Hot Asset_21 Wall Street

by Lauren Layne

  “Sounds wonderfully adult,” I say, smiling to soften the sarcasm.

  She laughs. “It keeps us entertained.”

  “What about Ian?”

  Sabrina blinks. “What about him?”

  “Does it bother him having two of his best friends at odds all the time?”

  “Possibly. He doesn’t hide the fact that we get on his nerves.” Then she frowns. “I guess I’ve never thought about if it really bothers him, though.” Sabrina tilts her head and studies me before continuing. “I’ve never thought about it, but it seems you have. You care about him.”

  I take a sip of wine and stay silent.

  She doesn’t. “Ian and I have never slept together.”

  I keep myself from choking on my wine. Barely. “I didn’t ask.”

  Her smile is sly. “But you’ve wondered.”

  Most definitely.

  “You two grew up together?” I ask, deciding to flip the tables. Ian’s oldest friend clearly has me under a microscope right now, wanting to know who or what I am to Ian. But the exchange of information can go both ways. And I’m more than a little curious as to Sabrina and Ian’s story.

  “We did. We looked out for each other.” She turns to watch the slowly setting sun. “Neither of us had a good run of it, but we had each other.”

  I want to know more, but it’s not my place to ask, so I take another sip of my wine.

  She turns to face me after a moment of silence. “He’s on good terms with his foster father—the last one, the decent one. But I think it still stings that Dave never adopted him.”

  I give her a wary look. “I don’t think he’d be overly fond of you sharing this with me.”

  “Oh, he totally wouldn’t,” she says with a quick laugh. “But that’s too damn bad. For both of you.”

  “What’s this have to do with me?”

  “Ian likes you,” she says, turning to face me full-on. “He likes you in a way I haven’t seen in . . . Actually, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him act like this.”

  “What, ignoring me altogether?” I say, nodding back toward the party.

  “What did you expect?” she asks. “You hurt him.”

  My heart squeezes a little. “How can I have hurt him? I don’t even know him.”

  “I think you do,” she says quietly.

  Before I can reply, the balcony door opens, and Kennedy Dawson and Matt Cannon step out to join us.

  Sabrina sighs. “Do you mind, boys? This is girl talk.”

  Matt drops an arm over her shoulder and nuzzles her ear. “You telling her about how you’re still trying to get over me?”

  “Well,” Sabrina says, using her nails to pick his hand off her shoulder as though it were a piece of trash, “I do definitely remember being over you. I’ve never been with someone quite so content to just lie there on his back.”

  Kennedy leans down slightly toward me. “Don’t worry, eventually you get used to them.”

  I smile, a little flustered at being surrounded by Ian’s inner circle. I’ve spoken with both Matt and Kennedy over the course of the investigation, but it’s always been formal to the point of borderline chilly. Not that they’re giving me warm fuzzies right now. In fact, all three of them are watching me. Not glaring, but I have the distinct sense that they’re trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here.

  I don’t blame them. This isn’t my scene—at all. Not only that, I’ve always made a point of separating my professional from my personal life, separating work from after work. Before this case, I’d never once blurred those lines. But as with everything having to do with Ian Bradley, I’m breaking my own rules. All of them.

  I hope it’s worth it.

  I let my gaze sweep around the balcony, making eye contact with all three of them to let them know that while I’m not the enemy, I’m not a pushover, either. “I’m here to talk to Ian.”

  “At his cocktail party,” Matt says dubiously.

  “Yes, well, if your friend hadn’t decided to play the game of avoid the SEC for three days straight, perhaps I wouldn’t have had to crash his party.”

  “It’s important?” Matt asks.

  I nod. “It is.”

  “You think he’s innocent.”

  This comes from Kennedy, and it’s not a question. It gives me a good indication of why he’s so good at what he does. Ian plays on wit and stubbornness, Matt on smiles and flattery, but Kennedy gets what he wants with quiet command and competence.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, let her talk to him,” Sabrina says, waving at the two men.

  “You say that like you’re not his lead guard dog most of the time,” Matt snaps.

  “She thinks he’s innocent,” Sabrina insists.

  “Actually,” I interject, “all she said was that she needs to speak to him.”

  Matt cuts me a quick glance with his blue eyes. They’re darker than Ian’s and usually friendlier, although I suspect that’s a deliberate effect. The man didn’t take Wall Street by storm in his early twenties just by being cute.

  Although he is that. Very.

  “All right, then,” Kennedy says, opening the door. “Matt, you’re up.”

  “On it.”

  Matt hands his cocktail glass to Sabrina, who accepts it with an eye roll, and then walks back into Ian’s living room.

  “All right, everyone, time to clear out,” he says in a commanding voice.

  The noisy chatter of a successful cocktail party falters slightly as they all look toward him, trying to assess if he’s serious.

  “You heard the man,” Sabrina says, sweeping into the room. “We’re taking this party elsewhere.”

  “How about your place, darlin’—party for two? Or three, I’m game.” A drunk, douchey-looking guy laughs as he says it, leering at Sabrina.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Ian step forward, his gaze ice-blue and murderous as he searches for the speaker.

  Sabrina lifts a hand to halt her friend, then slaps her other hand against Matt’s chest, who’s also stepped forward. “What’s your name, pet?” she purrs at the drunken guy.

  “Sean.”

  “Sean . . . ?”

  “Galen.”

  “Lovely to meet you,” Sabrina says with a warm smile. Then she claps her hands like a mom at a soccer party. “Okay, boys and girls, we’re moving this party to the Brandy Library. Drinks on Sean Galen. Be sure to get whatever you want; Sean’s feeling very generous tonight.”

  “Hey!” the man exclaims, just sober enough to realize what’s happening. “You can’t just—”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Sabrina puts a hand to her chest as though appalled by her faux pas. “Can you not afford it?”

  I press my lips together to stifle my laughter. It’s well played. The Brandy Library is a ridiculously expensive cocktail bar, with every top-shelf liquor a booze snob could dream of.

  The bill will be unthinkable.

  But not as unthinkable as a power player having to admit that he can’t pay.

  He swallows and forces a smile. “I got it. Everyone enjoy themselves. On me.”

  Sabrina gives him a condescending pat on the shoulder, and Kate buzzes around the room, plucking glasses out of hands and ushering everyone toward the door as Kennedy hands wads of cash to the servers and bartenders and sends them off as well.

  He catches my eye and winks.

  It all happens so fast, I barely register just how thoroughly the situation’s been handled until Kennedy and Kate pause in the doorway of the now empty apartment.

  Kate looks at Ian. “You good?”

  He only glares.

  Kennedy nods and puts his hand on Kate’s back, ushering her into the hallway. “Yeah, he’s good.”

  A moment later, the door closes.

  And then it’s just me, a bunch of empty glasses, and one very pissed-off-looking Ian Bradley.

  23

  IAN

  Week 4: Thursday Night

  “So. The SEC mak
es house calls now,” I say, turning away from Lara and walking toward the now deserted bar.

  Too irritated to make myself a proper cocktail, I pick up a bottle of open red and pour myself a glass.

  “What are you drinking?” I snap at Lara.

  “Pinot Grigio. But Ian, you don’t have to—”

  I’ve already pulled the bottle out of the ice bucket and am walking toward her. I top off her glass without looking at her. I can’t. Not yet. I’m too afraid she’ll see the real reason I’ve been avoiding her—the real reason I’m so damn mad at her.

  Because I want her.

  And my heart’s terrified she won’t want me back.

  “I didn’t come here for wine,” Lara says softly.

  I return the bottle to the bucket and pick up my glass of red. “No? What was the plan, then? Wait until everyone else drinks the wine in hopes they’d share some dirt on me?”

  She sets her glass on the coffee table and crosses her arms. “You’re angry with me. Why?”

  The question pisses me off, because . . . I’m not even really sure.

  I’m mad, yes, but I don’t know if it’s at her anymore. Mostly, I’m mad at myself for wanting a woman who could think even for a moment that I could be a criminal. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone, but she’s still not sure if I belong in jail.

  “Fine,” she snaps when I don’t answer. “Stew in silence. But I’m mad, too, Ian. You come to my apartment, you make me feel . . . and then you ignore that I exist—”

  I spin around. “So you decide to crash a party at my house?”

  “Kate invited me! It was the only chance I had, and I—”

  “Well it’s a chance you should have passed up. I have nothing to say to you.”

  Her eyes flicker with hurt, and I feel a stab of regret.

  But before I can apologize, the hurt’s replaced with anger again and she stalks toward me.

  “I wouldn’t have to chase you down after hours if you’d have made yourself available during the workday,” she says. “How many voice mails did I leave you? How many messages with Kate that you ignored? How many e-mails did I send?”

  I push her hand out of the way and step closer. “Oh, so sorry that I didn’t clear my schedule to tell you for the nine hundredth time that I’m innocent when you had no intention of believing me.”

  “Reverse the situations, Ian.”

  I snort, and she shoves my shoulder.

  “No, just shut up and listen. You played the imagine-if scenario the other night; now it’s my turn. Pretend that you’re an SEC agent, and your boss, whom you respect, who’s going to write you a letter of recommendation for your dream job, tells you there’s a reliable tip accusing an über-rich Wall Street investor of insider trading. As an SEC investigator for five-plus years, you know from experience that these tips are more often than not legit—you know that people really do cheat the system, and you get paid to find out the truth.

  “What would you do, Ian? The entire reason you’re so upset about this is because you take pride in your work and are insulted that someone would accuse you of cheating. Well, isn’t that what you’ve been asking me to do? Just blindly take your word for it because you’re charming?”

  My conscience takes her speech right in the balls. I hadn’t thought of it that way, and damn it, she’s right.

  My pride, however . . . the part of me that wants her to believe in me—no, needs her to believe in me . . .

  That guy’s the one who opens his mouth.

  “If you’ve got something to say to me, you can leave a message with Kate.”

  Her lips part in outraged shock, but she recovers quickly, sidestepping around me and putting a chair between us. “Fine. I’ll send an official memo to your office.”

  She stalks toward the side table where the lone purse remaining is hers, the same ugly brown one she carries with her everywhere. She snatches it up, shoves the straps over her shoulder as she heads to the front door, and wrenches open the door. But instead of marching through it and slamming it shut, she whirls back toward me, eyes blue and blazing behind her glasses.

  “You know, I thought I had it wrong. I thought that first day when you were a total dick on the sidewalk . . . I thought—hoped—that was a shield, an act you put on to play the Wall Street game and to hide the fact that beneath it all you’re actually a decent guy. But that wasn’t the act, was it? The act was the rest of the time when you played nice. The nice Ian’s the fake one.”

  The accusation stings, but I can’t bring myself to deny it. I’m not sure who the real Ian is anymore. Not when she’s around.

  “I already told you what I want,” I say quietly, turning away. “I want you to believe in me.”

  “Why the hell do you think I’m here, Ian? Why do you think I’m trying to chase you down? You tell me to let you know when the woman and the SEC believe you’re innocent, but then you don’t even give me the fucking chance.”

  I snap around, both at her temper and at the words themselves. “What?”

  She lifts her chin. “I’ve finished my investigation. I wrapped it up yesterday and wrote my report this afternoon.”

  I’m a fucking idiot.

  I’ve been so damn pissed at her for continuing the investigation after that kiss that I used all my willpower the past three days to avoid anything to do with her—seeing her, talking to her, letting myself care about her and want her.

  “I’m recommending they close your case,” she says quietly. “No formal investigation.”

  The roar in my ears dims to complete, eerie silence, and I’m certain that I’ve misheard her. “What?”

  She looks me in the eyes and lifts her chin with confidence. “There’s no evidence indicating you got a tip about J-Conn. I said as much in my report. I turn it in tomorrow.”

  I take a step closer. “What about your FBI recommendation letter? You don’t get it without the formal investigation, right?”

  This time she doesn’t meet my eyes. “Not your problem, Ian.”

  Lara steps into the hall and closes the door behind her, and for a long moment—too long a moment—I stand perfectly still, untouched wine in my hand.

  Like hell is this the way it ends.

  I set my glass on the counter and yank open the door. “Lara.”

  She’s in the elevator lobby, pushing the button, but I know she can hear me.

  “Damn it, McKenzie.” I walk toward her, cursing again when I hear the beep of the elevator arriving.

  The doors open, and she steps in.

  “Lara!” I run now, jamming my hand into the closing doors and hoping like hell my building’s elevator sensors are up to snuff.

  The doors open again, and I hold them back, glaring at her where she stands calmly. “What?”

  I punch the emergency stop on the elevator. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Her eyes start to fill, and I feel like an ass. I am an ass.

  She shakes her head, her chin trembling. “I can’t do this, Ian. I can’t play your games. I don’t know what to do when one day you want me, the next you’re angry with me and don’t.”

  “I’ve never stopped wanting you,” I growl, putting my hands on her face and gently wiping away the twin tears that escaped her eyes. “Yes, I’m angry. You think I want to want you? You think I relish the fact that the woman who’s occupied my every thought for the past month is the SEC? You think I like that this is the first time I’ve ever felt this way, but you—”

  Lara leans forward, setting her hands to my chest, and presses her mouth to mine.

  I groan in gratification, pulling her closer.

  I’ve kissed my fair share of women—more than my fair share. But I’ve never needed to kiss one like I do this woman, never felt like I’ll regret it the rest of my life if I don’t take my chance.

  My fingers wind around her ponytail.

  Mine.

  I want this frustrating, complex woman as my own.
r />   I nip her lip. Surrender.

  She does with a soft gasp, and I take shameless advantage, my tongue teasingly flitting across her bottom lip before slipping inside to deepen the kiss.

  Her kiss is shy at first. Her tongue tentative as it touches mine. Then her hands slide up from my wrists to tangle in my hair, and I lose all control.

  With a groan, I press her back against the elevator wall. The elevator is still on emergency stop and continues to beep at us in outraged warning, but I ignore it. Hell, I barely register it. There’s only us, her hands in my hair, my hands on her back, her hips.

  The kiss is breathless and frantic and so damn hot my fingers itch to slide beneath her skirt, find out if she’s wet and soft and wanting.

  Lara breaks away with a gasp. “Ian.”

  “Hmm.” My lips find her neck, loving her involuntary moan.

  She pushes at my shoulder. “Wait. Stop.”

  I go still and groan. “My two least favorite words.”

  Lara lets out a little laugh as she wiggles away, straightening her glasses and looking as dazed as I feel.

  I want to unravel her. I want to unravel with her. My hand reaches out again, but she steps farther away.

  “I . . . I need to slow down, just a little,” she says, running a shaky hand over her long ponytail. “I haven’t turned in my report yet. Officially I’m still investigating you.”

  I growl in frustration, even as I understand. Her job’s as important to her as mine is to me. I haven’t done a good job of supporting that, but I plan to start now.

  “When do you turn it in?” I ask.

  “I need to read it through once more, then I’ll send it to my boss tomorrow before noon.”

  “Perfect. Have lunch with me after.”

  She laughs. “Ian.”

  “Too soon? I can do dinner instead. I’m nothing if not flexible,” I say, letting a smile spread across my face.

  She bites her lip. “I don’t know if I can do this kind of thing as well as you do,” she says quietly. “Actually, I know I can’t.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Casual . . . sex. Flings.”

  It wouldn’t be casual. It wouldn’t be a fling.