Wall Street Blues (Swashbuckling Romance) Read Free Page B

friend’s son? Unlike before, he rarely exchanged pleasantries with me. Our interaction had turned from supposedly uncle-to-niece to that of cat and mouse, and we only interacted when there was an official duty to accomplish together.
        It apparently took Mr. Russell two weeks before he could put himself together and addressed whatever might have prompted this cold relationship between us.
        “You do not necessarily need me to make recommendations for you about who you should date or not. However, the idea that you participated in a group date strikes me as odd and unimaginable,” Mr. Russell began as he paced up and down his expansive office. Only two of us were there.
         I didn’t exactly know how to respond to that because my secret had already been leaked to him and, like a towering uncle that he used to be to me, he had got plenty of complaints stacked up in his chest and it appeared he wasn’t going to hold anything back.
        “I’ll be glad to see you grow up into a successful professional and a woman that would enjoy a happy home. But, to be honest with you Janet, David Seymour is not the right guy for you,” he dropped the bombshell and looked away.
         I couldn’t precisely describe my feeling at that moment. Even though I had not met David again since that time, I wondered why it should be Mr. Russell’s business to dictate for me who I should date or not.
      When he didn’t get a reply from me, he pressed on: “David used to be a good boy of his family. But he got mixed up with some bad friends and immersed himself in hard drugs, cocaine, heroin and whatever you can ever imagine,” he revealed.
       It would amount to telling a lie that this revelation hadn’t made my heart stop for like ten seconds! See what you had foolishly got yourself into, a part of my mind was accusing me right there. My feet felt wooden under me, and my roving eyes met Mr. Russell’s frown. His message, though unspoken, was crystal clear: get out of that messy relationship, Janet. As fast as you can!
        At the end of the tensed conversation with Mr. Russell, I thanked him for his concern and walked out of his office with faltering steps. I had momentarily lost my composure, and any misstep would get me rolling across the concrete floor.
       During lunch that day, I intimated Hillary through cell phone conversation about the shocking discovery that David was a substance abuser. Hillary had been on a working trip to San Diego for almost two weeks. So, we hadn’t had time to discuss the progress of our relationships with the guys we got from the group date.
       “The whole dating thing is a scam, Jan” she said in her common dismissive way. Whenever Hillary referred to something as a “scam”, she meant to say that it was a disappointing event or show or happening. Hillary once proudly referred to the whole “banking industry” as a “scam”
       “Yes, it is,” I quickly agreed. “I never expected anything good can come out of it, you know,” I indulged her understanding.
    What Hillary didn’t like about the current happening was that our CEO, Mr. Russell had been aware of the inglorious meet-up or group date. It was not immediately clear whether he knew that Hillary was the brain behind the idea.
       “I will disable the SVNY’s site this evening and delete its Facebook page: I believe my boyfriend, too, is a scam. Now we can imagine what manner of people get on the internet to hook up with the opposite sex,” Hillary said and excused herself in order to return to her loads of after-lunch assignments.
       No doubt, Mr. Russ ell had destroyed my day with this revelation. He should have kept it to himself. But it was also good for my safety and future, I thought. So, when I returned home that day, I made two independent decisions: I sent a message to David Seymour’s cell phone calling off our undefined relationship; I removed myself from SVNY’s mailing list and