Between the T and W

Mia strolled into her calm and airy headquarters wearing an equally nonchalant white linen dress and bronze strappy sandals. She was greeted by an almost all-female staff. Benjamin, the intern, was the only male in the team. Benny, as he liked to be called, was studying product design at Ming Chuan University, and was working at her company during the summer holidays. He was in the middle of inspecting the newly arrived French cutlery samples for their next collection with Chloe, one of Mia's product merchandiser.

Sipping her long black in a double-walled glass tumbler, Mia glanced at Benny, "God help me, I hope he stays so that there will be some diversity in the company. I might need to have a chat with him later myself..."

Simplesmente's headquarters was housed in a converted gallery near the famous Addiction Foods Mall in Zhongshan district. Mia fell in love with it because of its open-plan space, floor to ceiling industrial windows and high ceilings with exposed steel beams and light fixtures. The bones, as they say, were all there.

When she purchased the property, Mia found an interior designer who shared her minimalist oriental style. He helped her bring her ideas to life in the building. From then, Kai-Lin Wang became Mia's go-to interior designer, who developed the interiors for all her stores. Since its completion, her headquarters was featured in numerous design and architecture magazines in South East Asia. The well-connected Kai-Lin made sure of it. The interior was simple yet stylish. Its colour palette were shades of white, accented with wood and steel. This style echoed in all five of Mia's minimalistic lifestyle concept stores in Taipei. Hopefully, in six months' time, there will be six.

Mia placed her coffee tumbler and large bronze leather clutch down on her simple cypress tree desk, then sat down on her white ergonomic chair. Looking out of the window to her tailor-made zen garden, she took out her phone from her bag and began to dial David Tsao's number.

"David Tsai speaking?" he answered in a deep voice.

"Hi David, this is Beverley Chen's friend, Mia Chou. Do you have time to talk?" Mia replied.

"I do. Beverley mentioned on the weekend that you would call. How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you. How are you?"

"I'm pretty good for a Monday morning. Now, how can I help?"

"Well, I am interested in buying a derelict property on Fujin Street and I understand that you can help me acquire it and build it up safely."

"Yes, absolutely. Let's organise a catchup this week to discuss it with a few of my associates. How does that sound?"

"Great. I have time tomorrow morning?"

"Oh. I can do 10 am for half an hour?"

"Perfect."

"Great, let's lock it in. Do you mind sending me any information that you have about the property via email? I would like to take a look at it before our meeting tomorrow and do some market research on it if that's ok?"

"Sure, I can do that."

"Great, I will text you my email. How does that sound?"

"Yes, perfect. Thank you."

"Alright, well I am looking forward to meeting you tomorrow, Ms. Chou." Mia could tell he was smiling on the other end of the phone and so was she. She was one step closer to her dream property.

---***---

T&W Associates was situated in the shiny new gold-green bamboo-inspired skyscraper, the Taipei Sky, in Xinyi district. Xinyi was the most cosmopolitan district in Taipei and its current financial centre. Most corporations and those who cater to them have their head offices here.

Beverley had told Mia that David Tsai's partner was the architect of the building. Mia stood in front of it and marvelled at its golden curves. Although made of steel, the structure looked very fluid and organic. "I can't wait to meet the architect," she thought to herself before stepping into its foyer. She followed the digital board for directions to the company. There was a lift with its entrance framed in gold steel that took her straight to their offices on the top floor.

Mia, black hair up in a ponytail, wore an elegant black sleeveless A-line linen dress and a collar of twisted strains of small white pearls. She arrived onto a beautiful shiny black and gold unmanned reception area. Instinctively, she went over to the full-size tablet on the black marble wall that had a "Welcome" message on it in both Mandarin and English. As she drew near, she heard it ask her for her name and who she was meeting, in both languages. She replied and was told politely by an automated voice to make herself comfortable while it organised for someone to meet her. She was impressed with the technology but worried that it all seemed very expensive and overly opulent.

Mia looked around and saw two long black velvet ottomans and a round gold coffee table with the latest design and architecture magazines on it. She plopped herself down on one of the ottomans and proceeded to read one. She glanced at the wall opposite her and saw a large digital screen displaying the various grand projects that T&W Associates had done. "Definitely expensive," she thought as she watched the screen flip through their portfolio. "I had better think of a Plan B."

In a few minutes, a friendly young lady came from behind a sliding black opaque door. She greeted Mia in Mandarin, "Hello Ms. Chou. I am Bonnie, David Tsai's executive assistant. I will take you to the meeting room."

"Thank you," Mia replied in Mandarin.

As they arrived at the large modern meeting room, Bonnie asked, "Would you like something to drink, tea or coffee or water?"

"Water, please. Thank you."

"I will go and get that for you. They should be coming soon."

After a few minutes, David Tsai was the first to arrive. He had piercing hooded black eyes, hair combed back that curved just below his ears, a stylish short black stubble and a lopsided smile that made him looked a little wicked. Mia could tell by the way he firmly shook her hand that he was confident. She wondered why she had never heard Beverley mention him before.

Soon after, a striking man with golden brown hair, grey-blue eyes and a well-groomed short stubble walked into the room. He was the most gorgeous specimen of a Caucasian man that Mia had ever seen. She had to catch herself from staring at him as he moved closer to her to shake her hand. Mia could tell even through his navy tapered business shirt that he had muscles like an MMA[1] fighter. She would have fainted from his allure right there in the meeting room if the table was not there to hold her upright.

Mia shook Dean's hand firmly as he smiled and said, "Hello, I'm Dean," in perfect Mandarin. To Mia, his eyes seemed to sparkle when he smiled.

"Ms. Chou, this is Dean Whitfield, our award-winning chief architect and my business partner," David said proudly.

As David spoke to Mia in English, Dean switched to English as well. "Hi, how are you, Ms. Chou. Is it Ms. Chou or Mrs. Chou?" He asked politely in his baritone voice. "OMG, even his voice is sexy!" Mia thought to herself, concealing her reaction behind a poker face.

"Please, just call me Mia. And it's 'Ms'. I am not married." Mia wanted to make sure they knew. "Mia..." Dean echoed and smiled. "Keep it together, Mia. Don't be a schoolgirl and lose your cool," she thought to herself. "Beverley should have warned me about the two of them! It is going to be hard to concentrate on the business at hand with these gorgeous men around."

David snapped Mia out of her daydream. "Thanks for sending me the information about the property. It is definitely an interesting property." Mia recollected herself and replied, "It is absolutely my dream property and I really want to get it but at a reasonable price."

Dean chimed in, "Most definitely. It looks like it has a lot of potential. What did you have in mind for the property?"

Mia replied, gesturing with her hands, "I love that it has this long entrance to the building and a backyard as well where we can throw corporate parties or have an outdoor café sitting area or have artists show their sculptures in. I have a lot of ideas for it, so I want the space to be open and flexible for it to be used for multiple purposes."

Dean interjected, "Yes, that would definitely be what I would recommend, you have so much character already in the building, you should also try to retain as much of its structure as much as possible. But, opening it up would definitely allow you to bring out its key features. Did you want to go up any higher?

"I was happy with the three-stories. Do you think we can go higher in the future?" Mia asked.

At this point, David interrupted, "Ah, before we discuss the design of the building, let us secure the building first." He smiled politely and sat forward. At this, Dean sat back in his chair with an amused smirk. Mia had noticed that he had been leaning further and further forward towards her as they talked enthusiastically about the architecture.

Mia smiled back at David, "Of course." She was embarrassed to think she was babbling.

"What we should do next is to inspect the property ourselves and provide our assessment of its value for you, given the current market conditions and historical data. Then, draft up a proposal for you for our services. How does that sound?" David said while Dean nodded in agreement with his chin resting on his knuckles.

Mia caught Dean looking at her intently as David spoke. This unnerved her and she wondered what he was thinking. Mia decided to be brave and looked at both of them equally to come across as professional. "That sounds like a plan. Do you need anything from me to make that happen?"

David answered, "Nothing at this stage. We just need you to be aware that we will be contacting the real estate agent to walk through the property. But it is probably in your best interest that we do it without disclosing our association with you. How does that sound?"

"That makes sense," Mia said as she smiled at David. He smiled back and said, "Alright, then let's proceed as planned. Did you have any questions for us?"

Mia thought for a moment, "No not at this stage. I probably will when your proposal comes through."

David nodded and smiled, "Yes of course." After a few moments of silence on both sides, he said, "Well, thank you for your time. We won't keep you any longer if that's ok."

"Yes, of course. It was nice to meet you both." Mia got up to leave. Dean followed suit, then David. They led Mia back towards the reception area. On the way, David said, "I'm so glad to finally meet you, Mia. I've heard a lot about you from Beverley." Mia thought to herself, "Strange, I have never heard of you until now." But she said instead, "I hope she said good things, I've known Beverley for a while, so she knows a lot about me, good and bad." She chuckled.

David chuckled with Mia, "Yes, since high school, I know. No, it was all good, I promise." Mia scrunched up her nose and replied, "I doubt very much that it was all good. I will have a word with Beverley today about it, I am sure." David let out a hardy laugh, "Please don't get me into trouble!" This was the first time that he acted casually with her. She thought it was sweet that he seemed to know Beverley intimately. "Oh, I will grill her about more than that!" Mia thought to herself. At all of this, Dean remained silent on the other side of Mia. She was conscious of the body heat emitting from him. In an effort to include him in the conversation she asked, "Have you met Beverley?"

"I have. She came to a few of our corporate functions. I understand she is a close friend of David's since college..." At this point, the trio arrived at the black opaque doors where they shook hands and organised to be in touch.

Mia stepped out on her own into the reception area. As the opaque doors closed behind her, she looked back hoping to catch a final glimpse of Dean. To her surprise, he stood there, hands in his pockets, still watching her intently as the doors were closing. At the sight of her looking back, he gave her a small smile and turned.

Mia's heart was in her throat as she snapped her head back towards the elevators. Flushing deep red, she could not wait to get out of the building.

Footnotes:

[1] MMA stands for Mixed Martial Arts.