Chapter 10
STERLING
B y the time we left the third storefront, I was seriously regretting not staging an intervention sooner.
Laney had sent me a list of addresses of places she’d been planning on coming to see last week, before we’d had to postpone the trip in order to fit it into my schedule, but every place she’d wanted to look at was in a rundown neighborhood or somewhere completely out of the question.
Most of the buildings had peeling paint and questionable odors. Mold. Threadbare carpets. Location number two had even had a man sleeping on the patio across the street with a cooler he was using as a footrest.
To her credit, she was doing her best to stay positive. She kept looking up at the ceiling like she was trying to envision fairy lights instead of mold stains, but enough was enough. No amount of optimism was going to make this any less of a waste of my time.
There was no way I was operating a business in a place like any of these. It just wasn’t going to happen. Strangely, I also wasn’t about to let her operate a business in a place like this. Protective instincts I’d never known I possessed were stirring inside, all of them screaming “ Hell No! ”
After we’d left the last dive she’d lined up, I waited until we were back in the car and then I turned to face her. “You can’t be serious about these locations.”
She blinked at me, instantly becoming defensive. The corners of her eyes tightened and one of her light eyebrows shot up. “They’re not that bad.”
“They’re a death sentence,” I said, deadpan. “They’re not going to work.”
She didn’t look away. It didn’t even seem like she’d considered backing down. “They’re affordable.”
“And they’re empty for a reason.”
She crossed her arms and turned her face toward the window like that would somehow end the conversation. It didn’t. If something like being given the cold shoulder would’ve deterred me, I’d have turned into a trust fund baby living on the beach in Bali before I even graduated high school.
“Do you want this business to grow?” I asked, knowing it would push a button for her. “Do you want families? Repeat customers? How about foot traffic from people who can actually spend money on boutique baby things?”
She sniffed, but I saw the exasperation burning in her eyes when she spun back to face me. “Of course, I want those things, but LA is expensive and I’m trying to make it work with what I’ve got. Not all of us have vintage convertibles and private jets on standby.”
I ignored the jab and pulled out my phone, handing it over to her. “Look at this.”
She hesitated but took the device from me. I couldn’t help but notice that she was careful not to touch me when she did it, and that same warmth spread through my insides. Laney Rhodes was attracted to me. I’d seen the way she looked at me, and now this.
That’s good. It’s a good sign.
Meanwhile, she squinted at the spreadsheet I’d compiled over the last week.
It wasn’t just numbers. What I’d put together was targeted.
It was a detailed, block-by-block breakdown of family demographics across LA, including income levels, the number of households with children under five living in them taken from the latest census data, the average spending on early childhood goods, and even stroller count per square mile.
That last one may have been overkill, but sue me. I have my own goal I’m working toward here.
She glanced up at me, curiosity and something else simmering in her gaze. Something softer. More meaningful. “You did all this?”
I looked her right in the eyes. “Yes.”
“You personally ?” she asked, like she couldn’t believe someone like me had managed to do something like that all by my lonesome. As if there was no way I could have what it took to put in that level of research.
I smirked. “What part of ‘ control freak’ do you not understand? Surely, you’ve picked up on the fact that I don’t like things being left to chance.”
Her mouth twitched. She didn’t quite smile at me again, but some of the hostility melted from her features. “This is actually pretty good.”
“High praise,” I said dryly. “Now, if we can skip the rest of your proposed locations, I have two more places for you to see. These are real options. In the right neighborhoods and everything.”
She didn’t argue again and it surprised me. Maybe even unsettled me a little. Because she didn’t know yet that this was all technically already hers.
Or perhaps more accurately, it was about to be. Whether she liked it or not.
I almost felt bad when I thought of it like that. Almost. But I knew how to close a deal and there were bigger things at stake here than her feelings. Besides, this was what she wanted more than almost anything else.
I’d been able to tell that straight off the bat. There was only one thing I’d been able to ascertain that she wanted more and I would give her that too. Hopefully.
But this? This was easy. It was uncomplicated, and those were always the best places to start when brokering any deal—with giving away what was easy. Making concessions early on that didn’t mean anything to you, but that would give you something to point at later when you dug your heels in.
The fourth location got her attention, but the fifth made her stop in her tracks. It was absolutely perfect and she knew it before we even walked in.
Tucked into a sun-drenched corner near a sprawling park, it was in a complex with a few other stores, all of which were high end but not unaffordable.
The store had high ceilings visible even from the outside, clean sight lines, a wide-open showroom, and a separate room at the back I knew she was mentally transforming into a classroom before the realtor even unlocked the door.
Nearby, I could hear the hum of a market and the sounds of children playing. The telltale shrieks of laughter and chatter drifting over from the playground in the park.
Laney turned to me slowly, her gray eyes wide with a light in them I’d never seen before. “This one.”
I nodded. “I’ve already texted the agent.”
The realtor practically fainted with excitement, thrilled to draft a contract for us overnight. “I’ll have it ready for you to sign in the morning. How wonderful.”
Usually, I would have insisted we draft it ourselves, but in this instance, I decided to let her handle it.
As the door swung open, Laney drifted inside like her feet were carrying her of their own accord.
She looked gorgeous in the sun-washed room, the red hue of her hair catching the light like strands of gold had been woven into the blonde.
I watched her wander around the space like she was trying to memorize it from every angle, etching every inch of it onto her soul.
Without even asking, I knew this was what she had wanted.
This was the place that would become the home of her vision for their long-awaited second location.
It was a place where she would plant something of her own and let it grow.
All of which was going to make what I had to do later that much worse, but necessity rarely cared about timing, and unfortunately, timing was everything right now. I knew I had her, though.
This storefront had done the convincing for me. It was highly unlikely she was going to say no, knowing she would be losing this place if she did.
I left her to wander, owing her at least that.
She took her time, even pulling a measuring tape out of her purse and meticulously jotting down notes on her phone every time she’d stretched it across something.
For everything else I could say about this enigmatic, feisty little firecracker of a woman, her passion for her job was unparalleled.
I also didn’t mind the opportunity to drink in those soft curves without fear of her catching me in the act. She was so consumed with mentally bringing her vision to life that I had a feeling she’d forgotten I was even here.
Laney was the unassuming kind of beautiful. When I’d first met her, I’d thought she was just pretty, but as time had gone on, I’d realized it had only been because my perception of beauty had become distorted.
It’d been smeared with lipstick, and botox, and designer labels, handcrafted for the bodies they had to fit.
Objectively, however, Laney was naturally gorgeous.
She didn’t need any of the toppings. Exactly as she was, she had to be one of the sexiest women I’d spent time with in ages, and yet, I would have walked right past her on the street at first.
An egregious mistake that would’ve been.
Because right now, as I watched her move around the space like she was dancing to a tune that only she could hear, I had the most obnoxious urge to run my hands along her sides. To feel the round curve of hips and the weight of her full breasts in my palms. To?—
“Sterling?”
I blinked and she was right in front of me, staring up into my eyes with a puzzled expression on her face. “I asked if you were ready to go yet?”
“Of course.” I pushed off the door frame I’d been leaning against and guided her back to my car.
By the time we were in it and on our way back to the house, the sun was dropping fast, but the buzz she’d been riding all afternoon was still lingering. I didn’t want to kill it. Not yet.
She didn’t stop talking for the longest time, and I just let her. “Did you see that place? Oh, my god. How perfect is it? How did you even find it? I can’t wait to get started in there. It’s going to be amazing.”
On and on she went, but when there was finally a lull, I glanced at her. “I have dinner waiting at the house. A private chef has come to cook for us. I hope you’re hungry.”
“A private chef, huh?” She laughed, the sound caught somewhere between exhilaration and disbelief, and then she turned to face the window, quiet for the rest of the way.
When we got to my place, she went to freshen up while I headed out onto the balcony where a table had been set for us. The ocean stretched endlessly in the distance, a gorgeous, unobstructed, one-eighty-degree view of the Pacific that anyone could have—for the price of the GDP of a small country.
Laney joined me and I poured us each a glass of wine, but neither of us spoke much. She seemed to be soaking up the view and I was soaking up her.
Her delicate fingers were wrapped around her wine glass, and when Chef Mario brought our food, she ate with gusto. I did the same, but I watched her closely, somehow unable to look away. Once we were eating, however, I knew it was time to break the spell.
Regrettable, but again, necessary. I folded my hands on the table and looked at her, the deceivingly strong Firecracker who was going to prove to be the solution I’d been searching for. “Tell me something.”
She glanced up at me. “Uh oh.”
I ignored the joking tone of her voice and the humor shimmering in her eyes and cut straight to the point. “Why the baby?”
Blinking as if she was surprised by the topic, she frowned. “What baby?”
I leaned forward a little. “You said you’ve always wanted to be a mom, but the store was the closest you’d gotten. Why do you want a baby?”
She twirled a piece of roasted carrot with her fork.
“I don’t know. It’s just always been there.
The want. It’s never been about a timeline or about somebody else’s expectations.
It’s just me. I know I’m meant to be someone’s mother and I feel like I’ve been keeping that someone waiting for too long. ”
“But?” I asked when she smiled softly and then sighed. “What’s the hold-up? I know you said you don’t have time to date, but you don’t need to date in order to get pregnant. You just need to fuck.”
Surprise rippled across her features at the crude term, but I could feel the pressure to get this done nipping at my heels. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” I said calmly. “If you want a baby, all you need to do is go out and have unprotected sex at the right time of the month. It might not work the first time around, but eventually, it should take.”
“That’s just not me.” Her cheeks glowed with a rosy hue in the warm light of the setting sun. “Call me old fashioned, but I’m not the type of person who’s going to go around sleeping with however many men it takes just to get knocked up. Not to mention the diseases I’d be risking in the process.”
“Is marriage part of the equation for you?”
She shrugged. “I’m almost thirty. I never thought I’d be thinking about this or talking about it, but I also thought I would be settled by now, so…”
“So?” I pressed, needing to know her answer to this.
Letting out a nervous giggle, she finally shook her head and ducked her gaze. “Honestly, I almost wish someone would just arrange a marriage for me. At least it would save me from the apps and from my biological clock, and I think I’d be an okay wife.”
Aaaand that’s my cue. Shit, I couldn’t have planned it better myself.
I reached under the table and pulled out the leather folder I’d tucked there before dinner. Then I laid it in the space between us. She frowned as she glanced down at it. “What’s this?”
I met her eyes evenly when she looked back up at me. “It’s a proposition.”
She arched an eyebrow but didn’t ask another question. Her curiosity to find out would get the better of her, and a moment later, it did.
Slowly reaching past her plate, she put her fingertips on the folder to draw the offer closer. I knew she wouldn’t like what was inside, but I also knew she’d read it—and that she’d at least consider it.
Laney Rhodes was a realist underneath all that stubbornness and idealism, and I was offering her exactly what she’d just said she wanted. Maybe it wasn’t exactly how she imagined it, but in life, as in contracts, the fine print was everything and I always wrote it perfectly.