Wall Street Titan (Wall Street Titan #1) - Anna Zaires Page 0,12

and a half hours or graduating from college in two and a half years, I’m able to set goals and achieve them, and I’ve never understood people who say they want to do something but lack the willpower to make it happen.

Yet here I am, staring at a selfie of a woman I know would be bad for me. She’s chocolate and lazy days on the couch, Netflix binging and a pack of cigarettes. She’s everything I can’t have and shouldn’t want—an unhealthy temptation that can ruin everything. The smart thing to do would be to go home and hand over this phone to Lynette first thing in the morning. That way, I can get a good night’s sleep and call Emmeline tomorrow to set a time for us to meet again—maybe even arrange a trip to her hometown of Boston.

That’s the smart thing to do, but I don’t do it. Instead, my hand seems to move of its own accord as my fingers swipe across the screen to get to the contacts icon. My heart thuds in a heavy, expectant rhythm as I scroll through the list of names until I get to H, where I find the entry called “Home.”

Sure enough, there is an address there. When I pull out my own phone and type it into Google Maps, I see that it’s in Bay Ridge, a neighborhood in Brooklyn that’s not too far from here.

If I hurry, I’ll make it there before it’s late enough for my visit to be creepy.

Giving in to temptation for the first time in my adult life, I order another Uber to Emma’s address in Bay Ridge. It’s not so bad, I tell myself as I get in the car. Once I get rid of this phone, I’ll forget the little redhead once and for all.

I won’t let this strange new weakness of mine ruin what I’ve worked so hard to build.

7

Emma

“You didn’t find anything? It’s in a pink case…” I can’t hide the disappointment in my voice, and the waiter gives me a sympathetic look.

“No, sorry,” he says. “Wish I could help. The couple who were sitting there just left, and they didn’t say anything about a phone.”

“Do you mind if I take a look around the table?” I ask, glancing over at the booth where I’d approached Marcus—who may or may not be an asshole, depending on his true identity.

“Sure, go ahead,” the waiter says.

I walk over to the booth, trying not to think about the man who’d sat there, but I’m not entirely successful. For some reason, my skin feels uncomfortably warm, and my breathing picks up as I picture his cool blue eyes and big hands. And if his hands are that size, how big is his—

No, stop. Focus on the phone.

With effort, I push away the graphic images flooding my mind and crouch to peer under the table.

Nothing.

I look all over the seats next.

Nothing.

Disappointment presses down on me, making my empty stomach roil with anxiety. I didn’t see the phone on the street as I was retracing my steps, and if it’s not in the restaurant, then it’s well and truly lost. Maybe even stolen—in which case the phone-tracking app on my computer, which I was planning to check as the next step, would not help either.

Exhausted and dispirited, I trudge back to the subway. At this point, I’m almost light-headed from hunger, so I buy a banana from a street vendor—I can still afford that—and munch on it as I go down the steps to the train.

All I want is to get home, take a hot shower, and curl up with my cats.

This day is officially a disaster.

I’m never, ever using a dating app again.

8

Marcus

Where the hell is she?

Standing by the side entrance of an ugly old brownstone, I ring the doorbell for the second time, with the same lack of results.

Emma Walsh is not home.

I know her last name thanks to her Facebook profile, which I accessed by tapping on the Facebook icon on her phone. According to that same profile, she’s single (which I already suspected), twenty-six years old, and a graduate of Brooklyn College. She loves books and does freelance editing when she’s not working at a small, family-owned bookstore. Oh, and she definitely owns cats—three of them, judging by her frequent posts about them on Facebook.

Knowing all this about a woman I met by accident makes me feel like a stalker, a feeling that’s only exacerbated by my inexplicable desire to learn