New York Billionaires Series

“The cartel wars,” Carter says. “I know.”

I smile up at him. “You know a lot about this industry.”

“More than you expected me to?”

“Well, I didn’t say that.”

His voice is dry. “You didn’t have to.”

“I should have known better, after you showed me that dive bar.”

He shrugs and looks out over the crowd. But he’s angling toward me. “Maybe I just read about that place to impress you.”

“Impress me? Oh, thank you,” I tell the bartender, accepting another glass. I should take it slow with this one. “As if you’d work to impress me.”

Carter’s gaze returns to me, eyes teasing. “You’re right. You’re already suitably impressed. I’m surprised you’ve held off on asking for my autograph for so long.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Autograph? Who do you think you are?”

“The co-owner of a very successful venture capitalist firm,” he says. “Some people would be impressed by that, you know.”

“Oh, I know. How many people have tried to con you out of your money tonight?”

“A few,” he admits with a crooked smile. “A nice woman spent a solid ten minutes trying to, subtly and very tastefully, get me to invest a couple of million in her arthouse newspaper before I told her it had absolutely no future.”

“Carter!”

“Well, I said it more delicately than that. Are you going to tell me off for being rude again?”

“I shouldn’t,” I say. “You’re my boss.”

He shrugs with elegant ease. “Not here, I’m not. Besides, I let her know I’m in more than enough trouble with the Globe , but thank you very much. You’d have thought someone in the newspaper industry would do their research.”

“Again with the snark,” I say, but I’m chuckling despite myself. It’s hard not to around him. Leaning against the bar, he looks just like he had the night we first met. A man from a different world, a god come down to play with mortals, and I’m somehow his chosen confidant. It’s intoxicating.

“Admit it,” he says. “You love it.”

I take a sip of my drink to keep from answering, but he sees the answer in my eyes, because he smiles wider. “Of course you do.”

“Do you know I called you peanut guy in my head the first night we met?”

“Peanut guy?”

“It’s true.”

“Like the little guy with a top hat? Mr. Peanut?”From NôvelDrama.Org.

I shrug. “You offered me peanuts the first time we met.”

“It was a good ice-breaker,” he says. “It wasn’t intended to become a moniker. I hope you’ve never thought of me as that again afterwards. Peanut guy,” he mutters. “The indignity.”

“It’s not bad, as nicknames go.”

“It’s awful.”

“Somehow I’ve gained one in my department.”

His eyes dance. “Have you, kid?”

“Ugh,” I groan. “Not that one.”

“I love that you hate it.”

“I hate that you love it.”

“Touché,” he says. “Now tell me what your nickname is in the newsroom.”

I look down at my glass and trace the rim with my finger. My admission suddenly seems foolish. I’d gained it, after all, for standing up to him. “Spitfire,” I say.

He chuckles. “Do you tell your colleagues off for their manners too, Audrey? Or is it only your bosses?”

A blush climbs up my cheeks. “I don’t know what came over me that first night when we met. Or at that all-hands meeting, for that matter. I’m usually not as… forward.”

“I think that’s a lie,” he says. “You probably get fired up all the time. I think you have to, to work as an investigative journalist.”

“I do, but it’s mostly in my head. I rarely act on it. Not like these greats,” I say, sweeping my hand out at the mingling guests. “Did you see that Dean Allen is here? He spent a year living with militia to get the most accurate story. He was there, in the trenches and in the dirt, and he won the Pulitzer for it.”

“Is that what you want to do? Get down and dirty for your stories?”

I nod. “Yes. I haven’t yet, not properly… but one day.”

“Well, there’s no shortage of wars to report from,” Carter says dryly. “Although the idea of you camping with militia in a jungle for a year doesn’t exactly put my heart at ease.”

I roll my eyes. “As if you have time to worry about a lowly employee.”

“A single employee, no,” he admits. “But a friend? Yes.”

I smile at him. Maybe it’s the champagne, and it’s definitely the adrenaline from being in this beautiful place, but my words flow freer than they should. “I’m sorry I judged you so harshly before.”

Carter’s face turns inscrutable. “You’re talking about the Globe ?”

“Yes. I still don’t like your methods, and I’m still… worried, but I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted the worst for the paper.”

“I don’t,” he says, eyes meeting mine. The gold in them seems liquid. “I’ve recently found myself more interested in the investigative side of things, too.”

“Have you?”

“Yes. A friend told me investigative journalism was the fourth estate. A defender of democracy and crucial to civil society.”