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“Yes, ah, lower back issue. I was stretching.” Zali rolled her eyes, looking wholly unimpressed, and I swallowed hard. Damn, she was gorgeous. “Please take a seat. I’ll just go wash my hands and join you in a minute.”
Walking out of there without my erection saluting every passerby was a challenge, but I managed it.
Barely.
Fuck, I was in for a world of trouble if I didn’t get a grip, and quick. After washing my hands and splashing water on my face, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Disgusted with myself, I shook my head and huffed out a sigh. It was time to face my students.
Nudging the door closed with my foot, I nodded hellos at the two other students joining us—Samantha and James. “Thank you for coming. You all know each other, yes?” At their nods, I clapped my hands and added, “Right, let’s get started. I’m sure everyone’s busy.”
I snagged the envelopes of USB sticks off my desk and distributed a stick to each of them before sitting down opposite Zali and Flynn. “Each of the drives I’m giving you is labelled. One is a record of my research, together with a few papers some colleagues of mine have written on the GFC. None of you would likely remember it, but the financial landscape at that time was changing quickly. There was a lot of uncertainty.”
“You said it was pretty bad, and Mum and Dad said they lost a bit of their retirement savings,” James interrupted. “But was it really that much of a disaster?”
I nodded, trying to figure out a way to explain what went down to someone who clearly had no background knowledge of it and would have been too young to remember. Scrubbing my hand down my face, I groaned. Fuck, I was getting old, and teaching never failed to remind me of just how far away from college age I was getting.
“Australia was spared from the worst of the global impact due of two reasons.” I counted them off on my fingers. “First, our banking sector is highly regulated by reasonably good laws. Unlike in other countries, we didn’t have any banks becoming insolvent. But there were a lot of non-bank lenders who went under, as well as a lot of investment firms. If your parents only lost part of their retirement savings, that’s good. Others weren’t so lucky.”
Counting out the second reason on my finger, I added, “The other reason Australia kept its head above water was the mining industry. We had a booming resources sector while the rest of the economy was stalled. It allowed for a shift in the workforce from construction and other industries into mining, keeping a lot of people employed.”
James nodded, and Samantha turned the USB stick over in her hand before smiling sweetly at me.
“Samantha and James, you wanted to look at how the GFC impacted the economy. Start with that information, and expand your research out from there.”
I handed another USB out. “This one is a complete copy of ReimagINC’s financial records. You can plot the growth of deposits being made into the company and the turnover of those deposits when investors wanted to withdraw them. In the early days, most of the requests were complied with soon after receipt. You can also see where the company invested its clients’ funds.”
Pointing to the stick that Zali had left sitting on the table, I added, “You can verify all the data I spoke about in the lecture from this stick. Ms Weatherall was known as the investment queen for a reason. The company was going well enough for its first six months that it failed to raise a single red flag. It's why ReimagINC was able to operate with no licencesin place for so long. I want to do a breakdown of these figures. I want names of every investor, how much they put, in and what, if anything, was paid back to them. I also want the same information compiled for the investments made.”
“This is bullshit,” Zali grated out, her eyes flashing. “You want us to prepare lists of data that you’ve already put together? So you can build a few pie charts and spend thirty seconds speaking on it—”
“Ah,” Samantha interrupted, looking uncomfortably back and forth between Zali and me.
“Samantha, why don’t you and James get started, and you can check in with me in a couple of days.” My dismissal was blatant, but they didn’t need to be a part of this conversation.
The soft click of the door after the whirlwind of activity as they packed up seemed to prompt Zali into action. She rose gracefully from her chair and stalked around the table. I couldn’t resist letting my gaze sweep down her body, lingering on each part of her as she came to stand beside me. She was wearing a top that was barely more than a scrap of frilly yellow material wrapped under her arms. Loose at the bottom, it barely covered those generous breasts of hers. Her black leather miniskirt wasn’t any better. She had no room to bend over before her pert little butt would be showing. The desire to push her onto the table, spread her legs, and lift that tiny top to see what she had on underneath was far too tempting. Compound that with the black heels that added half a head to her height, and my dick was back to heat-seeking-missile status.
“You took the first opportunity you got to fuck with our agreement.”
“Tell me what you want to do, then,” I challenged, pushing my chair out and resting my hands in my lap. I didn’t give a fuck that the move was framing my hard cock. I had a feeling that Zali used sex as a weapon—certainly she used her body was one—and I was like any other horny-as-fuck man. I had no shame in letting her know she affected me, despite the fine line I was walking between proprietary and getting myself off.
She crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them together. My dick twitched, my balls drawing up closer to my body. Fuck me, I was ready to combust, and being interrupted earlier was coming back to haunt me.
“Drop the podcast.”
I stood, crowding her against the table and getting way up in her personal space. “I told you I can’t do that.”
Flynn was next to me in a split second, his hand snaking out and pressing firmly against my chest, halting my movement forward.
Zali lifted her chin defiantly, pushing her breasts against my chest and trapping Flynn’s hand between us. “I’ll do your shitty review, and then I’ll find the truth.”
Damn right she would. I’d make sure of it.
I wanted Zali on my team. But she was so much like me, so stubborn and determined to do things her way. If I gave an inch, she’d take a mile, and demanding that the podcast be dropped would only be the start of it. But persuading her to stick it out could be fun.
And I was definitely up for the challenge.
I pressed my body against hers so she was leaning back, her spine arched. Flynn moved his hand, his fingertips brushing the tight bud of my nipple, and I bit back a groan at the shot of sensation that zapped through me like lightning. My voice was a rough rasp, filled with desire and anger at the way this woman pushed my buttons.
“What truth is that?” I goaded. “Is that like the man—a friend of your mother’s—who invested his family's life savings? She promised him that his funds were safe, that they were as good as cash. Completely liquid. He could retrieve them at any time. Hmm?”
