Hard Sell (21 Wall Street) Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY LAUREN LAYNE

  21 Wall Street Series

  Hot Asset

  I Do, I Don’t

  Ready to Run

  Runaway Groom

  Stiletto and Oxford

  After the Kiss

  Love the One You’re With

  Just One Night

  The Trouble with Love

  Irresistibly Yours

  I Wish You Were Mine

  Someone Like You

  I Knew You Were Trouble

  I Think I Love You

  Love Unexpectedly (stand-alone novels)

  Blurred Lines

  Good Girl

  Love Story

  Walk of Shame

  An Ex for Christmas

  The Wedding Belles

  From This Day Forward (novella)

  To Have and to Hold

  For Better or Worse

  To Love and to Cherish

  New York’s Finest

  Frisk Me

  Steal Me

  Cuff Me

  Redemption

  Isn’t She Lovely

  Broken

  Crushed

  The Best Mistake

  Only with You

  Made for You

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Lauren Layne

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503902848

  ISBN-10: 1503902846

  Cover design by Letitia Hasser

  For Anth—

  for letting me get especially lost in the writer-zone on this book,

  and for making sure my coffee cup was never empty

  CONTENTS

  1 MATT

  2 SABRINA

  3 MATT

  4 SABRINA

  5 MATT

  6 SABRINA

  7 MATT

  8 SABRINA

  9 MATT

  10 MATT

  11 MATT

  12 SABRINA

  13 MATT

  14 SABRINA

  15 MATT

  16 SABRINA

  17 MATT

  18 SABRINA

  19 MATT

  20 SABRINA

  21 MATT

  22 SABRINA

  23 MATT

  24 SABRINA

  25 MATT

  26 SABRINA

  27 MATT

  28 SABRINA

  29 MATT

  30 SABRINA

  31 MATT

  32 SABRINA

  EPILOGUE SABRINA

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  MATT

  Monday Morning, September 18

  “You’re an angel, and I love you,” I say with a reverence usually reserved for people in church.

  My assistant lifts an eyebrow and holds out two aspirin. “Are you talking to me or the bagel sandwich?”

  “Both,” I say around a bite, holding out my free hand for the pills.

  Kate waits until I swallow, then holds out a Venti Starbucks cup that I use to wash down the pills.

  “How’d you know?” I ask, picking up the egg and Swiss on sesame bagel once more.

  “That you were hungover as crap? I get your flight change notifications. Taking an unplanned Sunday red-eye from Vegas to New York after a bachelor party pretty much says it all.”

  I wince. “Can we not say the word Vegas? Or bachelor party? And until further notice, all references to alcohol are hereby banned.”

  She smirks. “It sucks getting old, huh?”

  “I’m not old,” I say automatically. The very suggestion’s an affront. After all, I’m Matt Cannon, Wall Street’s legendary wunderkind.

  And yeah, only douchebags would call themselves legendary, but in my case? It’s kind of true. I graduated from high school when I was sixteen, college when I was nineteen, and got hired on at Wolfe Investments just days after my twenty-second birthday, back when my liver was basically a virgin (though I was definitely not) and more than ready to take on the booze-fest that is Wall Street.

  Whoops. I just remembered we’re not talking about alcohol. Not until the aspirin, caffeine, and this sandwich work their sweet magic on my hangover.

  Anyway, the point is I’m only twenty-eight. Not exactly a boy wonder anymore, but to be one of the Wolfes before thirty is brag-worthy. It’s hard enough to get hired by the company in the first place, even harder to move up the ranks at such a young age, and . . .

  Oh hell, who am I kidding?

  I can’t drink like I could when I was twenty-two, and I am officially feeling the effects of the forty-eight-hour rager that was my cousin’s bachelor party.

  “How are you feeling, for real?” Kate asks, giving me a critical once-over.

  Kate Henley’s one of those assistants who you guard more closely than your wallet, Pappy Van Winkle, or bank account password. She’s that valuable.

  Sure, she’s got the petite, pretty, doe-eyed look of a 1950s debutante, but she’s obscenely competent at her job. So competent, in fact, she works for not one demanding boss but three. A couple of years ago, I got promoted to director the same month as my two best friends and Wolfe colleagues, Ian Bradley and Kennedy Dawson. The promotion meant we each got our own assistant instead of sharing one like the junior guys. We couldn’t decide who got Kate, so she took on all three of us and does it twice as well as any of the other assistants who support only one investment broker.

  Our arrangement also means we made a pact to keep our playboy wiles far away from her, though truth be told, I don’t know that she was ever really at risk. I’m pretty sure Kate’s too smart to fall for one of us because she knows us all too well, though her gaze does seem to linger on Kennedy at times.

  I grin at her. “Better. Thanks. Headache’s already receding.”

  “Good. Because The Sams want to see you.”

  My grin disappears. “Now?” I check my Rolex. “It’s barely eight on Monday morning.”

  “Yeah, well, this is Wall Street. Everyone’s day started four hours ago. Speaking of which, I’ve called you, like, ten times.”

  I rub my forehead. “I lost my cell phone . . . somewhere. The Sams say what they wanted?”

  “Nope,” she says, bending to pull something out of a garment bag. “But they came by my desk themselves instead of sending Carla, which is never good. Put this on.”

  She hands me a skinny blue tie, and I obediently tug off the striped one I put on in the airport bathroom at baggage claim. At best, it smells like the smoke of a Vegas casino. At worst . . .

  The way Kate wrinkles her nose when she takes it tells me it’s in the unnamed “worse” category.

  I put the fresh tie around my neck, but she holds up a finger and waves it in a circle. “Hmm, nope. You’re worse off than I thought.” She holds up a white dress shirt. “Wardrobe change. Where the hell’d you sleep last night, a barroom floor?”

  “Didn’t sleep at all,” I mutter, unbuttoning my shirt.

  It sort of sums up my and Kate’s platonic relationship that I’m shirtless but she doesn’t so much as glance at the upper body I’ve earned through long gym hours as she hands me the shirt. “One d
ay you really are going to be too old for this, you know.”

  “One day,” I say as I put on the fresh shirt. “Not today.”

  A minute later, I’ve got a clean shirt, new tie, and feel slightly better as the aspirin and caffeine kick in.

  “The guys in?” I ask, referring to Ian and Kennedy, as I straighten the knot of my tie. I don’t have a mirror, so I spread my arms for Kate to assess.

  She looks me up and down. “Good as we’re gonna get for now, but as soon as you’re done with the meeting, you need a shower. And no, the guys aren’t in. Kennedy was grabbing an early coffee with a client, and Ian said he had an early meeting as well.”

  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.

  “No.” I resist the urge to run a hand over my neck to see if I’m sweating. “I was on a red-eye.” And lost my phone somewhere in the weekend’s debauchery.

  Sam grunts, then exchanges a long look with his wife. In my hungover state, I’m not at the top of my game, but I still know that look doesn’t mean good things.

  Samantha’s the one to give it to me straight. “You can read the full article later, but I’ll give you the highlights: You stumbled into the same club as a WSJ reporter who was covering a story in Vegas. He was sober. You were not. You were seen tucking hundreds into G-strings, dropping thousands on a single round of expensive whiskey, and that wasn’t even your last stop of the evening. He followed you to three other clubs, where members of your party unabashedly partook in illegal substances.”

  My head snaps up. “I don’t touch drugs. Booze, sure, but that’s it.”

  “Booze and women,” Sam says with a pointed look at the paper.

  “Lap dances aren’t illegal. Neither’s vodka or whiskey.”

  Still, I get their point. I’m hardly a saint, but the weekend in Vegas had gotten crazy, even by my standards. My cousin’s a big-shot club owner in Miami, and his group of friends had not only taken partying to a whole other level but also been cocky about it. Cocky and stupid, and now, apparently, I’m to pay the price for that stupidity just by association.

  “No, you weren’t technically caught doing anything illegal,” Samantha grants. “And we’re not here to act as your parents. You’re one of our best, Matt, you know that. But this is bad. We’ve already received a half dozen calls from concerned clients, wondering just what the hell we’re doing with their money.”

  “I spend my money,” I say, stabbing a finger against the newsprint. “And I’ve earned every penny.”

  “We know that,” Samantha says. “But you know as well as we do that perception often counts more than fact. Nobody’s going to believe you didn’t touch the cocaine. Nobody’s going to believe the hundreds you threw at these women stopped at a harmle
ss lap dance. Drugs, prostitution, reckless spending . . . those aren’t accusations we can weather easily. Especially not after the insider-trading allegations against Ian last year. We’re still doing damage control from that.”

  “He was found innocent,” I snap, ever defensive of my friend who may be a bit of a daredevil, but who plays strictly by the book when it comes to his work.

  “Yes. Officially,” Sam says. “But as we said, there’s the perception issue. And this . . .” He gestures at the paper and breaks off.

  Samantha folds her hands on the table and meets my eyes. “Public relations and legal have strongly suggested that we let you go to ward off the worst of the reputation hit.”

  For a second, I think I’ve heard her wrong. “Excuse me?”

  “We don’t see the need to take it that far,” Samantha says, pausing to let an unspoken yet linger in the silence. “We understand this was a bit of bad luck on your part, being in the same club as a reporter. But Matt, we do have to do some damage control here. You’ve already had two clients request to be moved to another broker.”

  Shit. Seriously? I’m torn between incredulity and anger—first, at the fact that it’s happening at all, and second, that it’s turning into a big fucking deal. I manage to nod, even as my racing brain is in denial. “What kind of damage control?”

  Samantha looks at her husband, who takes over. “We’re thinking an image overhaul.”

  “A what?”

  “You know . . .” He waves his hand. “Cutting back on the booze. Limiting the late nights. Skipping the caviar at dinner. Keeping your bar bill under four figures. And for the love of God, avoiding the strip club and your cocaine-loving friends.”

  “Sure, of course,” I hear myself say, even when I feel a bit like puking. I don’t know if it’s from the bucket of booze I had just a few hours earlier or the situation at hand. Likely a combination of both.

  “There’s another thing,” Samantha says. “All of this will help, but nothing signals a reformed man like a plus-one. I mean, look at Ian and Lara. He was even more wild than you, and now he’s—”

  “Domesticated, I know,” I snap. “But he didn’t plan for that; it just happened. I don’t have a Lara McKenzie waiting in the wings. I’m single and happy to be.”

  “Well, get un-single,” Samantha says, standing as though that’s the end of the conversation. “Preferably in time for the Wolfe Annual Gala next month.”