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“Well, I don’t think I have any more questions,” Jared said, still nonchalantly holding what looked like my proposal. He was a tall man in a good shape in his late thirties with a face that projected intelligence and confidence, sitting in the other armchair in front of me on the opposite side of the table. “Perhaps you’d like to ask me some questions?”

He was wearing an unpretentious but extremely good quality custom-made T-shirt and a pair of jeans, accompanied by a pair of matching Louis Vuitton sneakers. Anyone who didn’t know much about quality outfits wouldn’t even look twice at this man on the street. I, on the other hand, knew a thing or two about sartorial choices that made you stand out among the initiated. Someone had done a decent job putting together this look for him. No watch though. Apparently, he was one of those people who could afford any watch in the world but used his phone to check the time. It said “new money” to me. No tradition yet.

I like to feel comfortable in my outfit as well, but I am not a T-shirt type of person. I had on a nice light brown jacket by Orazio Luciano and a white dress shirt by Jean-Manuel Moreau I had ordered in Paris. I had done a bit of research about Jared’s company, and I knew about their casual attire policy. I could be casual. I was wearing a pair of Luigi Borrelli jeans with a comfortable pair of Tod’s loafers. That was my type of casual. My watch choice was a silver and blue dial Patek Philippe World Time, a platinum-cased reminder of the kind of money my family used to have. It’s something that a watch aficionado would appreciate, a conversation piece, but it would sadly go unnoticed with watch-less folks for sure. I had to look like I had other options for my project besides this one.

“I’m good,” I said, feeling relieved that the meeting was about to be over and looking forward to having a big cup of coffee. “I’d just like to thank you for this opportunity to meet in person.”

I wasn’t really good, but things hadn’t been great recently and this deal was very important to me. I had a few friends with money, but they hadn’t shown any interest in my idea, so it had taken a bit of mingling with people I didn’t care for much. I had been leaving hints here and there that I was developing an idea of using some parts of my family estate for housing construction. Those were the people with good connections and that had led me to securing this meeting, a potential cornucopia of desirable investment, even though I had not expected to get acquainted with the man himself. My idea of building a few cottages for rich people had to seem quite minuscule to him. However, someone once said that everything important begins with something trivial and I surely hoped it would be true in this case. Besides, one must be flexible when it comes to making money these days, even if one with a noble title must turn some of their oldest parks into property slots. I had to roll the dice to restore my financial situation before I would be forced to sell things I would like to keep. Oh, there was this other thing, of course, that I had to remember – my father had told me that it would be my last chance to use the family’s funds which had seen better days. If this thing didn’t work, I would probably have to be forced to take some online courses and study accounting or something. Get an honest job, as it were. But I tried not to let that “little detail” cloud my judgment.