Hard Sell (21 Wall Street #2)(51)

“If I sign with you . . .”

My pulse thrums with anticipation.

“Does that mean your bosses will get off your back about the Vegas shit?”

I manage to keep myself from tensing, but barely. “Sorry?”

He smiles. “Come on. You’re telling me they didn’t ride you hard about damaging company brand after getting caught with a hooker and coke?”

“It was a mediocre lap dance, and I don’t touch the hard stuff,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I believe you,” he says in a quiet, no-BS tone that tells me he means it. “But I also know that this business, hell, most businesses, run on reputation. You can’t tell me your bosses didn’t shit themselves in panic and threaten to send you to rehab.”

I lift my drink and say nothing.

He leans forward even more. “You didn’t go to rehab, but you did the next-best thing. You got yourself a gorgeous woman to stand by your side and dilute your playboy reputation.”

My eyes narrow in warning, and Lanham holds up his hands in a placating motion. “No judgment. I’d do the same thing. Hell, I have done the same thing. People love a good playboy, but they’ll turn on you just as fast if you take it too far. You’re smart to hitch your wagon to Sabrina’s.”

I maintain my silence, but he doesn’t let it drop.

“You guys serious?”

Again, I try to maintain my silence, but my irritation slips out. “Why all the interest?”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“Yeah,” I snap. “We’re serious.”

He studies me, then nods and resumes eating. “All right.”

“That’s not the answer you wanted, is it?” I say.

He shrugs. “Sabrina’s very compelling. But I don’t make moves on another man’s woman.”

I grit my teeth. Sabrina’s very compelling. Damn straight she is. And I don’t believe for one second that this billionaire wouldn’t make a move the moment the opportunity presented itself.

“So, are there wedding bells in your future?”

I resist the urge to grab his fork and stab him with it. “People can be committed without being married.”

Lanham lifts a shoulder.

“You don’t think so?” I ask, ignoring the fact that of all the conversations I’ve ever pictured having with Jarod Lanham, this isn’t one of them.

He sits back in his chair and looks at me. “Call me old-fashioned, but I like the idea of a man and woman committing to each other. One person. With vows.”

I’m careful to hide my surprise. The Jarod Lanham I’ve seen in tabloids hardly seems the marrying type. He’s had girlfriends, sure, but he’s had a lot of them. Back-to-back. Nothing about the guy has ever indicated he wants to settle down.

He gives a rueful smile. “You don’t agree?”

I shrug and keep my answer deliberately vague, since I barely know the guy. “Doesn’t matter if I do or not. It’s your life. You want to walk down the aisle and spend a fortune on a wedding, that’s your business.”

Lanham shakes his head. “It’s not about the wedding. It’s about what comes after. I don’t give a shit about being a fiancé, but I wouldn’t mind waking up to the same face every morning. Having someone to share my life with. A companion.”

The words are so familiar, I think for a moment I’m experiencing déjà vu, and then it hits me. I have had this conversation before, but not with Lanham. With Sabrina.

His thoughts on marriage mirror hers almost exactly.

The realization makes me want to punch something. Because of how compatible they are. Because she doesn’t actually belong to me . . .

“Sorry,” Lanham says, shaking his head. “You’re probably wondering why the hell I’m talking about my personal life instead of my portfolio.”

His statement jolts me back to the present, and I’m more than a little annoyed to discover that . . .

I hadn’t been wondering that.

Despite having spent most of my career prepping to get in front of someone with this guy’s money, I’m not nearly as excited as I thought I’d be. For some reason, it just doesn’t feel as important as I thought it would.

I hear myself going through my pitch with Lanham, discussing my strategy for his portfolio and reciting all the reasons why he’d be a fool not to sign with me, but all I can think is that this—my job—is no longer the most vital thing in my life.

The realization is terrifying.





24

SABRINA

Wednesday Evening, October 4

“If you tell me this is homemade, we can’t be friends anymore,” I say, scooping up a glob of delicious white cheese and plopping it onto toasted sourdough.

Lara snags an olive with one hand, refills our wineglasses with the other. “If by homemade, you mean did I open the container of burrata, put it on the plate, and put olive oil and salt on top? Yep, totally homemade. I also popped that bread right in the toaster, like a Food Network boss.”

“I freaking love burrata,” Kate says, happily chewing her own piece of bread. “And wine. And you guys.”

I give her a look out of the corner of my eye. “How much wine has she had?” I ask Lara good-naturedly.