King of Wall Street(56)

My eyes flickered to Max, who was nodding, encouraging my question and I allowed myself to relax a little bit.

My father sighed. “Well, I think it’s good to keep the people who work for you on their toes, and I’ve been following what you do and I thought I’d like to hear a little more about it.”

I kept quiet for most of the rest of lunch, concentrating on the answers my father gave to Max’s questions, committing them to memory. I tried to forget the man sitting kitty-corner to me was genetically linked to me and focused on him as a client.

It was the first time I’d seen Max with a client. And it was easy to understand why he was so successful. He had an easy charm that had my father revealing things I wasn’t sure he’d planned to. And Max did it all without giving anything of himself. He let my father dominate the conversation in terms of number of words spoken, but the way Max nudged him toward certain topics meant Max was the one pulling the strings.

He was as brilliant as they said he was.

I’d known he was smart, but I hadn’t expected the rest of it—the charisma, the control. It was like watching a wizard at work, casting spells over people so they’d tell him their secrets.

“And of course Harper will work on the presentation,” Max said, catching my eye as I stared at him. I glanced back at my father, giving him a tight smile.

“She will?” he asked, sounding surprised. “With so little experience?”

Great. Another put-down in front of my boss. I wondered if he knew he didn’t have to verbalize every thought he had.

The worst part of it all was I was pretty sure he hadn’t said it to try to put me down. I think he just had so little regard for my feelings it didn’t occur to him he was being hurtful.

“Yes sir. I want to put my best people on it,” Max said.

“Well, if you’re as good as you say you are, I should just trust your judgment,” my father replied and smiled tightly.

Memories of waiting for his car to pull up on my birthday or that call at Christmas kept interrupting my concentration. The expensive gift that would sometimes follow to apologize for not making it would trick me into liking him again until the next time he disappointed me. The tight knot that sat inside my stomach when my mother apologized for his absence at dance class or school plays nudged at my belly. The humiliation I’d felt when I realized my youngest half brother had been offered a job at JD Stanley straight after graduation heated my skin.

I thought I’d feel nothing if we came to lunch after all the time that had passed, that we could be all business.

But his abandonment was too painful to forget.

I shouldn’t have come today. It was like slicing open an old scar. He didn’t deserve my time or attention. He didn’t deserve me to bleed for him. Not anymore.

* * * * *

Standing in my kitchen, I poured Patron into the Golden Gate Bridge shot glass I’d placed on the counter and set the bottle beside it. Tequila would make today ebb away and help me sleep.

Max had gone on to another Midtown meeting after lunch, leaving me to go back to Wall Street on my own. I’d been grateful for the space, the time to compose myself before getting back to the office. I’d been unproductive for the rest of the afternoon, going through the motions, watching the clock, willing it to speed up. I left as soon as I could so I could come home and drink.

And so tequila. Booze would lift me out of my sense of loss, of abandonment, of shame at him still having the power to wound me.

As I reached for the glass, there was a knock at my door. It could be Grace, but it was unlikely because she would have called to make sure I was in. No, it would be Max.

The thought of Max’s hard body over mine, pushing into me, filling me with nothing but him, sounded better than tequila.

I opened the door wide, inviting him in. He stepped over the threshold and I let the door slam shut.

“Hi. I just wanted to check—”

“Do you want a shot?” I asked.

He squinted at me and shook his head and I turned and headed back into the kitchen.

I picked up the full glass and before I could lift it to my lips, Max grabbed it out of my hand.

I expected him to throw back the shot, but instead he slung the glass and its contents into the sink. The sound of splintering glass hitting metal echoed into the silence between us.

Pretending he hadn’t just done that, I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a shot glass featuring the space needle. I filled it with tequila, then gripped the glass so Max couldn’t take it from me. He plucked it from my hand as though it was nothing. As he went to throw it into the sink, I said, “Don’t break that one. I like it.”