“The owner of Dixons Field is Chris Dixon; after a lot of arguments, he agreed a price of two hundred thousand. The most I can borrow is fifty thousand because, I have a mortgage.”
“I have three thousand, you can have that.” I offered. “Your mum and dad, could they help?”
“But then it wouldn’t be ours.” She blurted. “And it’s not just the money, I can’t do this without you, I need you, your contacts, your knowledge, your skills. Without you I’d just be ripped off. You can tell the quality of the work, make sure people are working and let’s face it, without you I wouldn’t bother, there would be no point.”
“I would do anything for you, but I don’t have any money.” I said feeling guilty.
She slid some papers over to me.
“Sign this and you will be a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in debt.” She said looking up at me.
Without fully understanding I signed, she took a picture and emailed it to the bank, she made a call and a minute later the man in a suit came back and took my signature away.
“Now. Go have a shower, there’s a suit in my wardrobe, put it on. I must make some calls.”
She came out the office two hours later, still looking stressed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked as she drove us to the solicitors.
“If you told your friends at work and word went around, other people would’ve jumped in. I didn’t tell Lexy, because she would tell your father. He would’ve turned up with a million-pound offer. I said nothing to my parents in case they spoke to him.”
“I would’ve understood to say nothing.” I said though she was probably right.
“It was too big a risk to tell you, I had to pretend that nothing was happening.”
“You failed that miserably.” I said with a smile.
“There’s been so much red tape and legal wrangling, I didn’t think it would come off, I still don’t.”
I was surprised that when we reached the solicitors we were treated like royalty. Taken to the top floor office overlooking the river.
“It’s done, the land is yours, planning permissions are all yours. The company TJ Builders, is set up, just need your signatures. Bank is sorted, a million will show in the next couple of hours.”
“We’ve borrowed that for the site set up, borrowed on the land we now own.” Jessie said. “The website has just gone live, a big sign for Paradise Found will go up this afternoon. People pay thirty thousand deposits, depending how many want to register will decide what price we go for.”
“If you sell for two fifty, you make eighty thousand a house.” A man added.
“How many houses?” I asked.
“Four hundred and sixty.”
“But that’s low for a house an hour’s drive from London.” Jessie said. “We expect four fifty. If you deduct costs for the connecting road, paths and roads to the houses that would leave us with well over a hundred million pounds.”
“Planning permission will be granted on the Strip; that’s fifty more houses.” The solicitor added.
The day went in a whirl. I signed my name so often I felt like a rockstar. I had to ring my now ex-boss and invite him and his two brothers for dinner that night at the Vale, a posh steak house I knew he liked. His food went cold as he listened to the news and accepted the job of running the site.