Hard Sell (21 Wall Street #2)(61)

It was weird, but also surprisingly freeing.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve simply let myself be present in a moment, any moment. There’s something entirely too vulnerable about being alone with your thoughts, with no Facebook distraction, no incoming email, no matter how inconsequential.

There’s something even more vulnerable about being alone with your thoughts . . . and your worst enemy.

Except he’s not.

And if I’m honest, he hasn’t been for a long time.

Hell, to be completely honest, I don’t know that he was ever my worst enemy, so much as my biggest threat. The person who I sensed, even from the very beginning, could destroy me.

What I didn’t see until recently was how the person with the power to destroy you can also be the one to lift you up. The one who can make you live like you’ve never lived before. The one who shines light into dark, infiltrates color into blandness.

The person who can take someone who’s perfectly content and make her . . . happy.

The person who can make me happy.

Which, I’m sad to say, I didn’t even know was possible. I’ve gotten so damn used to thinking anything better than hungry and angry was the good life.

Ian’s always made me feel safe, in a big-brother kind of way. I thought that was as good as it gets. These past couple of weeks with Matt have changed that. Hell, these past four years with him have changed it. The way he makes me feel has always made me want to run.

But not anymore. Now I want to . . . stay.

I just wish I knew what comes next. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never fallen for someone, much less someone who’s every bit as relationship averse as I am.

Matt, oblivious to my thoughts, pulls my cell phone out of his back pocket and gives it an enticing waggle. “Hmm?”

I bite my lip. I really do want that cell phone. I take his phone out of my bag and hold it up. “Call it a draw?”

“Done,” he says in relief.

We swap phones, and I pour us each a sparkling water as I wait for my iPhone to start back up again after being powered off.

“So, here’s a question,” Matt says, accepting the glass I hold out. “You make a decent living, and I’ve seen firsthand you’re damn good at your job. But what does your work look like on an average day?”

“Depends on whether or not I’m on an active project. When I sign a contract, that person’s my priority. But assuming they don’t need me 24-7, I generally keep my ear to the ground, stay in touch with my contacts. Coffee dates, lunch dates, whatever. As I approach the end of a project, I’ll start figuring out what’s next.”

“How do you bring in new business?” he asks curiously.

I give a sly smile. “I don’t. It finds me. Truth be told, I have more requests than I can possibly take on. I get to pick and choose what I work on.”

He smiles. “Lucky for me I caught you at a slow time, then.”

I take another sip of my drink and look away, not quite ready to tell him that there’s no such thing as a slow time for me. That when he’d asked for my help, I had nearly a dozen other opportunities, some that would have gladly paid triple what he’s paying for my assistance.

Instead, I’d taken on Matt’s job. Not because the money was the best, not even because his case was the most interesting. But because it was Matt.

And he’d needed me.

Do I regret it? No.

I just wish I could do it over again, this time not falling in love with the man. But maybe that’s not possible. Maybe I’ve been headed down this path with him since that very first night.

It doesn’t matter, I suppose. How I got here isn’t important. What does matter is that the feeling isn’t going away anytime soon, and I need to decide what the heck I plan to do about it.

It’s rare that I don’t feel completely in control, and I don’t like it. At all.

“So what is next?” Matt asks, leaning on my counter. I see that his phone’s already rebooted, but his attention’s still on me. As though what I have to say is important.

“Well, the gala’s more than a week away, so officially, I’m still on your payroll,” I say.

“And after the gala?”

“I’ve got my pick.” I twist the glass on the counter. “I’ve got an invitation to spend a couple weeks playing companion to a ridiculously wealthy eighty-year-old in Florence whose son thinks she’s got a bad habit of getting engaged to fortune hunters. There’s a lotto winner from Jersey who wants me to wrangle an invitation for his daughter to meet a prince. Any prince. A midtown lawyer wants me to play flavor of the week to make an ex-girlfriend jealous.”

“No,” Matt says. “Not that last one.”

I smile at the note of jealousy in his voice. “Does it make a difference if the lawyer’s a woman?”

He opens his mouth but hesitates. Then shakes his head. “I still vote no. Though I realize I don’t have any claim on your time past the gala.”

You could. All you’d have to do is ask.

But I don’t have the guts to tell him, and he doesn’t have the guts to ask.

Or worse, maybe he doesn’t even want to.

I bite my lip, wondering if I should remind him of Jarod Lanham’s interest in my services. I decide against it. If Jarod does decide to hire me, and if I decide to take him on as a client, he deserves the same privacy I give all my clients.