Page 97 of The Arrogant One
This man couldn’t possibly get any dreamier.
“I would just need to know ahead of time so I can plan my work accordingly. But it’s most definitely possible.”
“What if I wanted us to travel, say, once a month? Would that be an option?”
I turned toward him. “Once a month?”
He lifted a blue cheese–stuffed olive out of the container and placed it between my lips. “I would like that, yes.”
As I chewed, I forced myself to look away, slanting my face toward the ocean. “I work for myself for the most part—I don’t know if I told you that—so I create my own schedule. I do, however, have a lot of obligations that require me to be online at least a few times a day, so as long as I could plan ahead and take an hour or so to get caught up every morning”—I nodded—“I could make it happen.”
His arm stretched across my chest, his hand resting on my lower stomach. “We have a full-time social media guru on our staff. She comes into the office a few times a month for marketing meetings and works from home for the rest of thetime, traveling to our different locations, collaborating with our global staff to get content for our corporate pages. It’s a world I understand, but one I’m not a part of. Shit, I haven’t even posted on Instagram in years.”
“What do you use your personal account for?”
“Mostly to keep a close eye on the food scene in LA and other major metro markets. And to check out Dear Foodie’s daily content. I don’t know of a food influencer who’s bigger than her.” Still holding my hand, he turned it, positioning my thumb on top. “It’s funny, she had a Band-Aid in the same spot as you in one of her recent videos.” He kissed where I’d burned my skin, the Band-Aid now gone and no longer needed, as the mark was about half healed.
But as his lips landed on me over and over again, my stomach dropped onto the sand, rolled down to the shoreline, and washed away with the waves. While his mouth worked its way to my wrist, I made sure he couldn’t see any part of my face, hiding the panic that covered every inch of it.
“You need to be careful in the kitchen, Sadie. That’s probably going to leave a scar.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Hart
“Iwant you to review each of these markets and let me know your thoughts,” Jenner Dalton said as he sat at the head of his conference room table, where my family and I were listening to him present.
Jenner was one of the partners of the firm Beck and I had hired to discuss the future locations of our restaurants.
“My team pulled reports on buying patterns, including food, and this is how we came up with each of these cities. We then cross-referenced the cities with your current locations, along with your competitors—specifically the Gordons—to make sure there weren’t restaurants there. We also took into consideration the accessibility of seafood versus meat and the popularity of each in these cities, and we made a recommendation of whether we think Toro or Horned should be built there.”
I flipped through the thick packet his assistant had handedto us at the start of the meeting, the cities highlighted on every page. The most popular restaurants in those areas were broken down, showing how much revenue they brought in and his suggestion of what we should open there.
This data was fucking genius.
“As you get deeper into the information we put together,” Jenner continued, “you’ll see three to five real estate options for every city we picked. If you don’t like any of the ones we offered—or the cities we chose for that matter—my team will go back to the drawing board.”
“This is excellent, Jenner.” I glanced at Beck, and he was nodding at me in agreement. “We thought we’d have to give you suggestions on where we were interested in opening. I don’t think any of us thought you were going to do that work for us.”
Jenner laughed. “You’ve worked with The Dalton Group before. You know we don’t fuck around when it comes to business. If I’m going to find you land, I’m going to tell you why I think you should buy it. Same goes for the cities—I use numbers, and I use my gut, and neither ever steers me wrong.”
“And that’s why we’re in this office and why we didn’t want to work with anyone but you,” Beck said. “I think we need some time to review this, but I see endless opportunities on these pages.”
“I work on your timeline,” Jenner admitted. “Just keep in mind, these are buildings that are available as of this morning. That doesn’t mean they’ll be for sale tomorrow. You know how the commercial market is—space could sit for months or hours. I have no control over that. My control comes in when you want to make an offer.”
“I think we’ll end up narrowing it down to five or six cities,” Eden chimed in, rocking in her chair as she held the packet in front of her. “I’ll then jump on our plane and go view each ofthe properties you chose. From there, we can make some decisions.”
“You don’t have to go alone,” Walker told her, gripping Eden’s shoulder. “Any of us will go with you.”
Eden acknowledged him with a nod.
“Let me know how I can be of further assistance.” Jenner pulled his tablet off the table and held it in his arms. “Don’t hesitate to ask for anything. I’m here to make sure your family finds exactly what you’re looking for, and my team won’t stop until you’re pleased.”
“We’re already pleased with your work,” Colson offered.
Since the Daltons were such good friends with the Spade family—our buddies who owned the international hotel chain, where we’d built many locations of Charred in their lobbies—I knew that when Jenner said that, he meant it. The Dalton Group wasn’t just a law firm that offered advice and reviewed contracts as they sat behind their desks. They were full service, and today was a perfect example of that.
“Thank you, Jenner.” I shook his hand.
