“Hear me out. I know it’s yours and I don’t want you to lose real estate coming into this with me so, I will give you, as an engagement gift, the condo. Free and clear. It will be in your name and be your property. We can gut it, and you can do whatever you want to it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I know you wanted to get into the building before you purchased your apartment anyway. Now you will be in one of the best units in the building.”
“Samuel, I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
“Okay. Yes, thank you, baby.”
“You deserve it.”
* * *
I was welcomedback into the office with a round of applause from my staff. Gretchen sat with me for about two hours catching me up on all of the office things. Apparently, I’d missed one break up, one marriage, and one baby being born. I told her to send gifts for the baby and the marriage from the firm to which she replied that she already had. After catching up with Gretchen, I met with Xavier.
“It’s good to see you back in here,” he said taking a seat in front of my desk.
“It’s good to be back. Thank you again for holding things down while I was out. I rested well knowing you were handling things.”
“Thanks. The entire team did a great job.”
“I wanted to discuss a few things with you before we have the meeting with the department heads.”
He grabbed his notepad from the desk.
“Let’s do it.”
“When I took over the firm after Louis’ death, one of the things he wanted me to do was change the name to Valentine Law. I did that, and I followed his model for how the firm was run. I feel like I honored his request but now I want to change some things. First, I am going to establish Valentine Holdings which will be the umbrella corporation for the law firm, the investment group and my community projects that I will begin. I want to expand the borders of Valentine Law into more states; Alabama, Texas and North Carolina for starters. I will put office managers in each states who will fill the office with attorneys who share their specialty at first. Eventually, I want to staff each office with multiple specialties. I want to start with Texas, Houston specifically, and I wanted to know if you would want to head up that office there. You would be responsible for scouting out a location for the office, hiring contractors to do the work, hiring staff and running the day to day. I know your lady is there so that would give you the opportunity to be closer to her. Maybe the move will show her that you are willing to take steps for her.”
“I would be…”
“Wait before you answer. I’ve also decided that I am changing the law firm structure and will begin offering partnerships starting with my very first name partner, you. If you were to accept, the law firm would change from Valentine Law Group to Valentine and Belle Law Group.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“As three bullet holes in my body.”
His eyebrows scrunched together in a disapproving glare.
“What? Too early?”
“Yes, way too early,” he chuckled.
I handed him an envelope.
He opened it, scanned the offer letter then looked up at me.
“This is very generous.”
“You proved yourself a long time ago, so it’s time to step into the position. If you accept the offer, I will need your buy-in check-in ninety days, and then we will make the press release.”
“I accept.”
“Congratulations, partner.”
Xavier stood to his feet and offered his hand to shake. I stood from my desk, walked around and hugged him.