She types, biting her lip, and I have to force myself to finally shut my mouth and sit the fuck down.
Bonds. I need to trade some bonds. Focus on all the messages I’ve already gotten on Bloomberg, the computer system we use for all things trade and finance related, including a messaging feature that allows us to chat with pretty much anyone in the industry.
Is that her perfume I smell? It’s more sexy than pretty, something unique and no doubt expensive.
Blinking, I shake the thought from my head. She’s doing this on purpose—distracting me—but two can play this game. Because it is a game, one I’m going to win. I’m sure the Samwise Gamgee look works for some people, but it definitely won’t work for me.
Rolling my sleeves up, I say, “Let’s put this green shirt to work, shall we?”
Chapter Four
Nora
Our towers block most of my view of Theo, but there’s a small sliver of space—maybe an inch or so wide—between my far-right screen and George’s far left, where I can just glimpse Theo’s desk.
A desk that is currently occupied by a pair of thick, lightly furred forearms that deserve a second, and then a third, look. Theo Morgan may be an egomaniac—I can’t remember the last time one of our traders cleared a million in profit in one day—with a probable record of performance-enhancing drug abuse, but he does have fine fucking forearms.
He played some preppy sport at Duke with George—crazy they’re working together now too—so it makes sense that Theo would have an athlete’s build: the biceps that bulge against the sleeves of his straight-from-the-golf-pro-shop green shirt. These forearms. I watch, mouth going dry, as Theo types, making the muscles there move against tanned, freckled skin. A vein snakes along a ridge of particularly enticing tendons, spreading out to become a network of slightly smaller veins that crisscross the back of his hand. His Rolex is polished and tidy, not a nick or scratch in sight. But those veins? They’re anything but tidy. They’re messy and earthy and ohmygod I’ve been watching a lot of Shondaland productions lately, haven’t I?
“Are you okay?”
I startle, looking up to see George shouldering out of his Patagonia puffer vest beside me. From the corner of my eye, I see Theo’s fingers go still, hovering above his keyboard.
“Fine,” I blurt. “Great. How are you? Good weekend?”
George nods. “Good weekend. You?”
“It was busy. So, just to fill you in real quick, I have to pull in a million sales credits today or I’m wearing a hobbit costume tomorrow. Which means you’re going to be Gollum.” I put on my headset, adjusting the microphone to sit in front of my mouth.
“My precious, already getting into trouble and it’s not even seven fifteen,” George says, logging in exactly thirty seconds before our meeting starts. He glances over his screens to look at Theo. “Y’all couldn’t help yourselves, could you?”
Theo holds up a middle finger in reply. “Just making your Monday a little more interesting.”
“I already had an interesting weekend. I’d prefer to have a boring day if you wouldn’t mind.”
“I do mind,” Theo replies. “Now get out your pen, I’ve got a lot of axes to go over today.”
Our seven fifteen morning call happens every day. Sales, trading, and research join in, totaling about thirty people across our Charlotte, New York, Chicago, and L.A. offices. Traders share their axes—or what specific bonds they’d like to buy or sell, which as a salesperson I’ll help them find from my list of clients—while research shares important news on the companies they cover, and the sales force talks about what our customers are looking for, and any orders we may have received to sell or buy bonds on their behalf.
Aiden, who works in a glass-enclosed office beside our row, comes on first like always. And like always, my chest feels heavy at how crisp and collected he sounds on the phone. I beat myself up a lot about falling into bed with him. It was reckless, pure and simple. I was warned from the day I was hired not to date anyone I worked with, and now I see why: not only has my reputation taken a hit, but I have to be around Aiden all day, every day, and that’s been an awkward and difficult experience to say the least.
But then I hear him crack a cheesy joke (“Mondays. Bollocks, I say”), and I feel slightly less like an idiot. Aiden Hempstead is lethal, no question about it. In my lonelier moments, I wonder why he didn’t pick me—why he chose to let me go instead of making our relationship official. I really believed what we had was real.
I thought he could be the beginning of the family I’ve always wanted but never had. I’m ready to be with someone who will shoulder life with me, an equal partner, a committed companion. But Aiden clearly wasn’t meant to be that guy.