“I’ll go ask someone for a fork.” Jack pictured the look on his mother’s face if she saw Pops eating with his fingers. “Good thing Mom’s not here.”
Pops snorted. “Don’t know how I raised such a snooty daughter. Nose always in the air. Yet she doesn’t have a pot to pee in that I didn’t give her. It’s not like your father’s ever amounted to much.”
Jack’s father was a partner in a prestigious law firm. He was more than successful, but Pops liked to rib him. To a man like Will Hathaway, anyone who wasn’t self-made like he was didn’t deserve the same level of respect. Pops had started out playing stickball in Brooklyn, and he made sure everyone knew it.
It was part of why he was so proud that Jack had made his own fortune, independent of the family trust.
“And you’re the one who’s rich,” Pops added with a grin.
Jack folded his arms and grumbled. “I’m not rich, Pops. I’m comfortable.” Actually, he was rich. But sometimes that embarrassed him. He’d never set out to be successful for the reward of wealth. He had been aggressive because he loved the challenge, the thrill, winning the game—the money just happened to come along with it.
Pops was unrepentant. “You’re sitting on a cool ten mil, ain’t you? That makes you mighty comfortable in my book. Most people would call it rich.”
Taking a seat on the bed, Jack stretched his arms over his head and tried to ignore the wet sauce stain sticking against his skin. “I guess you’re right. It’s just that being considered rich makes me uncomfortable sometimes. Maybe I should just give it all to Mom. That would make her happy.”
“Over my dead body.” Pops slurped a noodle up, sending tomato sauce spraying over his blue striped shirt and his chin. “You made that money legally and it’s yours. Not your mother’s. Besides, you bought her that fancy car. That’s more than enough.”
Jack flopped back on the bed and checked out the ceiling. When he had first made the money a few years back, day trading, taking advantage of the market and its ups and downs, he had been ecstatic. He could retire from Wall Street, dabble a little here and there and increase his net worth without killing himself with fourteen-hour workdays.
That was the plus side.
What he hadn’t counted on was the negative side.
The fake, fawning people who played ass-kissing games, yet would stab him in the back the minute he turned around. It was a cold, hard world for even the single-digit millionaire, and it had been a long time since Jack could trust that any woman was interested in him and not his money.
Until today.
Jamie didn’t know he had anything more than the shirt on his back. And he intended to keep it that way.
Jamie wanted to see him, Jack. Joe Ordinary who rode the subway like everyone else and carried spaghetti in a brown paper bag.
Jamie who looked normal. Like a regular girl from small town, USA, with a slight twang that still lingered in her voice.
Hair that just spilled all over the place, untamed by a hairstylist named Ricardo.
And she didn’t watch what she said. She just said it, without weighing whether she would sound déclassé or grasping or uninformed.
He doubted Jamie had ever suffered through a cocktail party in her life.
He had suffered through enough for the both of them.
“Don’t worry, Pops. I’m just blowing smoke.”
“So, you seeing the girl again? The one who gave you the hard-on just thinking about her?” Pops set the bag down on the end table next to his recliner. “Toss me a hand towel.”
Jack got up and retrieved the towel from the small bathroom. “Yes, I’m seeing her tomorrow night.”
Pops grinned, his bushy white eyebrows moving up and down under the few remaining wisps of hair on his head. “Moving fast. Just like I used to back in my day. No grass ever grew under these feet when it came to the ladies.”
Jack handed him the towel. “I don’t doubt it, Pops. But this is complicated. She’s Caroline’s roommate.”
“So?”
“So she doesn’t know who I am. I acted like it was an accident that we met.”
“You mean it wasn’t an accident? What are ya, stalking her or something? Don’t be a loser, Jack.” Pops wiped his mouth and gave him a look of disdain. “You should’ve just called her up and asked her out for Chrissake. If I were younger, I’da had her six ways to Sunday by now.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Jack glared at his grandfather. “I wasn’t stalking her.” Not really. Much. Shit.
“The thing is, Jamie is a social worker and her agency requested funding from the Hathaway Foundation. Since I investigate financials for all organizations asking the foundation for money, I spotted something not exactly legal in the records for the agency Jamie works for. And by the way, I wouldn’t be in this awkward position if I hadn’t agreed to take over your cake retirement job while you’re rehabbing. I mean, we’re both supposed to be retired, and here we are both working. It makes no sense.”
“Retirement is for schmucks. And if it’s a cake job, what the hell are you complaining for?”
Because it made him feel better. He actually hated retirement. He had been slowly and surely going insane until Pops had the stroke and Jack had taken over his job at the charitable foundation Pops had created a decade earlier. It was easy work, only twenty-five hours a week, and Jack got to feel as though he was contributing to the good of society.
But he was still bored, which was ironic. He’d left the corporate grind behind to take some time to smell the roses, and he’d found out his nose didn’t work.
“I’m complaining because now I know Jamie Peters could be implicated in illegal day trading, and calling the feds on the woman I think I want to have sex with for the rest of my life is not cool.”
Pops cracked a laugh. “Har. Guess not. But listen, Jack-o, this could actually work to your advantage. You go in there and clean it up for her. She’ll be grateful. More willing to go down on you.”
Jack shouldn’t be shocked at anything that came out of his grandfather’s mouth, yet he still found himself gaping. “Pops! Christ. You don’t have to be crude.”
Unrepentant, Pops just shrugged. “What? It’s the truth.”
Pacing the small room, Jack tried to think the whole situation through, and not visualize Jamie Peters going down on him. “The problem is, if I tell Jamie who I am, she’s going to freeze me out. I mean, I rejected her funding request. And she’s not going to believe me that someone within her organization is defrauding them. Or if she is willing to believe it, she’s not going to let me poke in their business. She’ll just take it to her boss or to the perpetrator.”
“I’m with you. But what’s your other option?”
Jack wasn’t sure. But he didn’t want the look in Jamie’s eyes to change when she found out who he was. When she realized he had money, both personally and professionally, and had denied it to her project.
But more importantly he was worried about her safety. “The thing is, whoever is dipping into the till is not going to like being found out. I’m worried if I just tell Jamie, she’ll confront the most likely suspect and wind up hurt. Criminals panic when they’ve been backed into a corner.”
“You think someone’s going to kill her for a little cash?” Pops raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe not kill her. Or rape her or hit her, though those are possibilities. But more likely