Hot Asset (21 Wall Street #1)(78)

“Okay, let’s do this,” I mutter, taking one last bite of sandwich and a gulp of coffee. “Scale of one to ten, how intense were the Sams when they came by?”

“Eight,” she says as we walk toward the elevators. “Here.” Kate hands me a piece of gum as she punches the “Up” button.

I dutifully chew it until the elevator arrives, then spit it back into the wrapper so I’m not chomping gum like a sixteen-year-old cashier at the Gap when I meet with the CEOs of the company.

Kate holds out her hand, but I shake my head and step into the elevator. “I don’t pay you enough to throw out my already-chewed gum.”

“You don’t pay me enough for any of this,” she calls after me as the elevator doors close, separating us.

It’s a short ride to the top floor of the building. Can’t say I spend much time up here, thank God. It’s not that I mind the bosses—or my boss’s bosses in this case—I just tend to prefer drinking one vodka martini too many with them at the company holiday party.

Getting called up on a Monday morning when I’m hungover as hell? Not so much.

Carla, the CEOs’ longtime assistant, gives me a smile that’s friendly but a little sympathetic as well. That’s not good. Either I look worse than I feel or she knows something I don’t about what awaits me.

“Hey, Carla. Are they waiting for me?”

“Ohhh yes,” she says with a low, nervous laugh. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Any hints?” I ask.

She blinks. “You read the paper today?”

“Uh, no. Not yet. Which one? The Times? The Journal?”

She sighs. “Oh honey . . .”

My heart beats a little faster because Carla’s as unflappable as they come, and she looks . . . nervous.

I’m about to press her for more information when I hear my name. I glance up to see Sam Wolfe Jr. standing in the doorway of his office.

“Come on in, Matt.” Shit. If Carla looks worried, Sam looks about thirty seconds away from an apoplexy.

“Sure thing,” I say, forcing an easy grin as I amble into the small conference room where the other Sam is sitting at the end of the table.

Samuel and Samantha Wolfe, known as the Sams, are Wall Street’s ultimate power couple. Sam inherited Wolfe Investments from his father around the same time that he married Samantha, a Wall Street powerhouse in her own right.

Neither smiles as I come in and greet them.

“Have a seat,” Samantha says, gesturing at one of the available chairs.

I do as instructed, taking in the newspaper in front of her as I sit. I can see that it’s the Wall Street Journal but not much else. I certainly can’t figure out what the Financial District’s favorite newspaper has to do with me personally.

Samantha takes charge, getting right down to business. “I assume you’ve read this.” She sets a manicured hand on the paper.

“Ah, no. Not yet.”

Sam’s eyebrows go up, somewhere between disapproving and surprised. The WSJ’s required reading around here. I read it—I do. I just . . . Well, damn it. It’s not even nine o’clock. I haven’t gotten to it yet.

Samantha lets out a long sigh as she opens the paper, turns to the second page, and refolds it before sliding it toward me.

Still baffled, I reach out and pull the paper toward me, my eyes going straight to the photo. My stomach drops as I recognize the man in the picture.

Me.

And not just me. Me and a scantily clad woman draped across my lap, my hands on her bare waist.

The memories are hazy. This was Saturday night. Or was it Friday? The photo’s in black and white, but the woman was blonde, the bra was red. Or was it pink? It was late by the time we got to that particular strip club, I remember that.

I drag my eyes away from the photo to the headline:

Have the Wolfes of Wall Street gone too far?

My stomach churns. I’m used to the Wolfes of Wall Street moniker—it’s all any of us at Wolfe Investments heard after the Leonardo DiCaprio movie came out. But seeing it in print alongside my face in the Wall Street Journal of all places . . . this isn’t good.

“You must have heard about it,” Sam says, his voice a low, disapproving rumble.

“No.” I resist the urge to run a hand over my neck, to see if I’m sweating. “I was on a red-eye.” And lost my phone somewhere in the weekend’s debauchery.

Sam grunts, then exchanges a long look with his wife. In my hungover state, I’m not at the top of my game, but I know that look doesn’t mean good things.

Samantha’s the one to give it to me straight. “You can read the full article later, but I’ll give you the highlights: You stumbled into the same club as a WSJ reporter who was covering a story in Vegas. He was sober. You were not. You were seen tucking hundreds into G-strings, dropping thousands on a single round of expensive whiskey, and that wasn’t even your last stop of the evening. He followed you to three other clubs, where members of your party unabashedly partook in illegal substances.”

My head snaps up. “I don’t touch drugs. Booze, that’s it.”

“Booze and women,” Sam says with a pointed look at the paper.

“Lap dances aren’t illegal. Neither’s vodka or whiskey.”