Boom. The notion of possibly contracting an STD felt like a grenade exploding in my face, and it brought me to my knees with a mixture of fear and disgust.
“Doc, you alright?”
“AHHH!! Why didn’t I think of that sooner? Oh. My. God! I slept with that man while he was fucking your ex. What if he contracted something and then gave it to me!? Oh my god, I need to get tested! I was so preoccupied with getting my revenge that I didn’t realize I might have a fucking STD because of them!” I sprang to my feet and grabbed my purse, intent on running out.
“Whoa! Doc, calm down. Freaking out isn’t going to solve your problems. In any case, if you go to some random clinic to get tested, I highly doubt your results would come back fast enough. Come with me, I have a friend who works as a disease specialist, and he could get you instant results.”
“Oh, okay, thank you, Mr—”
“Leon. Please, just call me Leon.” His piercing gaze was so unsettling that my hands automatically began fidgeting in my lap. Why was it so difficult for me to say his name? “Doc, come on. It can’t be that hard to say my name, right?” he insisted, as if he had just read my mind.
“I …”
“How about if we both drop the titles and just use our names with each other, hm? I’ll go first. Annika.” Holy shit! I don’t think my name ever sounded so sensual until it came out of that man’s mouth.
“Le … Leon.” I stuttered and immediately averted my eyes. What was it about this man that made me so self-conscious? He was only a business partner—albeit an insanely good-looking business partner who was tall, fit, tattooed, tanned, and had a fantastic jawline, physique, and ass. God, why do I keep circling back to his ass?
“See. Not that hard, right?” Leon teased while pinching my chin, prompting me to look up at him, and it was only then I realized his eyes were light gray. Good grief, why hadn’t I noticed this before? This only added to his overall sex appeal, and I couldn’t help but fall victim to my desire. My insides were practically melting! Why couldn’t I have married him instead? Kenzie was right. Sadie Galloway is a fucking idiot for giving up this Adonis sex god for that good-for-nothing, needle-dick bastard, Jeff.
“No, not hard. It’s just … I’m not used to calling people by their first names right away. You can ask Kenzie and Hunter. It took me a solid six months to address Hunter on a first name basis instead of his surname when Kenzie and he first got married. Honestly, even now, after knowing them for so many years, I still refer to Hunter as Counselor Malloy.”
“That’s fine. I guess you’ll have to keep saying it until you get used to it, right?” Leon asked playfully. Was he … flirting with me? “Come on. Let’s go see my buddy, and then how about we get some dinner to celebrate our newfound partnership?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Mr. … I mean, Leon. What if Jeff tries to turn this around on me and uses it against me in the end? I can’t lose to him. Not again.”
“He can’t do anything to me, and he knows that. Besides, I doubt he would be stupid enough to use the same trick twice. Not to mention, our relationship differs from his and Sadie’s because it’s not like we’re having an affair. What we have is a business partnership. If Jeffrey does try to pin this on you for whatever reason, we’ll tell him that you’re searching for a bigger office space for your practice. After all, Land and Mall is growing, and I doubt that tiny space you currently have will last long,” he argued with a wry smile etched on his face.
“My practice is not tiny!” I exclaimed, taking offense to his comment. “I’ll have you know that—”
“I know you bought it with your own money. I’m not trying to offend you, Annika. I’m trying to give you a way out. You already know who I am, what I deal with when it comes to business, and how successful I am. I’m sure you already know that my wealth is comparable to yours.” I gulped because it was clear he could read my mind. Sure, I did some research on his name and found his background. Unlike him, my family hid mine for my safety. His was completely open to the public, and even his divorce was public information. Kenzie and I were stupefied when we saw how much he was worth and how successful his commercial real estate businesses were.
“You’re right. With your background in commercial real estate and my being a business owner, it would be easy to dupe Jeffrey.”
“I’ll have my assistant draw up a contract just in case. We’ll both sign it in about another week while Jorge gathers more evidence for us and delivers it to Hunter. We’ll even have it notarized, and we can go looking for office spaces in larger plaza buildings to legitimize it further. Or, we can even look into finding space in different states. Since my business is nationwide, we can use the pretense of you looking to expand your practice to another city or state. There’s nothing unusual about it, as all business owners do this.”
“Well, you definitely have your wits about you, Mr. … Dammit. Leon. Sorry, I’m trying,” I grumbled.
“It’s alright. Just try harder,” he said and patted the top of my head. Instinctively, I swatted at him, and I could tell he was mortified by what had just happened. “Sorry, Doc. That was uncalled for. I don’t know why—”
“Just don’t do it again. Remember, this is a business partnership, nothing more,” I cut him off and spoke rather harshly. I immediately noticed his eyes faltered before he agreed and led me out. Did I just hurt his feelings?