Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,133
that meant he was morally prohibited from hitting on her. End of story. So time to lean on that legendary self-discipline Stacey had been haranguing him about the other day. And discipline wasn’t discipline unless it was hard, right? Even if he was interested in breaking his rule about not dating younger women—which he wasn’t—nothing could happen with Elise until she was done with the job.
She did that lip-scraping thing again.
Shit. He’d been going to suggest a rousing round of Boggle after their work was done—it was visible under her glass coffee table, and he hadn’t played since he and Mrs. Compton from the trailer park used to battle it out. But that wasn’t a good idea. He had to get out of here. Now.
“I have to go.”
She blinked as he stood. “Okay.”
He’d been sitting on a sofa, and she on a chair next to him. As he came around toward the front door, they ended up doing one of those stupid back-and-forth dances where they were trying to get out of each other’s way but were in fact getting right in each other’s way. She laughed. It lit up her face even as it sliced through his chest.
She laid her hands on his forearms, jokingly, making a production of moving him to one side and keeping him there so they could get past each other.
Her hands were freezing, like they’d been the other day in his office. Maybe it was the fact that they weren’t in his office with Stacey watching like a hawk. Or maybe it was the wine. Something made him pull her hands up so they were in a prayer position and then enclose them in his.
“I told you I’m always cold,” she said apologetically.
He smiled. “It’s not a character flaw.”
Also, cold was not the word he would use for her, on balance.
All right, though. Down, boy. He was on his way out of here.
It was harder than it should have been to let go of her, but he did. She walked him down to the main door. He opened it to find an older man standing on the porch, hand raised like he was about to ring one of the doorbells.
“Daddy?” Jay hadn’t been looking at Elise, but the shock was audible in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
He could tell from the way she asked the question, from the way the bold confidence he loved—liked—about her had been replaced by hesitancy, and by the scowl on the man’s face that this was not a warm father-daughter relationship.
“And who are you?” the man said to him. There was an edge to the question, a possessiveness, that got Jay’s hackles up.
Elise jumped in. “Jay Smith, this is my father, Charles Maxwell. Dad, Jay is a client.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Whoa. Jay didn’t know what was going on here, but he knew he did not like it. He knew Charles Maxwell—or knew of him. He was one of the richest men in Canada, and the second-generation head of a boutique hedge fund company—and, by all accounts, a real asshole.
Which meant Elise came from serious money. So it was interesting that she was living in a small apartment in this not-great part of town. And that she was working out of said apartment because she was concerned with keeping overhead low.
Jay stuck out his hand. “Partner at Cohen & Smith.” His firm wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t nothing. Charles Maxwell would have heard of it. He made his tone completely flat so that when he said, “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” he could have been conveying the opposite sentiment. “Your daughter is extremely talented. She’s doing quite the job on our office. You must be proud.”
When Charles Maxwell only flared his nostrils, Elise said, “Can I help you with something, Dad?”
“Your mother insisted I drop by and give you this.” He held out a check. He wasn’t even subtle about it. It was like he was trying to embarrass her. Jay’s fingers flexed, almost of their own accord.
She held up her hands like he was robbing her. “I don’t want your money.”
“You wanted it six months ago when you gave me that ridiculous presentation about starting your business.”
“And that would have been a loan,” she said haughtily. “A loan I no longer need.”
“That’s not what your bank account says.”
“And how would you know that?”
“I have friends at Scotiabank.”
She gasped. “That was a gross invasion of privacy, not to mention illegal.”