“If we are, it’s because I don’t play them. I honestly have no idea why you’re here.” He rounded his desk but waited to sit. “Please. Have a seat.”
Mindy shook her head, her russet-red hair a wavy tumble across the shoulders of her trim-fitting black jacket. Peeking out from beneath her lapel was something black and lacy. He loved that she worked in a fashion-forward business and could apply a sexy edge to her wardrobe. “I’m not staying. I’m here about the Mercer Building. You know, the historic warehouse out in New Jersey that I was about to buy? You snatched it out from under me. You’re trying to meddle in my business.”
“I might have bought it, but it had nothing to do with your business.”
Mindy’s pouty berry-pink mouth went slack with disbelief. “So what, then? Was this some attempt to get back together with me?”
Wow. He had not seen that coming. “Is that really what you think?” He rounded his desk and closed in on her, enough to smell her perfume and see firsthand the touchable texture of her skin. His mind and body began to wage a battle. There was no telling which would win out—the urge to keep her at arm’s length or the one to wrap her up in them. “I don’t hear from you for five months and you think that I’m suddenly so struck with affection for you that I devise some silly plan to lure you to my office? Believe me, Mindy. If I wanted to get back together with you, I would call you. On the telephone. And I would ask you out.”
Mindy crossed her arms as if she was determined to keep him away. “I have a hard time believing you aren’t up to something, and it’s not my fault that I suspect it. That’s what you do. You meddle. You’ve interfered with Eden’s plenty.”
If only Mindy knew that what she saw as meddling, he considered to be nothing more than a favor. “I’m not a gatecrasher, Mindy, no matter what you think. I had nothing to do with buying that building out from under you. I don’t know why Eden’s would want it anyway. You have enough space in Manhattan to build a cruise ship.”
“It’s not for Eden’s. It’s for BMO. My company. We need to find a single space for our entire operation. Having things scattered all over the place is killing our margins.”
That was a different case. BMO was Mindy’s baby, but she’d left it in the hands of someone else. Had she managed to worm her way out of her duties at Eden’s? Was that why she was taking time to personally address this issue? “I thought you were letting the interim CEO take the reins.”
“I’m still involved in the day-to-day. I’m not really capable of being hands-off.”
The phrase made Sam want to thread his fingers through Mindy’s hair, but he pushed the thought aside. “I get that. I’m the same way.”
“It’s only a little more than a year until I will have fulfilled my two-year obligation to Eden’s and can hightail it out of there. I’m not going to stop putting my mark on the world with BMO.”
He’d always admired Mindy’s determination. When she wanted something, she did not take her eyes off the prize. That had actually been part of the fun of being with her—trying to distract her. It almost always involved the two of them taking off each other’s clothes. “Then how can I help? Do you want me to see if I can help you find a different space?”
“No. I want you to sell the Mercer Building to me.”
He stepped back, perching on the very edge of his desk and stretching out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and index finger. It wouldn’t be a travesty if he decided to sell her the building, but Mindy was his key to an event he’d been certain before now he’d never get into. An event he needed to be at. “I need something in return.” He didn’t want to be greedy, but he also didn’t want to be foolish. Why do a favor for Mindy? Out of the goodness of his heart? She’d ground his ego into the dirt with her stiletto heels. He didn’t owe her a thing.
“A pile of money?”
“No. An invitation to your sister’s wedding.”
Mindy reared back her head, eyes wide with astonishment. “That’s in a week. There are no invites to be had. Plus, why would you even want to go to Sophie’s wedding? Half of the guest list doesn’t like you.”
Sam didn’t hurt easily, but that wasn’t an easy remark to hear. “It makes me look second-rate to not be attending the social event of the year.”
“Since when do you care what people think about you?”
“A good businessperson always cares about their reputation. I’ve been concentrating my work in New York and I need to be firmly entrenched in those social circles if I’m going to get anything real done in this town.” His sister, Isabel, had been the one to encourage him to stick closer to Manhattan over the last five months. She’d told him he couldn’t outrun his feelings by buzzing to Prague or Buenos Aires or wherever the smell of money and big deals lured him. Logic said that the minute Mindy dumped him last time, he would want to be as far away as possible. The Eden family was impossible to ignore in this city. But he suspected Isabel was right. He couldn’t avoid everything that caused him pain. Even when he’d had more than enough to last him a lifetime.
“I couldn’t get an invitation for the queen of England right now. Sophie has been moaning for months about how tight the guest list is, and now that we’re this close, she’s perpetually freaking out.”
Sam’s mind immediately leaped to a solution. He cleared his throat and prepared himself for another potentially insulting answer. “Who’s your date?”
A rush of pink colored Mindy’s cheeks. She batted her lashes and looked away. “I don’t have one. So what?”
“There’s no need to be defensive ab
out it.” Sam had to fight the smile that wanted to cross his lips. He didn’t want to be so happy that Mindy Eden, one of the most extraordinary women in the city, didn’t have a date for her own sister’s wedding. But he was. “I could fix that for you. You’d be killing two birds with one stone. Getting your building and a date.”
“You’ll really sell me the building if I take you to Sophie’s wedding? That’s all you want?”
Sam was surprised Mindy had asked the question, a classic misstep in negotiations. Never let on that you think you’re getting a great deal. “Take me to the rehearsal dinner, too. You know, make it seem like I’m really in the inner circle.”
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea. You and I both know we don’t work as a couple.”
Sam shrugged and pushed off from the desk, taking his seat behind it. He was wary of the idea, only because he knew how frustrating it would be to spend time with Mindy and not be able to touch her. But he could get some real business done at Sophie and Jake’s wedding. He might even mend a few Eden fences. “Like I said, not struck with affection for you. But I think I could be convinced to keep you as a friend.”