The Dealmaker (Sex & Bonds 1)

Wall Street Bathroom

@WSBathroom

Overheard in stalls across Wall Street. Submit your gossip:

New York, New York

475 Following 3.5M Followers

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@WSBathroom 2/2

Well *this* is juicy: we’re hearing star trader Theo Morgan is leaving his post in NYC at Felix Brothers to trade High-Grade corporate bonds at Atlas & Teton in Charlotte, North Carolina (!!!!!)

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@WSBathroom 2/2

A&T has been fending off rumors of financial trouble since their shocking earnings miss back in January. We have no idea how they wooed Theo away from Felix, but we applaud the ballsy move.

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@WSBathroom 2/2

Speaking of balls, please do not send us pictures and/or selfies from your stall. We’ve had to pour bleach in our eyes one time too many. Thank you for your cooperation.

Chapter One

Nora

Fighting and fucking.

I had no idea they’re two sides of the same coin until I meet him. Theo Morgan, aka the Bull. It’s a nickname Wall Street doesn’t hand out lightly; you have to have exceptionally large balls and be an exceptionally giant asshole to earn it.

And oh, does Theo earn it.

The morning we meet, I wake up before my 4:45 a.m. alarm. It’s unusual for me—I love to sleep—but it’s notification day, and my heart is popping around my chest like a pinball. I’m always excited to get my bonus number and review; bonuses make up the lion’s share of my compensation. But today I’m extra excited. Or maybe just anxious, because my boss is handing out exactly one promotion this year, and I’m in the running to get it.

If I did, I’d be one of fifteen female managing directors on Atlas & Teton Bank’s thousand-person trading floor. One of them being my idol Paula Fernandez, my boss’s boss and global head of sales and trading. MD is the highest title in the banking world aside from CEO, and it’s one I’ve been after since I started my career in sales and trading at twenty-two, fresh out of college.

I check my phone to see if my dad responded to the text I sent him yesterday. He had a successful career in finance too, so I asked him for any advice he might have. I smile when I see he did respond, but my excitement fades when I see he just said: Good luck. Not even an exclamation point. I don’t know why I’m disappointed by his disinterest after all this time, but the impersonal reply still stings.

I refuse to let him ruin my day before it even begins, so I hop on my Peloton in an effort to sweat out my jitters. It works. By the time I’m done showering, I’m blow-drying my hair with a steady hand. If I can survive a decade in the male-dominated world of investment banking, who’s to say I can’t thrive in it too, despite some (very big) missteps along the way?