Chapter 4
STERLING
“ T his is the most authentic espresso in the Financial District,” Nathan said as we left the cafe at the base of the Freemont Tower. He turned his obsidian gaze on mine. “Don’t you think? We’re so lucky to have a pop-up right at our offices. I hope they never leave.”
“If authentic means the barista scowling at us before making our wildly overpriced drinks, then sure. It’s authentic.” I wasn’t even joking. “All I wanted was regular black coffee. Is that really too complicated?”
He grinned, white teeth flashing against his bronze skin. “Anything with the word regular in it is complicated these days, man. Up is down and down is up. Just embrace it.”
I frowned. “When have I ever embraced anything?”
Leading the way across the lobby to the bank of elevators, I tuned him out when he started talking about how I should also embrace the pitch we’d just heard before lunch. Some guy who’d wanted to sell us on modular, vertical gardens.
I hadn’t been convinced, but I also wasn’t listening to Nathan, who swore he was my best friend. As far as I was concerned, our relationship was strictly professional, yet he was widely reported on as being the Robin to my Batman.
It was ridiculous, but that wasn’t the reason I wasn’t listening to him right then. Not really. The reason I’d tuned him out was because I’d seen her . Strawberry blonde hair in a messy bun on top of her head. Yoga pants. The same giant purse I’d seen exploding all over the crosswalk.
It was the woman who’d nearly gotten run over yesterday, but for some reason, she was now causing a mild commotion at the reception desk in the lobby of my building.
Usually, I only saw this kind of thing when interns had forgotten their badges or when influencers were trying to crash invite-only parties, but she definitely wasn’t an intern here—not dressed like that—and there was no party.
“I have a meeting at Westwood and Sons,” she was insisting, gray eyes wide with exasperation and her curvy, short body practically thrumming with it. “It should be under my name. Laney Rhodes. Can you check again, please?”
The receptionist, a resolute professional who had been the gatekeeper of all who worked in the tower for years, gave her an apologetic smile, but she was unmoved. “I’m sorry, Ms. Rhodes. I don’t see your appointment on the books for today.”
I didn’t stop walking. As intrigued as I was that she’d shown up at my workplace—and apparently had a meeting set at my company—I just kept right on going and pressed the button to call the elevator.
Nathan waited beside me, still talking about the vertical garden pitch and blissfully unaware of the fact that I’d recognized the woman he’d barely noticed.
After the doors slid open in front of us, we stepped into the elevator and I turned to face the glass walls, glancing down at her frustrated little fist waving in the air as we ascended.
“I know her,” I said casually, watching her trying to talk her way past the receptionist. “That woman arguing with Marge.”
Nathan paused mid-sentence, turning his head to arch a dark eyebrow at me. “What?”
“She’s the one who nearly got herself pancaked on the street,” I said. “I helped her collect her stuff. Ringing any bells?”
“That’s her ?” He frowned, craning his neck to catch a glimpse before she disappeared from our sight. “What a weird coincidence.”
“Very.” I refocused on the doors before they slid open once more, not in the habit of letting strange coincidences throw me off.
It took no effort at all to put it behind me. Westwood and Sons took up the top four floors of the tower, and if we wanted to keep them, which I did, then there was no time for shenanigans—or pretty but clearly airheaded girls doing their best to throw my days off course.
Nathan smirked as we got off the elevator and strode to the hallway where both our offices were located, mine in the corner at the far end and his just a little ways down. “Do you think she’s here to see you?”
“No,” I replied coolly, turning on my heels and walking away.
Forty-five minutes later, however, I was finally sipping on a proper black coffee when Claire, my assistant, burst in without knocking. In the three years she’d lasted in the position, she’d never done that before and she shouldn’t have done it now, either.
I’d fired my previous assistant for ordering the wrong paper for the copier, but as my chin snapped up and I looked at the woman, I realized she hadn’t meant to interrupt. Something was wrong.
“There’s a woman,” she said, slightly out of breath as she stood in the doorway. “She’s insisting on speaking to you. Right now.”
I frowned. “Did you call security?”
She nodded. “They don’t believe she’s a threat. She’s simply refusing to leave. Apparently, it’s about that baby goods store Nathan just closed the deal on.”
Curious, albeit displeased with the unscheduled meeting, I nodded. “Send her to conference room C. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I retrieved the file for the little store I never would have looked at had it not been for their location in the heart of the city. The conference room was empty when I arrived, but I heard her before I saw her.
Muttering something under her breath, her sneakers squeaked faintly on the polished floors. She turned the corner into the room, and as soon as she was in the doorway, we locked eyes.
She froze, lips popping open in a gape as those gray eyes latched on mine. “You.”
“Me,” I said, closing the door behind her. “Just to be clear, I wasn’t the one who almost ran you over. If this is about money, you’re at the wrong place, lady.”
“It’s not,” she snapped. “I’m Laney Rhodes. Co-owner of Baby Blossom. You just acquired my cousin’s share of my company.”
Suddenly, everything clicked. The name, the frustration, and the lack of security clearance to enter the building. “You’re Megan’s partner.”
“Business partner,” she said flatly. “And apparently not anymore, since I just found out you acquired half my store without even talking to me first.”
I motioned to the chair, but she didn’t sit. “I didn’t talk to you because we didn’t require your input, and we didn’t acquire half your store. We acquired all of it.”
Every last bit of color drained from her cheeks. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “How?”
Any ordinary person might’ve given her a moment to absorb this news. It’d obviously come as a shock, but time was money and I found her interruption annoying, so I pushed on, needing to get this unwelcome disruption over with. “The co-ownership contract was drawn up by your grandparents, correct?”
She stared at me. “Yes.”
“Well, your cousin inherited the majority share,” I explained curtly. “That means legally, she had the right to sell the business without your consent. It appears it’s a surprise?—”
“A surprise?” she cut in, her chest heaving and blotches of red now appearing on her porcelain cheeks. “You’re shutting us down, aren’t you?”
I didn’t lie. In fact, I was more than happy to cut to the chase. “Yes.”
She inhaled sharply, finally taking me up on my offer to have a seat. Well, perhaps not so much because she wanted to, but it seemed her knees had given in because she rolled the chair away from the table and collapsed into it incredibly ungracefully.
Since she didn’t seem to have anything to say while she processed, however, I decided to move on and explain the way forward.
“We’re planning on selling the property to a developer.
It’s a prime location and the shop and apartments above it will convert nicely into luxury condos.
We’ll liquidate the inventory and close up shop before end of quarter. All neat and tidy.”
Emotion had no role to play in business.
I didn’t care that the press had often referred to me as ruthless or as having the emotional warmth of an android.
I was just relaying facts, but something about the way her face changed from one flicker of emotion to the next, like dominoes toppling inside, gave me pause.
There was disappointment first, then hurt, but then it got even worse. I watched the slow realization dawn that there was nothing she could do to stop any of it.
For some utterly inexplicable reason, I felt a pinch of regret. Megan had assured Nathan that her co-owner wouldn’t be a problem, and since we were all good legally, none of us had wasted time by approaching Lacey.
Or was it Laney? Definitely Laney.
I cleared my throat. “We would buy out your share. Without multiple locations, any noticeable presence online, or international vendors, the brand itself isn’t worth more than a quarter million. You’ll also receive roughly three hundred grand from the property sale. So, all in all…”
I trailed off as I watched her. She didn’t even seem to be listening to me.
Her messy bun had started to come undone.
A few strands of strawberry blonde clung to her cheek.
Without any makeup on and sitting there in a faded T-shirt, looking like she’d dressed to clean out a garden shed, half a million dollars or so should’ve impressed her. Delighted her even.
Shit, she looked like someone who hiked up actual mountains for fun and drank out of creeks. God help her.
But what she didn’t look like was someone who’d walk away quietly. Not even for the generous amount of money I’d just told her she would be receiving, and that annoyed me.
Or maybe it intrigues me.
Either way, she wasn’t leaving. She just sat there, looking like she was about to burst into tears before she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, her eyes coming right back up to meet mine. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not ever going to agree to give up my share, so you can shove your offer where the sun don’t shine, buddy. I’ll hire an attorney. I won’t go quietly.”
Strangely, I quite liked that fire in her voice. I paused for another beat and wondered what it was about this girl that had me feeling slightly off-kilter. The same thing had happened when I’d stopped to help yesterday.
It was like an itch deep inside that I couldn’t scratch, but I was a businessman first and foremost. Not even her soft curves or that innocent smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose would distract me from what needed to be done, even if I had experienced far too many feelings during this meeting already.
“You’re welcome to hire any attorney you want, but I’ll win. It’s really not worth the fight, Ms. Rhodes.”
“It is to me,” she said without skipping a beat, finally rising to her feet and planting her hands on her hips. “Baby Blossom is one of the oldest surviving stores of its kind in San Francisco. It’s been reinvented before and I can do it again, but I’m not selling my share.”
I held her gaze for another beat, those gray eyes doing things to me I hadn’t been expecting, like making me wonder what they’d look like glancing up at me while she had her lips wrapped around my cock, but I didn’t take no for an answer in business.
Not even that mental image was going to convince me otherwise.
“If you feel your share is worth more than—” She didn’t even let me tell her that I was willing to sweeten the deal to save myself the hassle of a lawsuit.
Scoffing, she started moving back toward the door. Her chest heaved under her old shirt, her gaze narrow and spitting flames at me. “Shut up. I’m not interested.”
She spun around and stormed away, knocking over a few chairs in the process.
Her temper tantrum was shocking, but I also hadn’t expected this tiny woman to be so strong.
She threw open the heavy glass doors as if they weighed nothing, then turned back to me, spewing her hatred loud enough for the entire floor to hear.
“You’re a cold, spineless bastard, but I won’t let you ruin my life. I don’t care what my cousin told you. My share of that store is not, and never will be, for sale.”
With that, she tore down the hallway like a pissed off baby bat out of hell and disappeared. Something clicked in my brain as I watched her storm off though. My insides suddenly felt warm.
Nathan stuck his head out of his office right across the hall and peeked out at me. “Is everything okay? That sounded like quite a meeting.”
I leaned against the conference table, slightly perplexed by the warmth I was feeling. No woman had ever been that mean to me before. Most simply fawned all over me, but Laney Rhodes had put me in my place, or tried to, which was a first.
It didn’t mean I wasn’t going to take apart her business piece by piece. I was definitely still going to do that, but maybe we could make a deal.
I felt a very rare smile ghost across my lips. I glanced across the hall at Nathan. “Things have never been better. Don’t worry about the meeting. I’ve got everything completely under control.”