He meant money, prestige, fame. She spun back, stepped into his body, at some level aware of the way her breasts heaved, the shift of fine wool against brocade. “I want something from you,” she said. “Is that what you think, that because I don’t want money or clothes or jewelry or a Fifth Avenue apartment that this isn’t deadly serious for me? I want the truth from you. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.”
He ducked his head, blew out his breath, then looked up at her through his eyelashes. He was nothing special to look at, but she couldn’t stop looking at him. No one could. Half the restaurant watched them cross the room and disappear down the corridor, and that wasn’t just because Simone was wearing the most vibrant shade of blue-green outside of a Caribbean beach. It was because Ryan, even when he was relaxed, watching the action, commanded the attention of everyone in the room. Ryan, half-drunk and combative, put everyone on full alert.
He stepped back, regained his composure. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Simone.”
Head held high, she rejoined Stéphane at their table. He lifted an eyebrow, his gaze all-seeing, amused. She shrugged, knowing that he would understand everything that single movement of her shoulders intended to convey. Before Ryan arrived she’d entertained the notion of going home with Stéphane, of having a story to tell Ryan the next time he showed up on her stoop. But after the scene in the corridor, she knew how real chemistry felt, the searing, exhilarating swoop of adrenaline, the way her senses heightened, straining for the touch of Ryan’s lips, his body against hers. She wouldn’t settle for a pale imitation of the real thing, no matter how out of reach Ryan was.
Chapter Six
Ryan stood in the center of the trading floor at MacCarren, Bluetooth headset on, listening to an earnings call, one eye on the TV screens bolted to the columns interspersed through the floor, the other eye on the three screens on his desk. Surrounded by his workday, which was high stress enough without the FBI breathing down his fucking neck, all he could think about was Simone.
“—take share in the quarter with $4.1 billion of fee earning net inflows, including July first subscriptions—”
The scene at the restaurant had worked perfectly in one regard. Simone was a stunning woman, all red hair and glowing curves of shoulders and breasts, and laced into that outfit and giving off sparks, she’d been the perfect high point in the latest installment of Ryan Hamilton, Manhattan Playboy. Two of his friends, drunk as fuck, blown away by Simone’s simmering sexual energy, and not fully grasping the concept of no means no, took pictures and posted them. Within hours they were all over the Internet.
He hated himself for it. He never intended to use her that way. Walking into her showroom with Jade was nothing but coincidence. The fact that a perfect storm grew out of that single event, social media buzz, the titillation of sexy lingerie, actresses and supermodels and Wall Street money all coming together to draw everyone’s eyes to him was nothing but the best kind of luck. Unfortunately, it also drew everyone’s attention to Simone, and that meant nothing but trouble for him.
Simone didn’t want that. She’d had it, and walked away. Simone needed nothing from him, and only seemed to want the truth of who he was. Unfortunately, that came at a time when not only could he not give her that, he wasn’t actually sure what it meant to be Ryan Hamilton.
“—how do you make this deal work? Essentially, what’s your secret ingredient, because on the surface it looks like a pretty vanilla asset under consideration. Maybe I’m wrong on that, but you’re deploying three billion of capital in search of the IRRs you’re targeting—”
He tuned out again. Right now he was a walking, bleeding ulcer waiting to happen. He rummaged through his top desk drawer, found the supersize container of Tums, popped the lid, shook out three antacids, and chewed them while listening to the investor call, subconsciously processing the flow of information into his ear.
“—math is directionally correct that you just went through on the $1.7 billion given the assumptions that you gave—”