Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(22)

“I don’t drink bourbon,” I mutter.

“Negronis, then, whatever.”

I glance up in surprise that she knows my favorite drink.

She lifts her eyebrows. “I told you I’d do my homework. If we want to win this thing, I’m going to need to learn every little detail about you. I need to know every secret, every birthmark on your balls—”

I hold up my finger. “Don’t have one of those.” I’m pretty sure.

She taps a coral-painted nail against the legal pad. “Names, Ian. Write them down, and do it today. Time’s against us here. Their persistence makes me think they’re damn determined to turn this into a formal investigation, and if they do, our chances of winning get lopped off at the knees.”

I swallow, a lot less confident now than I was at the beginning of the meeting.

She stands and gives me a perfunctory nod. “I’ll be in touch,” she says, punching something on her phone.

I pick up a pen as Vanessa strolls out the door, phone already glued to her ear.

Pivoting my chair, I turn to take in the overcast afternoon, tapping my pen against the pad. I know I should be thinking about myself, trying to figure out who might be looking to take me down, but I can’t stop thinking about how Lara and I are quite possibly looking for the exact same thing: what the hell is tying me to J-Conn.

The irony is, I don’t have a fucking clue.

I’ve just started the process of naming all the jackasses on Wall Street when Matt enters my office without knocking.

“How’d it go with the lawyer?”

I glance up, grateful for the distraction. “The good news is she believes I’m innocent.”

“And the bad?”

I drop my pen and rub my hands through my hair. “The SEC still doesn’t.”

He grunts and drops into the chair across from me. “We’re still sure it’s J-Conn they’re sniffing after?”

I shrug. “Lara more or less confirmed it.”

His eyebrows go up. “Lara?”

“Ms. McKenzie. Whatever.” I wave my hand in the air. “We need to figure out who would lie to the SEC about me and why.”

Matt looks at the pad on my desk. “That your list?”

“Start of it. You got anyone?”

“Fuck the list. It’s a shot in the dark. If you want to know who contacted the SEC, you’ve got to go straight to the source.”

I shake my head. “I already tried that, remember? She won’t say shit.”

“That was last week. Try again.”

“What do you want me to do, interrogate her?”

“Whatever it takes, man. Your charm didn’t work before, so use your other ace up the sleeve.”

“I’m better with the ace in my pants.”

He rolls his eyes. “Keep it zipped. What I meant was wear her down. In everything else, you’re relentless about getting what you want, but you’re pulling your punches with her. Why?”

I glance down at the notepad. He’s right. I hate that he’s right. Hate even more that I don’t have an answer for him. Not one I’m ready to admit out loud, anyway.

“She’s not pulling her punches with you,” Matt says quietly. “She followed you the other day to get the information she wanted.”

“So?”

“So maybe it’s time she got a little taste of her own medicine.”





12

LARA

Week 2: Friday Night

My best friend has a lot of good qualities, quite a few useful skills.

Her matchmaking abilities?

Not among her virtues.

I pull my phone out of my purse and check the time again.

7:20.

Either my blind date is twenty minutes late or he’s standing me up.

And I suppose it says a lot about me that I can’t decide which is worse: the prospect of enduring a bad date or no date at all.

My love life’s not exactly what you’d call thriving. My longest relationship was last year, lasted five months, and ended with about as much excitement as it started, which isn’t saying much.

Let’s just say life as an SEC agent doesn’t seem to spark much chemistry on the romantic front. Even when I do manage to put work out of my mind, I think guys smell the workaholic on me.

Best I can tell, guys want the fun party girl or the soft, marriageable girl. I’m neither. I’m not sure I’m even the “hot career woman,” because even she is supposed to know how to relax at the end of the night, and, well . . . it’s not a skill I’ve mastered.

Most of the time I’m okay with that. I’ve learned that at this stage in my life, I can focus on my career or guys, but not both.

See: my dead orchids.

I cringe, still hating that I let Ian’s jab get to me the other day. They’re flowers, for God’s sake. It’s just . . . if I can’t keep a flower alive, how the heck am I supposed to figure out how to make a relationship work long-term?

A server approaches, and bless him for having perfected his nonjudgmental look as I sit alone at a table set for two. “Something from the bar while you wait?”

I smile, grateful that we’re both pretending this isn’t the second time he’s asked. “Yes, please.” Anything. “I’ll take a glass of white wine. Something fresh, not too sweet. Surprise me.”