Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(26)

“Well, specifically, I want to be in their white-collar division. They work closely with the SEC, so there’s a lot of overlap.”

“Then why transition at all?”

She bites her lip, then looks up. “My parents are FBI.”

“Both of them?” I ask, not able to hide my surprise.

“Yep. I was born and raised in DC. They both still live there, both still active in the bureau.”

Damn. “I bet you had zero boyfriends growing up.”

Her head snaps back a little, and I realize I’ve struck a nerve. Shit. I’m usually smoother than this.

“I just meant that had to be intimidating,” I clarify. “Every kid picking up a girl for prom secretly fears her dad’s got a gun. Both your parents had one.”

She looks at me over the top of her glass. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Go to prom.”

It’s her turn to strike a nerve, my turn to flinch. “No. But then, you probably already knew that.”

“I didn’t, actually. My research into your past is limited to details that might be pertinent to the case—relatives at J-Conn, etc.”

“So you know that I don’t have any relatives,” I say, taking a healthy swallow of wine.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” she says quietly.

“Eh. I was young. I don’t remember them much.”

“Which makes losing them in a car accident that much more tragic,” she says, leaning forward.

“Is this the good-cop portion of your routine?”

She sits back and gives me a look. “Nice, Mr. Bradley. Being a jerk is a solid, mature way to deal with your pain.”

I bite the inside of my cheek, hating that she’s right. Caustic humor’s my knee-jerk reaction to references to my childhood—both my parents’ deaths and the aimless foster-kid stigma that followed.

“I asked a girl to prom,” I say. “She said yes; her parents said no.”

Shit. Why had I gone and done that? I haven’t told anyone that . . . ever.

“Why’d they say no?”

A sarcastic deflection nearly rolls off my tongue, but I bite it back, feeling the strangest urge to be . . . open. Honest. I want Lara to know me like I want to know her.

So I give it to her straight, if a bit brief. “Even for the rough neighborhood I grew up in, I was still on the wrong side of the tracks. Nice girls didn’t go to dances with foster kids from the trailer park.” I force a smile. “But look at me now and all that.”

She smiles back, but it’s a faint one, and her watchful gaze makes me think she sees something that nobody else sees—not even Sabrina.

“I got stood up tonight,” she says after a long moment of silence.

“I know.”

She winces. “Did you know the whole time?”

“I put the pieces together. He’s a fool.”

“Nah.” She gives another of those slight smiles and finishes the last of her wine. “Just a baseball fan.”

“Mets or Yankees?”

“Yankees.”

“There you go,” I say, spreading my hands. “You’re better off without him.”

“You’re a Mets fan?”

“What, that wasn’t in my file?” I tease.

“Lots of things weren’t in your file.”

“Such as?”

She hesitates. “The woman I saw you with at lunch . . .”

“Sabrina Cross, friend from Philly.”

“You guys are . . . close?”

I lean toward her with a slow smile. “Is that professional curiosity at work there, Ms. McKenzie, or something else?”

Her only response is to open her menu and glance down at it, which is the most telling answer of all.

Obviously I’m not the only one warring with a forbidden, unwanted attraction here.

I’m torn between regret and relief, because she’s SEC, I’m Wall Street—we’re about as compatible as a wolf and a lamb.

Though, for the life of me, I’m not sure who’s who in this scenario.





14

LARA

Week 3: Friday Morning

I’m going half-blind reading boring-ass e-mails when an enormous Frappuccino appears in front of my nose.

I have to look from the frothy Starbucks drink to the person delivering it twice before I register that she’s brought it for me.

Kate drops into the chair on the opposite side of the conference room table, taking a sip of her own drink. “It’s a peace offering, Ms. McKenzie.”

“That or diabetes in a plastic cup,” I say, picking it up and pointing at the mound of whipped cream. “Are those chocolate shavings?”

“They are indeed. And don’t pretend you don’t want it. Ian let the cat out of the bag.”

My head snaps up, not entirely sure I want to know what Ian told his assistant. On the one hand, I hope it’s nothing so I can maintain some semblance of professionalism. On the other hand, I want to know if he’s as off-balance after our dinner last week as I am.

“About the coffee?” Kate prompts, giving me a curious look. “He said he brought you one a few weeks ago?”