The Banker (Banker 1)

I kept my gaze out the window, thinking about nothing but also everything. “Bates.”

“Hmm?” Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he’d ditched a classic suit because we didn’t need fancy clothes for meetings at this place. The estate spoke for itself.

“Doesn’t it feel like the same shit over and over again?” From the third story, I could see over the cobblestone wall and to my neighbor’s property. Vineyards backed up all the way to my property line, but his actual residence was too far away to be seen.

Bates lifted his gaze from the documents in his lap. “You could say that—not that I’m complaining.”

Every day felt like déjà vu. My routine was almost always the same. I was referred to new clients from happy clients, and then I made new deals that increased my institutional holdings. More money was thrown on the table, but the pile was always so big I couldn’t see it grow anymore. As a thirty-year-old man, I’d accomplished everything a sixty-year-old man could only dream of. It used to be exciting. Now it seemed repetitive.

Bates lifted his gaze again, his eyes narrowing on me. “We just scored a huge deal. Don’t sit there and tell me you’re bored.”

I slowly turned in my chair and faced him, forcing my gaze away from the window and the landscape around my property.

Bates watched me with powerful eyes, regarding me like an opponent rather than a brother. The folder was open across his crossed legs, the signatures collected.

My glass was empty, and my mind was dead. Throughout the entire meeting, my heart rate didn’t rise once. It was the same meeting I’d had a million times, just with different faces. It was the same conversation I’d had a million times, the same handshake. “Yes. I’m bored.”

Bates slowly raised his right eyebrow, regarding me like I was losing my mind. He shut the folder without taking his eyes off me and tossed it on the large wooden table where the men had been gathered just twenty minutes ago. Their empty glasses still remained because the maids knew better than to interrupt us. “You have everything any man could ever want. How the hell could you be bored?”

“Good question.”

Bates turned silent as he waited for me to elaborate. When I didn’t speak, he pressed forward. “The women are boring you?”

There was nothing wrong with the women in my bed. Beautiful, sexy, and adventurous, they were exactly what I fantasized about. I always fucked two women at once. Made it carnal and animalistic. A single woman seemed too intimate now. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with just a single woman. It must have been years ago. “I suppose.”

“Jesus, I hope this isn’t going where I think it is…”

“And where do you think that is?”

“You want a wife?”

If being with different women every single night was boring, then a marriage would be even worse. My head would explode from mundane repetitiveness. “No. It’s the last thing on my mind.”

Bates released an audible sigh of relief.

Marriage wasn’t in the cards for either of us. It was too complicated. There wasn’t a single woman in the world who wouldn’t be tempted by our wealth. The second she got her hands on it, it would destroy her. It would complicate our business relationship, even if we drafted all the legal paperwork to keep her hands off the company in the event of divorce. It was something we’d agreed on a long time ago. So far, neither one of us struggled to keep our promise. After so many years of fucking around, women were all the same.

“Then what’s your problem, Cato?”

I didn’t have a single thing to complain about, and it would be childish to be ungrateful. My family struggled when I was young, and I would forever be humbled by my years of being poor. But now my life lacked purpose. “Wish I knew.”

“Does this have anything to do with what happened to Mother the other night?”

“No.” I made sure that asshole stayed away from her. This time, I put a team of security on her premises—even though she wasn’t happy about it.

“Then where is this coming from?”

Those green eyes popped into my mind, brilliant like emeralds and highlighted by the sternness of her eyebrows. She had the most elegant neck, long and slender with gorgeous skin. Her lips were soft like pillows, and her small tongue was both timid and inviting. The desire in her eyes had flickered away when she’d seen Christina beside her—and that longing never returned. She told me off before she marched out of my home, taking me to task like I wasn’t the most powerful man in this country. It was the most interesting conversation I’d had in a year. “No idea.”

6

Siena

I sat at the kitchen table in my house, information and photographs of Cato spread out everywhere. There was an open bag of candy I was munching on, along with my third cup of coffee. Fresh out of ideas, I sat there and tried to think of a plan.