“I can be down in twenty minutes,” she said quickly.
“I…yeah, that’ll work. See you soon.”
Delia arrived in record time, trimming the twenty minutes she’d promised me down to fifteen.
“Thanks for coming in on such short notice,” I said when she stepped into my office. Her perfume enveloped me as she brushed past, the scent something warm and inviting, like cookies fresh out of the oven, and I stiffened.
I held my breath, waiting for the cloud to dissipate, then sucked in a lungful of fresh, clear, Delia-free air. I had to keep my wits about me, couldn’t allow something as simple and innocent as her perfume to go to my head like this. I couldn’t let my little head make the decisions where this woman was concerned.
“I take it you’ve spoken with Cal,” she said, sitting on one of my couches and crossing one of her legs over the other. She wore some sort of stretchy pants today, the pale blue fabric pulling tautover her thighs with the position.
“I have,” I said, “and he encouraged me to partner with you. So I’d like to officially offer you a deal. We use your land, and you sign on as an equal partner.”
A slow smile unfurled on Delia’s lips, and I fought the urge to match it. I couldn’t indulge her. Not yet. I still wasn’t entirely sure this was a good idea, and I needed to maintain some level of stoicism and professionalism in the face of this woman who, admittedly, had knocked me a bit off my game.
I mean, she was a knockout. The very definition of a smokeshow. She could give some of the models and actresses I’d tangled with in my early years in the league a run for their money. Particularly my ex, who had that old money, aristocratic kind of beauty. Delia’s was less conventional, but far more intriguing and captivating. Her Greek ancestry bronzed her skin, and her hair was a deep mahogany. I’d learned through a perusal of her social media that she rarely showed her face in her content, and I guessed it had something to do with the creeps that left leering comments the few times she had. Personally, I’d like to find those men and shove their balls down their throat, but it wasn’t my place to protect her. The fact was, this woman—she wasn’t destined to hide. She was better suited for billboards and magazine covers than behind the scenes.
Which was why her competency had come as such a surprise. That line of thinking was incredibly sexist, but my personal experience with beautiful women had me wary of a pretty face that masked an intelligent mind. I’d been fucked over by gold diggers too many times not to be.
“I’ve taken the liberty of having my attorney draw up astandard partnership agreement for us,” I said, moving to my desk and lifting the file folder off its surface, then walking it over to her. “Review it and let me know of any changes.”
Ignoring me, Delia lifted her phone and tapped away at the screen. A moment later, a light tapping came at the door.
I opened it to find Logan Daniels standing on the other side.
“Hey, Owen!” he said brightly. “Good to see you again.”
“You too, Logan. But what are you doing here?”
“He’s my attorney,” Delia said. When I frowned, she added, “You didn’t think I was signing this without having a professional review it, did you?”
“I mean…no,” I said slowly. “But I didn’t think you’d be doing it right now.”
Delia shrugged as Logan settled at her side on the couch. “No time like the present.”
With a rough sigh, I moved to my desk and dialed my own attorney. Logan got on the line and explained what was happening, and the two men quickly devolved into a lengthy legal discussion, the bulk of which went right over my head. They barely spared me or Delia any attention, save asking if we were on board with one particular term or another.
Surprisingly, Delia had few hangups with the terms of our partnership, and I had fewer still. I would’ve given her anything she asked for if it meant we could start breaking ground as soon as possible, but she made it easy on everyone.
When all was said and done, Logan disconnected and clapped his hands together.
“He’s sending over the updated version right now,” he told us, then turned to me. “Can you get into your email and print it forme?”
Two minutes later, the contract was hot off the printer, my hand poised over the document, ready to scribble my name. Hesitating only briefly, I inked my signature with a quick jerk of my wrist, officially binding myself to Delia. A moment later, she did the same, Logan and Hugo, my head of security who we’d pulled in from downstairs, acting as witnesses.
“There’s one more thing before we disperse,” Logan said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
From his briefcase, he withdrew a document printed on thicker, creamy paper, the logo for what I assumed was his law firm emblazoned in the bottom left corner.
“Delia needs to add your name to the title of the property. I’ve prepared a standard deed conveying the property from Delia’s name as an individual into your partnership,” he said, his fingers tracing the language in the “Grantee” section of the document. “Neither of you can sell or add anyone else to the title of the land without both of you signing off on it. It’s already a two-and-a-half acre split off Delia’s whole forty, so that’s no longer an option. Understood?”
Delia and I both nodded. I’d completely forgotten about the land, and I was a little surprised but also impressed that she’d chosen to split a little piece off instead of signing half of the whole thing over to me. Honestly, I would’ve done the same. Plus, we didn’t need that much land anyway. What she was signing over would be more than enough.
I was about to confirm Delia’s desire to do this—to give me,us, this—to make sure she was truly all in, even with the ink on our partnership agreement drying on the table in front of us, butLogan beat me to it.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked her quietly, shooting a skeptical glance my way.
