Page 103 of The Rebel

His suit was darker than the last one he’d worn.

His sexiness, of course, was right on point.

My goodness.

“It’s great to have you here, Rowan.” Walter’s voice was bold and boisterous. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m joining you.”

I gave him my warmest smile. “Not at all, Mr. Spade. It’s nice to see you.”

Cooper and Brady sat at both heads, Jo was across from her father, Macon next to her, and the architect was sitting on Walter’s side of the table, so I slid in between Cooper and Jo. I gave her a quick smile before I turned toward Cooper.

Since the merger meeting at the Daltons’ law firm, every time we were around Cooper’s family, his presence was cold andstandoffish. But there was something different about him today. It was his eyes, the way they looked at me. The way he kept them narrow and focused on mine.

“Now that you’re here, let’s explain to the group what’s going on.” He glanced toward the others, but the movement wasn’t natural. It was almost like he had to force himself to look away from me. “My hope is that by the end of this meeting, one of us will have some insight into what we should do and what steps we should take from here.”

Cooper was holding a remote, and after hitting a few buttons, the TV in the back of the room showed pictures taken from several different angles of the lot, even aerial shots, with a digital rendering of a hotel-like structure.

“This is a mock-up that I threw together,” the architect said. “It doesn’t depict an east build-out, nor does it show the kind of design we’re planning to construct. This will just give you an idea of the size of the hotel and how much of the land we’ll take up once construction is finished.”

I stole a quick glance at Cooper, grinning from theeast build-outcomment the architect had made.

He knew just what was making me smile.

And he reacted by shaking his head before he said, “The concern is the weight that the hotel is going to put on the soil and if it’ll push the soil toward the shoreline, threatening erosion to the point where it’s unsafe to build. Now, we don’t have any data or proof that this will be the case, we’re just taking every precaution and coming up with a backup plan if this does happen.”

“While I was at the property, I collected soil samples from different locations around the lot,” the architect said. “If we’d like to send them in for testing, at least the samples have been taken.”

Cooper ran his thumb across his lips. “I think we can all agree that’s a place to start.”

There was a collective agreement from everyone around the table.

I gripped the armrests and said, “I think it’s also worth mentioning that I’ve reached out to the governing officials in Alberta to discuss our concerns with them. I left a message, but so far, I haven’t received a call back.”

“A good step two,” Walter said to me.

I reached inside my bag, grabbing the map I’d tucked in there before I left my house. “And possibly a step three.” I stood, pushing my chair back to give myself enough room to spread the large paper over the table, finding myself much closer to Cooper in the process. “As you can see, this is a standard map of the lake.”

“Clearly,” Brady said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why don’t you tell us something we don’t know?”

I ignored him and continued, “I’ve highlighted all the hotels that hug the lake. Those are in yellow. The ones that I’ve also circled in orange are hotels that are more comparable to ours in size. Now, we do intend to build the largest structure, so nothing like ours currently exists there, but at least these will give us something to go on.”

“Except they give us nothing to go on,” Brady said. “Because none of them are nearly as large as ours will be.”

“Yes, that’s what I did say,” I countered.

Brady hadn’t bothered with a tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, spreading a bit wider as he crossed his arms. “So, isn’t this example of yours a waste of our time?”

He’d gone head-to-head with Rhett. Apparently, now, it was my turn.

I didn’t mind. Men like Brady didn’t scare me.

I smiled. “No, I don’t believe it is. If none of these hotels are experiencing any issues with erosion, then we know the lot can hold their amount of weight. Rather than look for an entirely new piece of land and sell this one, our backup plan could be to build a hotel equal in size as one of those.”

Brady’s brows furrowed. “Which isn’t what we want to do.”

“You mean, whatyoudon’t want to do,” I pressed. “You can’t saywebecause I was never asked that question.” I looked at Cooper, appreciating the amusement on his face now more than ever. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is a Cole and Spade project now, yes?”

Cooper instantly replied, “Yes.”

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