Nadine Book 7

17. Negotiations

We tour them and bring some wine back. "Turns out I make white and red wine."

Thora sits in her spot. "He may suck at marketing, but he's good at picking wine. We brought enough for everyone to taste it."

"I'm not a wine drinker my princess. I'll taste it, of course. But I'm not sure my opinion would help anything. You need people who drink wine regularly or at least like it."

"That's true. Thank you daddy. Summon momma, Asa, Prinna, Deb, and Alexa."

Dracul looks around. "Well, she went straight for the professional drinkers."

Coral stands up. "I'm going to see what wine we have in the castle and bring some to compare."

Thora jumps up. "Perks of the job." She pulls me with them.

The castle only has 2 types. So it's not hard to grab them.

Coral looks at me. "Why did Johen put Elek back on the mate watch? Did something happen?"

"We kissed again."

"Tell me more."

Thora laughs. "Again?"

"Well, I woke up with him." Coral chokes. "Sorry, I had a rough night. Johen and Elek put me between them to sleep. Nothing like that happened. But when I woke up it was only Elek. We kissed a few times, then Dipak showed up."

"What did he do?"

"He jumped out the window and off the balcony."

They lose it.

"Before that, we were kissing, and I took his shirt off. He said he wouldn't take advantage of me, and I am heartbroken. So nothing happened."

"You made out with him, and he jumped off the balcony." Coral wipes her eyes off. "I can't sometimes."

We go back to Dipak's office.

"I'm going to go get May. She loves wine too. And I need to tell her that her son jumped off the balcony."

Bud looks at Elek. "Why in the world would you jump off the balcony?"

Elek rubs his eyes. "It's a long story."

"HERE WE ARE." Alexa is dressed fancy.

"I LOVE THAT DRESS."

"Thank you. My favorite designer made it for me."

May comes running in with a sword swinging it towards Elek. "BOY, I WILL STAB YOU." He jumps up and over the table. So the table is between the 2 of them. "YOU WERE RAISED BETTER THAN THAT. YOU DON'T DO THAT." She suddenly realizes who is here. "YOU WATCH YOUR FOOTING ON BALCONIES OR I WILL THROW YOU OFF THE NEXT ONE. ACTUALLY THERE BETTER NOT BE A NEXT ONE. USE DOORS NOT WINDOWS. DAMN BOYS. I SWEAR."

"She didn't think it was as funny as we did."

Momma crosses her arms. "Think what was funny?"

"I'll tell you later."

Daddy scratches his head and looks from Elek to me.

I run to the wine. "ANYWAY. We are here for the wine. I have acquired 2 wineries. I need to know if it's good. If anything's wrong, how can it be better?"

Thora rubs her eyes. "Yea let's add alcohol to this. I'm sure nothing can go wrong. You might want to open an escape window though. YOU CAN NOT BREAK THE WINDOWS. THEY DO NOT BREAK AT ALL."

Daddy glares at Elek.

We live through wine tasting and everyone seems to love them both.

"So does anyone think they are bad?"

Momma shakes her head. "No, and the red 1 is perfect. I'm not much of a white wine person. But I love that red. I want it. I want it in the castle instead of the old 1."

Prinna pours another glass of white. "I love white more and this is the best I've had in a long time."

Asa licks a bottle. "This is mine. I licked it."

Thora licks one. "MINE."

Alexa sits up in her chair. "I have always loved all wine. That red is so deep with flavor. That is amazing. The white is really good too, but it's not as shocking and intense as the red. Both are superb."

Daddy sits up. "Dracul, can you think of any reason a young man would jump out of a window?"

"Only 1."

Daddy jumps up. "BOY."

"FIRE."

Everyone freezes. "What?"

"People jump out of windows because of fire." I nod fast.

"That is true my princess." Daddy goes back to glaring at Elek. Elek is looking anywhere but at my dad. Then daddy looks at Dracul. "I remember this 1 time..."

Momma's eyes go red. "1 TIME FOR WHAT?"

"I'M SURE IT WAS FIRE." May throws an empty mug at Elek. It smacks him right on the forehead. Blood runs down his head.

"FIRE AURELIA"

"DAMN IT MOM."

Dracul jumps up. "DO NOT CUSS AT YOUR MOTHER."

Thora stands on a chair. "Thank you for coming to the wine tasting. Please go somewhere else."

"IT BETTER HAVE BEEN A FIRE." Momma points at daddy and gets in the elevator.

I heal Elek's head. "I hate it when the room almost implodes like that."

Thora pours herself another glass. "Yea, you could cut the tension with a knife for a minute."

Coral sits back down. "So the wine is good. Everyone liked it. You surely need to move forward with those. I would sell to the inns and this castle. And my castle. It's good. I wouldn't make it available anywhere else though. Then it would be common. This way, the inns would have good wine that they could mark up for a decent price. Actually make money on it."

Tye nods. "That would be amazing. I think I lose money on it every month. They charge 200g a bottle. I can't charge any more than that. It's what it goes for. Then I try to make money and sell glasses for 25g, but they put too much in the damn glasses. Then I end up losing money."

"I have no idea about the price of it. And I like the idea of having little tables for customers at the winery. I don't want to take those out. I mean not a lot of people go there, but it's so damn cute."

Tre smiles. "If his records are right. The red cost 27g a bottle to make and the white cost 24g a bottle. But that's after expenses. We could get rid of the employees and put servants in there. It would drop the cost of price per bottle to make by at least 4g each. Maybe 5g."

Coral starts shaking. "BOTTLES OF WINE FOR 20G?"

Tre shakes his head. "No. You would have to negotiate with me if you wanted it for your castle. She is not selling to anyone at her cost. She would make no money. I will not sign off on any contract that says that. I don't care who is on it."

"Could I actually make enough for the inns and a castle though?"

"Yes. You make an insane amount of both. You could supply 10 castles, 10 inns, and still have the shop there."

"How much would you sell them for?"

"200g each seems good for me to sell to people. They buy it at that."

Tye nods. "Yea, 200g each or 25g a glass is the normal rate. We couldn't really raise it because people would bring in their own. But we have to buy it for 200g a bottle, so we make no money on it. We can't raise the prices. It's a pain."

"So what about you buying at 100g a bottle? That gives you more room to make money and I can move it faster."

"That's a little low babydoll. I would be making more on it than you would. How about 150g?"

Frode puts his eyebrows up. "Someone get the kids to stop negotiating. They're doing it backwards. This is hurting my head."

Coral shakes her head. "Yea, that isn't right. Tre, I want it for my castle at 100g a bottle."

"No, 160g."

"110."

"150."

"120. Come on, she will be making 100g a bottle that way."

"140. I'm already lower than I wanted to go."

"130 please please please. I'll buy a lot, and she is guaranteed 100g a bottle even if she keeps the employees. And none of it is for resale. I won't make any money off her."

Tre nods. "Yea, have Samson write up how much you need at 130g a bottle. Then I'll make us a contract to sign."

"THANK YOU. That's how negotiating is supposed to work. So you know."

"I was making more money negotiating with Tye."

"130g is a decent amount. You would have the 100g a bottle profit. That's a nice amount."

Daddy gets a paper out. "We want the same deal for this castle. The other supplier is charging 190g. We would save 60g a bottle. And you know how much of that stuff they go through."

Tre winks at me. "140g and the castle supplies the servants to run the place."

"Come on, you could at least do the 130."

"Fine 130 and the castle supplies the servants."

"Yea that's good."

"Now for the inns, do you want the same amount?"

"If you sell it for 25g a glass. Would you be able to make money off it?"

"Yea and selling the bottles at 200g, we would make 70g profit off it. If you want 150g we will do that. We could still make 50g a bottle."

"130 is fine."

"I'll write up the contracts and sign both sides."

"King Ronion to see the table."

"This meeting will be about divination and werewolves. If you don't want to hear it, you can go."

I jump up. "Anyone who has been to China or has any ideas about that inn. Please write them down or sketch them for me. I'm starting to collect that stuff."