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  He broke from her hold as easily as if she were a wet tissue, which at six foot one to her five-three, wasn’t that difficult. “I can’t tell you. It’s privileged.”

  “I’ll check with Ava, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t such a thing as financial planner–client privilege.”

  “There is such a thing as confidentiality and my clients expect that of the person they trust with their personal finances.”

  He was right. And she should know, since he’d helped her figure out her current budget. She’d flip the fuck out if she thought he was sharing her information with other people.

  “Well, you brought it up,” she retorted. “Will signing this new client be a burden on your workload?”

  He was brilliant when it came to money and his talents could help a lot of people. But he insisted on keeping his company small.

  “No, I can handle it. But if I need to cull my list, I know where I can start,” he said, displaying a sly smile.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  He laughed and the corners of her mouth tilted up in an automatic response. She couldn’t help it. Being with Ben, talking to him—it always made her feel better.

  “How was your day?”

  His query brought back her incident with the intern. She rolled her eyes. “Days like today have me counting down until I leave for Durham.”

  He frowned. “Why? What happened?”

  She braced her elbow on the counter and laid her cheek in her palm. “I had an incident with an intern.”

  He began plating their food. “There’s always those first-year residents who graduate medical school thinking they know everything, not realizing they learn best by keeping their mouths shut and listening.”

  Ben could give advice on that subject. He was a great listener. He provided a safe space for her to vent with someone who understood what she was going through. She never worried about the politics of talking to him, afraid that her opinion would get back to the wrong people. He kept her confidence, which allowed her to keep her sanity. She shook her head and grabbed the can of pecans on the counter, popping one in her mouth. “Exactly. I keep forgetting you’re not a doctor.”

  He actually shuddered. “Fuck no.”

  “Hey! That’s not nice.”

  He shrugged. “Doctors aren’t nice.”

  She pursed her lips. “Says the person who isn’t one.”

  “Says the person who’s grown up around them his entire life.” He poured himself a glass of some dry blend that probably cost more than her entire outfit. Which wasn’t saying much, but still . . . “So, what happened?”

  “It’s not worth getting into, but I handled it.” She swallowed another sip of wine. “I can’t wait until this is all behind me and I’m focusing solely on sports medicine at Duke. I heard some of the fellows actually get to go to the Carolina Panther football games.”

  Ben stared at her. “You hate football.”

  “I know, but the possibility of being on the sidelines if an injury occurs?” She gave him a goofy grin and two thumbs-up.

  “You’re morbid.” Ben scooped the plates off the counter.

  “Committed,” she corrected him, grabbing their glasses and following him past the marble countertop bar and the gorgeous oak wood farmhouse table in the eat-in kitchen to the large sectional in the living room.

  Ben set their plates on the coffee table. “You may need to be.”

  “Ha. Ha.” Nic snagged the remote and aimed it at the large flat-screen TV mounted on the brick accent wall above the fireplace.

  He settled next to her on the couch and frowned. “What are you doing?”

  She engaged the TV guide, looking for her favorite channel. “It’s my turn.”

  “You can’t be serious! The NBA finals are about to start.”

  “In three days.”

  “So? I gotta see what the analysts are saying.”

  “Give me a break. You can watch all of those shows on the ESPN app tomorrow.”

  “It’s not the same,” he grumbled. “Fine. But I’m not watching—”

  “I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” she said, exhaling in pleasure at the two women on the screen getting into an argument in a restaurant.

  Scowling, Ben picked up their plates and stood.

  She jerked. “Hey! Bring back my food!”

  “If I can’t watch basketball, you can’t watch your housewife show. If you want to eat this dinner, you need to compromise and pick something else.”

  She narrowed her eyes, annoyance settling in and readying her for battle. But she looked at the food on the plate and her mouth watered. All she’d had time for after her impromptu trip to the ER had been a bag of chips from the vending machine. That had been around noon. Then she’d finished seeing patients in the clinic, scrubbed in to do a surgery, prepped the OR schedule for the following day and . . .

  Dammit.

  Twisting her lips, she put the channel on HGTV. “Same wager as usual?”

  “Yup. The person who picks the winning house doesn’t have to do the dishes.”

  “Can you feed me now?”

  Smiling, he sat down and handed her a plate. “My pleasure.”

  Warmth suffused her body and she stiffened at the unexpected and unwelcome response. That smile. The one that carved crinkles at the corners of his eyes, creased lines in his golden cheeks, and showed off his straight white teeth. That smile? For some reason, it was hitting her sweet spot tonight.

  Unaware—thankfully—of her sudden confusion, he nudged her shoulder before digging into his food. On the screen, the couple was listening as the Realtor listed off the first home’s features.

  He scoffed. “Nope. It has a pool. The wife clearly said she didn’t want a pool.”

  Nic pushed her food around her plate, her appetite diminishing in the wake of that brief moment of awareness. She enjoyed spending time with Ben. She worked eighty-hour weeks at the hospital and when she wasn’t working, she was usually occupied with studying, research, or preparing for presentations. Residency, and being chief resident, left little time for socializing. When she did come home, Ben always welcomed her with food and his company. Or, if it was really late, he’d leave a plate downstairs for her. It all worked because Ben was her friend, nothing else.

  She eyed Ben out of the corner of her eye as he shook his head at something on the screen. It’s not as if she hadn’t thought about it. When they first met, she couldn’t deny she’d found his tall fit body, dark curly hair, and rich brown eyes attractive. But it didn’t take her long to discover he wasn’t her usual brooding, bad boy type. The type that fucked well but sucked at any other interaction. Ben was a good guy.

  And good guys wanted good girls. He’d never made a move on her or exhibited any behavior that hinted at a sexual attraction. He watched out for her, took care of her. In the beginning, she hadn’t expected this treatment to last. Surely, any woman he was dating wouldn’t like him feeding his attractive roommate dinner, no matter their claim of friendship. But in the three years she’d lived here, none of the women had ever interfered. Speaking of . . .

  “How’s Jennifer?”

  Ben’s broad shoulders stiffened. “I wouldn’t know. We broke up three weeks ago.”

  “Oh!” Her stomach twisted.

  In surprise? Or a recently discovered relief?

  Nic had liked Jennifer. Kind of. She’d been better than the others, though the times she’d come over she’d been a bit boring. But Ben seemed to have a type. Like Emily the administrative assistant, who’d thought she’d bake her way into his heart, or Gabby the Pilates instructor, who’d enjoyed reminding Nic of how flexible she was. In the middle of the living room.

  Bitchy, much?

  Yeah, probably. She’d long ago accepted who she was. But Ben was smart, funny, and capable—she didn’t understand his attraction to women who didn’t seem . . . challenging.

  To each his own, she guessed. At least they were nice. Perfectly fine m
arriage material, something she knew was important to Ben. Not everyone would have her mindset. She’d put in too much time and money to give it up for a man. She had sex when she wanted it, but she was married to her work.

  With effort, she shook off that earlier thirst misstep. She wouldn’t let any of that weirdness affect them. Dick came and went, but good friends were a treasure and few and far between. You held on to them, no matter what.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said, after a pregnant pause so long it was post term.

  “It was for the best.”

  Since he didn’t appear to want to talk about it any more than she did, she returned her attention to her plate. She took a bite, and the delicious flavors reawakened her appetite. When she was done, she put the empty dish on the table and leaned back against the couch, pulling her feet up beneath her.

  “That was great, as usual. Thank you.”

  “No problem. You were clearly hungry.”

  “Because you probably won’t have to wash that plate? Or because you know I barely eat at work?”

  “Well, both and because”—he pointed to her head—“you didn’t pause to take your hair down.”

  “You’re right. I got sidetracked by my packages and the food.”

  She gently pulled the elastic from her hair and immediately sighed, closing her eyes as the weight of her ringlets was released from her head and fell around her shoulders. She dug the pads of her fingers in and began massaging her scalp, grateful for the reprieve. She didn’t even try to contain her moans of relief. When she opened her eyes, she found Ben staring at her, the muscle in his upper jaw twitching.

  “What?” She let her hand fall from her hair.

  He started and cleared his throat, pink tinging his cheekbones. “Nothing.”

  That earlier trace of awareness skittered through her again. Was she horny? She’d been flirting with an anesthesiology resident, and one night when they’d both been on call they’d made use of one of the on-call rooms to scratch that particular itch. When had that been? She thought back. It was before she’d gone on vacation, there had been snow on the ground . . .

  Good Lord, it had been six months!

  Damn.

  Maybe that explained why she was suddenly thinking about Ben in a way she shouldn’t.

  He leaned an arm along the top edge of the sofa and they continued watching the show, shouting out comments and suggestions as the couple visited the final two houses. In the end, the couple picked the first house.

  “What the fuck? She said she didn’t want a pool,” Ben said, picking up their plates and carrying them into the kitchen.

  Nic snuggled back against the cushions. “But it had the best master bedroom suite. That walk-in closet was incredible.”

  “When’s your next day off?”

  She yawned. “I’m on call tomorrow, so Thursday.”

  “You have any plans?”

  Why did her eyelids suddenly feel as if they weighed fifty pounds each? “Gotta finish up my presentation on osteochondroma.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Benign bone tumors,” she said, exhaling as the sofa welcomed her into its plushy depths. God, it had been a long day.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  Hadn’t she just responded to him? She’d told him what osteochondroma meant. “Uh-huh.”

  “What was the last thing I said?”

  Nic wanted to respond, but exhaustion arrived on an express train, offering her first-class accommodations and ready to drag her down into slumber. The last thing she remembered as she succumbed to mindless fatigue was being covered with a comfy throw, her curls gently brushed off her face.

  Chapter Four

  Ben scanned the list of dependents displayed on his computer screen. It was part of his intake questionnaire, the form he had potential clients fill out with information about their income, assets, expenses, and other finances.

  “Is this real? There are more than ten names on here. You can’t take care of everyone.”

  The large black man sitting on the other side of Ben’s desk exhaled an audible breath and shook his head. “They never listen.”

  The words were uttered so low, Ben wasn’t sure if he’d imagined them. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not trying to take care of everyone. These people are important to me.”

  “If you’re going to spend like this, there isn’t a financial planner alive who can help you hold on to your money until your next contract, let alone retirement.”

  Quentin “Q-Ball” Miller had been picked early in the first round of the NFL draft. His rookie contract was projected to be thirty million over four years with nineteen five guaranteed. That was life-changing money. Money that, if managed properly, could be the basis for a generational wealth shift. And yet Quentin had just given him a list of ten people he wanted to immediately cut checks to. In large amounts.

  Quentin straightened and looked at him, the smiling face and charming persona he’d shown throughout his collegiate football career noticeably absent. Instead, his dark eyes were flat, the angles of his face sharp. “This isn’t going to work out.”

  Ben nodded. “If that’s how you feel.”

  “It is. I’ve worked hard for this money. Sacrificed time, relationships. My body. My health. I have to be careful who I trust my finances with. Mr. Ashford said you might be that person, but . . .”

  Quentin shook his head and stood, his six-five, two-hundred-forty-pound frame an obvious giveaway to his position as a wide receiver on the football field. They’d attended the same prep school—though over a decade apart—and Ben’s old guidance counselor had reached out to him and asked if he could offer the young man some advice on his upcoming contract.

  Ben rose from his chair and held out his hand. “When you find someone who does work, let me know and I can forward your file to them. Or, I can have Ezra put everything together and send it to you.”

  “The latter,” Quentin said. He briskly shook Ben’s hand, efficiently maneuvered between the two chairs situated in front of the desk—a mini display of what he could do on the field—and left the office.

  Ben shoved a hand through his hair. This was why he’d made the decision to not handle athletes. The player who came from a background of poverty, made a lot of money, and blew it all before the end of his first contract, filing for bankruptcy within ten years of retiring was a cliché because it was true. He’d seen it time and time again. Sure, the lump sum sounded like a lot of money. It was a lot of money. But once you deducted half for federal and state income taxes and another ten to twenty percent to handlers, the rest could go quickly due to lack of planning and unsustainable lifestyles.

  And unlike athletes in other sports, football players had a shorter playing window. Quentin had only two to three years to prove himself to his team and the league, to get a second contract that would definitely take care of him forever. The more he gave to his mother, cousins, and friends, the less he’d have to live on for himself.

  Ezra, his assistant, came into his office. “That sounded intense.”

  Ben exhaled and retook his seat, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. “It was.”

  “I don’t understand.” Ezra’s brows strained to meet despite the ridge between them. “Athletes talk. If you did a great job for Q-Ball, he’d tell his teammates and associates. With as many professional teams as there are in this region, you could have a nice practice area managing players. Instead you let him walk. Why?”

  In his experience, dealing with athletes was never fun. Their egos made them nightmare clients. Add to that an unwillingness to learn about money, a disrespect for him, and a resistance to his ideas and he hadn’t met one he was willing to break his rule for.

  He’d thought Quentin was different.

  He shook off the dissenting thought. It didn’t matter. The idea of being inundated with athletes, as Ezra had mentioned, and expanding his business beyond what he could handle was the reason he hadn
’t fought to make the football player his client.

  Ezra braced an arm on the back of a chair. “Analysts are saying he’s the steal of the draft. He’s going to make an immediate impact.”

  “I hope so. I really liked him.” Ben motioned to the iPad on his desk. “That’s his information. Can you forward everything to him?”

  “Will do,” Ezra said, grabbing the tablet.

  Ben collapsed back, replete with gratitude for the many tasks he no longer had to perform. Ezra was working on his MBA at the University of Baltimore. Ben had hired him part-time when the administrative work began to take time away from the actual work he needed to do on behalf of his clients.

  Ezra’s phone rang and he hurried out to his desk. “Reed Financial Services . . .”

  Ben swiveled in his chair and gazed out at the Inner Harbor. From this height in Baltimore’s World Trade Center, the colorful boats that dotted the water looked like toys, the tourists and residents strolling the plazas resembled insects. It was a gorgeous view and one of the main reasons he leased the space for his offices.

  In the past five years, he’d turned an urgent desire to leave Van Mont Industries—his family’s business—into a thriving boutique financial planning firm that provided him a great living, while not having to rely on the money he received from the Van Mont family trust. He could’ve chosen from numerous offers, but his comotivation for leaving was freedom. He’d spent years immersed in his family’s drama, where fourteen-hour days and a nonexistent social life were the norm. He wasn’t keen to cede control of his life to total strangers; to trade one type of dysfunction for another.

  His parents had vehemently opposed his decision, but then, being on the receiving end of their disappointment wasn’t a novel experience for him.

  “What do you mean you don’t want to go to medical school? Are you insane? Your father’s a doctor. I’m a doctor. Medicine is in your genes.”

  “You’re choosing to leave a prestigious business empire your family has cultivated for over one hundred years for a little financial start-up? All this time, your mother and I must’ve been wrong about your intellectual aptitude.”