Greed (Seven Vices Series Book 1) Read online

  Oliver looked surprised. “I see you did your research,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he quoted back the words that I’d said to him the previous night.

  I shrugged. “The thing is, and no offense, but losing your parents the way that you did, it’s different. You probably don’t even remember your dad, and for your mother to die of cancer—you knew it was coming. I don’t want to say that you were able to prepare for it, and I’m sorry if I sound callous—“

  “No, you’re right,” Oliver interrupted. “It’s not exactly the same. I was able to prepare for it, I guess. I was old enough to take care of my younger sister, and of course we had money. But it just speaks to me in a way.” He looked embarrassed, as though he had said too much.

  “I didn’t realize you had a sister,” I said, surprised. Maybe I hadn’t done my research as well as I’d thought I had.

  “I try to keep the media spotlight away from her,” Oliver said, looking off to the side. There was something pained in his expression. Even though I was curious, I knew that this wasn’t a topic for a first date, and I respectfully let it lie.

  I took a sip of my wine as it arrived. “Oh, this is really good!” I said. “You don’t meet many Americans who can appreciate good wine.”

  Oliver smiled easily at me, swirling his own wine and then taking a sip. “I’ve been fortunate, with my work, to be able to travel extensively,” he reminded me. “France, Brazil, Korea—you name it, I’ve probably been there.”

  “Mongolia?” I asked teasingly.

  Oliver laughed. “Haven’t made it there yet,” he admitted.

  “Not enough attractive girls there to warrant your attention?” I asked.

  Oliver snorted. “Something like that,” he agreed. “Or possibly the fact that I’m not involved in mining or in English-language teaching.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “You know Mongolia is involved in mining, just off the top of your head?”

  Oliver shrugged. “I knew an Australian guy who was working with a Mongolian company at one point,” he said. “He was trying to get me to go over there to join him on a ski expedition in the Altai Mountains.” He laughed. “We went to the Alps instead.”

  I rolled my eyes. Every time he started to seem like the kind of guy that I could be interested in, I realized exactly how shallow he was. He was probably one of those guys who thought that he’d seen Korea by staying in five-star, all-inclusive resorts the whole time he’d been there.

  “For me, it’s important that when I travel, I really get a feel for how the locals live,” I told him. “It informs a lot of my decisions about where our aid money would be most useful.”

  “That’s important to me too,” Oliver said. “Although I don’t go to quite the extremes that I used to—I’d like to have a proper bed to sleep in, in a place where I don’t have to worry about walking back at night.”

  I frowned at him, trying to picture him “roughing it” in any sense of the term. Before I could say anything, though, our food arrived.

  I blinked down at the risotto that I had ordered. It was actually a surprisingly large portion, and it looked tasty. As I took a bite, my eyes widened.

  “Good?” Oliver asked, a grin on his face, and I realized he was holding off taking a bite of his own food, until he saw that I was enjoying mine.

  I nodded enthusiastically and babbled, “I’m always worried about fancy places like this: you never really know what you’re going to get. I mean, normally . . .” I trailed off, wisely not telling him what I normally thought about places like this: that they just catered to rich assholes who wanted to pretend that they knew a thing or two about food.

  Oliver looked amused, like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You know, there’s a great movement in this city at the moment. People who got tired of those posh, pretentious places, and started opening up places like this that serve some real food—comfort food.” His eyes twinkled. “I wouldn’t dare take a French woman to some pretentious restaurant. I’m sure I’d never hear the end of it.”

  I was startled into laughing. “I appreciate that,” I said, wondering again if I had possibly misjudged him slightly. It was probably just the wine going to my head.

  “So you were going to tell me how you pick the type of aid projects that you do,” Oliver reminded me.

  “Right,” I said, watching for a moment as he expertly spun his fork and took a bite of his pasta. For some reason, even that was attractive. Oh Lord.

  There was something almost intimate about watching him. It wasn’t just that I was thinking about other things those long, talented fingers could be doing. No, it was the little things, like the way he occasionally caressed his bottom lip with his thumb. How a crooked smile came to the corners of his lips when he was embarrassed. The absolutely sinful look of pleasure in his eyes as he took a sip of wine. His silver Rolex. His black tie. The glint of his cuff links. It was all far too intimate.

  I shook my head. “It’s simple, really,” I told him. “I remember what it was like to be an orphan after the wildfire took my parents. As a kid, you generally have no idea where to even get started in terms of the paperwork and the different agencies. And if you’re in a poor place, there may not even be anywhere for you to stay in foster homes. So that’s why we build more of those. And education—everyone always says that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get a good job if you have an education, but if it’s impossible for you to get an education . . .” I shrugged.

  Oliver nodded seriously. “I know what you mean about the paperwork thing,” he said. “It was just as ridiculous trying to go into business at the start. I had to learn all sorts of information about local business laws and everything else.”

  “Tell me about your business,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “Investment is a pretty broad umbrella . . .”

  “It is,” Oliver agreed. “To be honest, what I do from day to day is pretty boring. I mean, I love what I do, but I imagine it’s probably boring for other people to hear about. It’s pretty similar to what most businessmen do in this city: I get to the office at the crack of dawn, sit through a bunch of meetings, stay back working until it’s dark and then I go home, and then the next day, I do it again.”

  He paused. “Personally, it’s the projects that we’re investing in that are of most interest to me, like new medical advances or green energy technology. I guess it’s probably the same thing as with your non-profit.” That was something that I never expected to hear from him, and I stared at him in a new light, wondering if maybe we weren’t as different as I’d thought.

  Oliver continued. “But I hate being cooped up in an office, honestly. The best part about my job is that I get to take off in my jet whenever I need to get away.”

  I tried to hide a grimace. He began to share funny anecdotes from his travels and the business that he’d done abroad.

  “But I’ve talked too much about myself,” Oliver said regretfully as the bill came. He glanced at his watch, giving me a wry smile. “I know I need to get you home, but maybe we could get coffee first?”

  I was surprisingly tempted. He had talked a lot about himself, but he’d given me ample time to join the conversation, and it had just flowed, in a way that had surprised me. We didn’t have much in common, but he was not like anyone I had ever met before. He had a charisma that could sweep you up into his conversation, no matter the topic.

  But I was already feeling pleasantly flushed from the wine, and I could only imagine that coffee might lead to something more . . . intimate. Even as tipsy as I was, that was a line that I didn’t plan to cross.

  With that thought in mind, I reached for the bill. “Let’s split it,” I said.

  Oliver looked surprised and then held the folder out of my reach. “Come on, I invited you out and I picked the place,” he said. “Besides, it’s not like I can’t afford it.”

  “I can afford it too,” I said peevishly.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Oliver sa
id, looking momentarily as though he’d lost his footing. “How about this: if you want to take me out on a date sometime, you can call me up and pick the place and organize it—and then you can be the one to pay.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to win this battle. “Fine,” I muttered, even though I had no intention of ever going out with him again. Even though this had actually been a surprisingly good first date . . .

  I frowned, wondering if I might want to go out with him again. But if the first date hadn’t ended up at his place, I had no doubt that the second one would. It would be expected, after all.

  The thought left a sour taste in my mouth, and by the time I got home, I was more than happy to strip off my dress and take a long, hot shower to wash away the evening.

  Chapter Six

  Despite all of my confused feelings for Oliver, I slept well that night. The next morning, I woke up early but well-rested and stretched hugely. Mm, I might stop by the bakery for a muffin on the way in to work . . . It wasn’t something that I did often, but I figured I deserved a reward for not having gone home with Oliver.

  Except that no, I didn’t—there had never been a question of whether I would. I might be attracted to the guy, but there was no way.

  I slipped out of bed and shook my head, determined not to start the day in a sour mood.

  There was something flattering about being desired in that way by a man like Oliver, but we had nothing in common. Our worldviews were totally different; he was used to having the world just handed to him. Except for that little thing that Jeri had said about him building his business from nothing . . . He did seem very passionate about his work after all . . .

  I pursed my lips and looked around my apartment, wondering if Oliver and I were really all that different. I didn’t live in a sleek penthouse with views of the city, but I had a nice place, all exposed brick with high, beamed ceilings. I had worked hard for it, and spent months working with a realtor as I searched for the perfect place. Still, the furniture, although warm and cozy, could have come from the same catalogue as the one Oliver’s interior decorator no doubt used.

  I thought back to my parents and wondered suddenly if they would have been proud of the things I’d done with my life. I had been old enough when they died that I remembered what they’d been interested in, what they’d been like as people. But I had a hard time reconciling those memories with ideas of what they would have wanted for my future. I hadn’t been old enough to have been talking about colleges or careers or anything like that, not in any concrete sense. Back then, I’d still foolishly wanted to be an actress. I hadn’t realized that what I really wanted was to help people.

  I did know, however, that my parents had always wanted me to have a family. Mom had teased me about boys every so often, but as I got into high school and didn’t show any interest in having a boyfriend, I’d noticed that her teasing became more . . . concerned, almost.

  It was something that I was still struggling with, I supposed: balancing my personal life against my professional life. The past few years especially had been so devoid of romance.

  Would I change things, if I had the power?

  I sat back down on the edge of the bed, thinking that over. I wasn’t getting any younger. And there had been some great guys—guys who had been ready to settle down, tie the knot, have kids. I knew those were rare finds, but every time, as soon as things started to get serious . . .

  Well, I’d gotten cold feet. I hadn’t been ready to settle down.

  I snorted when I considered that I was thinking of settling down because of a date I’d been on with Oliver. Even if I went out on another date with him, it wasn’t like he and I were going to settle down. He wasn’t that kind of guy, and I guessed I wasn’t really that kind of girl.

  And other than that, we were just too different.

  “Your father and I were completely different people when we first met,” I suddenly remembered my mother saying. “He was just some loud American in Paris to drink wine, and I was a French woman.”

  I smiled, remembering how proud she had been of that, being French. Then I shook my head and pushed myself to my feet, moving into the bathroom so that I could start getting ready for work. Just because they had managed to overcome their differences and start a wonderful relationship, it didn’t mean that Oliver and I would be able to do the same.

  Much to my surprise, Jeri was already there when I got to work. I held up the bag from the bakery. “I brought you a muffin, but I didn’t have them heat it up because I didn’t expect you’d be here while it was still warm,” I told her apologetically.

  Jeri waved that away and followed me into my office. “Well?” she asked.

  “Well what?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow at her.

  Jeri rolled her eyes. “You forget I have access to your personal calendar,” she reminded me, and it suddenly occurred to me that I should have used some sort of code for the previous night’s date. Not that it was any of her business either way.

  I blushed brilliantly. “Jeri, my personal life is private,” I told her.

  “Oh, come on,” Jeri scoffed. “You know it’s going to end up in the tabloids anyway. I’m surprised there aren’t a dozen blogs already posted about what the two of you got up to last night.”

  “We didn’t get up to anything,” I snapped. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, knowing that getting frustrated with her wasn’t going to get her out of my office any faster. And she was probably right: she’d find out all the details eventually anyway. I should just be grateful that she hadn’t tipped off the tabloids to follow me.

  “It was fine,” I told her. “He picked me up at my apartment and we went to dinner. I had a risotto; he had fettuccine alfredo. We talked. Then I went home alone and went to bed.”

  Jeri sighed and slumped down into the seat across from my desk. “Come on,” she repeated. “I want the details. I don’t usually get to live vicariously through you. What kind of car does he drive? What did you talk about? Who paid—did he offer, or did you split it? Did he kiss you goodnight?”

  “None of that’s any of your business,” I told her. But I realized suddenly that I kind of wanted to talk about it, to dissect the whole night and try to sort out this mess of feelings that I had for this strange, charismatic man. I didn’t particularly want to talk about it with Jeri, of all people, but who else was I going to talk about it with? If my life had been lacking in romance lately, it had been equally lacking in friendships, unless you counted the hairdresser whom I saw every other month or the produce woman whom I chatted with once a week, whose name I couldn’t actually even remember.

  I winced and then shrugged, deciding I might as well go for it. “He picked me up in a chauffeured car,” I admitted. Jeri sat back down—I hadn’t realized that she had already started to leave, clearly expecting that the conversation was over. I sighed and organized documents on my desk. “We talked about . . . all sorts of things, I guess. My work, his work—“

  Jeri groaned. “Of course you spent the whole date with Oliver Lewin talking about work,” she said, rolling her eyes. “If I had been there . . .” She sighed.

  “You have Jackson,” I pointed out, my tone a bit too sharp.

  Jeri gave me a look. “Yes,” she agreed finally, getting to her feet and tossing back her hair. “I have Jackson.” With that, she stalked out of my office, and I slumped back in my seat, no closer to sorting out how I felt about the date.

  I had to wonder what it would have been like, if our date had ended the same way that all of his other dates no doubt did. If we’d gone back to his apartment. If I’d let him kiss me and strip me down to nothing, both literally and figuratively. If I’d let him have me.

  It wasn’t only a physical attraction that I felt for him, I suddenly realized. There was something inside me that was searching for a mental match too, someone who would keep me interested and maybe, somehow, pull me away from work sometimes.
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br />   But that was silly. I loved my job. Why would I want someone to pull me away from it?

  It didn’t really matter either way, I finally decided. Given the way things had ended—fighting over the check and going home alone—I doubted Oliver would want to go out with me again, even if he had hinted that he might.

  Where would I even take the great Oliver Lewin on a date, anyway? I didn’t have his connections; I couldn’t take him to one of the nicest restaurants in the city, unless he wanted to wait months and months for my reservation to get to the top of the list.

  But then again, I wondered what Oliver would be like in a more relaxed setting anyway. What if I took him out on a classic date: dinner at a casual restaurant followed by a movie? Or . . . Suddenly, I thought of the perfect date, and I couldn’t help smiling. Either Oliver would be really uncomfortable or . . . we might just have a good time.

  Not that it mattered—I wasn’t about to call him. He couldn’t possibly want to go out with me again, and I could just imagine how long it would be before I got the guts to ask someone else out on a date, even if it was Oliver Lewin, someone who by all rights should never have been interested in me in the first place.

  I shook my head, put on some quiet music, and forced myself to focus on work.

  I barely stopped for lunch, knowing that as soon as I broke my concentration, I would start thinking about him again. I didn’t give myself the opportunity to find out. Instead, I sent Jeri across the street to bring me a sandwich from my favorite deli—she grumbled something about slave labor, but I sweetly reminded her that if it were slave labor, I wouldn’t be paying her bills.

  I had just finished my sandwich when there was a knock on the door. I looked up, expecting to see Jeri, maybe come to dump some work project on me in retaliation for using her like . . . well, like my assistant. Instead, it was a messenger from the same company as before.

  This time, the man only held one single rose, but even that spoke volumes. I swallowed hard as I signed and then lifted the envelope with hands that were, I noticed distantly, shaking slightly.