King of Wall Street: a sexy, standalone, contemporary romance (3 page)

“What did you expect? A man that rich and good looking is bound to have a downside.” She shrugged and took a sip of wine. “You can’t let it affect you so much. Your expectations of men are way too high. You’re going to spend your whole life disappointed.”

My cell began to ring. “Speaking of being disappointed.” I showed the screen to Grace. It was my father’s lawyer.

“Harper speaking,” I answered.

“Ms. Jayne. It’s Kenneth Bray.” Why was he calling me at the weekend?

“Yes, Mr. Bray. How can I help?” I rolled my eyes at Grace.

Apparently my father had set me up a trust fund. The letters I’d received about it were stuffed into the chest that we’d just lugged up from the truck. I hadn’t answered any of them. I didn’t want my father’s money. I started accepting his money in college. I figured he owed me that much but after a year, I took a job and stopped cashing his checks. I couldn’t accept money from a stranger, even if he was genetically related to me.

“I want to arrange for you to come into the office so I can talk you through the details of the money your father has set aside for you.”

“I appreciate your persistence, but I’m not interested in my father’s money.” All I’d ever wanted was a guy who showed up for birthdays and school plays or for anything as far as I was concerned. Grace was wrong; my expectations of men were at rock bottom. My father’s absence from my childhood had ensured that. I didn’t expect anything from men except disappointment.

Mr. Bray tried to convince me to meet with him and I resisted. In the end I told him I’d read the paperwork and get back to him.

I hung up and took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” Grace asked.

I wiped the edge of my glass with my thumb. “Yeah,” I said. It was easier when I could pretend my father didn’t exist. When I heard from him, or even his lawyer, I felt like Sisyphus watching my boulder tumble back down the hill. It put me back at square one, and all the thoughts of how I should have had a different father, a different life, a different family that I normally managed to bury came rushing to the surface.

My father had gotten my mother pregnant and then refused to do the right thing and marry her. He’d abandoned us both. He’d sent us money—so we were financially taken care of. But what I’d really wanted was a father. Eventually all the broken promises built up into a mountain I couldn’t see over. The birthday parties where I watched the door, hoping he’d show up, took their toll. There were one too many Christmases where the only thing I asked Santa for was my dad. It was his absence from my life that had been the real problem because it felt as if there was always someone else that came first, somewhere else he’d rather be. It left me with the feeling that I wasn’t worth anyone’s time.

“You want to talk about it?” Grace asked.

I smiled. “Absolutely not. I wanna get a little drunk in my new apartment with my best friend. Maybe gossip and eat some ice cream.”

“That
is
our speciality,” Grace replied. “Can we talk about boys?”

“We can talk about boys but I’m warning you, if you try to set me up I’m kicking your ass back to Brooklyn.”

“But you haven’t even heard who it’s with yet.”

I laughed. She was so easy to read. “I’m not interested in dating. I’m focusing on my career. That way I can’t be disappointed.” Max King’s words,
results, not effort, get rewarded
, rang in my ears. I would just have to do better, work harder. There wasn’t any time for dating or setups.

“You’re so cynical. Not every man is like your father.”

“I didn’t say they were. Don’t play amateur shrink on me. I just want to get established here in New York. Dating isn’t my priority. That’s all.” I took a sip of my wine and tucked my legs under me.

I would win Max King around if it killed me. I’d followed his career so carefully it’d felt as if I knew him. But I’d imagined myself as his protégée. I’d start working for him and he’d tell me he’d never met anyone so talented. I’d assumed within a few days we’d be able to finish each other’s sentences and we’d high five each other after meetings. And I admit it, I may have had a sex dream about him. Or two.

That had all been before I’d met him. I’d been an idiot.

“Sex,” I blurted. “That’s what men are good for. Maybe I’ll take a lover.”

“That’s all?” Grace asked.

I traced the rim of my glass with my finger. “What else do we need them for?”

“Friendship?”

“I have you,” I replied.

“Emotional support?”

“Again, that’s your job. You share it with ice cream, wine, and the occasional retail overspend.”

“And it’s a job the four of us take very seriously. But what about when you want babies?” Grace asked.

Kids were the last thing on my mind. My mother had changed careers from working in finance to becoming a teacher so she could spend more time with me. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to make such a sacrifice. “If and when I ever get around to thinking about that stuff, I’ll go to a sperm bank. Worked for my mother.”

“Your mom didn’t go to a sperm bank.”

I took a gulp from my glass. “Might as well have.” I didn’t have a father as far as I was concerned.

“Hand me your iPad. I want to see this hot boss of yours again.”

I groaned. “Don’t.” I reached for the tablet on the table beside the couch and handed it over despite myself.

“Max King, right?”

I didn’t respond.

“He really is ridiculously good looking.” Grace swiped and flicked at the screen. I deliberately didn’t look. He didn’t deserve my attention.

“Put it away. It’s enough that I have to deal with him Monday through Friday. Let me enjoy my weekend without having to look at his arrogant face.” I glanced at the Forbes cover image Grace had brought up. Crossed arms, stern expression, full pouty lips.

Asshole.

A crash above me caught my attention and I looked up at my ceiling. The pretty glass light swayed from side to side. “Was that a bomb that just went off?” I asked.

“Sounds like your upstairs neighbor just dropped an anvil on the roadrunner.”

I placed my finger over my lips and listened intently. Grace’s eyes grew wide as what had started as incoherent mumbling morphed into the unmistakable sound of a woman having sex.

Panting. Moaning. Begging.

Then another crash. What the fuck was going on up there? Were there more than two people involved?

Skin slapped against skin followed by the sound of a woman crying out. Heat crept up my neck and spread across my cheeks. Someone was having much more fun on a Saturday afternoon than we were.

An unmistakably male voice shouted “fuck” and the woman’s cries tumbled out fast and desperate. The knock of a headboard against drywall thudded louder and louder. The woman’s breathless moaning almost sounded panicked. My chandelier started to sway more furiously, and I swear the vibrations from whatever furniture was knocking against whatever wall travelled down from the ceiling and straight to my groin. I squeezed my thighs together just as the man yelled out to God and she gave a final, sharp scream that echoed through my box-filled apartment.

In the silence that followed, my heart thudded through my sweater. I was half exhilarated by what I’d heard; half embarrassed I’d consciously eavesdropped on something so personal.

Someone less than three yards away from me had just come for America.

“That might be a guy I have to get to know,” Grace said when it was clear the sexcapades had stopped. “He certainly sounded like he knew what he was doing.”

“They seemed very . . . compatible.” Had I ever sounded that desperate during sex, that hungry for my orgasm? I knew the sounds of a woman who
exaggerated
in the bedroom. The woman upstairs hadn’t been faking. Like jumping at the scary bits of a horror movie, the sounds from her had been involuntary.

“They sound like they have excellent sex. Maybe you should knock on their door and suggest a threesome.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, along with a cup of sugar.”

Footsteps clipped along the ceiling. “She kept her heels on,” Grace said. “Nice.”

The tapping wandered across my ceiling toward my blanket box. The upstairs front door creaked, then slammed. The sound of footsteps disappeared.

“Well, she got what she wanted and split. You’re not going to need a TV in this place. You can just tune into the soap opera that is your neighbor.”

“You think she was a prostitute?” I asked. A woman leaving less than five minutes after an orgasm like that wasn’t normal. Surely she’d stick around for oxygen or round two? Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d have made it to a vertical position, let alone in heels, within an hour of what she’d experienced.

“A prostitute? She’s a lucky one if she is.” Grace giggled. “But I don’t think so. A guy who can make a woman sound like that doesn’t need to pay for it.” She leaned forward and placed her empty glass on one of the dozens of boxes littered about the apartment. “Right, I’m going to get home to my vibrator.”

“That’s really way too much information.”

“But keep me posted on your neighbors. And if you run into them, try to get a picture.”

“Yes, because if you’re going to masturbate over my neighbors, it would go better with pictures.” I nodded sarcastically. “You’re a pervert. You know that, right?”

Grace shrugged and stood. “It was better than porn.”

She was right. I just hoped it wasn’t a regular show I was going to get. If nothing else, I felt plenty inadequate at work. I didn’t need to have the same feeling at home.

CHAPTER TWO

Max

Harper Jayne was
really
pissing me off.

She’d irritated me from the moment she’d started work almost two months ago. Up until now I’d managed to keep my distance.

She was smart. That wasn’t a problem.

And she got on with her co-workers well enough. I couldn’t complain.

She didn’t seem to mind helping Donna with the photocopier. There were no delusions of grandeur for me to moan about.

She was eager to learn. That had been one of the first things that grated on me. She was
too
eager. The way she looked at me with those big brown eyes as if she’d be willing to do just about anything I suggested was maddening. Every time I glanced at her, even if it was a glimpse of her in the kitchen as I came into the office, I imagined her sliding to her knees in my office, opening her red, wet mouth, and begging for my cock.

And
that
was a problem.

I always had a strict divide between my business life and my personal life, and there’d never been any exception. I was the boss, with a reputation to protect. I didn’t want my personal life to ever be more interesting that my business life.

I tapped my pen against my desk. I needed to figure this out. Either fire her or forget about her. But I needed to do something.

I found myself spending more and more time in my office with the door closed in an attempt to create some distance between Harper and me. Ordinarily, I’d spend time out on the floor with people, checking in on how things were going. But the open-plan area felt like contaminated land. When I had to interact with her, I addressed her as
Ms. Jayne
as a way of keeping her at arm’s length. It wasn’t working. I pushed my hands into my hair. I needed a plan. I couldn’t have some junior researcher changing the way I did business, because the way I did business had meant King & Associates was the best at what they did, and the whole of Wall Street knew it.

Distractions were the last thing I needed right now. My focus was split enough as it was. Living with Amanda full time was more challenging than I’d expected and it meant a lot more time out of the office as I spent more time in Connecticut. I was also trying to land a new account with an investment bank King & Associates hadn’t worked for before, and I had a key meeting with an insider coming up.

“Come in,” I called to the knock at the door, hoping it wasn’t Harper with her revised report.

“Good morning, Max,” Donna said as she entered my office, closing the door behind her.

“Thanks.” I took the tall cup of coffee she offered to me, trying to read her face. “How are you?”

“I’m good. We have a lot to get through.” We had a daily lunchtime briefing.

I reached for my collar. “Is it me, or is it hotter in here than normal?”

Donna shook her head. “No, and I’m not turning up the A/C, either. It’s ridiculously cold in here.”

I sighed. It wasn’t worth arguing with Donna about. Most things weren’t. That was what I’d learned from the women in my life—pick your battles.

“So,” Donna said as she slipped into the seat in front of my desk. The same chair Harper had sat in on Friday. Harper had sat with her legs crossed and her arms fixed to the arms of the chair, almost as if she were bracing herself for a bumpy landing. But it had given me a perfect view of her high tight breasts and her long brown hair sitting gently on her shoulders.