Wall Street Titan (Wall Street Titan #1) - Anna Zaires Page 0,69

I was hoping they wouldn’t notice. “My clothes are in the laundry,” I explain, then realize I just made it sound like Marcus and I are living together. “That is, the clothes I was wearing last night—I don’t keep anything else here. Marcus decided to wash them before I woke up, hence the robe.”

That’s probably TMI—in general, all of this is TMI—but my grandparents clearly don’t mind. Gramps is grinning, and Grandma looks positively gleeful as she asks, “Marcus? Is that his name?” At my nod, she presses, “How did you two meet?”

“Oh, just through a… you know, a dating app.” Or more precisely, through a mix-up related to a dating app, but that’s too long of a story.

“Really?” Grandma leans in. “We didn’t know you were doing online dating.”

“Yeah, I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t a big deal. Janie talked me into creating a profile a few months back, but I’ve only logged on a couple of times.”

“Which was clearly enough to meet Marcus and end up at his place. In a robe,” Gramps states, his bushy eyebrows twitching with excitement.

I blow out an exasperated breath, wishing for once that my grandparents could be all stodgy and conservative, like most others of their generation. Instead, at nearly eighty years of age, they’re as open-minded as any millennial, having embraced the changing mores of the times along with the technology of email, social media, texting, and Skype.

I don’t want Gramps to brandish a shotgun or anything, but still, a little bit of Catholic disapproval wouldn’t hurt.

“We’re just getting to know one another, Gramps. This probably won’t go anywhere,” I say, but I can tell my warning is falling on deaf ears. My dating life—or lack thereof since college—has been a source of concern for my grandparents, to the point that I was tactfully told during my last Thanksgiving visit that it was perfectly fine to embrace my needs and inclinations, no matter what they might be.

Translation: they thought I might be gay and in the closet.

“So how old is he?” Grandma asks, launching into her patented interrogation mode. “Where is he from? What does he do? How many siblings does he have, and when can we meet him?”

I open my mouth to start answering, but then I change my mind. “You know what, Grandma?” I say sweetly. “Why don’t you meet Marcus right now? He can tell you everything himself.”

And getting up, I carry the phone to my host’s office.

37

Marcus

“I’m thirty-five, an only child, originally from Staten Island, and I run a hedge fund,” I say smoothly, propping Emma’s phone on my desk while she stands in front of me with an evil little smirk on her rosebud lips. She’s clearly expecting me to be discomfited by her grandmother’s barrage of questions.

Too bad for her I’ve honed my skills through dozens of interviews on live TV.

“Really? What kind of hedge fund?” There’s a look of keen interest on Ted Walsh’s aged face. “I follow CNBC, you know.”

I smile at him. “We focus on alpha generation under all market conditions, so it’s a mix of everything, from commodities to long-short equity to quant strategies. Lately, we’ve also been dabbling in some illiquid investments, including real estate and private equity.”

“And how long have you two been dating?” Mary Walsh asks, her gray eyes as bright and clear as her granddaughter’s. It’s obvious all the finance lingo has gone right over her head, and she couldn’t care less about my fund’s strategies. “Emma said you met through a dating app?”

I glance over the screen at Emma. She shrugs awkwardly, so I reply, “You could say that.” I guess she didn’t feel like telling her grandparents the whole messy story. “As to how long we’ve been together, our first date was earlier this month.”

Mary launches into her next set of questions, and I answer with calm patience. Yes, I’ve lived in New York City all my life except when I was away at school. Where did I go? Cornell for undergrad (finance major) and Wharton for MBA. No, I don’t have any family I’m close to, as my parents passed away when I was young. Yes, I own my apartment, and a few other properties as well. No, I have no plans to move out of New York to save on taxes.

For some reason, the interrogation doesn’t bother me—nor does the fact that with this call, we’ve just leapfrogged over months of typical relationship development. Offering to meet Emma’s grandparents had been an