Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Denial hit her like a truck. Oh . . . no. She’d left him to deal with that alone?
“Then I’m sorry, too, August.” Was everyone in the restaurant staring at them? How could they not be? But with their prying eyes shielded by the wall of August’s body, she was in a little I-don’t-care cocoon. “It’s hard to focus on that when you’re wearing this suit.”
In her periphery, she saw his eye crinkle at the corner, lips twitching. “Even better than my wedding tux?”
She sucked down another breath of grapefruit, then pushed him away slightly. On second thought, she tugged him a tiny bit closer.
I’m losing my mind.
August took hold of her indecisive wrists without a word and dropped his mouth to the space right above her ear, rumbling, “Babe.”
It was the equivalent of putting a pin in a balloon. She just unloaded. “I don’t think I’m going to get the investment and . . . instead of business, it just feels like another man using money to make me dance, you know?” She watched the lump move up and down in August’s throat. “Everyone is staring at me. They think I’m a joke. And Morrison just arrived out of the blue with his future wife, sitting at the bar, making me the live entertainment for the evening.”
August stiffened at the mention of her ex. “How do you feel about seeing him?”
He’d made himself vulnerable by giving her the truth when he walked in. She couldn’t do anything but return the favor now. “I don’t feel a thing.”
His chest shuddered up and down, tension ebbing from his burly frame. “And when I walked in?”
“I thought . . . you should have been here all along.”
A gruff sound left him, throat muscles shifting in a pattern.
He opened his mouth to say something, but they were interrupted by Savage.
“And who might this be?” asked the potential investor. Was it her imagination or had he intentionally dropped the register of his voice several octaves?
“Mr. Savage, I would like you to meet my husband, August Cates.”
“Husband?” The man reared back a little and he traded a glance with a few of the men behind him at the bar. “It must have been a whirlwind romance.” He put out his hand for August to shake. Her husband didn’t seem thrilled about letting her go long enough to conduct the greeting. “Call me William, please. Good to meet you. Sorry you couldn’t make dinner.”
August nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Savage studied her husband. “Are you some kind of athlete or something?” he asked, rolling a shoulder.
“I’m a SEAL. Been retired just over three years.”
“You’re shitting me! A Navy SEAL.” The man dropped his drink onto the bar, with no awareness that it splashed onto the jacket of the closest patron. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a SEAL. Talked about it until I was blue in the face. My father even set up obstacle courses in the backyard and called it toddler training. I’d love to hear some battle stories.”
Her husband looked down at her. “I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of them tonight from Natalie already, though, right? I don’t know a lot about the financial world, but a woman on Wall Street would have to fight harder than anyone, I imagine.”
Savage laughed. “Harder than a SEAL? I’m not sure about that.”
August’s eyes seemed to darken a shade. “It’s a different kind of fighting. And she has fought her way back here with almost no support. No one encouraging her to do it. God only knows where her inner strength comes from, but I’ll tell you something, it’s more than I’ve got. It’s enough to keep putting herself out there with no reward and I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t take someone with that much bravery seriously.”
It took everything inside of Natalie not to burst into tears. He was right. She’d been kicking ass and clawing her way back and that effort had gone unacknowledged. By anyone. And she wasn’t the only woman who went about her daily grind only for people to expect more, so she liked to think all of womankind celebrated with her in that moment. When her husband finally got it. When he finally saw her.
The investor had gone from jocular to thoughtful during August’s speech. He turned his attention to her now. “If I trust you with my money, what’s your first play?”
Natalie took a deep breath and let it rip. “Obviously we’re going with a classic long/short equity strategy. We make the smart investments that put us ahead and give us room to play and then we short technologies, pharma, oil based on bold predictions and market trends. And I’m not just talking about the United States. We’re going to monitor markets and how consumers respond in every geographical location on the face of the earth, taking everything down to the fucking weather patterns into account. If your money isn’t tripled in the first quarter, I’ll give you back every cent of your initial investment.”