The Dealmaker (Sex & Bonds 1)

Really wrong. Like, off-by-two-points wrong. If that’s the price, then I just lost a bunch of money when I should’ve made some.

I let the phone ring so I can go over the math I did. Everything looks right—

No, wait. No wonder our treasury prices didn’t match. She was using the five-year, while I was using the ten. My stomach dips.

That’s potentially a big—and costly—mistake. I’ve seen salespeople blow up clients over shit like this.

I push up onto my feet. “Frasier, your ticket’s showing the wrong treasury.”

A pair of indents appears between her eyebrows. “Really? I double checked it.”

“This bond is priced off the ten-year.”

Her fingers go still on her keyboard. She glances up at me. “BamCo just approved the ticket on their end.”

“It’s wrong. Fix it.”

Without another word she sits up and reaches for her phone turret, hitting a button.

“Morgan, it’s Ian,” Nicky is saying, phone to his ear. “He needs to talk to you about the Caterpillar price guidance.”

I hold up a finger and spin it around. “I’ll call him back.”

“He says it’s urgent.”

“Tell him to gimme two minutes.”

“Brian!” Nora says a little too brightly. “So, hey, real quick, I noticed we used the wrong treasury on the trade we just did. It should’ve been the ten-year, not the five.”

“Ian says he needs to talk to you right fucking now,” Nicky says to me. “His words, not mine.”

I spear a hand through my hair. Most days I don’t mind the lunacy of this job. Others, it gets to me. I put enough pressure on myself to perform. I don’t need others piling on.

“I’ll get to him when I get to him,” I say, gritting my teeth.

Pink splotches have appeared on Nora’s face. Bad sign.

“What?” I ask.

She covers the microphone with her hand. “We used the five-year to price those FedExes last week, and they were 2030s. What’s different about this bond?”

“This one matures later in the year than that one does.”

“You should have told me we were pricing off the ten-year.”

“You should have asked.”

She removes her hand from the microphone. “Okay, Brian, so it looks like a mix-up on both our ends. This bond matures toward the end of 2030, and it hasn’t rolled off to the five year yet . . . I know, I’m sorry, we both made a bad assumption . . . yes, I did say we were done . . . okay, let me see, I’m so sorry . . .”

Her eyes meet mine, round and scared and still soft, and I resist the urge to punch one of my screens. She’s upset. The client’s upset. And I stand to lose almost a hundred grand in P&L.

“Is BamCo trying to rip me off?” I ask. “Because that’s what this looks like.”

Hand over her microphone, Nora rises to her feet. “Brian’s a good guy and a good client. He’d never intentionally steal from us.”

“From me.” I jam a finger into my chest. “This is my book that’s going to take the hit.”

Her shoulders rise and fall on a quick inhale. “I’m trying my best to fix this, Morgan, but Brian’s right. We all said ‘done,’ and then I sent the ticket through—”

“This is your mistake. Fix it.”

“My mistake?” Her voice rises. “Are you fucking kidding me? We just priced a very similar bond off the five-year. Now all of a sudden this one prices off the ten? I’m looking at your axes,” she says, eyes flicking down to her screens, “and you don’t specify a treasury on this line item anywhere that I can see.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek so hard I taste blood. She’s not wrong.

“As a seasoned member of our sales force, I’d assumed you’d learned a long time ago to double check shit like this.” I don’t realize I’m yelling until the whole floor goes silent.

“I could say the same fucking thing to you,” she shouts back. “Are you going to honor the trade or not?”

This just went from bad to worse. Instead of taking a deep breath and calmly asking Nora to meet me in a conference room so we can come up with a solution together, I dig my heels in.

“Hell no! Not as is. This is your fuck-up, and you’re going to fix this.”

“It’s your fuck-up too,” she says, and to my horror I see that her eyes are wet. A hand grips my heart and squeezes. Calm down, you idiot. How would I feel if I knew some hotheaded jerk made my mom or my sisters cry at work?

But I can’t calm down, no matter how hard I try. “Let me talk to Brian then.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Brooks warns.

I reach for my phone. “No one asked you.”

“Hey, Brian, I’m sorry,” Nora says quickly into her microphone. “Do you mind if I call you right back? I’m doing my best to make this right and I need a minute. Okay . . . great, thank you so much. Huge apologies again for the headache.”