Page 22 of Don't Hate Me
“You’re not one of them?” I asked.
He smiled again. “I’m the biggest one of all.”
He left, then I turned to my account. A thousand dollars. I’d never had spare money like this before. Never really attempted to put what I’d learned into play, because any dollar I earned by working went toward some debt I’d incurred. School debt, my car debt.
Hell, I’d had just enough spare cash to afford gas to get to Florida and back. It had been like this for these past three years. The thought of trying to hoard money so I could invest it didn’t seem possible.
Now Arthur Landen had handed it to me.
I should have been thrilled, instead I felt cautious. Like, somehow, the money was a trap.
But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a test?
What if I could prove I knew what I was doing? Employ everything I’d learned, and use the instincts that served me well to show him I was more than some kid of a drug addict whom his driver had to take in. I was going to make something of myself.
Be more than what I’d come from.
I hadn’t had real money to use in the stock market, but it didn’t mean that I hadn’t worked the markets with pretend money. Making investments on paper, timely sales.
I played the market every day, I just didn’t reap the benefit of my successes. Or, to be fair, take the hits for my failures. But at an investment firm like this, risk was always mitigated.
Hedge fund managers didn’t pull in the money they did without being right more than they were wrong.
If I could prove to Landen I was right more than I was wrong, that I could make a life for myself, maybe he’d let me date his daughter in public.
My phone, which I’d kept in in my suit coat, buzzed.
Ash2:Hey secret boyfriend.
Me:Stop saying that. It’s ridiculous.
Ash2:Okay. But you are. What are you doing right now?
Me:Looking at the thousand dollars your father put into a personal account in my name.
There was no response for a long time. I could see the dots moving on my phone, then finally her response.
Ash2:Don’t touch that money. It could be a trap. I think you should leave.
Me:You need to relax. He does it with all the new hires. It’s a test to see how much and how fast we can grow it. To prove ourselves before we take on new clients.
Ash2:I still don’t like it.
Me:His client list is password protected. Any thoughts as to what it might be? I could see if Sanderson is actually a client or not.
Ash2:My mother’s birthday. He uses it for a lot of his passwords. August 3rd, 1971.
I hit his list again, typed the password, and hit enter. No luck.
Me:Didn’t work. But maybe I’ll ask the people around here about Sanderson. Someone will know what his deal is.
Ash2:Just be careful.
Me:Yep. What are you doing?
Ash2:Figuring out ways to escape.
I didn’t know how to respond to that. We’d talked since Florida. I knew Landen wasn’t letting her get a job or go away to school. Instead, she was doing independent study with some woman from a nearby community college. Whatever the hell that was. But she was home. Not in Switzerland, and, for me, that made all the difference in the world.
