"So, let me be straightforward."
She clasped her hands in front of her. The extended wheelbase at this configuration is $547,000.
That is before tax, title, and registration. "If you're thinking about financing, I need to let you know that our lender requires a minimum credit score of 720 and verified liquid assets of at least $200,000."
"Those are requirements I can't waive." Nobody had asked about financing.
Nobody had mentioned financing. Edward had said nothing about how he intended to pay.
Crystal had simply constructed a series of obstacles and placed them in the road.
"I'm not interested in financing," Edward said.
Crystal blinked, recovered in half a second.
"Well, regardless, I think the responsible thing is..." "I'd like to see the full bespoke options," Edward said.
"The configuration guide, color samples, interior materials, everything."
A pause longer than it should have been. Crystal turned to Darnell with a look that was no longer disguised.
"Go get the bespoke portfolio from the back office." It was not a request.
Darnell looked at her. He looked at Edward.
Then he walked toward the back, not because Crystal had told him to, but because getting the portfolio was actually the right move, and he wasn't going to let her use his compliance as a weapon. Gloria watched Crystal.
Crystal was already moving. She stepped to the adjacent display stand, picked up a different brochure, the entry-level Ghost, and placed it on the cocktail table inside the open Phantom door.
"While we wait, you might want to look at this. The Ghost starts at $340,000."
"Beautiful car. More popular choice."
"Very well suited for..." She paused, searching for the right word.
"First-time buyers in this segment."
At the words "first-time buyers," the woman near the Ghost display who had been standing still for the past four minutes raised her phone six inches.
Gloria reached into the Phantom and picked up the Ghost brochure. She looked at it for exactly 2 seconds.
Then she set it back down on the display stand, not inside the Phantom, back where it came from, and looked at Crystal with an expression so measured, so completely controlled that it was more frightening than anger.
"We didn't ask about the Ghost," Gloria said quietly, each word placed with precision.
"We asked about the Phantom. We have asked about the Phantom three times now."
"Is there a reason you keep answering a different question?"
The showroom held its breath. Crystal opened her mouth, closed it.
Then something shifted behind her eyes. A recalculation, a decision, and she turned away from Gloria entirely toward her colleague.
"Mike, can you pull the Phantom availability list? I want to show them realistic delivery timelines."
Her voice had dropped to something almost bored. "Custom orders on the extended run fourteen to eighteen months, just so expectations are appropriately managed."
Fourteen to eighteen months. Appropriately managed.
Edward looked at the Phantom on the platform. He looked at the obsidian paint and the cream interior and the ceiling full of stars that Gloria had looked up at and gone quiet.
He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out his phone. He made one call.
Darnell came back from the office with the bespoke portfolio, a large-format leather-bound book, cream cover, the Rolls-Royce emblem embossed in silver. He had been gone 4 minutes.
In those four minutes, he had stood in the back hallway for 30 seconds, his hand flat on the wall, breathing. He had heard everything through the door, the Ghost brochure, the financing requirements nobody asked for, appropriately managed.
He had stood there and let it move through him. The anger, the recognition, the familiar weight of watching something wrong happen in a place where speaking up carried a cost.
He knew that cost. He had paid smaller versions of it already in three months.
The looks, the reassignments, the way Crystal materialized beside him whenever he engaged a certain kind of customer. He had stood in that hallway and made his decision the same way he suspected Edward Washington made most of his decisions quietly without announcement with complete clarity.
He walked back onto the floor. Crystal was at her desk.
Mike was at his screen. Edward stood beside the Phantom phone in hand.
Gloria stood with her arms loosely folded, watching Crystal with the patient attention of a woman who was cataloging every detail. Darnell placed the bespoke portfolio on the cocktail table inside the open Phantom door and turned to Edward and Gloria.
"The full configuration guide, color swatches, interior leather samples, veneer options, personalization programs. Take whatever time you need."
"I'm right here."
Edward looked at him.
"Thank you, Darnell."
Crystal stood. She crossed the floor in eight steps.
She stopped behind Darnell and spoke at a volume calibrated for the room.
"Darnell, Derek wants to see you in his office."
Darnell turned.
"Now."
He looked at Edward. Edward gave him a look that said, go.
"It's all right. I see what you're doing, and it matters."
Darnell nodded once and walked toward Derek Hollis's glass-walled office at the far end of the showroom. Derek was standing at his desk when Darnell entered.
The door closed behind them. Through the glass, Darnell could see Crystal returning to the Washingtons, positioning herself in front of the portfolio.
"She asked you to come to me," Derek said.