Big Swinging D: Wall Street Royals Book 2 Read online

  He looked down. There was no need. He’d never wear it again, and it was unlikely anyone could get the smell out. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “I’ll pay you for it.”

  “Not necessary,” he said.

  “What if I insist?”

  “I have a closetful at home, I promise I’m fine.”

  She nodded. “What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Maggie,” he started. “There’s no need.”

  “Eleven? You look like you’re an eleven.”

  God help him. He only wanted a shower, and he was so close. “Yes.”

  “I think I may have a pair or two. Ellis was a ten and a half, but he was notorious for buying elevens.” She headed down the opposite hall. “I’ll look and see. If I have anything decent, I’ll put them with the clothes.”

  “Maggie,” he called and waited for her to turn around. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” A huge grin took over her face. “Be sure you close the door between the bedroom and the bath while you shower. I’ll be coming in to drop off the clothes and the last thing I want to see is Mr. Happy.”

  * * *

  Isaac felt almost human after his shower. True to her word, Maggie had laid out a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. The jeans fit decent, but the shirt was too small. Isaac didn’t care, though. They were both clean. She’d also placed what looked like brand new sneakers on the floor. He laced them up, glad they fit so well.

  A quick glance out the window made him frown and reach for his phone. What time was it? Surely it couldn’t be as late as it looked.

  Where was his phone? He pictured the last time he had it. It was still in his compost pants. He’d been so distracted when they’d arrived between craving a shower so badly and covering the shock that Maggie was actually part of the Warren Oil family, he’d forgotten to take his phone out of his pocket.

  What he needed to do was to grab a cab and head home. He’d work for a few hours from there to make up for the time he’d lost today. And he needed to call Ty. It was his first day back and the man probably thought Isaac had abandoned him.

  He stepped out of the bedroom, wanting to find Maggie and thank her once again before looking for his phone and heading out, when a crash from down the hall grabbed his attention. A slew of four-letter words followed.

  “Maggie?” he called, headed toward the ruckus. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s nothing,” she yelled from what had to be the kitchen. “Just a little cut!”

  He swore under his breath. If her ‘little cut’ was anything like her home being ‘not far,’ she’d probably lost a finger.

  The kitchen was easy to find. He followed the sound of Maggie’s, “Shit. Shit. Shit,” until he stood in the doorway watching as she tried to wrap something around a finger on her right hand.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, but this time he watched as she answered.

  “I will be.” She shook her head, looking at him before continuing. “As soon as I can get this bleeding to stop.”

  He didn’t wait for her to ask for help. With three long strides, he crossed the floor until he stood before her. “Give me your hand,” he said and covered his surprise when she did. He was pleased to see she still had all ten of her fingers intact. But the middle one on her right hand had a nasty looking gash.

  He took the cloth she’d been trying to use and wrapped it around her finger, gripping it and not allowing her to remove her finger from his grasp. “That cut looks deep, you should probably get it checked out.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Why did her answer not surprise him, even though her face had lost all its color and her voice sounded raspy? “You may need stitches,” he said. “And unfortunately sewing people up isn’t one of my talents.”

  “I’m not going to a hospital.” She looked him straight in the eyes as she spoke and though her face was still paler than he would have liked, her tone of voice suggested she would not take kindly to his insistence she needed to go to the ER.

  “Then I’m going to stay here until I know the bleeding has stopped and you’re not in danger of bleeding out.”

  “I’m not going to bleed out from that cut, get real. All it'll do is prevent me from giving you the bird.” She tried to move her hand. “Let go of my finger.”

  “Not yet.” He held on tighter. She didn’t try to get him to let go, but the scowl she gave him told him exactly what she thought of his first aid skills. Too bad. She’d have to get over it. Although he hated to admit, the longer he stayed in her presence, the more captivating she became. He couldn’t remember the last time someone other than his two business partners or Lillian argued with him. People generally just did what he asked.

  “How did you cut yourself?” he asked. His assumption she’d been cooking appeared not to be the case. The counter was cluttered with all sorts of boxes and papers, but not one food item.

  “I was opening that box.” She nodded at a box near his elbow and it was only then he saw the large German forged knife at its side.

  “You were trying to open a cardboard box with an eight inch chef’s knife?” He had never met anyone who seemed as accident prone as Maggie Warren. Maybe the compost and knife incidents occurring on the same day were a coincidence, but he doubted that was the case.

  “It’s never been a problem before,” she said as if that explained everything.

  He bit back the words he wanted to say, reminding himself she was not his employee or his submissive, and he had no right to treat her as such. It didn’t mean he had to agree or condone everything she did, he just needed to revise the way he went about handling a difference of opinion. “Now that it has become an issue, the next time you need to open a box, may I suggest scissors?”

  She laughed at him. Fucking laughed. He smiled, not knowing at all what the joke was.

  “May you suggest scissors?” She repeated, in a tone matching his. “That is so not what you really wanted to say, was it?”

  “No,” he admitted, both amused at her reaction and shocked at how much he wanted to make her laugh again. “But my other options were to open it for you, which I can’t do since I’m applying pressure to your finger, or command you use scissors, but I’d be wasting my breath.”

  He’d said the last bit in a half joking manner, but Maggie didn’t look amused. Not with the way she sucked in her breath and her eyes grew dark. Fucking hell. Did that mean what he thought it did?

  “I bet you’re good at it, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Good at what?”

  “Commanding people.”

  He kept his gaze steady on her. “I’ve yet to hear anyone complain.”

  “Will you let go of my finger now?”

  “Only if you continue to apply pressure.” At her nod, he let go and let her take over. He took a step back, trying to decide what he should do next. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone, but he’d stopped the bleeding and she was an adult, perfectly able to care for herself. Other than offering to open the box she’d attacked with the knife, and she might feel as if that was an invasion of privacy, there wasn’t much else he could do.

  He should leave now. Thank her for the use of the clothes, make a note to remind himself to wash and return them, then tell her goodbye, and get the hell out.

  But he lingered another second.

  “Will you stay for dinner?” she asked. “It’s the least I can do after dumping compost all over you and then almost bleeding out on you.”

  He should say no. It would be the wisest course of action. “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  Maggie almost giggled at the expression on Isaac’s face after he agreed to stay for dinner. From what she could tell, he’d meant to turn her down, and it’d shocked the hell out of him when his mouth said otherwise. She refrained from laughing though, he’d put up with enough today because of her.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll make Chicken Marsala. I love to cook, but I don’t d
o it very often because cooking for one sucks. By the way, I took your phone out of your pants, it’s over near the sink.”

  She wished she could wiggle her finger, but feared she’d start bleeding again and bring on the wrath of Isaac Gregory. Although something in her belly grew warm and tingly at the thought of being on the receiving end of Isaac’s wrath.

  “Thank you,” Isaac said. “Do you need any help?”

  “No, but I’d really enjoy the company.” Oddly enough, it was the truth. Sure she’d only noticed him crack a smile once the entire time they’d been together, but she sensed him to be a kind man. Somewhere under his cold exterior, beat the heart of a gentleman. He just needed to lighten up a bit. She watched as he took his phone, frowned at the display, and typed something.

  Scratch that. He needed to lighten up a lot of bits.

  “I’m probably not the best company,” he admitted, sliding the phone into his pocket. “That’s the case even on the best of days and today….” He shook his head, but didn’t continue.

  “Do you like Chicken Marsala?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then stay for dinner and don’t worry about keeping me company. Heaven knows I can talk enough for both of us.”

  That, at least, got half a grin out of him.

  “See?” She teased. “You know I’m right.”

  She left him alone after that, not wanting to come on too strong. Heck, she didn’t want to come on to him at all. Or at least that’s what she told herself. When she’d stepped into the bathroom earlier to drop the clothes and shoes off for him, he’d been in the shower. He’d closed the door as requested, but she heard the water and it didn’t take much imagination on her part to picture him. Especially since she’d had her hands on him earlier when attempting to get the compost off.

  He worked out. Long and hard if her fingers were any judge. And though her fingers hadn’t gone near the particular area, speaking of long and hard…

  Stop it.

  She needed to get her attention focused on something else. Anything else. She didn’t have a stellar record with the opposite sex, late husband included. Only hours prior she’d told herself it’d more than likely be five years before she had sex again. That wouldn't change simply because she’d invited a sex god into her home.

  She risked a glance at him. He had cleared a place to sit down in her dining nook and even managed to find the top of the table buried underneath all the paperwork she’d been avoiding. He definitely looked like a sex god, all blond and good looking hard muscles. For a brief second she allowed herself to imagine those muscles pressed against her as he took her roughly from behind.

  “You better not come yet.” His hand smacked her ass. Hard. Commanding, of course.

  She moaned.

  “Maggie?”

  Her head shot up. She hadn’t moaned out loud, had she? No, he looked at her funny but he had one of the papers from the table in his hand. She couldn’t blame him for looking, not when they were all laid out before him.

  “Yes,” she said, wondering which of the papers had caught his attention: the information the insurance company finally sent two weeks ago? Perhaps the nasty letter she’d received three days ago from her mother-in-law?

  “This is a stock certificate.” He sounded shocked.

  So was she, the stock certificates were the least interesting things on that table. “Yes.”

  “You have an entire pile here.” He put down the one he’d been holding and picked up another. “And they’re not all the same. I see at least three different companies.”

  “Yes,” she said again, because of course she knew what they were. It was printed on them and in case she had somehow overlooked that fact, both of the much more interesting letters mentioned them.

  “Maggie.” He took a deep breath. “I work on Wall Street and these are quite valuable.”

  “Wall Street, huh?” She shook her head. “I screwed that up. Had you pegged as a lawyer.”

  “I’m serious. This is not an insignificant amount of money that, for all intents and purposes, you have scattered across your table.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  His gaze didn’t waver. “To be honest, I’m at a loss trying to grasp what you know.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “I mean it, on one hand you’re this free spirit who carts compost and makes dates with lonely old men. On the other, you’re the widow of an heir to an oil empire. I see you walking down the sidewalk of New York City carting compost and I can’t make it fit together with the image of the woman who lives in this building. I can’t figure you out for the life of me.”

  That she understood. “Imagine trying to live it, Mr. Gregory.”

  He at least had the decency to look abashed at his words. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was cruel and unkind, and I should not have said it.”

  “Even if it’s true?”

  “I’ve known you for a handful of hours. I have no right to make any kind of judgement concerning you.”

  “And yet if I heard you correctly a few seconds ago, it seems you have made several judgments about me.” She held her hand up to stop any protests he might make. “And in many ways you were correct in your observations. I am a woman caught between two worlds. I have been for a long time. It’s just gotten more difficult since Ellis died. He was always good at allowing me to be myself and shielding me from those who wanted me to be someone else.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you feel or imply that you are in any way inferior.”

  If it had been anyone else, she’d have a difficult time believing them, but not only did Isaac sound genuine, he didn’t strike her as the type to speak untruths. “I believe you,” she told him. “I’m not sure why, but I do.”

  “Thank you.”

  She waved his thanks away. “I recognize I’m a free spirit or ‘hopelessly unsettled and too unfocused to hold down a real job for longer than a week’ as my mother-in-law enjoys saying, but I actually had a plan today to try to do better. Or at least I did until I realized I smelled so bad it would be counterproductive to look for a job after carting around compost.” She tilted her head. “You said you worked on Wall Street, what were you doing walking around?”

  She wasn’t sure why she asked. It wasn’t any of her business and it’d serve her right for him to tell her that very thing. It didn’t fit in with the rest of him, that he’d take off in the middle of the day to walk around the city.

  He sighed. “I walk to clear my head. My personal assistant’s last day was Friday, and I had a temp come in today to fill in before I find someone permanent for the job. It didn’t go so well.”

  “I thought you executive types had the old person train the new one. Or at least that’s what Ellis did. Unless the old one quit without giving notice.”

  “Not in this case. She gave notice, it was my fault, I didn’t believe her.”

  “That’s kind of dickish, don’t you think? To act as if she told a joke instead of resigning?” But there again, Isaac didn’t appear to be the type to do something so crass. There was more to it than that. “Maybe she quit because you were a jerk.”

  “I was,” he agreed, surprising her. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I was definitely a jerk.”

  “When I said that, I was joking.” She felt bad now. “Like you said, I’ve only known you for a few hours, but you are nowhere near being a jerk. Trust me, I’ve known several.” He didn’t look convinced. “Okay, tell me what you did that was so bad.”

  “Lillian was my PA,” he said. “She worked for me for years following her divorce from Ty, who also happens to be one of my two partners. She didn’t mind working for the company because we were opening an office in London and Ty moved there after the divorce to run it. But even if he hadn’t, they talked all the time and got along great.”

  She raised an eyebrow because that didn’t sound normal. “Really?”

  Isaac nodded. “She often joked th
at they got along fine, they just didn’t do marriage well. But not too long ago Ty said he wanted to come back to New York. Lance, my other partner, and I told him it didn’t make sense to switch things up for no reason.”

  “If it’s not broke, don’t break it.”

  He snorted. “Something like that. But then Lance’s girlfriend, who is a brilliant violinist, was offered a place in a touring symphony, based out of London.”

  “Ah,” Maggie said, as the pieces started to fall into place. “So Lance and Ty switched.”

  Isaac shrugged. “We all thought it was fate.”

  “Except Lillian.”

  “Yes,” his voice sounded pained. “She resigned as soon as she heard he was coming back. Blindsided me. But I’d blindsided her first. I apologized. She would have none of it. She said he was a partner and if one of them had to leave, it needed to be her.”

  “She sounds smart.”

  “She is and the best damn PA in the business.”

  Maggie stepped away to get what she needed together for the chicken. “Best of luck to you finding a replacement.”

  He didn’t say anything and when she looked up, he was watching her. “You mentioned looking for a job,” he said. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “It’s stupid, I know, and won’t change anything, but I want to prove my in-laws wrong.” She kept to herself how lonely it was to be her at times.

  “What kind of job?”

  He’d said he worked on Wall Street, it made sense he would know people who had job openings. She didn’t expect him to pull any strings for her, though. “I’m not picky and to be honest, I haven’t given it much thought beyond how nice it would be to work in the same office instead of being shuffled around like I am with the temp jobs I take.”

  “You’re with an agency?”

  “I only work with a handful of companies. Those who don’t mind who I am.” She’d never understood why there were companies who refused to work with her because she was a Warren.

  “Doing what?”

  “Mostly clerical. I used to help Ellis out. Planning. Stuff like that.” She flashed him a smile. “Ellis and I were high school sweethearts, and we’d planned to get married after we graduated from college. I majored in Art History. Ellis told me I’d never have to work. I was young and naïve. Stupid really. I believed him.”