5
IAN
Week 1: Thursday Morning
“Dude.” Matt slows to an easy jog beside me. “When you asked if I wanted to go for a run, you could have mentioned you were trying to set an Olympic record.”
“You’ve done four Ironmans,” I point out, catching my breath.
“Exactly. Because I like the swimming and bike shit. If I liked the running part, I’d do a marathon like Prefontaine up there.”
I slow my cool-down jog all the way to a walk. “Hey, Kennedy,” I call out. “Slow your roll.”
My other best friend doesn’t glance back, but I know he hears me because he slows his damn sprint pace to a walk, then stops and waits for Matt and me to catch up.
Kennedy’s not even breathing slightly hard, damn the man. We’re all in good shape, but of the three of us, Kennedy’s the runner. Matt’s all about the competition, and me . . . well, to be honest, I just like a good old-fashioned gym session, preferably with a hot female trainer.
Today, though, I’d talked the guys into a run with me. I see them enough around the office, but today I need them as friends not coworkers.
And there are no better friends than these two.
Matt Cannon, Kennedy Dawson, and I all came up with one another at Wolfe. We started the same year and worked the bullpen together, even as we were competitors. Investment brokerage is an up-or-out business—you either make it to the next level, burn out, or are pushed out.
All three of us had made it. We’re competitors still, fighting for the same clients, the same accounts, but friends in spite of it. Hell, maybe friends because of it. All of us are fighters in our own way.
Matt’s the brains. Younger than both Kennedy and me, he’s twenty-eight now, but everyone from the trading room floor up to the CEO penthouse still thinks of him as a boy wonder. The little shit skipped God-knows-how-many grades to graduate from Cornell at the age of nineteen, then took Wall Street by storm by twenty-two.
Lucky for Matt, the women of New York City know that he’s all grown up now. Blond, blue eyed, charming, and clever as shit, the guy’s almost as big of a manwhore as me.
And if Matt got here by brains and I did by sheer force of will and hard work, Kennedy Dawson’s a big dick on Wall Street because it’s just his damn destiny.
As dark haired as Matt is blond, Kennedy and his family have been in finance for for-fucking-ever, his trust fund big enough to ensure he could quit tomorrow and still have more money than Matt and I will ever see in our lifetimes, combined.
It’s more than the bank account, though. Kennedy’s old money, and it shows. His apartment’s got a goddamn library, his mother wears pearls, he only drinks single-malt scotch, he belongs to two different country clubs, and he looks like one of the Kennedys (whom he was named after).
He’s also a bit of a nerd. He gets way too into museums, and his idea of a wild Friday night is reading a philosophy tome and a World War II history book. When we do manage to drag him out on the town with us, I’m not sure he even notices the way women relentlessly chase him, swooning over the dimples that he thinks are ridiculous.
Matt drops into a stretch. “For real, what was with the double-time sprinting?” he asks me.
“If the SEC were on your ass, you’d be running, too,” Kennedy says.
“I was running.”
“Could have fooled me,” Kennedy says, leaning against the railing along the Hudson, looking every bit as polished after a five-mile run as he does in the office.
Matt shoots Kennedy the bird, then turns his attention back to me. “So what’s our plan? How do we clear your name?”
See that? Loyalty. Told you these guys were solid. Not once since this went down have they thought or implied I was guilty of anything other than shitty luck.
I brace on the railing and, dipping my chin to my chest, take a deep breath. “I don’t know, man.”
“Who’s your lawyer?” Kennedy asks.
“Dunno yet.”
“Damn it, Ian. You need a lawyer.”
I look up in irritation. “Yeah, thanks for the brilliant words of wisdom, Dad. I said I didn’t know yet, not that I wasn’t going to get one.”
“You found out about the investigation on Monday. Today’s Thursday. What the hell have you been doing if not lawyering up?”
“Flirting with the SEC,” Matt chimes in.
Kennedy snarls, “What?”
Matt gives me a shit-eating grin as I glare at him. “Kate filled me in. Dude, you bought her a Frappuccino? That was your grand plan?”
Kennedy braces both hands on his thick head of hair and turns in an agitated circle.
“We got off on the wrong foot. I was trying to make amends,” I say, defending myself as we start walking back toward our respective apartments.
“Bullshit,” Matt says. “You were trying to use the infamous Ian charm on her in hopes she’d go easy on your case.”
Kennedy’s arms drop. “Tell me he’s joking. Tell me there’s another explanation for why you haven’t made time to find a lawyer that doesn’t involve bringing the SEC whipped-cream concoctions.”
“In Ian’s defense, whipped cream has led me to many an interesting encounter with women,” Matt says, lifting his hands above his head in a stretch.
Damn it. Now a vision of Lara McKenzie wearing only whipped cream and her librarian glasses has me biting back a groan.
“Grandpa here’s right, though, about you needing a lawyer ASAP,” Matt says, his face turning serious. “Kate’s looked up every detail there is to know about this woman. She’s good. Doesn’t lose cases, doesn’t miss a beat, doesn’t screw up on a technicality. Doesn’t back down. Ever.”
“Sounds like someone we know,” Kennedy says with a pointed look in my direction.
“Right, because you two are so easygoing,” I snap, losing patience with the lecture. “Look, I’m working on it.”
“Work harder. McKenzie will send you to jail if she can, man.”
I rub a hand over my face as Matt punches Kennedy. “That’s not what he needed to hear.”
“He needs to take it seriously,” Kennedy snaps back.
Enough already. “I am taking it seriously. I know I’m in deep shit. You think I’ve just had my thumb up my butt the past two days? I’ve got a dozen phone calls out—”
“Don’t bother,” Kennedy says. “You need Vanessa Lewis.”
“Oh, definitely,” I agree. “Just as soon as I capture a unicorn.”
“You won’t know until you try—”
“I did try. You think I didn’t think of her first?” I say. Vanessa Lewis is the best white-collar defense attorney in the city, and everyone knows it. “Her office said she’d put me on the waitlist. You guys are good with numbers . . . Tell me, if I’m eighty-sixth on the list, how good are my chances?”
“A hell of a lot better if you got some help,” Kennedy says.
“Good plan, Dawson. I’ll just toss a few coins in a wishing well. Better yet, does anyone know a genie?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of calling the best fixer in the city,” Kennedy says.
Matt groans. “No. Anyone but—”
“I didn’t say you had to talk to her,” Kennedy points out.
The three of us have been walking as we talk, so we’re now outside my apartment building. I rock back on my heels a bit, contemplating Kennedy’s suggestion. “It’s not a horrible idea.”
One I should have thought of first, if I hadn’t been so distracted . . .
“It’s a damn good idea,” Kennedy says. “Call her. And for the love of God, do not talk to the SEC again until you get an attorney.” Kennedy’s already continuing at a slow jog toward his own apartment building a few blocks over. “Cannon, try to keep up.”
Matt glares at Kennedy’s back, then gives me a nod goodbye.
I lift my hand in farewell as I head into my lobby, grateful for the blast of air-conditioning. Grateful, as I am every damn day, to have a roof over my head to call my own—one I don’t have to worry about getting kicked out of the next day when someone tires of me.
Yeah, I know. Foster-kid issues. You’d have ’em, too, though. Trust me.
The lobby’s big and modern, the amenities state of the art. The building is fifty-eight stories. I live on the fifty-sixth. It’s not the penthouse, but hey, as we’ve already established, I thrive on challenges.
I open the door to my living room and toss the keys on the side table. My apartment is pure bachelor pad—big TV, black leather couch, sideboard, bar cart, big bed, the whole deal.
I pour myself a glass of water, downing it in three gulps as I check my e-mail on my phone. There’s one from a hookup a few months back that includes an NSFW subject line, a kiss-face emoji, and a picture of her on her bed. Naked.
I grin, remembering Lara McKenzie has access to my e-mail. That should blow her prudish little mind.
My cock twitches, and I realize my mistake—thinking of Lara and blow in the same sentence. Damn it.
What is it about her?
That I can’t have her? That she doesn’t want me?
I take a shower, in which I take care of business, if you know what I mean, picturing Lara McKenzie in nothing but whipped cream and glasses, then pull on boxers and an undershirt before heading into the kitchen to make coffee.
My phone buzzes. A text from Kennedy. Call her.
It annoys me, but he’s right. I need to get a lawyer, and not just a good one. I need the best one. I need Vanessa Lewis.
Kennedy’s also right that I need to ignore Lara McKenzie until I do so. I’d like to think I can stay out of any trap she lays for me, but I’d be an idiot to test my willpower with a woman who makes my blood hum like Lara does.
I scroll through my favorites until I find the number I’m looking for.
“Hey,” I say the second she picks up. “I need you.”