Hard Sell (21 Wall Street)

by Lauren Layne

  Kate pushes a strand of straight dark hair behind her ear, but it promptly falls forward again, quietly stubborn, much like the head it belongs to. “I’ll clarify. Ian and Matt are different inside the office. You’re more of the same.”

  “Yeah?” He takes a sip of wine and watches her. “Explain.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Explain,” he repeats.

  “See, this is exactly what I mean,” Kate says testily. “You’re bossy in the office, bossy outside the office . . .”

  “And you’re not?”

  “It’s my job to be bossy. Someone has to make sure you guys keep your pants zipped up so you don’t go thinking with your . . .” Kate gestures in the vicinity of Kennedy’s crotch, and Lara chokes into her wine.

  Kennedy’s eyebrows lift. “Wasn’t aware that my”—he, too, gestures to his crotch—“was any of my assistant’s business.”

  Her cheeks color slightly. “It’s not. Obviously. Neither is Ian’s or Matt’s. But while we’re on the subject . . .”

  Kate gives me a sly look, and I give her a mental salute of respect for the skillful change of subject. Still, I can respect her without playing along. “Not open for discussion.”

  “Oh, come on,” Lara says. “What the heck is going on with you guys? You’ve been in the same general area for nearly half an hour, and there hasn’t been a single fight.”

  “Well, one of them’s been on the balcony, the other in the kitchen,” Kennedy points out. “It’d be hard to fight across that distance, even for them.”

  “Shush,” Lara says. “Don’t ruin this for me. I want the scoop.”

  “You already know the scoop.” I take a sip of my Chardonnay. “We have an arrangement. I play his doting girlfriend when needed and make the world believe he’s done with his partying ways.”

  “I think it’s working,” Kate says. “Your morning coffee dates have all the women around the office talking. The general vibe is disappointment that Matt’s off the market, not skepticism that it’s a ploy.”

  “Ian and I ran into an old colleague of the guys’ at dinner the other night,” Lara chimes in. “His wife was sweet but a total gossip hound, and she was relentless about finding out if a ring’s in your future after they saw you ‘making love eyes’ across the table at each other.”

  I wince. “Damn. We might be doing our job a little too well.”

  “Or maybe not,” Kennedy says with his usual storm-cloud touch. “Jarod Lanham’s not buying it.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Rumor has it he’s very interested in whatever you and Matt have going on.”

  I freeze. What?

  Frantically, my brain goes back to Jarod’s and my conversation at the bar that first night. Had I slipped up somehow? Inadvertently let him on to our ruse . . . ?

  Kennedy freezes midsip, looking atypically nonplussed. “Matt didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what? And don’t say nothing,” I say, lifting a finger in warning.

  “You’re just like Kate when you’re pissed.” Kennedy sighs. “Matt and Lanham had lunch on Monday. Matt said he was fishing for info on your relationship. I thought you knew.”

  No, I didn’t know.

  I’ve barely talked to Matt after our marathon sex weekend. Apparently when I’m not needed for sex or fake relationships, he has no use for me.

  Lara pushes the cheese board toward me. “Eat this, sweetie.”

  “And have a sip of this,” Kate says, picking up my wineglass and holding it up to my mouth.

  I let out a little laugh. “I’m not mad.”

  “You look a little mad,” Kennedy says into his glass.

  “No, I’m just . . .”

  Hurt.

  “Concerned,” I finish. “I can’t do my job if Matt doesn’t give me all the information.”

  “I will say, his schedule’s been crazy,” Kate says kindly. “He’s barely had a free minute between meetings.”

  The balcony door opens, and the sound of male laughter fills the air as Ian and Matt step back into the living room.

  I’m already off the barstool, wineglass in hand, as I stomp toward them.

  Ian gives me a wide-eyed look. “Don’t hurt me.”

  I ignore him and, putting a palm on Matt’s chest, push him back onto the balcony. “You and me, outside.”

  Matt gives me a slightly amused look. “Can I at least get another drink first?”

  My only response to that is to shut the door on the rest of the group so it’s just the two of us, forty-something stories above Manhattan.

  Too late, I realize my mistake. It’s cold out here. The guys all came from work, and their suit jackets are enough to protect them from the worst of the fall air. My thin blouse? Not so much.

  “Why do you look ready to cut someone?” Matt asks, shrugging out of his jacket and handing it to me.

  I ignore the jacket. “Did you meet with Jarod Lanham on Monday?”

  He goes still for a moment, then steps toward me, wrapping his coat around my shoulders when I make no effort to take it myself. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was getting around to it,” he says simply.

  I pull his coat closer around me. “But you told Kennedy first.”

  Matt tilts his head curiously. “Sure. I work with the guys. I see them all day, every day.”

  “Yeah, but we’re . . .”

  He steps closer, starting to grin, even as his gaze grows sharper. “We’re what?”

  I blow out an irritated breath. “We’re . . . colleagues. Of a sort. Not like you and the guys, but—”

  He dips his head and kisses me. Not like he wants to shut me up, not like he’s trying to win an argument, but because he wants to.

  I stubbornly keep my lips closed, my stance stiff, but he’s just as stubborn. His lips brush over mine, gently but insistently, his hands slipping inside his jacket to rest on my waist.

  Matt’s kiss is all the more compelling for its tenderness, his touch more convincing for its patience. His tongue gently touches the center of my bottom lip, and I relent with a sigh, opening my mouth to his, lifting my arms to wrap around his neck.

  His jacket slips off, but neither of us notices. He wraps his arms all the way around me, tilting his head, and I forget all about the autumn chill, Jarod Lanham, even our friends just on the other side of the glass doors.

  My eyes fly open. Glass doors . . .

  I pull back and whip my head around. Sure enough, all four of our friends are watching us unabashedly. Lara and Kate are grinning outright. Even crusty Kennedy seems amused.

  But my eyes lock with Ian’s. The guy’s my best friend, and I know him well enough to know when he’s concerned.

  About me?

  Or for Matt?

  I want to tell him that he doesn’t need to worry. That even though we’re full-on playing with fire, we won’t get burned. Our hearts are damn near inflammable.

  I feel Matt’s right hand move and glance down to see him giving our friends the finger. A laugh bubbles out of me, and I’m surprised at how girlish and happy it sounds.

  Our friends laugh and take the hint, moving away from the windowed door. Most of them do, anyway. Ian lingers a bit longer, his smile tight until Lara whispers something in his ear that makes him smile for real.

  Matt brings my attention back to him, setting a palm to the side of my cheek. “About my lunch with Lanham . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t know.” His brow furrows. “I got the feeling he was more interested than he should be in the status of our relationship.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  He gives a slight smile. “Turns out I might be the jealous type.”

  “Even when it’s just a fake girlfriend?” I say, keeping my voice teasing to hide my thrill at the thought of Matt being possessive. Of me.

  “Apparently,” he murmurs before taking a deep breath. “I need to as
k another favor.”

  I smile. “If it’s dinner with your parents again, you better have some more flowers.”

  He blows out a breath. “It might be worse. It’s about Lanham. And our . . . arrangement.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “He’s close to signing,” Matt says, sounding more indifferent than I’d have expected. “I wasn’t sure, because our meeting on Monday seemed more like a battle of wills than anything else. But The Sams called me into their office today and said that he’s narrowed it down to me and a senior director from Schmitt and Sons.”

  “Damn,” I mutter. “Schmitt’s the best in the business.”

  He gives me a look, and I pat his chest reassuringly. “Besides Wolfe, of course.”

  “The Sams are more intent than ever that I don’t mess this up for them, especially after they found out that the Schmitt guys pulled out all the stops with a trip to Newport last weekend.”

  “Who’s the broker?” I ask.

  “Jeff Goldberg.”

  I groan.

  Let me put it this way: Jeff Goldberg’s the type of man who will never need my services. He’d never need reputation repair, a fake girlfriend, help burying secrets, legal representation, nothing.

  The guy married his childhood sweetheart. Not high school sweetheart. Childhood. They met in first grade. They have five kids, all prep-school darlings. An enormous apartment overlooking Central Park. A freaking Golden Retriever.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Matt says with a laugh. “But you see why my bosses are freaking out.”

  “What do you need?”

  “The Sams have a place in the Hamptons. Five bedrooms, right on the water. It’s off-season. They invited us to join them, along with Lanham and a guest, for a weekend getaway.”

  “Part of your redemption plan?”

  “Probably.”

  “You think it’ll help?”

  He sighs. “I don’t know. It can’t hurt. I’d like to think things are getting better, but I can tell some of my more conservative clients are still jumpy. And The Sams definitely are.”

  The agony on his face is real, and I know that the reality of his Vegas shenanigans is hitting him harder than ever. And though some deep instinct tells me I’m likely to regret it, I hear myself agreeing to the trip.

  He closes his eyes in relief. “Thank you. You good to leave Friday morning?”

  “Sure. Are we taking your car?”

  “Yeah, I thought we could get up there first, get settled into our domestic-bliss mode for the weekend. Everyone else is coming later.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see if Kate can stay with Juno.”

  Matt shrugs. “Bring her.”

  “I can’t bring a dog to your bosses’ place in the Hamptons!”

  “Why not? She’ll love the beach. She’s house-trained. And nothing says ‘settled down’ like a dog.”

  “True.” The thought of a weekend getaway with Matt and Juno is admittedly appealing. “So, which version of ‘settled down’ are we going for this weekend? Same as we’ve been doing, acting delightfully smitten with each other? Or are we going for broke and selling it hard, dropping lots of ‘we’ as it relates to our future and talking about ring shopping?”

  Matt’s wince is subtle. So subtle that if I hadn’t been watching for it, I might have missed it. But I was watching for it.

  Given what I know, I was fully expecting words like future and ring shopping to be the thing to send a guy like Matt Cannon running for the hills.

  What I’m not expecting is how much his flinch stings.

  “Let’s see how it goes,” he says. “I’m guessing some hand-holding and pet names will be enough to convince everyone that I’ve given up my lap-dance ways.”

  “Okay.” My tone is agreeable, but his eyes narrow on me slightly.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I—” I bite my lip, knowing I need to tread carefully.

  The truth is, something feels off. Jarod Lanham seems more interested in Matt and my relationship, as well as my skills as a potential matchmaker, than he does hiring Matt as his broker. Even more perplexing, Matt doesn’t seem to care nearly as much as he should, considering the opinion of people like Jarod is the reason Matt and I started this charade in the first place.

  As for me . . . I do care. I care about all of this. A little too much.

  He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “This whole thing has gotten rather fucked, hasn’t it?”

  I laugh, not so much with mirth but with dismay that he seems to be reading my thoughts. “It’ll work out,” I say, smiling to help sell what feels like a lie.

  If I can’t get my weird feelings and this strange sense of doom under control, it won’t work out at all.

  He looks away without saying anything, and after a too-long silence, I touch his arm. “You want Jarod Lanham as a client, don’t you?”

  He hesitates only a moment before nodding. “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s play our part and get you your man.” I keep my voice light and start to turn away.

  He grabs my wrist. “Sabrina, are you going with me because of the contract?”

  “Are you asking me to go because of the contract?” I counter.

  The door opens, and Kate’s head pops out. “Guys. I ate all the cheese, and they won’t let me have anything else until you join us. And I’m starving.”

  “Be right there,” I say, dragging my gaze away from Matt’s.

  I start to pull back, and his fingers tighten for a moment on my wrist before he slowly releases me.

  As we go inside, I realize that neither of us answered the question.

  Are we going to the Hamptons together because of the contract?

  Or in spite of it?

  25

  MATT

  Friday Afternoon, October 6

  Well. Shit.

  My weekend just got a hell of a lot more complicated.

  Wordlessly, I hold out my phone to Sabrina so she can see the text message that’s just come through.

  We’re standing in The Sams’ kitchen at their place in the Hamptons, sipping a glass of champagne to kick off what we’d expected to be a long weekend of make-believe in front of two bosses and a billionaire.

  Instead, I’m bracing for Sabrina’s irritation as she silently reads the text.

  She hands the phone back to me and takes a sip of champagne. “Well. I guess that means I don’t need to freak out about the fact that Juno’s already put her muddy paws all over the duvet in the master bedroom.”

  “I can’t believe they canceled,” I say, still distracted by the message from Samantha. “Who the hell does that?”

  “Maybe they thought they were doing you a favor,” she says, going to the fridge for the champagne bottle. “They probably figured that if the prospective client couldn’t come, there was no reason for the four of us to suffer through the awkwardness of small talk.”

  I ignore her placating. “And what kind of bullshit is ‘something came up’? It’s the oldest, lamest blow off in the books.”

  “So you’ll woo Jarod some other way,” she says, reaching across the counter to top off my glass.

  I put a hand out to stop her. “I shouldn’t. Not if I’m driving back.”

  “No way,” she says, batting my hand away and refilling the glass. “I am not getting back in the car with that dog just yet.”

  I laugh at the memory of Juno wailing the entire ride from the Upper East Side to Southampton. “You’d think she’d never been in a car before.”

  “She probably hasn’t,” Sabrina pointed out. “I don’t own a car. Her vet’s within walking distance, so I’ve never needed to put her in a cab or subway. And I got her from a shelter in Harlem when she was a young puppy.”

  “Where is the monster, anyway?” I ask, looking around the lavish beach home for the dog.

  “Outside. I decided she’d be better off digging a hole in the sand than your bosses’ bed.”

/>   “She won’t run away?”

  Sabrina shakes her head and walks to the back door that opens onto the beach. “Watch this.”

  She lets out a short, no-nonsense whistle, and not thirty seconds later, a wet, sandy dog bounds toward her. Sabrina holds up a hand before the dog can burst inside the house, and Juno plants her butt down on the porch, tail wagging wildly as she waits for praise.

  “Good girl,” Sabrina says in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. It’s adoring and a little goofy, and I can’t help but smile as she squats down to pet her dog.

  Sabrina’s wearing an expensive-looking red sweater and light-gray slacks, but she doesn’t so much as flinch when Juno sets her paws on Sabrina’s knee and goes in for a slobbery on-the-cheek kiss.

  “Okay, that’s plenty of love,” Sabrina says after a moment, laughing as she pushes the dog away. “Go continue your beach exploration.”

  Juno bounds away again, and I give Sabrina an admiring look. “Is there anyone you don’t have completely wrapped around your finger, ready to do your bidding with a simple whistle?”

  She gives a coy smile. “Well. I’m still working on you.”

  I’m not so sure. Every time I’m with her—hell, every time I look at her—it becomes harder and harder to think about going back to the way we were.

  For the first time, I truly understand why Sabrina put her no-hookup rule into place. And though I don’t regret violating the rule in every pleasurable way possible in recent days, I’m no longer entirely confident in what we’re doing. Or why we’re doing it.

  I should be dying to get back to the city, back to my real life, now that Lanham and my bosses have canceled, but instead, this is what feels real. The thought is both compelling and terrifying.

  “So, how long does she need?” I ask, nodding to where Juno disappeared. “I’d like to start back before it gets dark.”

  Her glass pauses halfway to her lips, and her eyes reflect disappointment, though she responds with her usual tart sass. “Damn, you really have gotten old. Don’t worry, Grandpa. We’ll get you home before supper.”

  “I’m just saying, if there’s nobody here—”