Grumpy Boss

Kevin grinned at me and shook his head. “I don’t know shit about the stuff. I got this girl, real smart, went to some Ivy League school. Nice ass too. Anyway, she buys my shit and parks it in this warehouse out near the airport, basically makes it tax free, so when I sell it, boom, pure profit. Real nice situation.”

I glanced at Millie and she seemed almost disgusted, but was hiding it well enough. The world of high finance wasn’t exactly a bastion of gender equality. Frankly, lots of sexist fucking dick bags had a lot of money, and the money only made empowered them.

“You sure I can’t convince you?” I asked.

“Positive, but tell you what. Since you came out to visit me, I’ll throw you a bone.”

“Ten million would be a good start,” I said, grinning.

He laughed and banged on the table. “That’s what I like about you Rees. No bullshit. You go for what you want.”

I glanced toward Millie. “Damn right I do.”

“Listen, I know a guy, okay? Goes by the name of Byron, lives out in Colorado. He’s a cattle rancher.”

Millie perked up. “Like a cowboy?”

Kevin pointed at her. “Exactly like a god damn cowboy.”

“And he’s got enough to invest?” I asked, a little skeptical. I didn’t know of any rich cowboys out in Colorado named Byron, and that was exactly the sort of thing I’d know about.

“He’s got more than enough. Dumb bastard’s been buying gold, like literal fucking gold bars, and burying it out on his property. Prepper type, you understand, but he’s got this baby girl now and he’s thinking about trying to leave her something. So he’s suddenly a player.”

“Interesting,” I said, touching my chin. There weren’t a lot of guys that a lot of cash to invest but weren’t known in the money world yet. This could be a big deal for me—if I could get to him first. “Send me his details.”

“Will do. I’ll make an introduction.” Kevin banged on the table again, grinning huge. “God damn I love making deals happen. Do you feel it, Rees? That god damn rush?”

“I’d feel it if you wrote a check,” I said, and he laughed even louder. I leaned up against Millie and gave her a look and she rolled her eyes. As I turned back to Kevin, I felt my phone vibrate.

It was a text from an unknown number.

This is Judith. Lady Fluke will see you tomorrow morning for breakfast. 7am sharp. Do not be late.

My eyebrows arched up to my hairline. I halfway expected Fluke to blow us off. I showed the text to Millie, which got a similar reaction from her, then looked back at Kevin.

“Thanks again for your help,” I said. “Turns out, we have a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning, so we’d better head out.”

“So soon?” Kevin grunted and waved a hand. “Alright then, day walkers. I never understood why people loved the sun so much. I always fall asleep when it peeks its dumb face up over the horizon. Exhausting, all that light.”

“I think you’re unique that way,” I said.

He laughed again and waved faster. “Go on, go get your beauty sleep. I’ll send over Byron’s information.”

“Thank you,” I said, and turned away. Millie left with me, and we headed across the room again.

I leaned close to her, and I saw the question in her eyes. But before we got to business, I had one more thing I needed to do.

I put a hand on the small of her back. She opened her mouth to say something—then her jaw fell open when I moved down to grip her ass. I held it there, squeezing just a little bit, before moving my hand back up.

“Don’t flip,” I said, leaning my lips down near her ear.

“You just grabbed my ass,” she hissed. “In the middle of that room. Kevin probably saw it.”

“Good,” I said. “Kevin will spread this little rumor around, that I’m sleeping with my assistant. And there are three other finance people in here, each of them will back his story up. This’ll help combat the Giana rumors and cement our fake relationship in the world.”

“You asshole,” she said, walking stiffly, but she didn’t pull away.

She knew this was part of the deal, even if she didn’t like it. We had to make this fake thing seem real—and grabbing her ass in a club was definitely one way to go about it. There were other, less physical ways, but those tended to be very boring.

We moved through the loud downstairs then out into the night. We passed the long line of people waiting to get inside—and I recognized some of their faces, still exhausted, still hopeful that if only they could get inside, then their lives would be fun again. I wished I could tell them, inside was no better than anywhere else.