Suit & Tie (Harry Styles au) [REPOSTED]

Chapter 50 - Morning mimosas & seasonal snow

HARRY

The thing about Mr. Horan was that he was Irish. And loud. And very boisterous, exuberant, possibly richer than me, and very, very Irish. I'd expected it, yes, but I hadn't expected that accent combined with the brazen personality.

"I'm Niall, Niall Horan," He boomed as he stepped into my office, clasping a strong hand into my own. "Nice to meet you, mate. Suppose we'll be seeing quite a lot of each other!" He continued easily, not faltering a bit at my blank stare.

It seemed as if his face was stuck in a grin like that could only be described as jolly. He seemed teetering on the edge of laughter and had golden, messy hair quiffed up off of his forehead. His face was soft and childlike, topped off with baby blue eyes that matched his enthusiasm.

I shook his hand slowly before pulling away. "Harry Styles. Nice to meet you."

Niall rested his hands on his hips in dominant casualty, face clear of anything besides happiness. "Heard a lot about you mate, what you've done is sick. Brother thought it was a joke when I told him you wanted to consult."

"Right," I tried to hide the distaste from my voice for the shake of business as I stepped back, letting the man into my office. "Have you settled into your hotel alright?"

"Yeah, left my assistant to unpack me. Needed some fresh air after being stuck on a fuckin' flight all day. I couldn't stand it, so god damn boring and nothing to do but work. "He wrinkled his nose slightly at the thought, while I was still stuck on 'assistant'. "I'm fuckin' starving."

I leaned back against my desk as he rambled. "Would you like to consult over lunch then, Mr. Horan? There's a few places that I am sure you'd enjoy."

"Call me Niall, please. And that sounds great. I think my driver is still downstairs waiting, yeah? We can take my car."

* * * *

Lunch itself was nothing that I expected.

We went to a classy restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which took forever in the traffic and during which Niall never stopped talking. In the first 25 minutes of being in the car with him, I'd practically learned his entire life story.

He came from a family of money -- his father a big time movie producer, his brother the second-highest earning real estate agent in Ireland, and his mother some high profile doctor for famous people -- and so it was only natural that he had come into money himself.

And as soon as we sat down in our corner table (so maybe I owned a portion of the restaurant), Niall ordered his first round of Whiskey (Macallan) and lit up a cigar, then settled back into his chair with his legs crossed at the ankles.

"So Harry," He drawled, plucking the cigar out of his mouth, "Why the hell are you so insistent on my investment. No bullshit."

I cocked an eyebrow at the man. "I want a merger with Zayn Malik."

"That simple?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"This whole business world is crazy, that's why. Bunch of pricks waiting to suck up your money and fuck you over. I'll tell you what," he murmured, leaning forward and brushing a wisp of dirty blonde hair off of his forehead, smoke flooding out of his nostrils, "I'm not playing with that shit."

My lips pulled into a thin line. "Neither am I. This is fucking honest, mate, I'm going to make you money while I make money. I'll be big in Britain after this deal. Which means you'll be in Britain. It's a win-win."

"When I get into the business, I'm not going to play games. I'll tell you like it is."

"Good," I murmured, swirling my glass with my free hand. "I respect that."