“I had a buyer pocketed for it,” she replied.
Low seven-figure properties were Rhea’s specialty. The traffic on such homes was a constant stream of available clients, provided they were priced accordingly. The differences between selling a three-million-dollar home and a thirty-million-dollar home were vast.
In Naples, three-million-dollar homes were the norm. They were typically sold within a week of being listed, often to a buyer who hadn’t even seen the property in person. The buyers for a thirty-million-dollar home were far more discriminative. They were versed on styles, finishes, types of appliances used, and location. They knew what they wanted, wouldn’t settle for less, and were willing to pay more than listing price for a home that met their long list of requirements.
Kate returned with Janine in tow. As they took their seats, I glared at Janine. “You haven’t fucked that guy, have you?”
She grinned. “Not yet.”
I fake-barfed. “If you do, I’ll vomit.”
“He’s worth over two hundred million,” she bragged.
“The fact that you’re using that as justification makes it even more disgusting.” I looked at Kate. “Evelyn is in Tampa, in training, right?”
“Until Friday.”
Evelyn was a part-time intern who assisted us in our endeavors. She aspired to become a real estate agent. For me to entertain using her as one, she needed to retain a mountain of knowledge regarding construction policies, standards, and practices. Merely having a license in the Southwest Florida market wasn’t enough to impress a knowledgeable buyer. One needed to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk.
I glanced around the table. It seemed empty. “I guess this is it?”
“Devin’s not here,” Kate said.
“Who?” I asked, although I knew perfectly well who she was speaking of.
She tilted her head toward the door. “The receptionist?”
The last thing I needed was to be drooling over the man I’d been daydreaming about. I rolled my eyes so heavily they ached. “I don’t know that we need him in here. Do we?”
“Seriously?” She looked at me like I was nuts. “He’s our first point of contact for new customers. Sixty percent of our buyers are first-time clients. If we’re having a strategic meeting, he needs to attend.”
Kate was right. She was always right. Second-in-command with the company, she was a wealth of information about Naples, the neighborhoods, the homes, and the often-fluctuating market. She retained information like a sponge held water. It didn’t diminish the fact that I’d likely make a fool of myself in his presence.
“Fine. Go get him,” I said with a wave of my hand. “What’s his name again?”
“Devin,” she said. “Devin Wallace.”
I opened the file on Margaret’s home. When Kate and the undeniably handsome receptionist returned, I lifted the home’s datasheets from the file. Intending to pay minimal attention to the tattooed distraction, I gazed at the file as I explained my dilemma.
“The home detailed on these sheets is an exclusive listing.” I blindly slid the sheets across the table. “Almost twelve thousand square feet, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms. It’s situated on Gordon Drive and has its own nearly two-hundred-foot-wide private section of sugar sand beach. The views from each bedroom—all of which face the gulf—are breathtaking. I’ll admit I’ve been a little lackluster on getting interested clients into the property.”
I let out a long sigh. I had no alternative but to lean on my team to assist me, or I was going to lose the listing.
My status in the industry would plummet.
I looked up. “To be honest,” I continued, “I find this home repulsive. It’s probably prevented me from investing the time and effort I should to get it sold within the conditions of the contract.” I alternated glances from one person to the next. “I need to make sure this piece of property is everyone’s priority for the next fifty-three days.” My gaze went from Kate to the last person at the table, Mister Sexy. “If it’s not sold, we’re going to lose the listing.”
I had every intention of looking away, but I couldn’t force myself to peel my eyes off him. Other than a drunken encounter that I barely recalled, the only contact I had with him was when I passed by his desk in a rush. Now that he was sitting within arm’s reach of me, I realized just how disgustingly handsome—and tattooed—he was. Wearing a powder-blue long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway up his tattooed forearms, he looked like he was posing for a cologne ad in a magazine.
I ogled him like he was up for auction.
The backs of his hands, entirely, were tattooed. One was covered by a lavender-colored flower and the other with a black-and-gray sugar skull. Various unidentifiable symbols covered the knuckles of each hand. The colorful tattoos continued up each forearm, disappearing beneath the cuffs of his shirt. I wondered where—and if—they stopped.
He studied the datasheet intently.
Mesmerized by his tattoos—and his honey-colored eyes—I gawked like he was a ten-car pileup of exotic cars on Highway 41.
He shifted his eyes from the folded paper to me. “They put hardwood in a Mediterranean home? Why?”
“Huh?” I muttered.
He glanced at the datasheet. “How many square feet of the home is hardwood?”
“Excuse me?”
“Hardwood,” he said. “How much hardwood…”
Beyond hardwood, I heard nothing. My mind made the phallic connection between Margaret’s flooring and what I suddenly recalled about the hard wood Devin was packing in his jeans on the day we met.
My pussy ached for him. I was sure everyone could see my discomfort. There was a reason I didn’t employ handsome men, and this was it.
I crossed my legs. “What does it matter?”
“Short of someone who wants a Mediterranean home with the warmth of a cave, no one is going to move into this home,” he explained. “If they can’t see themselves in it, convincing them to buy it is going to be impossible. It would be cost prohibitive to change the architecture, and it would be a nightmare to re-trim the place with lighter wood, but the flooring could be redone with something brighter and more inviting. That alone would change a potential buyer’s perception entirely.”
His ability to communicate astounded me. Nevertheless, he was out of his mind. The change would cost half a million dollars or more. “I can’t change the flooring. It would cost half a mil—”
“What would you lose in commission if this listing was pulled?”
The last time I revealed my income to a man, it ended disastrously. I mentally cocked my hip and peered down my nose at him. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“No?” His look hardened. “Do you want my help or not?”
“I want ideas and action on selling this property,” I snapped back. “I don’t need some tattooed biker who has no knowledge of—”
He shot a fuck you glare right at me.
He stood and leaned toward the center of the table. “If I didn’t have knowledge, I’d be listening, not speaking. I’ve worked here for eight days. I don’t expect you to respect me. Hell, you haven’t spoken to me more than twice in passing. But if you want me to be a member of this team, you’ll treat me in a respectful manner. If you don’t, or if you ever talk to me in that disrespectful tone again, I’ll walk out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”