Hard Sell (21 Wall Street #2)(2)

I lift my eyebrows. “‘Early meeting’ meaning . . . he got distracted by Lara in the shower?”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Ian is rather disgustingly in love with his fiancée, Lara McKenzie. And while their level of infatuation is nauseating, there’s no woman I’d rather have lost my partner in playboy debauchery to than her. An agent with the white-collar division of the FBI, Lara’s smart, funny, and, best of all, tolerates exactly none of Ian’s bullshit, which is plentiful.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I say, taking one last bite of sandwich and a gulp of coffee. “Scale of one to ten, how intense were The Sams when they came by?”

“Eight,” she says as we walk toward the elevators. “Here.” Kate hands me a piece of gum as she punches the “Up” button.

“Where’s Joe?” I ask, unwrapping the gum.

“Thailand.”

“Shit,” I grumble, folding the stick of gum into my mouth.

Joe Schneider is my direct boss, and he’s a good one. The sort of boss you want to be by your side when the higher-ups personally summon you for something you know nothing about. No such luck today. I’d forgotten he’d taken his wife to Thailand for two weeks for their twentieth wedding anniversary.

I’m on my own.

I dutifully chew my gum until the elevator arrives, then spit it back into the wrapper so I’m not chomping gum like a sixteen-year-old cashier at the mall when I meet with the CEOs of the company.

Kate holds out her hand, but I shake my head and step into the elevator. “I don’t pay you enough to throw out my chewed gum.”

“You don’t pay me enough for any of this,” she calls after me as the elevator doors close, separating us.

It’s a short ride to the top floor of the building. Can’t say I spend much time up here, thank God. It’s not that I mind the bosses—or my boss’s bosses in this case—I just prefer my face time with them to involve one too many vodka martinis at the company holiday party.

Getting called up on a Monday morning when I’m hungover as hell? Not my idea of a solid start to the week.

Carla, the CEOs’ longtime assistant, gives me a smile that’s friendly but a little sympathetic. That’s not good. Either I look worse than I feel or she knows something I don’t.

“Hey, Carla. Are they waiting for me?”

“Ohhh yes,” she says with a low, nervous laugh. “They’re waiting for you.”

“Any hints?” I ask.

She blinks. “You read the paper today?”

“Uh, no. Not yet. Which one? The Times? Journal?”

She sighs. “Oh honey . . .”

My heart beats a little faster because Carla’s generally as unflappable as they come, and she looks . . . nervous.

I’m about to press her for more information when I hear my name. I glance up to see Sam Wolfe Jr. standing in the doorway of the conference room.

“Come on in, Matt.” Shit. If Carla looks worried, Sam looks about thirty seconds away from an apoplexy.

“Sure thing,” I say, forcing an easy grin as I amble into the small conference room where the other Sam is sitting at the end of the table.

Samuel and Samantha Wolfe, known as The Sams, are Wall Street’s ultimate power couple. Sam inherited Wolfe Investments from his father around the same time that he married Samantha, a Wall Street powerhouse in her own right.

Neither smiles as I come in and greet them.

“Have a seat,” Samantha says, gesturing at one of the available chairs.

I do as instructed, noting the newspaper on the table in front of her as I sit. I can see that it’s the Wall Street Journal but not much else. I certainly can’t figure out what the Financial District’s favorite newspaper has to do with me personally.

Samantha takes charge, getting right down to business. “I assume you’ve read this.” She sets a manicured hand on the paper.

“Ah, no. Not yet.”

Sam’s eyebrows go up, landing somewhere between disapproving and surprised. The WSJ’s required reading around here. I read it every morning, but, well, as established, today’s not exactly my best morning. I haven’t gotten to it yet.

Samantha lets out a long sigh as she opens the paper, turns to the second page, and refolds it before sliding it across the table.

Still baffled, I reach out and pull the paper toward me, my eyes going straight to the photo. My stomach drops as I recognize the man in the picture.

Me.

And not just me. Me and a scantily clad woman draped across my lap, my hands on her bare waist.

Ah hell. The memories are hazy, to say the least. The picture is from Saturday night. Or was it Friday? The photo’s in black and white, but I remember the woman was blonde, the bra was red. Or was it pink? It was late by the time we got to that particular strip club; I remember that much for sure.

I drag my eyes away from the photo to the headline: HAVE THE WOLFES OF WALL STREET GONE TOO FAR?

My stomach churns. I’m used to the Wolfes of Wall Street moniker—it’s all any of us at Wolfe Investments heard after the Leonardo DiCaprio movie came out. But seeing it in print alongside my face in the Wall Street Journal of all places . . . this isn’t good.

“You must have heard about it,” Sam says, his voice a low, disapproving rumble.