“There you go,” Clint says. “You liked that, didn’t you?”
I refuse to nod but that only makes him smile. He knows he had me. There’s no hiding the kind of pleasure he just gave me.
“I bet no man’s ever done that for you before.”
“Never,” I whisper.
It’s the first lie I’ve told since he entered the room.
And that’s when Wes’s face flashes across my mind. The second man I ever kissed. And let’s just say, kissing Wes was nothing like kissing Jonny Mathews back in eighth grade.
Wes Eastwood. Also thirty-nine years old. Also a Wall Street billionaire. Also a resident of the Avalon building. And he's not just any billionaire, he's the youngest billionaire in Wall Street history.
Yes. Me. The innocent girl from Iowa.
Virgin? That’s true.
Only ever kissed two men? True too.
But I didn’t tell you about my second kiss. It was just last night. It was the most magical moment of my life. It was with Wes. And if he ever finds out I’m involved in something like this, he’ll never want to see me again for as long as I live.
I’m playing a dangerous game.
I’m out of my depth.
And I’m scared to death.
Chapter 2
Wes
A few days earlier Earlier
I stair out the window at the traffic on Fifth Avenue. From up here on the fifty-eighth floor, the people look like so many busy ants.
I've never been a morning person.
“Brady!” I yell up the stairs. “Brady. It’s seven thirty. Don’t make me come up there.”
“Coming, dad.”
“Come faster, kid. If you’re late again your principal’s going to skewer me.”
I rush into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Coffee is all the breakfast I need, but the parenting guide said an eight-year-old boy needs a healthy breakfast and in my mind, a healthy breakfast means scrambled eggs on toast. I grab two eggs from the refrigerator and crack them into a bowl. The egg gets all over my fingers. Shell falls into the bowl and instantly disappears beneath the surface.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Dad!”
I look up at my son. My heart pounds in my chest when I see him. It’s done that every day of his life, ever since the nurse at the hospital handed him to me the day of his birth. It’s like a thump in the chest and it hits me every single time. It’s like when you see those defibrillators in action. The ones they use to shock a heart attack victim back to life. That’s what Brady does to me every morning. He’s eight and a half years old. I’m a numbers guy. Eight and a half years is 3,102 days. That’s how many times I’ve set eyes on him first thing in the morning. He’s my sunshine. When he’s awake, the sun’s up. And I get to see it every day of my life.
“Sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t swear.”
“No you shouldn’t.”
If his mother stuck around she’d have taught him all the good manners in the world, but she isn’t and there’s no use crying over it. She took off first chance she got. Then she died. So it’s all on me.
I fish out the egg shell from his eggs and start whisking them with a fork. While I do, Brady sits up at the counter and waits patiently for what he knows is going to be quite possibly the worst scrambled eggs on toast in the world.
“Pour yourself some juice,” I say.
I watch out of the corner of my eye as he successfully pulls off the maneuver, pouring the juice into his glass with zero spillage.
The kettle starts whistling and I take it off the burner. Then I grab two slices of bread and pop them in the toaster.
Gluten.
Isn’t there gluten in toast? Is that another thing I need to read up on? Am I silently killing my son because I haven’t read that chapter yet in the encyclopedia that sits next to my bed, Fatherhood for Busy Single Dads, how to be Mommy and Daddy.
I’m not kidding when I call it an encyclopedia. There are 842 pages in that book. I’ve been flicking through it for eight years and still haven’t made it past the halfway mark. Between the chapters on diet, emotional wellbeing, socializing, getting through school, bullying, puberty, sexuality, spirituality, and a thousand other subjects, I’m certain I’m failing my son in at least thirty critical aspects every day.
But what can I do?
Like the book says, I’m mommy and daddy.
I might be the first guy in Wall Street history to make over a billion dollars in trading profits, but that means squat when an eight year old boy asks you why he doesn’t have a mother, or what he should say to the girl he likes in little league, or whether his grandma would prefer roses or lilies for her birthday.
“Dad, the toast! It’s burning!”
“Shit,” I cry, hitting the pop button.
In the process, I knock over the bowl of beaten eggs, now containing three quarters of a glass of milk. It spills right down the front of my pristine dress shirt.
“Mother fucker.”
“Dad!” Brady says, laughing.
“It’s not funny.”
He hops off his stool and grabs me a dishcloth. While I wipe my shirt and hands, he reaches on his tippy toes for the toast and lathers butter all over it. Butter, cholesterol. Is that a thing for kids?
He takes a bite. From the look on his face, his gluten and cholesterol laden toast isn’t killing him yet.
I put a pan on the stove and make my coffee while it heats up. Then I cook his eggs, sip my coffee, and dish them up on the remaining piece of toast.
“Voila, Monsieur.”
“Merci beaucoup,” he says with a flourish.
I might not know what flowers his grandmother likes but I do take him to Paris every year when I have my shareholder meeting. He loves it there. The cafés, the stylish streets, the people in their French clothes strolling in the warm evenings.
I look at my watch. We’re going to be late for school. No matter how early I set the alarm, we’re always late.
No use worrying about it now I suppose. I sit across the counter from him and sip my coffee. I won’t see him until after work so I might as well enjoy this time.
“What have you got planned today, kid?”
“School.”
“Got baseball practice after?”
“Yup.”
“So I’ll pick you up there?”
He nods, stuffing the eggs into his mouth.
“How do those eggs taste?”
“Dad, they are exquisite,” he says with a cheeky grin.
I laugh. “I’m sure they are. Come on. Let’s get you packed up.”
We pack his bag, I give him some money for lunch, I run upstairs to change my shirt, and we make our way down the elevator.
We hurry through the lobby and say good morning to George, the doorman.
My car is waiting outside and we get inside, nodding to the valet.
I start the car as Brady gets the music playing and then my phone rings. It’s Clint Anderson. Fuck.
I look at Brady apologetically.
“Go ahead dad, I don’t mind.”
I turn down his hideous pop music, which I think is a relief even to him, and answer the call.
Clint’s voice fills the vehicle.
“Wes, buddy, how’s your morning going?”
“Fine until you called,” I say.
I’m not being cute. Clint and I were friends once, when we both first arrived on Wall Street twelve years ago. We both graduated suma cum laude from the same class at Harvard, both joined the same firm on Wall Street, both shared top spot in their professional rankings for three years, and became the first and second traders under thirty to clear a billion. Then he slept with my wife, Brady’s mother, a girl we’d both been friends with for years. That put a real damper on the relationship, you could say. I didn’t still mourn the loss of my wife. She cheated on me, then cheated on Clint, then went into a tailspin that ended in her death a few years later in a car crash in Milan. She c
hose her own path, and it didn’t include me and Brady. That was her choice. But Clint’s choice was to fuck my wife, and that’s something I haven’t quite been able to put behind me.
Oh, and we also both happen to live in the same fucking building, so I see him all the fucking time.
“Well, I won’t keep you, buddy,” Clint says. “I just wanted to give you the latest news in person.”
I roll my eyes. “Let me guess. It’s not good.”
“My firm just outbid you on the Dairy Technics deal.”
“Dairy Technics? What on earth interest do you have in that deal?”
“I want to beat you. That’s what.”
He hangs up right as we arrive at Brady’s school and I turn to look at him.
“Don’t ever trust a man who spends more on his hair than a woman does,” I say.
Brady knows Clint. In fact, Clint’s his godfather. Don’t ask. Let’s just say, Clint and I used to be pretty tight. And Brady knows Clint drives me crazy. If I was a superhero, Clint would be my nemesis. I see him all the time, at business events, at social galas, around our building. I’m even obligated to invite him to the parties I throw. It’s a running joke between me and Brady about Clint being my nemesis. He knows Clint isn’t all bad. I even let him call him Uncle Clint. But I never hide the fact that the man gets under my skin.
“Don’t worry, dad. Uncle Clint’s just being a gentleman. Giving you a heads up.”
“Yeah, a heads up that he wants whatever I try to get.”
Brady shrugs. “You’ll figure it out dad,” he says, opening the door.
I watch my son step out of the car and feel what’s essentially the opposite of the thump I felt in my chest an hour before when I set eyes on him. This is the surge of nerves I feel every time I say goodbye to him.
“Have a great day, kid.”
“I will, dad.”
“Go easy on the ladies,” I say with a wink.
He scrunches his nose like there’s nothing more horrible than the thought of ladies and runs off up the steps of his private school. It’s a beautiful old brownstone building located on Park Avenue and not far from my office. If there’s ever an upset with my schedule I can get my secretary or someone else in the office to run down and get him. It means we get by without a babysitter or nanny and that’s how I like it. The way I see it, we’re two men and we can handle our life without professional assistance.
There’s a yellow cab behind me and even though it hasn’t honked its horn yet, I know it’s coming. I put my car into drive.
“See you after baseball,” I yell through the window and he raises his hand in agreement.
I’m about to pull away when I hear my name being called.
“Mr. Eastwood. Hold on.”
I cringe. It’s Mrs. Mayfair, Brady’s school principal. You’d think with the tuition I pay, she’d cut me some slack, but I swear that woman is the bane of my life.
“Late again, Mr. Eastwood. Thirty minutes in fact.”
“At least I’m getting better,” I yell out the window before gunning the car and leaving her in my dust.
Chapter 3
Wes
I pull up in front of my building and throw my keys to the valet.
“Good morning, Mr Eastwood.”
“How many times have I told you to call me Wes?”
He smiles and nods politely and I make way into the lobby. My assistant is waiting and starts walking alongside me toward the elevator.
“Good morning, Wes.”
“Lucy, anything urgent?”
“Just this Clint Anderson thing. I assume you’ve heard?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh. “I had the pleasure of a personal call this morning.”
“He had his staffers tweet us that we’re going to lose this bid.”
“Oh, I bet that went down a treat with the bidding team.”
Lucy nods and presses the button on my private elevator. We step inside and I hit the button for the hundredth floor. The elevator starts whooshing up into the sky. The glass walls reveal the neighboring buildings as we glide up over them.
“What’s his interest in Dairy Technics anyway?” she asks. “It doesn’t fit his strategic roadmap at all.”
“None,” I say, throwing my hands up. “He literally admitted to me this morning the only reason he’s bidding is to beat me.”
“That’s insane. It’s a four hundred million dollar market cap.”
“You can never underestimate the insanity of a man like Clint Anderson. He’ll stop at nothing to beat me, even if he doesn’t want the prize.”
Lucy nods but says nothing. She knows all about the fiasco with Clint and my wife eight years ago. Everyone does. It doesn’t bother me but people thread lightly around the subject.
“Why’s he so obsessed with you?” she says.
I smile. “You tell me. Why would the second youngest billionaire in history be obsessed with the guy who beat him?”
Her eyebrows rise. “Some guys just can’t handle second place, I guess.”
I smile. “He’s compensating for something.”
Lucy blushes and I catch myself glancing down over her young body. She’s a consummate professional, dressed impeccably, but I can’t help but notice the extra open button on her blouse, the glimpse of cleavage, and the skirt that’s been steadily getting shorter by the week. I look away. I’d never get involved with an employee. Not Ever. Plus, after my marriage broke down, I pretty much lost my taste for relationships. Sure, I play the field every once in a while, nothing too serious, but with my job, and the full time responsibility of fatherhood, I usually find it more trouble than it’s worth.
The elevator dings and I step out, Lucy at my heel.
“Mr. Eastwood,” the receptionist says.
I give her a smile and tell her to assemble the bidding team. I’ve got to get out ahead of this Anderson bid to stay in the game. I’m not about to allow him to beat me on this. I don’t have to win everything, every time. I’m not as dogmatic and stubborn as Clint. But this Dairy Technics deal is personal. It’s not just about the money. My family were dairy farmers. For once, I actually care about the assets I’m buying. I care about dairy farmers. And this technology has the power to make or break those farmers.
I lead Lucy into the conference room and take a seat while we wait for the bidding team.
“Want some coffee?” Lucy asks.
“Let me get it,” I say.
I go and pour two cups, both with milk in honor of the dairy farmers we’re about to act on behalf of. When I get back to the conference room, the four bidding specialists are there with Lucy, waiting for me.
“Gentlemen, ladies,” I say, taking my seat. “Dairy Technics is not just any trade. This time, it actually means something. There are two ways the dairy industry could go? The first is full automation.”
I look around and see the younger traders nodding. They love the full automation option. Of course they do. Lower costs, higher profits, but at what price?
“That’s the option Clint Anderson will take if he wins this bidding war. It will mean the end of traditional dairy farms as we know them. It will also mean the end of dairy farms in the American heartland. Those fields full of cows. Those quaint red barns. Gone in a single stroke. They’ll be replaced by modern industrial facilities overseas that will see dairy cattle living their entire lives in a controlled industrial environment.”
“That’s business,” Mitch, the youngest trader, says to me.
“Sure it is, Mitch. And we’re not a charity.”
“No, Sir. And we’re not animal rights activists either.”
I nod. It’s this kind of thinking that made me hire Mitch. I don’t fault him for it. He’s smart, he’s logical, and every day he shows up to work and makes me a lot of money. But today is not just another day.
“You all know how I operate. We close the deals that are going to make us the most profit. We forget about the one’s that are going to co
st us money. We steer clear of bidding wars like the plague.”
They all nod.
“But this is not just another deal. My grandfather was a dairy farmer. My father was a dairy farmer. It might sound sentimental, but I believe dairy farming has a future in America. And not inside a lab or a factory that destroys the cows’ will to live. On actual farms. In actual fields.”
“So why are we bidding on Dairy Technics?” Mitch says.
“Good question, Mitch. We’re not just bidding on Dairy Technics. We’re going to win this price war. I don’t care what the cost. You have my permission to breach our pricing safeguards and bid up to six hundred million here. I don’t want to hear the details. I just want to win this thing.”
“But at six hundred, we’ll be losing money. A lot of money,” Mitch says.
I shake my head. “You’ll just have to trust me on this one, Mitch. It’s a longer time horizon than we’re used to, but if we buy Dairy Technics, and then lend money to small dairy farmers to upgrade their facilities without destroying their entire way of life, the longterm play will make us money.”
“Not super-profit,” Mitch says.
“Maybe not, Mitch, but sometimes, not often, but sometimes, there’s more at stake than the bottom line.”
I get up and leave but before leaving the room I stop. I don’t want to give my best traders the impression we’re no longer in the business of making money. This is Wall Street, after all. And we are on the hundredth floor of the city’s most expensive skyscraper, dressed in bespoke suits, with billions of dollars under our direct control.
“Oh, and on Hudson Valley, I want you to cut the initial offering by five percent. Those greedy real estate guys can bleed a little.”
The traders look scared at that prospect.
“Sir,” Lucy says, “they’ll take their business elsewhere.”
“Try them,” I say. “They’re not going anywhere.”
Chapter 4
Cherri
“Grandpa?” I say into my phone. “It’s not like you to call this early.”
The Bidding War (69th St. Bad Boys Book 2) Page 2
