Mr. Syriot at Le Sic's and ordered two lunches." "Very well, Mr. Thompson and I will dine in my special restaurant." "Do you know how long the interview is going to be? At 2:30 in the afternoon you have to go to the business district to meet with the boss of the Metropolitan Bank." "Postpone the meeting until three o'clock and bring them here." Kathy wrote them down. "Shall I read you the letter from the phone call?" "Read it." "UNICEF invites you to attend the ceremony on the 28th of this month as a guest of honor." "No, tell them I don't dare. Wire them a check." "Your meeting in Tulsa is scheduled for Tuesday..." "Cancel it!" "A women's group in Manhattan would like to have you at a luncheon next Friday." "No. If they need money, wire them a check." "Wenlian invites you to give a speech at the luncheon on the 14th of this month." "Let's get a manuscript out and take a look." "The Organizing Committee of the Muscular Dystrophy Medical Fund invited you to a fundraising meeting, but there is a conflicting date and you are going to Los Angeles." "Wire them a check." "The Slbs invite you to a family dinner next Saturday night." "I'll try to go," said Lara.The couple was a good laugh, and they were close friends of hers, and she loved being with them. "Cathy, do you see how many heads I have grown?" "Uh?" "look carefully." Kathy looked at her. "A head, Miss Cameron." "Yeah. I only have one head. How can you expect me to meet the boss of the Metropolitan Bank at 2:30 this afternoon, the mayor at 5, a housing planning meeting at 6:30, a cocktail party at 7:30, and 8 o'clock. Hosting my birthday party again? Next time you plan your schedule, use your brains." "I'm sorry. You asked me to..." "I'm asking you to use your head, I don't need a bunch of idiots around me. Reschedule the architect meeting and the housing planning meeting." "Yes." Casey replied mechanically. "How is the child?" This sudden question stunned Casey. "David? He...he's fine." "He must have grown up again." "He's almost two years old." "Have you thought about his going to school?" "Not yet. It's too early..." "You're wrong. If you're going to send your kid to a good school in New York, you should have done that before he was born." Lara slapped a note on the desk and wrote something down. "I know the principal of Dalton Primary School, and I will arrange for David to register." "This... thank you." Lara didn't raise her head, "That's it." "Yes, ma'am." Kathy walked out of the office, not knowing whether to thank her boss or hate her.When Kathy first came to Cameron's company, someone warned her that Lara Cameron was terrible. "That Iron Butterfly is a bloody bitch," she was told, "whoever works as her secretary doesn't work by a calendar, but a stopwatch. She'll eat you alive!" Kathy still remembers the first interview.She had seen pictures of Lara Cameron in a half-dozen magazines beforehand, but none of them came close to her.When Kathy sat face to face with this woman, she just felt that her beauty was breathless. Lara Cameron, who was looking at Casey's resume, raised her head and said, "Sit down, Casey." Her voice was hoarse, but she was full of air, giving off a domineering feeling. "That's not a bad resume." "thanks." "How much authenticity is there?" "Sorry……?" "Most résumés that are passed across the table are fictional, are you really good at what you do?" "Excellent, Miss Cameron." "Two of my secretaries resigned automatically. The work here is like snowballing. Can you handle the work pressure?" "I think I can." "This is not a guessing game, is it possible or not?" For a moment, Kathy didn't even know whether he wanted the job or not. "Yes, I can." "Okay, you have a trial period of one week. You also have to sign a contract that you will not talk about me to anyone in the future, and you will not talk about your work at Cameron's company. This means no interviews, no interviews. Writing a book is not allowed. Everything that happens here is classified." "I see." "Well." That's how it started five years ago.Since then, Kathy has learned to love, hate, adore, and despise her boss.At first, Kathy's husband asked her: "What is this legendary woman like?" This stopped her. "She's far beyond human," Kathy said. "She's beautiful as hell. I've never seen a hard worker like her in my life. God only knows if she sleeps every day. She's a perfectionist. Everyone gets scowls. She's a genius at what she does. Sometimes she's small and vengeful, and sometimes she's unbelievably generous." Her husband laughed, "That is to say, she is still a woman." There was no smile on Kathy's face.She looked at her husband and said. "I don't know if she's a woman or not. Sometimes she scares me." "Forget it, dear, you're exaggerating." "No, I do feel that if anyone gets in Lara Cameron's way...she's going to kill him." After Lara finished handling the faxes and overseas calls, she called Charlie Hunter on the buzzer, "Come here, Charlie." "Yes, Miss Cameron." A minute later, Hunter came to her office.He is an ambitious young man in charge of the company's accounting. "What is it, Miss Cameron?" "I saw an interview with you in this morning's issue of The New York Times," Lara said. He was immediately in high spirits, "I haven't seen it yet, what did the newspaper say?" "You spoke to them about Cameron and a number of issues that we were struggling with." He frowned, "Well, look, that reporter may have misused some of my original words..." "you are fired." "What? Just for this? Could it be..." "When you were employed, you signed a contract agreeing not to give any interviews. I want you to get out of here this morning." "I...you can't do this! Who will replace me?" "I've made arrangements," Lara told him. Lunch was almost over, and Hugh Thompson, a reporter for Happiness magazine, was a warm, earnest, urbane man with black horn-rimmed glasses and compelling brown eyes. "It was a great lunch," he praised, "everything I like, thank you very much." "I'm glad you enjoyed your meal." "Actually, you don't have to bother with me so much." "Not at all," said Lara, smiling. "My father always told me that to win a man's heart, he must first win his stomach." "So you're trying to break my heart before I start the interview?" Lara smiled slightly, "Exactly." "How much trouble is your company in right now?" Lara's smile disappeared, "I'm sorry, what did you say?" "Don't lie to me, you can't keep things under wraps. There are rumors that parts of your business are on the verge of collapse as your company repays the principal of matured junk bonds. Your total investment is far from Far more than the value of the mortgaged assets, as the market turns weak, the Cameron group of companies is bound to get into trouble with the scale of investment." Lara laughed. "Is this just the gossip on the street? Believe me, Mr. Thompson, it's wise to ignore these stupid rumors. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to send the company's financial statements Send you a set of copies, and these rumors will be self-defeating immediately. Satisfied enough?" "Very satisfied. By the way, how come I didn't see your husband at the opening of your new restaurant?" Lara sighed. "Philippe really wanted to come to participate, but unfortunately, he has a tour contract in other places." "I went to one of his recitals about three years ago, and he was extraordinary. How long have you been married?" "It's been a year. It's been the happiest time of my life, I'm a very lucky woman. I travel a lot, and so does Philip. Whenever I'm not around, I can listen to his records wherever I am .” Thompson smiled. "And no matter where he is, he can admire your architectural masterpiece." Lara laughed out loud. "You flatter me." "It's a fact, isn't it? You build buildings all over our country: you have apartment complexes, office buildings, hotel chains . . . how do you do it?" She smiled brightly, "Use a mirror." "You are an enigma." "Am I? Why?" "You see, at this moment, you are the most controversial yet most successful architect in New York. Half the buildings in the city have your name in bronze. You're building the tallest skyscraper in the world. You've done a great job in a traditionally male-dominated field." "Does that disturb you, Mr. Thompson?" "Not really. What troubles me, Miss Cameron, is that I can't picture you. When I asked two people about you, I got three different answers, and everyone agreed that you were a remarkable Business women, I mean, your success doesn't just happen overnight like in a fairy tale. I know construction workers well, they are very rude, stubborn guys. How can a woman like you convince them Docile?" She smiled charmingly, "There is no woman like me. Seriously, my method is very simple. I only hire experts who are good at it, and then pay them a good salary." Too brief, Thompson thought, too understatement.Looks like she's not going to tell me the truth.He decided to switch the angle of the interview. "Now that every magazine and pictorial is reporting on your success, I wanted to write a unique interview. The outside world rarely sees articles introducing your background." "I'm proud of who I am." "Okay, let's get down to it. How did you get into real estate development?" Lara smiled.He could feel the smile coming from his heart, and she looked suddenly like a little girl. "Rely on genes." "Your genes?" "My father's." She pointed to a portrait on the wall behind her of a handsome man with a lion's head covered in silver threads. "This is my father - James Hugh Cameron," she said softly. "He made me successful. My mother died when I was a child and my father raised me. My parents left Scotland early and immigrated to Nova Scotia, which is Glace Bay in New Scotland." "Grice Bay?" "It was originally a fishing village in northeast Cape Breton, Canada, on the Atlantic coast. The French pioneers who went there early gave it that name, which means Ice Bay. How about some coffee?" "No, thank you." "My grandfather owned a lot of land in Scotland, my father got more land than my grandfather, he was very rich. My family had their own castle on Loch Molledge, I had my own horse when I was 8 years old, and the family lived in a big house. There are many servants in my house, and all the clothes I wear are bought from London. This kind of life is as beautiful as a fairy tale to a little girl." She talked, and the memories of the past filled her with mixed feelings. “We go ice skating or hockey in the winter, and swim in the lake at Grice Bay in the summer. There are always dances in the square and in the Venetian gardens.” The reporter was busy taking notes. “Real estate was a passion game for my dad, who built high-rise homes first in Edmonton, then Calgary and Ontario. He taught me when I was very young, so I fell in love with this game too." Her voice was full of affection. "You've got to understand something, Mr. Thompson. I don't do it for the money, I don't do it for bricks and steel, I do it for the people. I take pride in giving them a place to sleep and sleep , a place to raise a family and live in dignity. My father took that very seriously, and I've inherited his beliefs." Hugh Thompson looked up and said, "Do you remember your first real estate investment?" Lara leaned over to Thompson, "Why don't you remember? On my 18th birthday, my father asked me what kind of birthday present I wanted. At that time, there were many new immigrants in Glace Bay, and the town It's getting more and more crowded. I think this town should build more housing for these immigrants, so I said to my father, I want to build a small apartment. My father gave me a lot of money as a birthday present, and it only took two years , I returned the money to him and took out a bank loan to build a second building. When I was 21, I already owned three properties." "Your father must be very proud of you." A warm smile appeared on Lara's face again. "Yes, he named me Lara. It's an old Scottish name, derived from Latin, meaning 'famous.' My father told me from a young age: 'Lara, you will be famous in the future.' .'" Her smile suddenly went away. "He died of a heart attack, too early." After a pause, she said, "I now go to Scotland to visit his grave every year. After losing him, I found that I could no longer live in the old house, so I Decided to move to Chicago. There, I had the idea of ​​building a shopping restaurant, and I persuaded a local banker to give me a loan. The small restaurant was very prosperous after it was built.” She shrugged, “As for the later It's all over, to use a cliché. I don't think if I were analyzed by a psychoanalyst, he would never think that I created such a huge enterprise for myself. In a way, This is a sacred tribute I pay to my father. James Cameron is the most amazing man I have ever known in my life." "You must love him very, very much." "Yes, he loves me very much too." There was a smile on the corner of her lips, "I heard that on the day I was born, my father invited every man in Glace Bay to drink a glass of wine." "So, really," said Thompson, "that it all started at Grice Bay?" "Well," said Lara softly, "it all started in Glace Bay, right there, about forty years ago..."