Wall Street Titan (Wall Street Titan #1) - Anna Zaires Page 0,4
in mind for my future wife, except she’s in her fifties and married with three children. “What about hobbies and interests?” she asks in her carefully modulated voice. “What would you like her to be into?”
“Something intellectual,” I say. “I want to be able to talk to her outside the bedroom.”
“Of course.” Victoria makes a note on her notepad. “How about her profession?”
“That doesn’t really matter to me. She can be a lawyer or a doctor or spend all her time doing charity work for orphans in Haiti—it’s all the same as far as I’m concerned. Once we marry, she can either stay home with the kids or continue her career. I’m comfortable with either option.”
“That’s very enlightened of you.” Victoria’s expression is unchanged, but I get a feeling she’s secretly laughing at me. “How do you feel about pets? Do you prefer cats or dogs?”
“Neither. I don’t like having animals indoors.”
Victoria makes another note before asking, “What about her height? Do you have a preference?”
“Tall,” I say immediately. “Or at least above average.” I’m six-foot-three, and short women look like children to me.
“Okay, good.” Victoria jots it down. “How about body type? Athletic or slender, I would assume?”
I nod tersely. “Yes. I’m into fitness, and I want her to be in good shape so she can keep up with me.” Frowning, I glance at my Patek Philippe watch and see that I have only a half hour before the market opens. Turning my attention back to Victoria, I say, “Basically, I want a smart, elegant, stylish woman who takes care of herself.”
“Got it. You won’t be disappointed, I promise.”
I’m skeptical, but I keep a poker face as she gets up and politely ushers me out of her office. She promises to contact me within a couple of days, shakes my hand, and heads back in, leaving behind a cloud of expensive perfume. It’s not too strong—Victoria Longwood-Thierry would never be so tacky as to wear strong perfume—but I still sneeze as I head to the elevator.
I’ll have to add this to the list: the wife candidate can’t wear perfume, period.
By the time I get to my Park Avenue building from Victoria’s West Village office, my programmers and traders are glued to their screens. Only a few of them notice as I make my way to my corner office. I’d normally stop by their desks to ask them about their weekend and get an update on our positions, but the market is already open, and I can’t distract them.
With ninety-two billion of my investors’ money at stake, there is no room for error.
My office is huge and has a great view of the skyscrapers on Park Avenue, but I don’t stop to appreciate it. Once, this office felt like the pinnacle of achievement for a scrappy kid from Staten Island, but now I’m hungry for more. Success is my drug, and with each hit, I need a bigger dose to get the buzz. It’s not about the money anymore—in addition to my personal stake in the fund, I have a couple of billion stashed away in real estate and other passive investments—it’s about knowing that I can do it, that I can succeed where others have failed. The recent market volatility has resulted in record losses for hedge funds and mutual funds alike, but Carelli Capital Management is up in the high teens, outperforming the market by over forty percent. Foundations, pension funds, wealthy individuals—they’re all tripping over each other in a rush to invest with me, and I still want more.
I want it all, including a wife who’d fit the life I’ve worked so hard to build.
On the surface, it should be easy. At thirty-five, I have enough money to keep the female population of Manhattan in Louis Vuitton bags and Louboutin shoes for the rest of their lives, I’m not bad-looking, and I work out daily to stay in shape. The latter I do more for health than vanity, but women seem to appreciate the results. I can pick up any woman in a club in a matter of minutes, but none of them are what I want.
I want high class. I want elegance.
I want a woman who’s the complete opposite of the one who raised me—hence, Victoria Longwood-Thierry and her old-money connections.
It was my friend Ashton who pointed me in her direction. “You know the kind of woman you want isn’t going to be hanging out at a bar, right?” he said when, after a couple of