Page 49 of The Arrogant One

“So, what do you think?”

I blinked several times, rubbing my finger across the rim of the glass. “Are you telling me you’re interested in buying it?”

“That’s why I’m coming to you. Walker is too fucked up about it to have that conversation. I think he wants it, but I think he’s got too much on his plate, and he’s weary. When it comes to this one, Eden is indifferent, she’ll go either way, but she’ll also support whatever is decided, and she’ll help. Colson? You know him—he works to live, not the other way around. That leaves you, Hart. What the fuck should we do here?”

I hissed out a mouthful of air. “Do we need it?”

“Fuck no.”

“Even if Horned exploded, bigger than it already has, it doesn’t matter, we still don’t need it.”

“True.” He paused. “And if the Gordons buy it and turn it into something? Something like Charred?”

“Are you asking me if I’ll have FOMO?”

He chuckled. “You could say that.”

As I stared out across the canyon, there were houses I recognized. One was Beck’s. Another was Walker’s. Colson’s and Eden’s homes were close by, but they faced in a direction I wasn’t able to see from here. We shared the canyon with celebrities, other athletes, multimillionaires, and billionaires.

The Westons were doing all right.

“You know, Beck, when I walk into our corporate office every morning, I can’t believe what the hell we’ve built. The number of restaurants and clubs we own. The empire that’s now an international brand. All of it because Dad had a dream of owning his own restaurant, and that’s what this has turned into.”

“You appreciate it all—I get it. I also know there’s abutcoming …”

I laughed. He knew me way too well.

That was why he had called me—because of thatbut.

“We have something in common,” I told him, pounding the back of my hand on the arm of the chair.

“And that is?”

“We don’t like to lose anything.”

“Just what I thought.” The eagerness was thick in his voice. “I’ll make some calls.”

TEN

Sadie

Lockhart stood in the open doorway of his house and watched me walk across the remainder of his driveway and up the three large front steps before I stopped in front of him. It wasn’t just a normal look he was giving me. It was a stare made of pure starvation that covered every inch of my body—from the toes of my knee-high boots to the hint of my chest that stuck out from the top of my coat.

But where he was taking me in, I was doing the same to him. At the scruff on his cheeks and the way his deep green shirt—the same color as his eyes—parted at the top, revealing a tease of his muscular chest. How his broadness, the way he was leaning against the side of the door with his arms crossed, took up almost the entire space.

There was absolutely nothing small about Lockhart.

Not his hands. Not his feet.

Not his body.

And not anything beneath his clothes.

“Hello.” I smiled.

“Hello.” His gaze took another dip, and he moaned, “Mmm. This is the second jacket I’ve seen you in, and you’re even more stunning in it than the first one you wore—and that was a coat I’ll never forget because I got to watch you strip it off.”

“Yeah, well, this is a special one too.” I touched the collar, my hand then falling back to the glass dish in my arm. I was close enough that I could smell him, that warm, woodsy scent triggering memories with each inhale. “Beautiful house.”