Caught Up in You Read Online Free PDF Page B

there. It wasn’t. And when he’d knocked on the door to the house,
     no one had been home.
    Then this morning he’d come in to find a message from the cop who’d handled the alley
     incident, letting Wyatt know that the asshole had made bail. Kelsey’s attacker was
     out there, roaming the streets like nothing had fucking happened. Our brilliant legal
     system at its best.
    “Wyatt, you were supposed to handle this,” his father barked. “You can’t just say
     no to big-time clients because you feel like it.”
    He huffed his annoyance. “I was busy this weekend. And I don’t eat deer, so why would
     I waste time shooting one?”
    His father made that frustrated noise of his, like the hiss of trapped steam leaking
     out of a pipe. “Wyatt, you—it isn’t about the deer. You know that.”
    Wyatt minimized the screen and turned toward his father, bored with this conversation
     already. He had bigger things to worry about than some self-important client getting
     his pride hurt over a declined invitation. “I bet the deer would beg to differ.”
    His dad’s palm landed on top of the desk, a soft smack but pointed nonetheless. “This
     isn’t a joke.”
    Wyatt closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Didn’t
     say it was.”
    His father tugged at his necktie and tightened it again, obviously trying to regain
     his trademark Bill Austin composure. “Dirk Billings wants to trust the guy handling
     his fortune. He wants to feel connected to him. Like buddies.”
    “And sitting for hours in a wooden box with guns and cheap beer to shoot something
     I don’t even eat is going to accomplish this?” Wyatt shook his head and straightened
     the papers on his desk. “If he wants trust, he needs to look at my record and talk
     to my other clients. If he wants to feel connected, I’m more than happy to schedule
     regular phone calls or meetings to go over his portfolio. I spent last weekend analyzing
     the numbers from last quarter. We have some quirks in there that don’t make sense.
     That’s what I needed to spend my time on. Not hanging out in the woods doing tick
     checks with a windbag.”
    The thought of being caught in a deer stand, making chitchat with a guy who thought
     the South should’ve won, was Wyatt’s personal version of hell. He’d end up turning
     the gun on his client instead of the wildlife. That wouldn’t be good for the company
     image.
    His father’s skin went ruddy, his hold on his anger obviously dwindling. “Ignoring
     this part of the business is not going to work anymore, son. Merrill and Mead are
     giving that level of personal service to their clients. They’re stealing them away
     from us with good ol’ boy wining and dining. Or golfing and hunting as the case may
     be. Those imbeciles don’t have anything on you when it comes to the financials, but
     if you don’t learn how to play the nicey-nice game, we’re going to keep losing big
     fish. You want that jerk you graduated with to woo away all of our clients?”
    Wyatt’s jaw clenched at that thought. Tony Merrill had been an arrogant prick in graduate
     school, and time had only seemed to enhance those attributes. Wyatt had received a
     jovial email a few months earlier from Tony thanking him for sending over one of his
     best clients.
Jerkoff
. “When their net worth starts going down because Tony doesn’t know his ass from an
     alligator, they’ll return.”
    “They’re not coming back, Wyatt,” his father said quietly. Too quietly. Wyatt had
     feared that lethal tone when he was a kid. It usually meant fire and brimstone were
     coming.
    “Don’t panic, Dad.” Wyatt turned back to his computer to click open the next page
     in the report. “You’ve got the Carmichael retreat at the end of the month. And you
     always come back with new clients from that. You handle the ass kissing and spouse
     charming, and I’ll keep their business here with the results I can get