I read them all but didn’t respond. I couldn’t tell her I’d been there, seen her, seen him, and how right they looked together. And I hadn’t done anything to make contact with her. It would upset her to think we’d been close. It would upset her to know I let some guy kissing her fucking cheek put me off.
Tossing the phone to the end of the bed, I laid back down and groaned.
I’d told her the drama was worth it. I’d believed it when I said it.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.
8
Landen Enterprises, LLC
March
Marc
“I’ll have the roast beef on rye with mayo,” I ordered. I grabbed a bottle of water and paid. Then I stepped aside and let Trevor place his order. The place was packed, so it would be a few minutes before our sandwiches were ready.
I found a table for two at the back of the small, cramped deli that had become our go-to for lunch on Saturdays and Sundays. It was the closest restaurant within walking distance of the office, and on a wicked cold day, it was our first choice.
I took off my coat and scarf. The present Ash had bought me. She was right. More times than not, it was freezing in the city and walking around was unpleasant. An arctic blast coming from Canada was currently blanketing the East Coast, plunging the temperatures into single digits.
Which meant Ash was now in Sedona, Arizona. Fearful of the low temperatures weather forecasters were predicting, Landen didn’t want to risk her having another attack so close to her last one.
For once, I agreed with him.
Ash didn’t. She didn’t like the idea of being so far away, but in the end, she didn’t have much choice.
It wasn’t like we could see each other anyway. Between school and working weekends, I had exactly zero free time. Landen had been right about that.
All we had were texts and late-night phone calls, with exactly zero plans to see each other in the near future.
Ash didn’t seem to mind. She seemed content for us to linger in this limbo because she considered the end, my graduation, in sight. The end, when everything would change.
In some ways, I suppose it didn’t bother me, either. It wasn’t like I had any time for anyone right now. It sucked not being able to get laid when I wanted, but, other than that, not too much had changed between us really.
My concern, which was not Ash’s concern, was what came next. Exactly what did she think was going to happen the day after I graduated? It’s like she could see this definable future for us, just sitting out there. Waiting for us.
For me, that future was far more uncertain.
“Hey, I grabbed your sandwich for you,” Trevor said, plopping down my roast beef in front of me, then opening up the turkey sandwich he consistently opted for.
“Thanks.”
We ate mostly in silence, until, finally, he lifted his chin in my direction.
“What?” I asked.
“So, how’s it going?”
“As of today, I’m just over twelve thousand.”
“Nice,” Trevor muttered. “That’s better than a fifteen percent return.”
“Part of the investment was a pretty big risk, but it paid off. Once I cleared ten percent, the rest was easy.”
“Impressive. You might be working full-time sooner than you realize.”
I wasn’t doing anything until I had my degree. A degree was more permanent than money. Money could be made and lost, but a degree would mean I always had the potential to make more money.
My mother never had one. George hadn’t, either, although he didn’t talk too much about his life before I came to live with him. Only said that he’d made bad choices.
“We’ll see,” I muttered around a mouthful of sandwich. “How often does Landen check that stuff?”
Trevor shook his head. “No clue. He’s got access to all the accounts, so he can monitor them, but whether that’s weekly…monthly…who knows? I was here for almost seven months, then out of the blue he assigned me two clients.”
“How many new people does he bring on each year?”
“You’re the first since I started two years ago. Landen likes a tight-knit organization. And he doesn’t like a lot of turnover. People come, he makes sure they have the opportunity to make a shit ton of money, and they stay. There was only one guy who left recently. Dean Benfield. He’d been with the firm for over ten years. And when I say left, it was not pretty. They really got into it in Landen’s office.”
“Got into it how?” I asked.
“A lot of shouting. The offices are soundproof, so we shouldn’t have been able to hear anything. They were that loud. Benfield told Landen he was a crook, and he’d pay for it. But that’s all I could make out. Then Benfield stormed out the office, packed up his stuff, and left the building. A few clients jumped ship and went with him, but most of them stayed with Landen. It helped me out. I picked up two of Dean’s accounts.”
“What about you? Do you like working for him?” I asked.
It might have been the first personal question I’d asked Trevor. We both worked Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. We ate lunch together on those days. I’d asked him about everything he knew related to the business, but I didn’t know a damn thing about his life, or what he thought about anything.
He shrugged, and maybe hesitated a bit too long.
“I like the money. That’s for sure. But Landen is not a guy interested in building up his team. He shares nothing, not his accounts, not any insights he has about how the market is going to react. He protects all his information. It always feels like there’s a lot of cloak-and-dagger shit going on, and it makes me a little nervous. I wish things were more transparent, but when I talk to my buddies who work at firms like this, it’s kind of the norm. When you’re talking billions of dollars, I guess there always have to be some secrets.”
“What do you mean by cloak-and-dagger shit?”
Trevor shook his head, “Oh, hell no, I’m not telling you dick. For all I know you’re a spy.”
I smiled at that. “I’m not a spy for Arthur Landen. I can promise you that.”
“All right. Your turn then. Why are you here now? There will be plenty of time to work after you finish school, so you must be killing it to keep your schedule. How did Landen find you anyway?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“Landen doesn’t talk to me other than to sign my paycheck.”
“My uncle is his driver. He raised me in a carriage house on Landen’s estate. Landen’s known me since I was twelve.”
“No shit. And he’s giving you this chance?”
I shook my head. “Yeah, no, it’s not like that. Truthfully, I think he wants to keep me under his thumb where he can keep tabs on me. Friends close, but enemies closer, kind of a deal.”
“What’d you do to piss him off?” Trevor asked.
“He thinks… His daughter had a crush on me, so he thinks there is something there.”
“Yeah?” Trevor asked, his eyes getting wide. “His daughter? What’s her name again? Something pretty I remember, Ashleigh. That’s it. She came to the office when I first started. Smoking hot, but not in that flashy, sexy way. She was all sweet, innocent, virgin hot. I almost fell out of my chair when I first saw her.”