Chapter 6
STERLING
I stared down at my phone, struggling to believe that someone had just hung up on me. Laney Rhodes had done it, though. She hadn’t even let me explain why I was calling. She’d just heard my name and ended the call.
It had been a long time since someone had hung up on me and it lit a fire inside I couldn’t put out. I’d always been competitive. I always rose to the challenge—and I always, always won.
I grinned as I shifted my gaze from the now black screen of my phone to the folder with Baby Blossom’s contact details in it.
Megan had supplied us with everything we needed.
I knew where to find her, but I tried to call her again anyway, deciding to see if she would do me the courtesy of speaking to me this time.
It went straight to voicemail though, and I didn’t bother leaving one. She wouldn’t call me back.
If Laney Rhodes wanted to play games, however, I could play too. I stood up immediately, snapping the folder shut and packing up my office.
As I strode out, I glanced at Claire, but I didn’t stop walking. “Cancel my meetings this afternoon. I’m going out.”
She looked surprised but nodded, knowing better than to argue. I knew I was canceling a host of important appointments with clients and colleagues alike, but right then, I didn’t give a shit. That fire was burning bright in my soul, the need to win driving me forward like nothing else.
What dear, sweet Laney Rhodes didn’t realize was that she’d just confirmed my suspicions about her, and now that she had, I wouldn’t let go. Dog, meet bone.
Once I reached the underground executive parking garage, I climbed into my Rolls and programmed her store’s name into my navigation system.
Mid-morning, the traffic wasn’t too bad, and within no time at all, I was pulling up outside, immediately seeing the elaborate sign outside that read Baby Blossom in bubbly cursive neon letters.
Looking over at it, I frowned. The building was cool and historic, but a baby store? What’s the point when Target and Amazon exist?
To my mind, it was no wonder the cousin had wanted to sell, but as I walked in, I was surprised at how busy the place was.
A back room was full of young parents, babies, and toddlers, and I stopped to watch as Laney appeared at the front, smiling happily.
She sat down cross-legged, on her ass, right there on a little carpet on the floor.
“Can I help you?” a female voice asked at my side. “You’re not too late if you’re here for the educational music class.”
Sliding my gaze to the side, I found myself looking into smiling brown eyes. The nametag on her shirt said Anna , but I waved her off. “No, thank you. How long until the class is done?”
“It’s just starting,” she said apologetically. “It usually runs for about thirty minutes, give or take a few depending on the mood of our most important little clients.”
I sighed, but with half an hour to kill, I decided to take a look around. Clearly, this woman intended on fighting for the place and I was curious about what she was fighting for. It didn’t seem like much at first glance.
Some stock. The classes they evidently offered in the glass box at the back masquerading as a room.
Upon closer inspection, however, I realized the store wasn’t at all what I’d expected.
As I walked around, I found a bulletin board against one wall and it was pinned full of upcoming events they were hosting, resources for new and prospective parents, and several notices of collaborations with nearby businesses.
I took a moment to absorb the information. Megan hadn’t told us about any of this. Not to my knowledge, anyway. If she’d told Nathan about it, none of it had made it into my folder.
It seemed to me that the store was a staple in the neighborhood. A staple right in the center of a growing residential district with a lot of young families.
Why is it starting to feel like we didn’t do enough research into this deal? Annoyance started simmering in my veins. What the fuck do I pay a team for if they don’t bring me all the relevant information I need to make my decisions?
Spine straightening as I headed away from the board, I looked at the place a little differently, my perspective having shifted now that I knew more about what I was dealing with.
I was still doing a mental stock-take when Laney approached me, trying not to look too pissed off as she waved goodbye to her customers on her way over.
Her strawberry blonde hair was piled on top of her head again and a few locks had escaped, curling in soft tendrils around her throat and the back of her neck.
Those gray eyes were as naked as they had been the first two times I’d seen her, her body encased in another pair of yoga pants, another faded shirt, and another pair of worn sneakers.
I was starting to wonder if she owned any makeup—or any other style of clothing. Certainly, she didn’t seem to care about dressing professionally when she came to work, but I supposed I had just seen her jumping around with a bunch of two-year-olds.
Strangely, with those plain garments hugging her full curves and her face bare, she seemed prettier to me today than she had before—and I’d thought she was pretty from the very first moment I’d seen her.
“Are you here to start shutting me down?” She glared up at me once the customers were gone, folding her arms tightly across her chest and standing as rigidly as a statue. “Well, are you?”
“No.” I inclined my chin toward the bulletin board, doing my utmost best not to lower my gaze to her breasts, framed now by the angry set of her arms. It wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been not to even steal a glance.
I breathed through the sudden stab of lust that threatened to harden my cock and kept my gaze trained directly on hers.
“All of those upcoming events. Are they actually happening?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Of course, they are. Why else would we be advertising them?”
“Tell me more about what you do here.” It wasn’t really a question, but she also didn’t look like she was inclined to answer.
She seemed beyond wary of me, but as her gaze hooked on mine, she finally sighed and motioned for me to follow her.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing here or what exactly you want to know, but I have plans to open a second store in LA.
There’s a huge market there for places like mine and I’ve also been building the company’s website to expand our online presence. ”
Leading me around the store, she pointed out some things for expectant mothers as well as gadgets she claimed were popular with new fathers.
“We sell more than just baby stuff. Everything you need to prepare for your family to grow, you’ll find right here.
We also provide advice and we can put people in touch with just about every professional they might need, from carpenters to pediatricians, painters to ophthalmologists. ”
I nodded slowly. “How about staff? How many employees do you have?”
“I was just about ready to hire two more assistants for this store, which would’ve brought us to a total of five if you include me, and I would also have had to hire for the new location in LA, but then you came in and ruined everything.”
I wasn’t a person who felt guilty very often, but all of a sudden, I realized that Megan might’ve held the majority share but she’d known nothing about the business or what shutting it down would mean. Not just for Laney, but apparently for the whole community.
She hadn’t told us any of this stuff, and as a result, a previously unheard of but rather healthy dose of guilt was coiling around my gut like a sour worm.
I glanced down at the tiny firecracker of a woman showing me around and it occurred to me that she’d obviously built something meaningful here—whether or not her apparently useless cousin had known about it.
“I don’t just come in and shut down successful businesses,” I said. “If I see something I like, I do try to keep it going sometimes. Provided it’s in my best interest.”
Laney spun to face me, her eyes spitting venom again, but I was enjoying it for some reason. “In your best interest? Wow. You really are just a selfish piece of work, aren’t you? This is a successful business and the neighborhood counts on us.”
Clearly, she didn’t give a damn that she was speaking to a Westwood. She probably knew my family had more money than God—everyone around here did—but simply put, she just absolutely did not give a shit.
“Not that rich, morally gray assholes like you know the first thing about community or what a neighborhood needs, but Baby Blossom is an institution. A lot of people around here make their living based largely on clients we refer to them.”
Watching her point her little finger up at my chest, scolding me? Yeah, she’s perfect. She’s going to solve my biggest problem to date.
It would work out for both of us. If she agreed. But I was sure she would and I’d never been wrong before.
“You’re just a?—”
I cut her off mid insult. “Would you be willing to meet me for dinner tomorrow night? You’ll be happy to know that I’m no longer interested in taking this place apart, but we would have to find a way to work together, and in order to do that, we need to discuss the business. At length.”
Suspicion flashed across her eyes, but after holding my gaze for a beat, she finally sighed and nodded. “You’re not going to take it apart if I do this?”
I shook my head. “Not if we can find a way to work together.”
It might just not be an exclusively, strictly professional relationship, but you don’t need to know that just yet. You’ll see, little Firecracker. This is going to work out perfectly for us both.