A hundred years wouldn’t be long enough to get Cameron Delgado out of his system.
Chapter 6
Cam struggled to find ways to stay occupied for a full forty-eight hours before calling Jordan with her decision about the sale. Not that there was any doubt on her part. Reviewing the various reports from her bevy of attorneys and construction experts only left her more excited to begin the project. The site fit her needs to perfection: it came in under budget, sat in a good location, and left them plenty of room to grow. In the end, she’d simply needed time for her heart to catch up to what her head had known from the second she saw the place. There’d never been a doubt in her mind she’d acquire it, even if Jordan Fawcett was attached to it.
Still, Jordan needed to stew for a while. Leaving him dangling not only gave her the power position in their business deal, it gave him a taste of his own medicine. A few days in limbo only scratched the surface of the purgatory he’d sentenced her to.
“You should give him the green light in person,” Bertie advised as they sat together in her office early one evening.
She studied him over the last page of financials. “Why? I never do that. Once the decision is made, it’s a phone call at best.”
He shuffled a packet of papers and placed them inside a folder. “Jordan’s not your usual real estate agent.” He tapped the cover. “You and he have personal business smeared all over this deal. Invite him to lunch. You need to sit down together, somewhere in public, alone, with no distractions and talk. Really talk.”
Suspicion slithered across her shoulders. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
His expression remained a bland mask. “Nothin’. I’ve just been thinking about the two of you and seeing things, not as your teammate in this game, but as your referee. Not taking sides. I’m observing. So, let’s go to the videotape, as they say. What happened between you? He proposed; you turned him down. Meaning, your relationship had run its course. What’d you expect from him after that? Was he supposed to hang around here to carry your purse at social events?”
The sarcasm stung, and she jerked up her head to confront him with outrage. “Of course not! I wasn’t ready for marriage. I may never be ready for marriage. That didn’t mean I didn’t still love him. I just...”
“You just wanted him to hang around on the off-chance you might change your mind someday. Give him a little leeway on his leash, but not enough where you can’t yank him back when you need him at your beck and call.”
She frowned. “That wasn’t it at all. I wanted to take things slow.” Of all people, he should understand her hesitancy to dive headfirst into a marriage. He’d never remarried after his divorce from her mother. “‘I do’ and ‘happily ever after’ have never been synonymous in my family. So, maybe I wasn’t ready for an engagement ring and a fancy exchange of vows. Why couldn’t we have started getting more serious by moving in together first?”
Bertie leaned forward in his chair and folded his arms atop the desk. “Did you ever tell Jordan that’s what you wanted?”
Warmth flooded her face, and her throat tightened with regret. “He never gave me the chance. After I turned down his proposal, he immediately put up this wall between us. I knew he wouldn’t listen to anything I said that night. I figured we’d talk the next day. Instead, he held a press conference with Paris to announce he’d signed that damn contract. He could’ve waited, given me a chance to explain, let me make a counteroffer. He didn’t have to leave New York, leave the Vanguard, because I didn’t want to get married.”
“A counteroffer?” Bertie shook his head. “You talk about his proposal like it was a business deal. Love and business don’t mix, sweetheart. Take it from me. Besides, I don’t think the proposal and the trade were meant to happen in such quick succession. Or maybe he wanted you to come with him to Houston and figured a ring on your finger would get you to agree with less of a fight.”
“He knows I’d never leave New York,” she said with a snort. “Everyone and everything I love is here.”
“Then I don’t see how you can resent him for his choice.”
She gripped the edges of her desk until her knuckles whitened. “He should have stayed loyal!”
Bertie’s brow furrowed with lines of doubt. “To you? Or to the team? Look, Cam, forget about you and him for a second and think about where he was, professionally, at that precise moment. His career with the Vanguard was on the downhill side. You know that. He had, maybe, one good year left before we put Caceres into the starting position. Back then, the Privateers were a young team, and they needed a veteran to anchor their new, raw players. It was a perfect fit for Jordan and should have given him several more years with a major role on the field before he gracefully faded into retirement. Given the option, in his situation, I probably would have done the same thing.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “But you’re a Vanguard. Born and bred. Always.”
“I’m a football player. So was Jordan. Yeah, it’s nice to say you stayed with the same team from the day you were first drafted, but it rarely happens. I’m one of the very few lucky ones. I’ve lived the majority of my life as part of the Vanguard, and when I die, I plan to be buried on the fifty-yard line at the stadium so I can remain a part of the team into eternity.”
Cam shook her head, smiling at his nonsense. “Don’t say stuff like that, Bertie.
