“I’m on your side, Grip.”
He liked the way she said his name. As if she really did want to know him. He liked the edge between them, though he didn’t understand it, or why he was haunted by the idea they’d met before even when that was an impossibility. She’d said she wouldn’t judge. And she wasn’t trying to push an agenda at him, like almost everyone who wanted a slice of his money did.
“The thing about me is that I’m mostly an open book but this is about money. It’s different. I got burnt. Fucked it up. More than once. You want me to open up. I get it but it’s making me wiggy.”
She put her hands on the table and pushed her chair back. “That’s the last thing I want and I’m sorry I made you feel that way.” She stood and collected her gear. “Give me a moment to clear my calendar and we’ll play hooky.”
He watched her leave, jacket slung over her shoulder. She had a very, very fine arse in those suit pants. She was the kind of woman who could pull off a tux and look hot. She was the kind of woman who’d look good in nothing.
Once the door shut on him, he smacked his forehead. “Do not develop a thing for your advisor, you dickhead. You will fuck this up. Again.”
Too late, the thing was already floating in developing fluid, but since it was a long way from clear what he felt about Mena Grady, he was content to keep it in the dark and follow the money.
It was a kind of thrill when Mena threw her leg over his bike and her weight landed on the seat behind him. He’d fully expected her to pike. Tell him bikes were dangerous, and men who rode them were traffic accidents waiting to happen. She probably knew the stats.
Her hands were on his hips the whole way to Bronte Beach and now she sat on the promenade wall in the late afternoon shade beside him, sipping a takeaway coffee. They both had their shoes and jackets off. He’d given Mena his sunglasses so she didn’t have to squint. This could be a massive mistake, but if she was serious about wanting to know what made him tick, she had to trust him. And he had to trust her.
Still wiggy.
“You don’t get mobbed,” she said, after a long time of neither of them saying anything much, just taking in the waning day and soaking up the smell of the ocean on the breeze.
“Drummer.” He pointed at himself. “Back of the stage. I’m not that visible when I’m not with the guys. It’s a pack thing. And Abel and Isaac get all the attention.” He made a dismissive gesture, “Singers.”
“You sing, and you have your own fans.”
He gave her a sideways glance. “How do you know I sing?”
“I told you I was a fan once.”
“Tell me more.” He flashed a devious smile at her. When she’d said that the first time, he’d read it as a professional must have. You couldn’t very well tell your semi-famous client you didn’t know how they’d made their money.
“Back in your Property of Paradise days.”
He scoffed. “You were a Jay Endicott fan.” It was no surprise he’d made it so big. Oozed talent and yet unlike the rest of them he was self-taught. They didn’t become Lost Property until Jay quit. It was a joke rebrand that stuck.
She made the same throwaway gesture he’d made, “Singers.”
“That was a long time ago.” Told him Mena was around his age. “We were scrappy then.” They threatened to break up just about every other week.
“You had potential.”
She said that with such conviction he knew she wasn’t just trying this being a fan thing on for size. “Well, listen to you, fangirl.”
She laughed and there might’ve been a blush, but it was warm, and it might’ve just been her perfect skin absorbing the heat. He’d made sure they were in shade because she’d burn terribly.
“Are you disappointed it’s just you and me sitting here undisturbed?”
“I saw you do the chin lift, nod thing.”
She was observant. He had done the chin lift, nod thing. The thing where when someone recognizes you, you acknowledge that recognition without encouraging more interaction. Worked half the time.
“Did you always want to manage money?” he asked.
“I always loved numbers, the patterns, the absolute answers and clarity of math, but no, for a long time I didn’t want to be ordinary, but this is my talent, so I ended up . . .” she shrugged, and he finished her sentence.
“Extraordinary.”
She flinched, but it was probably because a seagull swooped in, squawking to see if they had chips to share. Grip stared it down and it turned its back to them.
“You don’t think I’m extraordinary,” Mena said. “You think I’m, I don’t know, serious.”
“Ice princess. Stick up your bum.”
“What? Really?” She glared at him.
He could only see himself, twin reflections in polaroid sunglass lenses, but he knew a glare when it was aimed at him. “Little bit.” He showed her a small space between his thumb and first finger. “But then you got on the back of my bike and you changed my mind.”
She looked at the sky. “I hate to think.”
“Now I’m going with smart and—”
“If you say cold, I’ll do something unprofessional, like kick sand at you.”
Beach play, tempting. He went with, “Frosty, you know like when you take something out of the freezer, and it has that layer of frost on it that melts on contact with your hand.” He liked that description, because out of the office all
