The Note (Manhattan Nights #5) - Natalie Wrye Page 0,3

wait.

But that wait is over the second my cell phone rings, and I stroll over into the bathroom while Becky and Sinatra keep singing in the background.

I close the door behind me.

“Quinn here.”

“You sound like shit.”

I grunt. “G’day, Cynthia. Nice to hear from you, too. Please. Feel free to verbally kick my teeth. I may have some wounds that need salting, if you’re free tomorrow.”

“You sound like sexy shit. Is that better?”

“Much.” I sit on the edge of that gigantic tub, the room swaying as the scotch works its seductive magic.

I give into it, needing it more than my next breath. Needing it more than I need a Becky blowjob or anything else.

I’ve been waiting for Cyn’s call all day, and I can’t wait any longer.

My two months is almost over, and if we don’t have a partner to invest in our latest deal, it’s a certainty: The Luxe Manhattan co-op building will go belly up and bring our company with it.

The scotch is still in my hand, settled on my knee. I sip from its dark edge, swallowing the bitter bite, still trying to calm down as I wait for my attorney to give me the news it took two months of negotiations to find.

I already know the answer is not going to be good.

I finally ask. “Have the Knudshorns called at all?”

She sighs. The sound is loud in the empty bathroom and I shift on the edge of the tub, wishing I could stick my head inside of the scotch glass. Cynthia at last responds.

“No. They’re like all the others. Disappeared. And trying to recover after Chris Jackson and Jackson Enterprises’ indictment for fraud and money laundering.” She scoffs. “As if we knew he was defrauding every damned company on the East Coast. Including us.” She pauses. “You’ve been asking about the Knudshorns a lot lately. Anything new going on with them?”

“Not particularly.”

Other than the fact that they backed out of partnering with us for the only deal I need to keep Quinn Real Estate afloat. Just before signing the contract.

Without another investor to finance the debt we took to buy The Luxe’s building, we’re on our own. We’ll have to pay the debt ourselves.

A subtle detail I don’t tell my company’s top lawyer.

And Cynthia exhales, her raspy voice tight, taking on that same schoolmarm strict tone that I know so well. I batten down the hatches for the barrage of scolding to come.

“‘Not particularly’? That’s quickly becoming your favorite two words. Seems you’re not particular about anything these days. Except for the why’s, when’s and where’s of how to get your dick wet.”

“Come on, Cyn.” I sigh immediately, a migraine circling the edges of my head. “I’ve been having a shit day already. Don’t even start.”

“I didn’t start with you, Noah. And that’s the problem. I didn’t start when you came off the plane two months ago half-drunk. I didn’t start when you showed up completely bombed, smelling of scotch at your brother’s engagement party. And I didn’t start yesterday when you snapped at another client. Now I could start with you today. But then I’d have to finish…with the better part of my heel up your ass.”

She bites the words off like a morsel that’s hard to chew.

I know she means it; she’s tried to break her foot off in my arse before.

But today is the last day I need to hear the tiny lawyer’s lecture. The Knudshorn news is just another nail in the coffin, just another stake in my grave, as my company teeters on the edge of total collapse.

I pick up the scotch, swallowing another mouthful as I grimace. “Who told you I was into that sort of kink? Thought that was still a secret.”

“As much of a secret as the fact that you’re being a complete jackass?”

My childhood friend was never one for flowery niceties.

A silence enters the room that thickens by the second, and I’m tempted to argue with Cynthia. But I know she’s right.

When we moved here to Manhattan from Sydney thirteen years ago with mum, Cynthia was my source of sanity as an awkward Upper East side drama queen.

An auto-industry heiress with more money than God, she’d been the only kid I knew who could put up with the Quinn family and all the shit that came with it. The only person I knew willing to deal with my overbearing, empire-owning grandfather, screwball mother and a bunch of rumors about our family piled as high and far as the