King of Wall Street: a sexy, standalone, contemporary romance (17 page)

My stomach flipped over as I remembered our conversation in the laundry room. Had she told Max anything I’d said? I glanced at the exit to the changing rooms. Could Max hear our interaction? “No, not at the moment.”

“You’re super pretty. When I’m older, I want to love my job, but I want someone to love me, too.” I’d not ruled out love. It had just never found me. Maybe Grace was right and I was looking for perfection. “My dad’s like you. Always busy with work. He always says that between work and me, he has more than enough for any man.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. She clearly wanted her dad’s approval, and I was getting the impression the two of them actually talked. Maybe they were closer than I thought. “Do you hang out a lot?” I asked, lowering my voice.

“Me and my dad? Yeah. Like all the time,” she replied.

Before I got a chance to ask Amanda more questions about her and Max’s relationship, she opened the curtain, grinning. “I really like this one,” she said, stepping out in a long skirt of pleated crepe, which had a slit up the side.

“It’s really pretty.” I leaned forward to even out the skirt. “I love it. This looks beautiful.” The shoulders were a contrasting silver material that came down and crisscrossed around her bust, in a Greek-like style. There was no cleavage, but at the same time it was dramatic. “And it looks gorgeous against your hair. Let me grab some shoes. Stay there.”

As I walked out of the dressing rooms, my eyes met Max’s as he looked up from his phone.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

I nodded. “Just getting some shoes.”

As I passed, he grabbed my wrist. I froze. Almost immediately he dropped my hand. “Sorry. I just wanted to say thank you. This means a lot to Amanda.”

I nodded but didn’t look at him. My brain was misfiring. One minute Max was thanking me for making his daughter happy, the next he was yelling at me if I didn’t get his sandwich order right. And then there were those kisses.

And I couldn’t quite work out the dynamic between Max and Amanda. He seemed quite involved in Amanda’s life. More than I’d thought. But if he’d never been married to her mother, how had that worked? It had never worked with my father.

I grabbed a pair of silver sandals with a small heel and rushed back to Amanda.

“Will he like it? Can we convince him?” she asked, taking the shoes and strapping them up. “This is the one, right?”

“You know him better than I do, but I think you look beautiful in it.”

“Daaad,” she called out. “I’m coming out. And I really like this one. It’s perfect, so you can’t be mean.”

Her smile was so wide, I couldn’t help but smile back. I really hoped he approved. Amanda deserved to wear this dress. It was age appropriate and really elegant.

She stepped out onto the shop floor and I peeked around the corner at Max’s face. His eyebrows were halfway up his forehead as she twirled around three hundred sixty degrees for him. “What do you think?” she asked.

He gave a small shake of his head as he stood and took a deep breath. “I think you look far too grown-up.” Amanda’s shoulders slumped. “And completely beautiful.” He pulled her into a hug. “You found your dress, peanut.” He lowered his voice and spoke into her ear as they continued to hug. “You’re growing up so fast; you have to forgive me for wanting to keep you mine for longer than I should.”

Tears welled in my eyes. He sounded so genuine. So completely besotted with his daughter.

“I’ll always be yours, Dad,” she said as she smiled. He kissed her on the cheek and released her.

Max seemed to regain his composure. “Twirl for me again,” he said, lifting her hand in his and pulling his daughter into a spin.

The skirt of the dress lifted as she turned faster and faster. Max grinned and Amanda giggled. My heart squeezed. It felt as if I were encroaching on what should be a private moment. I should have my own memories like this, not have to steal other people’s.

* * * * *

“You know what this means?” Amanda asked as we stepped out onto the sidewalk, the heat swallowing us up immediately. She carried two white boutique bags, one with the dress and one with the shoes and a bag we’d spotted on the way to the cash register.

“We let poor Harper get on with her weekend?” Max replied.

My stomach jolted. Had I overstayed my welcome? I’d just been trying to help. Max didn’t need to be so ungrateful. I opened my mouth to excuse myself, but Amanda took her father’s hand and tried to pull him along the street. “No silly. It means we have something to celebrate.”

Max rolled his eyes. “As if you need any excuse.”

“I’ll leave you guys to it. Your dress is beautiful, Amanda.”

Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “No. You have to come,” she said. “You have to celebrate with us.” She beckoned to me to follow them.

“You celebrate with your dad,” I replied, glancing in the other direction. Shopping hadn’t really involved much interaction with Max. Most of my time had been spent with Amanda. Other than the cab ride, things hadn’t been too uncomfortable. And seeing Max with Amanda suggested they had a better relationship than I’d ever had with my father. If I left now, I would be ahead. I’d survived without calling my boss an asshole and without getting naked with him. Perhaps there was middle ground. And hopefully the constant comparisons I’d been making between Max and Amanda’s relationship and my father’s and mine would stop.

“I want you to come,” Amanda said.

I smiled but before I could think up an excuse, Max intervened. “Amanda, Harper has things to do. We have imposed on her free time enough.”

He clearly wanted to be rid of me. And I got it. Just days after agreeing to keep things strictly professional, I was standing on a sidewalk with him and his daughter. And even though I wanted to leave, it hurt just a little that he was so keen for me to go.

Amanda’s face fell. “I don’t want to celebrate without her. If it hadn’t been for Harper, I wouldn’t have found my dress. Are you sure you can’t come? We’re going to my favorite place.”

I glanced at Max, whose gaze travelled between me and his daughter. The corners of his mouth twitched, as if he was trying to suppress a smile.

“I’m sure your dad wants to switch off from work and spend time with you—”

“Daaad,” Amanda said. “You want Harper to come, don’t you?”

Max ruffled his daughter’s hair and she quickly moved out of reach. He turned to me and gave me the biggest panty-melting smile I’d ever seen, his green eyes dancing against the New York sun, framed by almost too long lashes. “Harper, we’d love for you to come if you can spare the time. But don’t feel you have to give into my daughter’s whining. She’s far too used to getting her own way.”

Before the sensible side of me—the part enjoying this new middle ground—could run back downtown, I agreed.

“I suppose I should have asked before I said yes, but where are we celebrating?” I asked as we walked east.

“Serendipity,” Amanda replied. “It’s our place. We always come in on the train at the end of summer and celebrate going back to school.”

“From your mom’s?” I asked.

“From Connecticut. Sometimes my mom and Jason come, but sometimes we come in together. Do you remember that year Aunt Scarlett came as well?” she asked her dad. “She wanted to order one of everything because she couldn’t decide.”

“She
did
order one of everything,” Max said. “Which is pretty typical of my sister.”

“My mom and Jason moved to Europe so it’s just me and Dad now.” She turned back to her dad. “You love having me living with you all the time, don’t you?”

Max chuckled and glanced at me. “She’s driving me crazy.”

They lived together?

“I didn’t realize you lived in Connecticut,” I said. I was fascinated at how the King of Wall Street had a secret life away from Manhattan. I felt like an investigative journalist, putting little scraps of information together.

“Yeah, near Mom and Jason’s place. And Grandma and Grandpa King and Grand-Bob and Grand-Mary. And Scarlett.”

“Jesus. It makes us sound like we’re living in some kind of commune.” Max slung his arms around his daughter’s shoulder. “We just all live close. Amanda’s mother, Pandora, and I were in high school together, and it made sense after college to make sure we lived near each other. That way,” he said, turning to Amanda, “when your mother got sick of you, she could get a break and dump you with me.”

Amanda grinned and rolled her eyes, the explanation clearly something she was used to hearing.

“So the apartment is just a pied-à-terre?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. I used to stay in Manhattan all week and go back to the country on weekends, but now I’m only in town two nights a week.”

Amanda came to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk. “Oh my God. You’ll have to come out, Harper. The night of the dance. Will you help me get ready?”

I didn’t know what to say. I concentrated on trying not to look too shocked. I really liked Amanda and at every turn, Max kept surprising me. I wanted to encroach on their world a little longer, but I knew it was entirely inappropriate.

Max cocked his head, indicating she needed to keep walking. “Amanda. That’s enough. You can’t just assume people want to be monopolized by you.”

We resumed walking north towards Sixtieth. “Why not? Grandma says that I get all my charm from her and that God skipped a generation with you.”

I laughed and Max rolled his eyes.

Thankfully, Amanda’s attention had been diverted away from me. “Oh, I meant to say that I’ve decided I want to enter that piano competition next semester,” she said.

“I thought we checked a few months ago and you have gymnastics the night of the practice, or will the schedule change next semester?” Max asked.

He seemed to have an intricate knowledge of his daughter’s schedule, which if someone had told me yesterday, I would have thought it impossible. But as the day wore on, it was clear he was more involved in his daughter’s life than I’d given him credit for.

“Well, gymnastics is at six and then piano is at eight. So I think I can do both if we can get Marion to drive me.”

This was such a different version of Max King—warm, open, and relaxed. So far removed from the impatient, ruthless man who’d founded King & Associates, to the demanding, sexy man who worked my body as if it belonged to him.
This
Max King was a father and a family man.

Thunder cracked above us. “I told you it was going to rain,” Max said. “Come on.” He held his hand out for me and then, as if he remembered who we were to each other, withdrew it and nodded up Third Avenue as if we were nearly there instead of two blocks away.

We weren’t going to make it. Generous dots of rain began to color the ground.

“Come on, Harper,” Amanda called as she and Max started to run.

Amanda pointed at a flash of light above us and began to count, “One banana, two banana, three banana, four banana.” Thunder ended her countdown and Amanda squealed. “Quick, it’s nearly here.”

I ran behind them as we wove in between tourists and underneath umbrellas. As we arrived at Serendipity, the lightning flashed again and the rain began to fall more heavily. “Let’s get inside,” I said, and we piled into an already crowded entrance and waited to be seated.

“Do I look like a drowned rat, Dad?” Amanda asked, beaming up at her father. She was a beautiful girl who had inherited the large green eyes, olive skin, and near-black hair from her father.

Max chuckled. “A little bit.”

I wiped my under eyes, trying to remove the inevitable mascara leak. “I’m sure I look like Alice Cooper,” I said.

“You look very pretty, like from a movie or something,” Amanda said. “Doesn’t she, Dad?”

I shook my head and a soaked strand of hair plastered itself against my cheek. To my surprise, Max reached out and tucked it around my ear. Heat coursed through me and I wanted to reach for his hand, push my fingers through his. But instead I concentrated on the waitress behind Max, worried I’d lose control if I looked at him, maybe pull him into a kiss as I did that first night we were together.

He quickly turned back to Amanda and took her face in her hands. “Not as pretty as my drowned rat,” he replied.

“Gah. That’s why I’m never going to get a baby sister.” She twisted away from him. “You need to learn to give ladies compliments, or you’ll never get married.”

Married? I kept my eyes firmly on the restaurant, hoping my makeup hid the red in my cheeks. For the first time since leaving the dress store, I felt as if I shouldn’t be here. Our conversation in the laundry room came back to me. She wanted her dad to find someone. Was Amanda trying to set us up? She had to know that Max and I were . . . We weren’t involved like that, weren’t ever going to be involved like that.

Chapter Ten

Max

The day with Harper and Amanda had been far . . . easier than I expected. After finally getting on the train back to Connecticut, Amanda couldn’t stop talking about her dress and Harper and how much she liked her. And I hadn’t stopped her.

“We could invite Harper to dinner,” Amanda said as she set out the knives and forks on the counter in the kitchen.