Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(77)

21 Wall Street, Book Two Available Fall 2018

Editor’s Note: This is an early excerpt and may not reflect the finished book.





1

MATT

Monday Morning, September 18

“You’re an angel, and I love you,” I say with a reverence usually reserved for people in church.

My assistant lifts an eyebrow and holds out two aspirin. “Are you talking to me or the bagel sandwich?”

“Both,” I say around a bite, holding out my free hand for the pills.

Kate waits until I swallow the sandwich, then holds out a venti Starbucks coffee that I use to wash down the pills.

“How’d you know?” I ask, picking up the egg and Swiss on sesame bagel once more.

“That you were hungover as crap? I get your flight change notifications. Taking an unplanned Sunday red-eye from Vegas to New York after a bachelor party pretty much says it all.”

I wince. “Can we not say the word Vegas? Or bachelor party? And until further notice, all references to alcohol are hereby banned.”

She smirks. “It sucks getting old, huh?”

“I’m not old,” I say automatically. The very suggestion’s an affront. After all, I’m Matt Cannon, Wall Street’s legendary wunderkind.

And yeah, only douchebags would call themselves legendary, but in my case? It’s kind of true. I graduated from high school when I was sixteen, college when I was nineteen, and got hired on at Wolfe Investments before I could drink. Legally. Because . . . this is Wall Street. Alcohol’s as much a way of life as the money.

Whoops. I just remembered we’re not talking about alcohol. Not until the aspirin, caffeine, and this sandwich work their sweet magic on my booze-fueled headache.

Anyway, the point is I’m only twenty-eight. Not exactly a boy wonder anymore, but to be one of the Wolfes before thirty is brag-worthy, and . . .

Oh hell, who am I kidding?

I can’t drink like I could when I was twenty-two, and I am officially feeling the effects of the forty-eight-hour rager that was my big brother’s bachelor party.

“How are you feeling, really?” Kate asks, giving me a critical once-over.

Kate Henley’s one of those assistants who you guard more carefully than your wallet, Pappy Van Winkle, or bank account password.

Sure, she’s got the petite, pretty, doe-eyed look of a 1950s debutante, but she’s obscenely competent at her job. So competent, in fact, she works for not one demanding boss but three. A couple of years ago, I got promoted to director the same month as my two best friends and Wolfe colleagues, Ian Bradley and Kennedy Dawson. The promotion meant we each got our own assistant instead of sharing one. We couldn’t decide who got Kate, so she took on all three of us and does it twice as well as any of the other assistants who support only one investment broker.

I smile. “Better. Thanks. Headache’s already receding.”

“Good. Because the Sams want to see you.”

My smile disappears. “Now?” I check my Rolex. “It’s barely eight on Monday morning.”

“Yeah, well, this is Wall Street. Everyone’s day started four hours ago. Speaking of which, I’ve called you, like, ten times.”

I rub my forehead. “I lost my cell phone . . . somewhere. The Sams say what they wanted?”

“Nope,” she says, bending to pull something out of a garment bag. “But they came by my desk themselves instead of sending Carla, which is never good. Put this on.”

She hands me a skinny blue tie, and I obediently tug off the striped one I put on in the airport bathroom at baggage claim. At best it smells like the smoke of a Vegas casino. At worst . . .

The way Kate wrinkles her nose when she takes it tells me it’s in the unnamed “worse” category.

I put the fresh tie around my neck, but she holds up a finger and waves it in a circle. “Hmm. You’re worse off than I thought.” She holds up a white dress shirt. “Wardrobe change. Where the hell’d you sleep last night, a barroom floor?”

“Didn’t sleep at all,” I mutter, unbuttoning my shirt.

It sort of sums up my and Kate’s platonic relationship that I’m shirtless, but she doesn’t so much as look at the six-pack I’ve earned through long gym hours as she hands me the shirt. “One day you really are going to be too old for this, you know.”

“One day,” I say with a grin as I put on the fresh shirt. “Not today.”

A minute later, I’ve got a clean shirt, new tie, and feel slightly better as the aspirin and caffeine finally start to kick in.

“The guys in?” I ask, referring to Ian and Kennedy, as I straighten the knot of my tie. I don’t have a mirror, so I spread my arms for Kate to assess.

She gives me a once-over. “Good as we’re gonna get. Soon as you’re done with the meeting, you need a shower. And no, the guys aren’t in. Kennedy was grabbing an early coffee with a client, and Ian said he had an early meeting as well.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Early meeting, meaning . . . he got distracted by Lara in the shower?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Ian is rather disgustingly in love with his fiancée, Lara McKenzie. And while their level of infatuation is nauseating, there’s no woman I’d rather have lost my partner in playboy debauchery to than her. An agent with the white-collar division of the FBI, Lara’s smart, funny, and, best of all, tolerates exactly none of Ian’s bullshit, which is plentiful.