Chapter 31 #2
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I feared. “Galen Frisk said he invested his signing bonus into a hockey-themed crypto fund, and he seemed to think I had signed off on it. Which I know I didn’t because it was the first I’d heard of it.”
“Babe, it’s complicated.” He spoke for a couple of minutes using the finance bro-speak that went over my head while I eagerly waited for the sex scenes in Industry. During his spiel, the server dropped off my wine, and I helped myself to a gulp.
Thad ended his lecture with, “I don’t expect you to understand, but you have to go deep to reap the rewards.”
I stared at him. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I had been so blinded by his boring—safe—persona that I had missed all these warning signs.
I was dating my father.
“Who else have you hit up?”
He bristled. “Hit up? You make it sound like I’m begging. These are legitimate investments.”
“Who else?”
He shrugged, oblivious to the distress he was causing me. “A couple of guys on the Rebels. Grant. MacFarlane.” Those guys had multi-million-dollar contracts. How much had they plowed into this scheme? “A few people I’ve run into at parties.”
Parties I brought him to. “Hockey players?”
“Mostly. They’re all looking for ways to turn their high disposable income into life-changing money.”
I hissed at him. “They already have life-changing money. And this crypto shit is a way to lose that life-changing money. What happened to Galen Frisk’s signing bonus?”
“It’s invested.”
“So you can liquidate it and give it back?”
“Well, not exactly. Like I said, it’s currently invested, and while the returns are in the negative right now—”
“How much in the negative?”
He took a sip of his scotch. “The fund’s been hit with regulatory oversight, which often spooks the market. This government has decided it’s suddenly interested in monitoring the crypto finance space in a way they weren’t before and—”
“How. Much?”
“Half a mil?” Said casually, like he threw out abbreviations for millions and billions all the time. “But we can make it back. In fact, this is where your Nazarov mistake could come in handy. I’m imagining he has connections to Russian finance …”
I didn’t hear the rest. The rushing in my ears was a powerful torrent that drowned every word out of his lying mouth.
“You didn’t even care.”
“About?”
“I’ve been sick as a dog for days and you didn’t even come to see me.”
He blinked. “You know I don’t do well around illness. I never told you this, but I was in the room when my grandfather was on his last legs and …” He shivered. “It freaked me out. And I have so many meetings this week. I can’t be catching whatever you had. You understand, right?”
I understood that I had made a huge mistake. First, Nazarov in Vegas, now Thad, who didn’t even care about my first mistake.
“When I told you I was married, you seemed annoyed at first, but once you heard who it was, you were fine with it. I thought you were just fanboying, like always, but it was something else. You saw the potential there. The advantage my connection to Alexei could bring.” I shook my head.
“That’s all you’ve seen in me. My connections to high-net-worth individuals. ”
“Lo, don’t be so dramatic. Listen, I’ll talk to Galen and put him at ease. People are pretty skittish about money like that, especially when they grew up with nothing. It’s like, big payday, how do I spend it, and crypto is the perfect vehicle.”
All he could think of was his cut, just like Jonah Yates. How had I let this happen? So I had dated some whackadoos in my time, and I had hoped to get on the life track like anyone else, which meant I might not have done my usual due diligence.
Go for normal, Lauren. A guy who looks good in a suit and is gainfully employed. As long as he doesn’t have Arctic blue eyes and could never steamroll your heart like a Zamboni.
“I’m married to someone else, Thad.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Told you, it’s cool.”
“Why is it cool?”
“Because it was just some accident. I mean, you didn’t even sleep with him, did you?”
Not that time.
“And if I had? Would that matter?”
“What’s gotten into you? I’m not the jealous type.
Neither are you. We’re normal, calm people—well, I am.
You apparently lose the plot every now and then and get married to professional hockey players in Vegas.
” He chuckled at his not-so-sly dig. “But out-of-character moment aside, you are the perfect example of middle class, toe the line normalcy.”
I supposed I was. I just didn’t enjoy hearing it.
I had worked hard to tame my temper and use it for good: negotiating on behalf of my clients. In my personal life, I kept it down a notch because overly opinionated and overly caffeinated women didn’t land husbands.
But overly martini’ed ones apparently did.
“I didn’t sleep with Nazarov after we got married. But I did in college.”
Could you please radiate some emotion about this? Show me that you care?
I saw the moment another light bulb went off, one I expected would burn to the touch. “That’s good. He probably still has a thing for you. Have you drawn up the divorce papers?”
“He hasn’t signed them yet.”
“See? Guy’s nuts about you. And you could leverage that.”
He continued to dig himself deeper. I handed him the shovel. “How, Thad?”
“Get a payment or something. Or maybe don’t be so quick to get the papers signed. That way, you could—whoa!” He blinked at the sting of my fruity Malbec thrown in his eyes. “What the hell?”
I shot upright. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it. How you’ve been using me all this time to get closer to the players. My friends. My family. My clients.”
“Wait a sec—”
“Nope.” I picked up my jacket and purse. “We’re not a good fit, Thad. You’re not actually interested in me except for how my connections can help your business. You’d better figure out a way to fix this investment fiasco with Galen Frisk, or I will be recommending he takes legal action.”
“Babe!”
“And I hate when you call me that. I truly do.”
Then I walked out of the restaurant, helping myself to a breadbasket from the astonished server on my way.