Hard Sell (21 Wall Street)

by Lauren Layne

  I look away so she doesn’t see how much the simple statement means. I always knew the time would come when I’d lose my best friend to the love of his life. Well, not lose him . . . but you know how it is. It’s always hard on friendships when both people are single and then one of them enters into a serious relationship. Schedules change, patterns shift. It’s even trickier when it’s best friends of the opposite sex.

  And though technically things aren’t exactly as they were—he tells Lara things before he tells me—I’ve gained more than I’ve lost. Instead of losing a friend (Ian), I gained a new one (Lara). And it’s not just a token “play nice” sort of friendliness when the three of us are in the same room.

  Case in point? Tonight’s a girls-only night. Ian’s been banished to who knows where . . . probably to Matt’s or Kennedy’s. It’s just Lara, Kate, and me.

  And yup, that would be Kate Henley, Ian, Matt, and Kennedy’s assistant. Also known as one of my favorite people on the planet.

  The doorbell rings, and Lara holds up a finger. “Don’t think you’re off the hook. You’re not leaving tonight without giving us a full rundown on you and Matt.”

  She goes to the door and opens it for Kate, who’s got a baguette balanced across the serving dish in her hands. “Ugh, so sorry. Of course it’s the girl on appetizer duty who’s late. Are you guys starving?”

  I lift my glass. “Grapes.”

  “Perfect. I’ll take a fruit serving as well,” Kate says, marching into Lara and Ian’s kitchen like she owns it. “You need the oven for a few?” she asks Lara.

  “Nope.”

  Kate punches some buttons and sets the foil-covered baking dish inside the oven. “The artichoke dip needs fifteen minutes or so to heat. Sorry again about being late. I thought I had all the ingredients, but then I was out of salt of all things, so I had to make a last-minute store run—”

  “Stop apologizing,” I say, pouring a glass of wine for Kate and setting it beside the cutting board she’s pulled out to begin slicing bread. “Do you know what Lara’s news is? She wouldn’t tell me until you got here.”

  Kate practically drops the bread knife she’s just picked up. “News? What news?”

  I laugh at the surprised irritation on her face. “Whaaaaat? Is it possible there is crucial information that Kate Henley wasn’t the first to know?”

  As assistant to not one but three top Wolfe guys, Kate’s one of those people who’s always one step ahead of everyone.

  Everyone except Lara, apparently.

  “It’s my job to know stuff,” Kate says primly. “And you’re no slouch in the reconnaissance department, either.”

  I clink my glass to hers. “Too true. Because knowing stuff is also my job.”

  Not in the same way, of course. The type of information Kate gathers is information she’ll need to keep Kennedy, Matt, and Ian out of trouble and doing their job. The information I deal in is the kind you lock in safety deposit boxes while making a half dozen thumb-drive backups.

  “Hey, knowing stuff is my job, too!” Lara chimes in. “Do you think that’s why we’ve all become friends?”

  “No,” Kate says pragmatically, resuming her cutting. “Because you entered our circle thinking that Ian was guilty of insider trading. That went well.”

  Lara points her spoon at Kate in warning. “My job was to investigate if he was guilty.”

  “Old news. I demand a subject change,” I command, going back to my barstool perch.

  “Oh, FBI Lady over there knows I’ve long forgiven her,” Kate says, blowing Lara a kiss. “I mean if Ian can sleep with the woman who almost put him in jail, I can have dinner with her.”

  Lara rolls her eyes but smiles as she sets her wooden spoon aside. “Okay, active prep’s done. The sauce just needs to simmer for a while.”

  “What are we having?” Kate asks.

  “Sautéed chicken breast with some sort of mushroom sauce,” Lara says, waving at a cookbook. “My mother swears it’s foolproof, and since she’s not exactly Martha Stewart, I trust her.”

  “Lucky,” Kate says, shoving a piece of bread in her mouth. “My mom makes Julia Child look like a slacker. Homemade everything. I thought she was going to disown me when she learned I didn’t make my own chicken stock.”

  Lara glances at me over the top of her wineglass and opens her mouth, then shuts it again and looks away.

  I swallow, because I know she was about to include me in the mom conversation but thought better of it. I’m not sure what Ian’s told her about my history, but none of it would be good. And though my first instinct is to stay silent, to keep that shit locked in the vault, I find a rare urge to share.

  To let someone in just a tiny bit.

  I take a sip of my wine for courage. “My mom once handed me a ten-dollar bill and told me it was food money for my two half brothers and me. I thought she meant while she went out that night. She came back four days later.”

  Kate and Lara both stare at me for a moment, then Kate shakes her head. “Damn. You win.”

  I let out a relieved laugh that I don’t have to deflect any pity, just good old-fashioned that-sucks sentiment. Because it had sucked. “I totally win.”

  “Did she ever get her act together?” Lara asks, leaning on the counter as Kate checks her dip in the oven.

  I shrug as a way of evading. “I left when I was nineteen, as soon as my half brothers were under custody of relatives on their father’s side. The few times that we talk on the phone, she invariably hangs up on me.”

  Lara’s blue eyes flash in anger. “Her loss.”

  I look down at my wine, then back at Kate. “Is it hot yet?”

  “Nearly,” Kate says, shoving the rack back in the oven. “How about we go to the living room and hear Lara’s news?”

  I know what she’s doing, and I give her a grateful look. It was hard enough to even mention my mom. I definitely don’t want to get into a big old thing about it.

  Kate gives a quick nod in acknowledgment, her dark-brown eyes conveying understanding.

  Kate and I are just about as different as can be. My eyes are blue to her brown. I’m five seven; she’s five one. We’ve both got brown hair, but she wears hers in a blunt shoulder-length cut, frequently pushed back with a slim headband. Mine is halfway down my back, and its tousled style requires thirty minutes with two different-sized curling irons every morning.

  She had a modest, conservative upbringing in southern New Jersey with a kindergarten-teacher mom and a mathematician dad. I grew up in Philly’s worst neighborhood with a mother who most of the time was so drunk she didn’t even remember she was a mother. She was certainly never a mom. My father? Dead of an overdose before my first birthday.

  The rest of my mom’s men were hardly the “father figure” variety. I learned that the first time one of her boyfriends bought me a bikini from Kmart in January and suggested I try it on for him. I’d said no, and my mom had screamed at me. I was thirteen.

  But backgrounds aside, Kate and I both grew up into the same type of person. Strong, smart, and completely unwilling to buy into the idea that our lives would somehow be more complete with a man in it.

  That said, I’m pretty damn sure Kate Henley’s hopelessly in love with Kennedy Dawson. Not that he knows it.

  I’m not even sure she knows it.

  “Sabrina, can you grab some champagne flutes?” Lara says, gesturing toward a cabinet. “I know we still have some white, but we’ll just have to double-fist for a while.”

  “Don’t have to twist my arm,” Kate says, going into the living room and flopping onto the couch. “Man, I love this view.”

  “Isn’t it about the same as your view from the office?” Lara asks, pulling the champagne from the fridge and joining Kate in the living room.

  Kate snorts. “Yeah. Because my seven a.m. to seven p.m. nonstop schedule really allows for admiring the office view.”

  “Well, you’re welcome here anytime,” Lara says.

  �
�You hear that, Sabrina?” Kate says with a playful grin at me as I walk toward them. “We can come watch Lara and Ian be disgustingly in love anytime!”

  “Hey!” Lara exclaims.

  “Oh, come on, honey,” I say gently, setting the glasses on the table in front of us. “It is a little like every day is Valentine’s Day around here.”

  “I know,” Lara says with a happy sigh. “Maybe after the wedding it’ll stop feeling like a fairy tale.”

  “I doubt it,” Kate says. “I’ve seen the way Ian looks at you. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  Hmm. Was that the tiniest trace of longing I heard in Kate’s voice?

  Or worse . . . was it my own heart giving a quick squeeze at the thought of having someone care about me—for me—the way that Ian loves Lara?

  “Okay, so what’s your news? I want that champagne already!” I say, beyond ready to be done with the sentimental part of our girls’ night.

  “Well, we can’t open it yet,” Lara says, taking a breath. “See, I hope my news is good, but I won’t really know until I hear your responses.”

  “Get to it already,” Kate demands.

  Lara balances the Dom Pérignon bottle on her knees, rolling it slightly between her palms, and I realize she’s nervous.

  “Okay, so you guys know Gabby,” she says on a rush.

  “Padilla, Gabby. Your best friend, former roomie. Model. Lives in Paris with her boyfriend,” Kate recites automatically.

  “Yes, thank you,” Lara says in an amused voice. “Anyway, Gabby’s agreed to be my maid of honor, and I’m thrilled. But I’m also a little bummed, because other than the bachelorette party, my bridal shower, and the actual wedding, I know it’ll be hard for her to make it back here for stuff. I know I haven’t known you two long, but . . .” Lara takes a deep breath. “You’re some of Ian’s closest friends, you’ve become my closest friends in the city, and I’d love it, really love it, if you’d be bridesmaids.”

  There’s a long moment of silence as Kate and I sit there slightly stunned.

  Kate recovers faster than I do. “Hell yes,” she says, her face breaking out into a huge grin. “I’d be honored. I’ll even wear an ugly bridesmaid dress, because that’s what friends do. Now open that champagne and let’s talk venue, because I’ve got a whole list of reception locations. Have you considered a boat? Because a chartered yacht could really—”

  “Whoa, hold up,” Lara says with a laugh. “We’ve barely decided on the date!”

  I notice she doesn’t look at me, and I appreciate it. Somehow, she knows that I need a minute, because . . .

  Damn it. Damn it.

  It takes me a second to even register what’s happening, because I’m so not a crier, but . . . yup. There are definitely tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

  “Yes,” I blurt out. “Absolutely.”

  Lara’s expression erupts into a happy smile, but Kate’s look is downright puzzled. “Sabrina, are you—”

  “Shut up,” I say with a laugh, dabbing at my eyes. “And Lara, you’re lucky you’ve become one of my closest friends, too, otherwise I’d never forgive you for ruining my makeup.”

  Lara’s response is the pop of the champagne cork. “Now we can enjoy this.”

  “So where do we start with the planning?” I say, accepting the flute she hands me.

  “Oh, who cares about that right now?” Lara says, lifting her glass in a toast. “I’m the bride-to-be; I get to decide what we talk about. And right now, I want to toast to the possibility that Matt and Sabrina are finally on the verge of coming to grips with their thing.”

  My head snaps up in surprise. Whoa, hey. How the heck did this become about me?

  “I’ll drink to that. The sexual tension between those two has been suffocating me for years,” Kate says, lifting her glass. “Sabrina? Ready to spill your guts?”

  “No,” I grumble. But then I stand and lift my glass to theirs anyway.

  I don’t believe in love—but I do believe in friendship.

  And these girls right here are as good as it gets.

  13

  MATT

  Tuesday Midday, September 26

  “Jacket on, Cannon, let’s go.”

  I’m not sure how long it takes my brain to register the interruption. I’ve been told it’s a full minute until I shift from Calculator Matt to Human Matt.

  It’s always been that way, though luckily my colleagues at Wolfe Investments are a good deal more understanding than the jerks in fourth grade who’d been less than impressed by my early ability to do complex equations.

  I don’t need to do math in my head as much anymore—my job’s more about intuition and research than it is actual number crunching. But it still feels like there are two parts of my brain at work when I review a portfolio: the part that’s processing the trends, the word on the street, that particular client’s financial goals, and the computer part, as I use to think of it, that can’t see a set of numbers without processing them endlessly.

  My assistant’s used to my process more than most, so after barking her initial order to get my jacket, she remains still, waiting for Human Me to catch up.

  “What?” I finally say.

  She points at the suit jacket I’ve hung on the back of my chair. “Put that on.”

  Other than glancing at the clock, I don’t move. Unless I’ve got an in-person meeting, I don’t wear my suit jacket in the office. And my sleeves are rolled up to my elbows more often than not. I like to be comfortable when I work. Or as comfortable as I can be in a career where suit-and-tie’s basically an official uniform.

  “You have a lunch appointment.”

  I frown. Admittedly I’m awful at managing my calendar, but I’m at least adept at reading the damn thing. And there was no lunch meeting when I checked it that morning.

  “It’s just a conference call with—”

  “Nope, I rescheduled that,” Kate says.

  I narrow my eyes, because though I trust my assistant implicitly, rarely does she change my schedule without telling me first. It means something’s up.

  She glances over her shoulder, then goes to close the door before returning to my desk and sitting in the chair across from me.

  “The Sams have lunch at Nobu today.”

  “So?” I can’t imagine why I would possibly care that Wolfe’s CEOs are having sushi for lunch.

  “They’re not going alone. Jarod Lanham is joining them.”

  That gets my attention. Jarod Lanham is one of the world’s most famous billionaires. American by birth, he’s been a resident of Monaco for the past decade or so. The man’s only thirty-six, but already rumors of his net worth hover in the nine-billion range.

  In other words, exactly the client Wolfe and every other company on Wall Street would kill to have. Not just because of the sheer amount of money, but his relative youth means that it could be both a profitable relationship and a long-standing one.

  I want him. Everyone wants him, but I really want him on my list. I’ve been following him for years, impressed by his investments, his ability to steadily amass wealth even as he dominates the social scene in every country he visits.

  In other words, Jarod Lanham is me but on the other side of the accounts. A fellow “boy wonder,” so to speak.

  Kate knows my obsession. So do The Sams.

  “They didn’t invite me,” I mutter, standing and unrolling my shirtsleeves. Even after Sabrina saved the brunch situation on Sunday, they’ve been keeping their distance.

  “Can you blame them?” she says. “You’re persona non grata around here. They already have an uphill battle to impress Lanham with Ian’s scandal being so fresh.”

  I nod. I understand, even though it sucks. This should be a pivot point in my career, and instead of having the opportunity to convince Lanham I’m his guy, I’m sitting idly by while everyone mistakenly assumes I spend my weekends cock-deep in cocaine and hookers.

  “I got you a table,” she says
as I button the sleeves. “And I think I sweet-talked the hostess into getting you into the same part of the dining room as The Sams, but she couldn’t promise anything.”

  “She sound like the bribing type?” I ask with a grin. Movie cliché as it may seem, slipping a hundred or more to a maître d’ is hardly unheard of around this part of town.

  “No, she sounded young and flirty.”

  My grin widens. “Say no more.”

  Kate sighs impatiently. “Matt. That was your old reputation. If you go around flirting with a nineteen-year-old hostess, you’ll confirm what everyone thinks of you. Which would be an especially awful idea today.”

  Something in her tone gives me pause. “Why especially today?”

  Kate smiles smugly. “I called Sabrina.”

  I freeze in the process of reaching for my jacket. “What?”

  “This is what you’re paying her for. We need people to think you’re dating her seriously, but more important, we need the right people to think that. The whole reason you’re doing this is to convince people like Jarod Lanham that you’re stable and trustworthy. You need her there.”

  I groan.

  Kate tilts her head. “Why are you so resistant? Isn’t this the plan?”

  I shove my hand through the sleeve of my jacket with less care than the expensive garment deserves. “I’m not resistant.”

  Kate crosses her arms. “Yes, you are. Spill.”

  “We’re not talking about this,” I mutter, heading toward the door.

  Hell, I don’t even want to think about this. I don’t want to think about the fact that my stomach knotted at the thought of seeing Sabrina, not because of hate, not even because of want, but because after last weekend . . .

  I worry I could start to enjoy her. Enjoy us.

  To an extent I’ve always enjoyed what we have—the bickering, the sex. Definitely the sex.

  But this past weekend, even around the frustration and exhaustion, there was something else there. Potential. Potential that the two of us share something deeper.

  Sure, she wants me dead. And there were a handful of times I’d have happily strangled her. But counterintuitively, there was a strange easiness between us, too. Almost as though our mutual wariness of the other person and romantic entanglements frees us up to be our true selves. With each other.