Christie didn’t question my appetite, and neither did she turn her scolding into a full lecture. The conversation turned to classes and our personal goals. Well, her personal goals. I mostly listened, with half of my mind on the pregnancy test in my bathroom garbage can. I had no idea what I’d be doing tomorrow, how could I prepare for the next eight months?
How could I prepare for the next eighteen years or more of raising this baby?
Maybe I really am like my dad…
2
Quinton
If anyone came into the firm dressed like I was, I’d fire them in an instant. Do as I say, not as I do. After all, I worked my way up to this position. I had earned the right to relax and be casual. Let all these interns and kids with only two, five, even ten years under their belt pull off the sort of miracles I had and maybe they too would someday earn the honor of wearing a Hawaiian shirt to work.
I strolled into the office after taking my time outside, flirting with the hot guitar-slinging omega at the corner, and breathed a sigh of relief at the cool air blowing on the back of my neck. New York City had two seasons: hell, and hell frozen over, and it was already turning into a hellish day despite the fact that the sun hadn’t been up for more than a couple hours. Thank god I wasn’t in a suit. I’d be drenched in sweat.
Maybe I should instigate some sort of rule where you can dress lighter if it gets over 90 degrees…
Being a senior member of the board and the best stockbroker at the firm, the powers-that-be would be inclined to listen.
I smiled to myself. Nah. These kids needed to learn that you had to suffer for your work so you could pour that frustration right back into the job. A vicious cycle, but a profitable one.
“Good morning, Mr. Wall.”
I nodded at the receptionist behind the front desk and headed up the stairs, peeking through the open doorways I passed by to make sure everyone was working as they should be -or at least doing a passable job of pretending. At the top landing, I turned and went down a long hallway lined with tasteful, inoffensive beach paintings until I arrived at my office. Janet, my secretary, watched me from behind her desk with her usual expression of mixed disapproval and fondness. Our personal relationship was fantastic, although our working partnership could be better; she came from a traditional secretarial school and, since being hired by me, she’d suffered through watching me break every single rule and code she was taught to abide by and respect.
“Good morning, Quinton,” she said, smiling a little and shaking her head.
“Morning, Janet,” I replied. I flashed a smile back at her, tilting my head in a way I knew was too endearing to resist.
The tense line of her shoulders relaxed, her smile becoming easier.
Bingo.
“What’s the damage today?” I asked. I picked up a fake wooden apple from her desk and rolled it back and forth between my hands.
“You’re 20 minutes late and you’ve already missed four phone calls. And your client’s been here since the firm opened and he isn’t pleased about the wait.”
“That’d be his fault for getting here so damn early.” I sighed. “On a scale of one to ten?”
“He’s about a seven.”
A seven. Sevens were tricky. A seven could escalate into fury with little provocation, or they could be coaxed down into more manageable territory. I’d have to play this game carefully or else risk losing the client, if I even wanted him in the first place. It was my experience that an early bird was too concerned with getting the worm to listen to advice on how he could acquire more through patience and skill.
Well, we would see.
Janet held out a file. “He brought this, as per your request. It’s the list of all his recent investment transactions.”
“Oh, thank you. How does it look?”
“Like a bunch of numbers, Quinton.” Janet rolled her eyes at me. She was in a good mood today.
I pretended to bow and held up the file. “Thank you for your invaluable input. I’ll head on in. As soon as this client leaves, send me the information about the calls I’ve missed and I’ll get to them before the next one shows up.”
“Of course. Good luck.”
Why I insisted on showing up late to everything, making life more difficult for myself, I had no idea. It just made the repetitive day-to-day routine easier to bear when there were challenges to tackle.
I walked up to my office door and squared my shoulders, lifting my chin. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The client swiveled around in his chair and, upon seeing me, his eyes sparked with anger and he stood up and came over to me with quick, rapid steps that reminded me of a chicken. “Is this the sort of treatment I can expect while working with you, Mr. Wall?” he demanded. He held up one hand, the gesture an impatient flick. “Do you have any idea who I am? And what are you wearing?”
This is going to be a fun one.
I recognized a self-important alpha when I saw one -it takes one to know one- and pressed my lips together to hide my smirk. This initial encounter meant nothing to me. I wanted to see whether or not he could be reasoned with from here.
I grabbed his hand between both of mine and shook it, throwing him off-guard. He blinked and looked down at his trapped hand; while he was distracted, I took the opportunity to look him over.
Mason Daniels, age 35, tall and broad-shouldered with the sort of strong, rugged features that would have women and omegas falling for him with just a look. Square jaw, strong chin, a fashionable amount of stubble covering regal cheekbones. Unlike myself, he wore a suit and it was quite the expensive suit at that, fine black material that hugged his shoulders and hips.
I dropped his hand, satisfied with what I’d observed. He knew his own worth and he’d be an aggressive, impressive addition to the world of stocks, a world which often grew bloated and stagnant from an influx of people who had no idea what they were doing. If I could get him to work with me, I had no doubt he would become a favorite client simply by virtue of how eager he would be to meet up and make decisions together.
Mason looked up and I watched as he gave me a once-over of his own in a far more obvious manner than I’d studied him. He frowned and narrowed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. Clearly, the sight of me displeased him and it couldn’t entirely be chalked up to the fact that we were both alpha males. I’d done background checks on him and knew the illustrious family he came from, the life he’d lived up until now, and he was clearly a man instilled with old-fashioned values. He was the kind of man who would redo his tie ten times until it lay at the perfect length and angle, and who would measure secretaries’ skirts to ensure they weren’t a centimeter too indecent.
That I wore a Hawaiian shirt with pineapples on it, and chinos that hadn’t even been ironed, was getting his blood up. His face flushed, his forehead the color of a tomato.
“I apologize for any inconvenience, Mr. Daniels.” No use asking if I could call him by his first name. He’d burst a blood vessel. “I’m sure you know how difficult it can be to stick to a strict schedule.”
Mason sniffed and turned his head, dismissing my attempt at camaraderie. I could have laughed. What a stuffy bird of a man, fluffing up his own feathers like that. “It isn’t difficult if you do it right. And I’m wondering how you managed to get to a position like this, Mr. Walls, as you don’t seem to be doing it right at all.”
Definitely a stickler for the rules. I couldn’t help it. I smiled, and hoped he wouldn’t take it as the pure expression of amusement it really was. “Mr. Daniels, what is ‘right?’ I’m sure working with me will be unlike anything you have ever experienced before. I hope you can handle it, because, if I decide to take you on as a client, you will be privy to daring techniques and secrets more than two decades in the making. Change is good. That’s how I got here, to the position I occupy today.”
The man looked even more flustered than when I’d grabbed his hand out of the air. I�
��d just given him a challenge and now he wanted to take it despite his initial misgivings. He might even be second-guessing his first impression of me at this point. And that, that was exactly what I wanted.
I walked around him and held out my arms, gesturing not just to my office, but to the entire building, and the view of the city outside the massive wall of glass masquerading as a window behind my desk. “You looked at me and you saw an incompetent man. My opponents think the same. Oh, but do they think the same. They never know what hits them until it’s too late.” I grinned at Mason. “So, are you going to walk out and miss out on this chance, or should we move on to looking over your finances? I do still have to see if you’d be a match for the type of clientele I accept.”
Mason stared at me, his lips twitching. I watched, filled with a glow of satisfaction as the corner of his mouth quirked up. He fought for another few seconds and then the smile won out, a roguish grin James Bond would have been proud of.
“You are one hell of an interesting man, Mr. Wall. I like it. Get ‘em to underestimate you and sneak the prize right out from under their noses? Shit, I like it. I like it a lot.” Mason grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in before and sat down. “Let’s talk business.”
“That’s more like it.”
I took a seat behind my desk. Sunlight blasted through the window, magnified by the glass. I felt like an ant under a magnifying glass and was sure I’d start to smell smoke at any moment. I had a remote control on my desk that controlled all the office lights and the window curtains, but I knew better than to use it right now. Presentation was everything. The juxtaposition of my casual attire and the fantastic view, a clear marker of hard work and constant success, could only work if there was an actual view to be seen.
Resigning myself to suffer, I opened the file given to me by Janet and started to discuss his financials. There were certain aspects regarding his expenses, and his money in general, I needed to look for; after all, it was pointless to waste time getting involved with a client who had a history of losing, or going into debt.
Mason Daniels checked out. As far as I could tell from the information he’d given me to examine, he had never made a bad deal in his life. Money out the ears, clients of his own all across the state, and a near-miraculous record of lucky breaks.
Basically, he was too good to be true. That was another thing to watch out for and it was not a good thing. Financials like this should not exist. You had to spend money to make money, but Mason Daniels seemed to be hoovering it up out of nowhere like a vacuum sucking change out from under sofa cushions. Either the man could tell the future, or he had fudged this info, or he was doing something shady.
My money was on the last option. There were business practices which weren’t necessarily illegal, but which involved chasing loopholes and taking advantages that were best not taken. The end result was never worth the risk of failure because those kinds of practices had to be balanced exactly right. A single shift in operation could bring the entire structure down.
If that happened, Mason would be fine, due to his familial connections. I, on the other hand, would take the brunt of the fall for dealing with him in the first place with all these warning signs.
Screw his multi-million-dollar account. Screw the excitement he’d bring to my job. I wasn’t falling for it.
As professionally as I could, I lay all of this out on the table for Mason to see. He was a five, maybe even a four, on the Pissed-Off Scale at the start of our discussion and he agreed readily to everything I said. He was smart enough not to elaborate on what he was doing, although I already knew so his silence wasn’t as much of a shield as he wanted it to be.
As the conversation went on and Mason realized I was telling him why I wouldn’t take him on as a client, his face turned red again and he slapped his hands down on top of the desk. “Are you serious? You convince me to stay and now you’re rejecting me? What the hell is with you? The stocks are ripe for playing!”
“Well, you’ll have to find someone else to work with.” I pressed my lips together, a shadow of disappointment passing over my conviction. “I hate to say that, I really do, but my reputation would be on the line. And that is a line I refuse to cross. I apologize, Mason.”
Mason jumped to his feet, his cheeks practically on fire. He grabbed for his file, missed, and snatched it up on the second try. The file opened as he lifted it and papers dropped out, scattering all over the desk and the floor.
“Oh, forget this!” he snapped, and threw the empty folder at me. Like a terrible paper airplane, the folder flipped in the air and fluttered uselessly to the carpet a mere foot away. “Screw you. You fast-talking trash broker. I can’t believe you talked me into staying. This was a waste of my time.”
I felt bad for him. I really did. We could have done some amazing things together. He’d gotten his hopes about it and now he was embarrassed, ashamed of himself for letting his guard down for, gasp, someone like me.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. If you want to come back in the future after you’ve legitimized your finances…”
Mason kicked his chair and then stormed out of the room, swearing under his breath. His stomping footsteps echoed back to my office for quite a ways until he reached the elevator and sulked inside.
“That was unnecessary,” I sighed, and went to pick up the chair. It was a solid, hand-fashioned piece of oak and the abuse inflicted upon it by Mason Daniels hadn’t left a dent or a scratch. Once his anger ran its course, he’d probably find himself in possession of a very painful stubbed toe. He might even try to sue me.
Well, at least that would make things interesting.
A rustling sound brought my attention to the doorway, where Janet stood peering in at me. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, dandy. The client’s gone now, so you can start telling me what four calls I need to make.”
“Oh, is he?” she asked sarcastically. “I hadn’t noticed. And it’s five calls now, Quinton.”
I chuckled. “Five calls, then. Let’s get those taken care of before my next meeting.”
“Really, Quinton.” Janet shook her head and came into the office, crouching down to pick up the scattered papers from Mason’s file. “Sometimes I feel like I’m working at a zoo and not a brokerage.”
“I feel the same way. But, you know, zookeepers tend to develop an understanding of the animals. They learn to read the signals and trust their instincts. That’s all I’m doing here, trusting my gut. I’ve never been wrong before.”
“What about all those stories you hear about keepers getting attacked anyway?”
I accepted the papers she handed me and stuck them in Mason’s folder. “See, that’s what makes it a metaphor. When you apply logic to it, it doesn’t work anymore.”
She laughed softly. “Maybe you’d be better off finding a new metaphor.”
“Maybe,” I mused.
She left the office, shutting the door behind her. I dropped Mason’s file in the shredder and took up my perch behind my desk again. I pressed the button on the remote control to close the curtains and watched as shadows swept across the office from opposite directions. The temperature dropped what felt like ten degrees in an instant. Sighing in relief, I turned on my computer to find messages from Janet about the calls I needed to make.
I put the morning’s disappointing first meeting out of mind, knowing it didn’t do anyone any good to dwell on the past, and got to work. I made it through three of the calls before my next meeting, and managed to finish up after that. I had a few more to make by then, naturally. A broker’s work was never done, as constant updates came in about the progress of stocks and other investments.
Janet came in around lunchtime to tell me she was heading on her break. I shooed her away and finished up the current call. Then, I was alone.
I sat back in my chair and knitted my fingers together across my stomach, looking up at the ceiling and my fancy, expensive ceiling fan. In the silence, I felt at peac
e, knowing I had accomplished much already. At the same time, a squirming little worm of doubt wriggled around in the back of my mind, pushing through to the front and creating a dark hole in the center of my mood.
I spend a lot of time alone.
I had no partner, no obligations outside of work. Life had been good to me, easier than it could have been, so there was nothing to drag at me or hold me down. No debt, no partner, no kids. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whoever I wanted. It could get a little lonely at times like this though, on the rare occasions when I found myself without anything to do. Not that I regretted the choices I made or the position I had in life. I’d do it all over again if I had to, and I wouldn’t make any different choices. I just wished that I didn’t always have to search for things to do or go out of my way to make challenges for myself to keep life interesting.
My heart twisted in my chest, a soft ache that came out of nowhere and startled me. I didn’t have anything to be sad about, dammit.
The ache didn’t go away. I sat up straighter in my chair and reached for the computer mouse, jiggling it to wake the screen. I flipped tabs, from work to my email, mentally crossing my fingers in the hope there would be something there to take my mind off the inexplicable pangs of loneliness. Feeling that way made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with the sense that something wasn’t right, and I didn’t like that. I trusted my gut and if my gut was telling me I’d gone wrong somewhere, despite trying my very best…
I pushed back against the terrible dread, the bitter cloud of poison that poured from the dark tunnel in my mind. Leaning forward, I studied my inbox.
The first emails I saw were confirmation letters for the tickets I’d bought, to an upcoming opera and a ballet. I hardly remembered buying those tickets. All the purchases I’d made in my life blurred together, since I had enough money not to have to worry about what effect this impulse buy or that ego-stroking purchase would have on my life.
Now that I had them, I’d need to find someone to take with me. I always went to events with friends or a lover. Going by myself was simply not an option. I genuinely enjoyed spoiling everyone around me, and not just because it made up for some of the hardships I put them through with my unusual business tactics.
Sweet Success: East Coast Sugar Daddies: Book 2 Page 2