Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(49)

I want it all.

I’m in so much trouble over this woman.

“I’ll think about it.” She points to the elevator doors. “Out.”

Damn it. This is not how I saw this going. “But—”

“I’m going down to the lobby. You’re going back to your apartment.”

I’ve done enough deals with stubborn, reluctant investors to know when it’s time to pull back.

For now.

“All right,” I say with an easy smile.

I move toward the open doors, stopping when I’m even with her. Her breath catches, and though I want to devour her mouth all over again, I want to surprise her even more.

I brush my lips against her cheek, smiling when her sigh is half relief, half disappointment. Then I step back into the hallway, still facing her.

“Goodbye, Ian.”

“Good night, Lara. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s a promise. A guarantee that this isn’t over.

I see her swallow as she pushes the emergency stop button back in, and when we lock eyes before the doors close, I know she knows it.





24

LARA

Week 4: Friday Morning

I’m packing up the Wolfe conference room that’s served as my office for the past few weeks when Kate strolls in with two mugs.

She hands me one.

“Oh, thanks,” I say, taking it. “But I already have—”

I glance down at the contents. Not the coffee I was expecting.

I look up. “Orange juice?”

“With a splash of something bubbly.” She winks and clinks her mug with mine and takes a sip of her own clandestine mimosa.

I hesitate. Strictly speaking, it’s drinking on the job.

“Oh, come on,” she cajoles. “It’s a Friday and we’re celebrating. Plus, it’s your last day here. What are they going to do, fire you?”

I try to hide my wince at the reference to my employment status. Not that I’m worried about being fired—none of the SEC higher-ups are going to give a shit about a sip of champagne-laced orange juice. They’re never going to know about it.

But I am worried about the fallout of my report.

I sent it off this morning and haven’t heard anything. I tried calling Steve—three times. He hasn’t picked up. I don’t know if he’s just busy or . . .

If he’s pissed.

Which is stupid. I did my job. I looked at everything—e-mails, files, social media, Internet searches on the company computers. I turned over every rock I normally turn over and came up empty. There is zero proof Ian is guilty of insider trading. There’s no evidence. Nothing.

My weekly status reports have said this all along.

But while my ethics are firmly in place, my dreams are . . . hazy. I’ll get to the FBI someday, I know that. But I need a high-profile case to get there.

This wasn’t it, no matter how much Steve thought it would be.

For that, I’ve earned a sip of champagne. Besides, there’s OJ in there! Fruit serving, right?

“There you go,” Kate says when I take a drink.

She pokes through the cardboard box on the table. “It’s going to be weird without you here.”

“Good weird?”

“Well, everyone will be a lot less on edge without the SEC lurking, that’s for sure.”

“Par for the course,” I say, dropping my stapler into the box. “We don’t tend to make a lot of ‘work friends.’”

“What about within the SEC? Surely you’ve got some friends there.”

I shrug. “I’m friendly with everyone. But it’s not like here, where people come to the same office every day. We have a home base, but we’re on-site elsewhere more often than not. And even when I am in the office, it’s mostly married men who’ve got no interest in befriending a twentysomething woman.”

“Could be worse,” Kate points out. “There could be a bunch of married men who are interested in a little somethin’ somethin’ with a twentysomething woman.”

“True.”

“Have you seen Ian yet this morning?”

My mug stops halfway to my mouth, and I hope it hides my blush.

The way that man kisses . . .

Kate studies me. “You okay?”

A little hot-flashy, but yeah, fine.

“Yep!” It comes out too peppy, and Kate’s eyes narrow.

“What happened after we all left last night?”

“I told him about my report. He was relieved. I left.” After we made out in the elevator. Seriously, is the AC not working in here today?

Kate gives me a skeptical look. “You could have told him about the report in an e-mail.”

“Actually, I always tell the people I’m investigating my findings in person.”

It’s true. It’s not an SEC rule or anything. It’s not even necessarily recommended. But it’s a part of my own process. It feels like a human decency thing—whether I’m turning their life upside down or giving them their life back, it’s the sort of thing I feel I should look a person in the eyes and say, you know?

Of course, it’s never resulted in getting felt up before, not that his hands had wandered to any bikini areas. I’d just wished . . .