She stopped cold and stared at him. “What? The realtor said you guys had outbid me.”
“We did.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “But then a developer out of Asheville outbid us to build condos on the property.”
Jessica gasped, her hands tightening involuntarily on his shoulders. “Oh my God…but…condos?” Oh no. No no no. She didn’t want condos next door, crammed in between her and Mark’s properties.
“Our thoughts exactly.” Mark’s expression didn’t change, but she knew him well enough to see the frustration in his eyes. “Frankly, we can’t believe the Town Council is allowing it, but apparently they’ve already got preapproval. They’d be luxury vacation rentals, bring some new tourism money into the town.”
“Well, this is a disaster,” she said, still swaying in his arms. “I wasn’t thrilled about a mountain biking course running behind the spa, but you guys respect the land, and I respect what you do. Condos next door?” She scrunched up her face.
“That’s where the business proposition I mentioned comes into play.”
“I’m listening.” Although she couldn’t for the life of her figure out what he had in mind, but if it somehow stopped the condos from being built…
“We team up,” he said. “Together we outbid the contractor, own the land fifty-fifty. You were interested in the flatter areas on the west side to expand the spa. We wanted the hillier area on the east. We both get what we want, and more importantly, we keep the land.”
“Whoa.” Okay, she definitely hadn’t seen that coming. She’d never fully come to terms with losing so this was awfully damn tempting. But…co-owning land with Mark and the other guys at Off-the-Grid?
“We’d be out a lot more money per acre than we would have been initially, but still less total cost than either of our original offers on the full property.”
“But co-owning?” She could feel herself frowning.
His espresso eyes were as closed off as ever so why did she think she saw a flicker of disappointment in their depths? “We could do a separate sale at a later date, split the acreage, buy each other out.”
Dammit, that was an awfully hard offer to refuse. And he was right: The land should be big enough to share. Best of all, no condos.And she could still build her resort.“Okay,” she murmured over the music. “I’ll do it.”
Mark’s expression lit up, and she almost kissed him for it. “That’s great. We can meet tomorrow and work out all the details?”
She nodded and then dropped her hands from his shoulders and turned to leave.
He didn’t let go of her but instead smiled. “Song’s not over yet.”
Was Mark Daltonflirtingwith her? Stunned, she just stared at him for a long second. And then, because she’d clearly lost her mind, she settled into his arms for the rest of the song.
