King of Wall Street: a sexy, standalone, contemporary romance Read Online Free Page A

into the soap opera that is your neighbor.”
    “You think she was a prostitute?” I asked. A woman leaving less than five minutes after an orgasm like that wasn’t normal. Surely she’d stick around for oxygen or round two? Hell, I wasn’t sure I’d have made it to a vertical position, let alone in heels, within an hour of what she’d experienced.
    “A prostitute? She’s a lucky one if she is.” Grace giggled. “But I don’t think so. A guy who can make a woman sound like that doesn’t need to pay for it.” She leaned forward and placed her empty glass on one of the dozens of boxes littered about the apartment. “Right, I’m going to get home to my vibrator.”
    “That’s really way too much information.”
    “But keep me posted on your neighbors. And if you run into them, try to get a picture.”
    “Yes, because if you’re going to masturbate over my neighbors, it would go better with pictures.” I nodded sarcastically. “You’re a pervert. You know that, right?”
    Grace shrugged and stood. “It was better than porn.”
    She was right. I just hoped it wasn’t a regular show I was going to get. If nothing else, I felt plenty inadequate at work. I didn’t need to have the same feeling at home.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    Max
    Harper Jayne was really pissing me off.
    She’d irritated me from the moment she’d started work almost two months ago. Up until now I’d managed to keep my distance.
    She was smart. That wasn’t a problem.
    And she got on with her co-workers well enough. I couldn’t complain.
    She didn’t seem to mind helping Donna with the photocopier. There were no delusions of grandeur for me to moan about.
    She was eager to learn. That had been one of the first things that grated on me. She was too eager. The way she looked at me with those big brown eyes as if she’d be willing to do just about anything I suggested was maddening. Every time I glanced at her, even if it was a glimpse of her in the kitchen as I came into the office, I imagined her sliding to her knees in my office, opening her red, wet mouth, and begging for my cock.
    And that was a problem.
    I always had a strict divide between my business life and my personal life, and there’d never been any exception. I was the boss, with a reputation to protect. I didn’t want my personal life to ever be more interesting that my business life.
    I tapped my pen against my desk. I needed to figure this out. Either fire her or forget about her. But I needed to do something.
    I found myself spending more and more time in my office with the door closed in an attempt to create some distance between Harper and me. Ordinarily, I’d spend time out on the floor with people, checking in on how things were going. But the open-plan area felt like contaminated land. When I had to interact with her, I addressed her as Ms. Jayne as a way of keeping her at arm’s length. It wasn’t working. I pushed my hands into my hair. I needed a plan. I couldn’t have some junior researcher changing the way I did business, because the way I did business had meant King & Associates was the best at what they did, and the whole of Wall Street knew it.
    Distractions were the last thing I needed right now. My focus was split enough as it was. Living with Amanda full time was more challenging than I’d expected and it meant a lot more time out of the office as I spent more time in Connecticut. I was also trying to land a new account with an investment bank King & Associates hadn’t worked for before, and I had a key meeting with an insider coming up.
    “Come in,” I called to the knock at the door, hoping it wasn’t Harper with her revised report.
    “Good morning, Max,” Donna said as she entered my office, closing the door behind her.
    “Thanks.” I took the tall cup of coffee she offered to me, trying to read her face. “How are you?”
    “I’m good. We have a lot to get through.” We had a daily lunchtime briefing.
    I reached for my collar. “Is it