Bad Boy of Wall Street: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (2 page)

"Well, I wouldn't be sneaking up on you if you'd come to my office like Cindy told you!" Sandy snapped back at me. "What, were you trying to avoid me?"

Cindy. That must be the name of our current Receptionist Bimbo. "Of course I wasn't trying to avoid you, Sandy," I replied, trying out a smile. Nope. Needed coffee. "I just wanted to fill up my coffee cup first."

Sandy snorted back at me, making it clear what he thought of my excuse. "Well, it's full now," he said. "And you've got a story to pitch to me, I hope? For the sake of your damn job!"

"Yeah, of course I do!" I replied, as my brain flailed about wildly in panic. "Just let me grab my coffee and my paper, and I'll meet you-"

My eyes dropped down to the stack of newspapers, and my sentence trailed off as I stared at the picture that took up most of the front page.

Sandy, apparently not noticing how I'd stopped talking partway through my excuse, huffed into his beard. "Right. Be in my office in five minutes, or you'll be out on your ass." He turned and attempted to stomp off, although his five-foot-zilch height couldn't quite pull it off.

I ignored him. I picked up the paper, reading the headline - although my eyes kept on drifting back to the picture of the man that was front and center in the middle of the front page.

I knew the man on the front page of the newspaper.

And suddenly, like an answer to my prayers, I had a story to pitch to Sandy.

Chapter Two

*

"You're serious right now? You know Rob Hendricks?"

From the other side of his massive desk, looking even more minuscule behind the huge piece of furniture, Sandy narrowed his eyes at me. "You're pulling my leg here, aren't you, Carpenter?" he went on. "How in the world could someone like you know Rob Hendricks, the Bad Boy of Wall Street?"

I tried to hide a little smile at the ridiculous nickname. "Well, I don't know him personally, exactly-"

"Hah! I knew it!"

"-but I do know how to get in contact with him," I went on. "He's the older cousin of one of my friends from when I was growing up as a kid. I only met him one time, but I'm still in contact with my friend, and I'm sure that she'd be willing to connect me with him."

Sandy leaned forward and tried to eyeball me, but I didn't have any trouble ignoring his rather bleary stare. He'd tried this on me far too many times during previous staff meetings. The stare-down didn't have much real effect on me any longer.

Besides, inside my head, I was already jumping with excitement as I considered the potential of this story.

I'd heard about the "Bad Boy of Wall Street" in recent news, sure, but I hadn't before made the connection to Bobby, the older cousin that one of my best friends had complained about back in middle school. "Bobby's getting all As, so now I have to do well, too. Why does Bobby get his own car? So what if he got a scholarship?"

Apparently, "Bobby" Hendricks wasn't the golden boy any longer, not now that he'd been accused of insider trading and making off with millions of dollars through fraudulent stock transactions. The press was having a field day with this, especially loving that his first name was "Rob". Coincidence? They don't think so!

This could be a real story, I thought to myself. If I got this scoop, managed to get the exclusive interview with the Bad Boy of Wall Street that all the papers were clamoring for, I was looking at more than just my usual per-article payout for the normal puff pieces I put up on Grit's website. At my magazine, journalists made a portion of all revenues from advertising on a story, after the magazine's expenses were paid. It could be very lucrative if your pieces went viral, like many of Teddy's tended to do.

Unfortunately, I didn't normally see the same level of success with my normal articles, but this in-depth interview on Rob Hendricks could be exactly what I needed. I thought about the sticky notes from my landlord, still in my back pocket, as well as the credit card bills on my kitchen table and various other expenses that needed to be paid.

If this story hit as well as I imagined, I could pay all of those bills off - and still have money left over to maybe take a little, much needed vacation.

"Come on, boss," I wheedled at Sandy now, leaning forward and giving him my most winning, smarmiest smile. Channel your inner Receptionist Bimbo, I thought to myself. My blouse didn't normally offer much in the way of cleavage, and I didn't exactly have a ton of cleavage to offer, but I still squeezed my elbows together and leaned forward to make the best of what I did have at my disposal. "Give me the story. I just need a few days, maybe a week, to go hunt him down and get it all put together."

Sandy still wore the frown, but it had slipped slightly on his face as his eyes predictably dropped down to stare at my tits through the crack in my blouse. Hah. Got him, I thought to myself.

I pressed harder. "Boss, you know that this is the biggest story to come across our desk this month, and it could be huge."

"I could send Teddy after it," Sandy said, but his heart wasn't in it.

I pressed my advantage. "Teddy doesn't have the connection that I do. You know that there's going to be a whole flock of other journalists hunting after this, but I've got what they all lack - a connection. Just say yes, and let me go get this for Grit!"

I knew that appealing to the needs of the magazine always worked on Sandy, and after another moment, he buckled. "Fine, fine," he gave in. "But I want regular updates. And I also want a regular piece from you for this week, too, in case this whole thing ends up falling through. I'm letting you go out on a limb, here."

"No problem," I said, nodding like a marionette. "I'll email it to you, no worries. I'd better get out of here and get working, then?"

I didn't even wait for Sandy to answer before leaving his office, heading back to my cubicle with a new spring in my step.

After poking my head briefly into the break room to ensure that no boxes of donuts magically appeared there since I last checked, I retreated into the relative seclusion of my cubicle, where I opened up the paper and started reading. If I was going to go chasing after Rob Hendricks, I needed to at least know the basics of this case.

The basics of the case, I soon discovered, were fairly dull. Rob had worked as a trader at Cartmann Securities, a small but rising firm based right here in the city, trading all sorts of stocks and other assets for big, institutional clients. However, Rob placed huge bets against several companies, going against the tide - bets which paid off, when those companies shocked the world by revealing less-than-stellar earnings results.

Those bets were so lucky, it turned out, that the big overseeing federal agency - the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC - started getting suspicious. They poked about a bit and concluded that it was highly likely that Rob couldn't have known that the companies would report results like that, and that he wouldn't have placed such risky bets unless he had advance notice.

In other words, Rob made his bets off of privileged information - insider trading.

The end to the paper's article petered out a bit, I felt. The SEC was still gathering more information before declaring any formal charges, but they'd suspended Rob's trading accounts pending the decision. Rob, according to the paper, had "retreated into seclusion at his Hamptons estate" and wasn't willing to talk to any reporters.

I snorted. Hamptons estate? That sounded just like one of these rich, snotty Wall Street jackasses. Going off and hiding with their stolen millions of dollars in their fancy mansion while the rest of us yelled outside their gates, demanding justice.

Still, my eyes kept on returning back to the picture of Rob Hendricks. They'd caught him as he approached his car, I guessed; he was dressed in a dark gray pea coat over his suit and tie. His hair was golden blond, swept back over his head to reveal a face that looked like it had been carved by a Renaissance sculptor. His eyes glinted brilliant, icy blue, and his chiseled jawline in particular drew my eye. He hadn't looked that sexy when we'd been growing up, had he? If so, why hadn't I gone after him and swept him away before he saw any college girls?

I shook my head, lightly smacking myself in the cheek. Get your mind out of the gutter, April, I commanded myself. Even if he practically looks like he ought to be modeling that coat in a billboard ad for some fancy department store, he's basically under house arrest for insider trading! Don't let his sexy looks cloud your judgment of him for this story.

Tearing my eyes off of his jawline, I forced myself to reread the story. I drew a circle around "Hamptons estate", and then turned my attention from the newspaper to my laptop computer.

God bless Google. Within ten minutes, I had an address for a "Hendricks, D" living in the Hamptons area. The address was for East Hampton, which I knew, even among the wealthy, was considered especially valuable prime real estate. I dug out my phone, plugged the address in, and grinned to myself as directions popped up. Sometimes, the wealthy pulled tricks so that these addresses couldn't be publicly found, but it seemed like Rob hadn't gotten to that point.

I did wonder a little about the "D" in the first name area. Had he bought the house under an assumed name, or for someone else?

Still, I'd figure that out later. I grabbed my laptop and charger and shoved them into a shoulder bag, and shoved my other belongings into my purse. Pausing only to give Teddy, still on the phone, a quick little wave goodbye, I headed out of the office.

I'd need to pack, I thought to myself, ticking off tasks on my fingers. Unfortunately, I'd have to give up my perfect parking spot, but I needed my car in order to get up to Rob's Hamptons address.

Oh! That reminded me...

I stuck my head around the corner into Sandy's little personal office before I left the Grit's suite. "Hey, boss, any chance that I could get an expense account for this, since I'm headed up to the Hamptons to chase down the story?" I asked, crossing my fingers.

Sandy groaned. "Fifty bucks a day. Don't buy anything overpriced. And I'll look at the receipts, don't think that you can toss them."

"Thanks, boss!" Yes! Free money! This gig was getting better and better!

Fifty bucks would at least be enough to fill my car up with gas, pay the tolls, and maybe grab a snack along the way, I considered. I'd still need to figure out where I'd stay in East Hampton once I got there, but I could tackle that problem once I got to the neighborhood, after I'd figured out where Rob was hiding out.

On my way out, I even smiled at Cindy the Receptionist Bimbo. "Have a good time, Alice!" she called after me.

Packing didn't take long, since I pretty much just threw things into my suitcase until I had to sit on top of it to force it closed. I didn't know what I'd need to wear, so I tossed in a mixture of casual and more dressy outfits. What did someone wear for an interview with a former Wall Street trader accused of stealing millions of dollars, anyway?

I even tossed in a swimsuit, even though I hadn't put one on in years, and suspected that I wouldn't look good if I did squeeze into it. Maybe I'd find myself on a deserted beach, I told myself, feeling optimistic despite myself. I was off to go get a real story, one that could pay off all my bills!

I hauled my suitcase down to my car and wedged it into the trunk. I dashed back upstairs, dug through my junk drawer until I found a pad of sticky notes, and scrawled out a note of my own to stick on the door for Hilda, my landlady. "Off to Hamptons for work - will be back with rent," I wrote, and slapped it on my front door.

There. Hopefully that would keep my apartment safe for me until I got back.

I scrambled into the driver's seat of my little Mazda, sliding the key into the ignition slot. "Come on, baby, start up nice for Momma," I told the car, rubbing the steering wheel as I gave the key a twist.

The little car coughed a couple of times, but then the engine turned over, and I cheered. "Yes! Next stop, Hamptons! Sun, beaches, and a story!"

I pulled out of my parking space, digging my phone out of my purse and re-opening the maps application. The address of Hendricks' Hamptons home was still on the screen, and I started the directions. I balanced my phone up on top of the console, against the windshield, so that I could glance over at it to catch where I needed to turn.

Here we go! April Carpenter, ace reporter, is off to bag her story!

Chapter Three

*

Hook grimaced as the stiff, uncomfortable airplane seat dug into his back. He'd told himself that he didn't need one of those stupid-ass donut pillows that they sold in the overpriced shops in the terminal, but now he'd kill a man to get his hands on one.

Hell, he'd considered offing the guy in the row in front of him, just to rob him of that damn pillow.

He really hated planes. He hated flying, the idea of leaving the ground behind. Man spent most of his time walking around on the ground, and things worked out just fine. Why did we need to change that by climbing into big metal tubes and rocketing ourselves up into the sky?

His bosses, however, had insisted. "You need to get up to New York, track down this
pendejo
, and get our goddamn money back," they had ordered Hook. "And you get it back fast, understand? Or else we'll send someone else, and they won't care if they shoot you, or this thief, or everyone. Understand?"