The Price of Infamy

  The Bad Boys of Wall Street

  EMBER LEIGH

  The Price of Infamy © 2023 by Ember Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published by Ember Leigh, 2023

  EmberLeighAuthor@gmail.com

  Cover Model: Gil

  Photographer: Wander Aguiar

  Cover art: Covers by Combs

  Editing: Elisabeth R. Nelson

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  LET'S STAY CONNECTED!

  ALSO BY EMBER LEIGH

  CHAPTER ONE

  TRACE

  “Oh my lord—she’s taking her diaper off again.”

  My mother’s exclamation—the third time in the past hour—sent me racing back into the living room. The luxury apartment I’d moved into four days ago stretched out in front of me, still a sight I hadn’t quite gotten used to. Hell, I hadn’t gotten used to any part of this whole situation.

  Not only was I in Kentucky indefinitely, I had a year lease on an apartment in Louisville.

  And the little girl I was suddenly responsible for?

  Yeah, I really hadn’t gotten used to that one either.

  “Did she pee or anything?” I asked as I darted over to help my mom. She swatted me away as I tried to bring a new diaper her way. I’d gone from playboy bachelor to custodial guardian in the blink of an eye. Four days ago, I didn’t know how to change a diaper.

  Now I knew about nighttime protection and why the good diapers mattered.

  “She’s just uncomfortable, I guess.”

  Willow’s little stink face as she looked up at me and my mom from the play pad in the living room made me snort with laughter. She grinned devilishly and then lifted her little dress and tore at the diaper again.

  “Okay, see, you need to leave that on,” I told Willow.

  She shrieked something unintelligible and stomped away, toward a corner of toys my mother and I had quickly assembled in the day before Willow’s arrival. Everything had been a disorienting whirlwind since taking sole custody of Willow—the niece I never knew I had, until my surprise half-brother went to jail and left her in my care.

  Personally, I didn’t think that a single businessman in Manhattan was the top choice for taking custody of a two-year-old. But if I was the best option, I sure as hell didn’t want to know who my competition was.

  “I think she’s doing better,” my mom said, watching as Willow tucked herself behind the Fisher Price food truck and crossed her arms, staring out at us through the serving window.

  “Yeah,” I said, not at all agreeing. These first few days had been rough. But then again, my entire existence had been rough for approximately the last seven months, so something like this just seemed normal now. One more exciting addition to the shit pile that my life had become.

  “Willow, do you want some lunch?” my mom asked in that sweet grandma voice. I loved that she was here, offering to help in these vulnerable early days. She probably knew I had zero idea what to do with a two-year-old. More than that, she knew that her sons were in a special sort of…helpless disintegration. There were endless ways to describe the ramifications of having an active investigation launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission tearing apart the business I helped build from the ground up. And believe me, I’d been using every synonym available over the past seven months, trying not to let the despair and the anxiety burrow to my bone marrow.

  But I had to keep my chin up and my shoulders back, all that positive bullshit people said when they weren’t facing the possibility of a ten-year prison sentence and the complete destruction of their business venture and livelihood.

  “What about a…bologna sandwich?” I offered, heading to the kitchen. I’d rented this place furnished, so all the kitchen essentials were ready and waiting for me upon move-in. All I had to do was supply the food and copious amounts of alcohol needed to survive my new reality.

  I stared into the fridge. What the fuck did two-year-olds eat? This was only the fifth entry on my list of questions that could unfurl to create a miles-long scroll. A week ago, I had been ordering oysters on the half-shell for a pretty girl I wanted to impress at a swanky bar. Now I had a fridge stocked full of basic lunch meats that I personally hadn’t eaten since I was a child myself.

  My, how things could change.

  Willow didn’t answer. She didn’t even react. She just kept her arms crossed over her chest and frowned at my mom.

  “I’ll make her a sandwich anyway, just in case,” I announced, pulling out the ingredients. I couldn’t help feeling like this whole arrangement could have been made even slightly easier if Ian, my half-brother, could have provided me with any details or tips about suddenly raising his daughter.

  But he wasn’t available. He was in jail awaiting trial for drug smuggling charges. Not exactly the family reunion I would have envisioned, but hey. My brief interactions with Ian back in New York had been guarded at best—he’d never let me in on what he was really doing or why. But the drug charges illuminated everything, and it turned out he’d been scaling up to larger clients in the area. As Willow’s custodial parent, he found it fitting to hand her over to me once he was taken to jail. Apparently her mother was MIA or possibly wildly unfit—or both.

  “Willow, we should play with some dolls. What do you think?” My mom’s sweet, approachable demeanor never wavered. And she deserved a thousand blessings for it.

  Willow was my father’s granddaughter, but not my mother’s.

  Dad had kept his affair from my mom for twenty-four years. Short as it had been, its consequences seemed to go on to eternity.

  Family drama: the gift that keeps on giving.

  Personally, I’d had about e-fucking-nough.

  Knock knock knock. The sudden banging at the door reminded me to check the time—eleven thirty. The social worker was right on time. I plated the plain bologna sandwich, passed it to my mom, and then hurried to open the door. An older lady with a tired smile looked in.

  “Hello. You must be Trace Fairchild.” She offered a hand, eyes crinkling behind wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m Bev with social services. I wanted to check in on little Willow and see how she’s doing.”

  “Absolutely. Please, come in.” I stepped aside, gesturing for Bev to come inside. She stepped carefully—noiselessly—and her head bobbed as she looked all around, taking in the apartment.

  “This is a lovely place,” she murmured, bringing out her clipboard to scribble some notes.

  “Thank you. We’re still settling in, but this is home for now.” I headed for Willow, gesturing to my mother. “Bev, meet Deb, my mother. She’s been helping out as we…adjust.” I laughed, though I wasn’t sure who it was a bigger adjustment for—me or Willow.

  “Pleasure to meet you.” Bev sent the same mild smile to my mother, and then bent down to peer at Willow through the serving window of the food truck. “And you, little miss? How are you?”

  Willow grunted and crossed her arms. Bev nodded as I sighed.

  “We’ve been getting a lot of that lately,” I admitted.

  “I’m not surprised. For her age, it’s expected. Don’t take it personally. Just keep trying.” Bev offered me another crinkle-eyed smile. She asked for a place where we could chat, so I led her to the two-story great room with big windows overlooking downtown Louisville. A gray-brick fireplace stretched to the ceiling. As we sat down, I flicked on the remote that lit the fire. She smiled at me.

  “You seem like you have things taken care of here.”

  “Do I? I feel pretty lost,” I admitted. That might not have been the
best thing to admit to a government worker who controlled whether I was fit to care for a child, and I hurried to add, “I’m making it through. But this is all new to me. I’m the CFO of a wealth management company. I’m not…a dad.”

  “I understand completely. It’s a big shock, especially if you weren’t already in her life.”

  “I wasn’t. I only recently met my brother. He’s my half-brother, actually, and I…” My gaze swept back to my mother. Her mouth had thinned, though she focused on breaking apart the bologna sandwich. The topic of my father’s other family was still raw for her. It was still raw for all of us. Ian had only popped into our lives a few months ago when he surprised Axel, Damian, and me at our office in Manhattan, claiming to be my brother. A little investigation proved the worst: he was my half-brother, which proved my father had maintained a secret family for years, though he was only involved with Ian’s mother romantically for a short time. Now my parents were divorcing, Ian was in jail, and suddenly I had his daughter—my niece—in my care.

  Pretty much every day of my life contained a solid WTF moment.

  “Regardless, you’re doing as well as you can,” Bev said in a reassuring tone. I’m sure she would have patted my knee if she weren’t a government official. She guided me through a list of questions that she’d brought, occasionally scratching something on her sheet or nodding for a few moments before continuing. Willow stayed in her hiding spot behind the food truck the entire time. Eventually, Mom gave up on the bologna sandwich and went to tidy the kitchen. Not like it needed tidied. This place was still sparkling from move-in day, and besides, I wasn’t an anal-retentive executive for nothing. I couldn’t go to sleep at night with dishes in the sink.

  Bev eventually went back to trying to talk to Willow, asking her questions to no avail. Finally, she stood up, looked around the place, and nodded.

  “So you plan to stay here long-term?”

  “As long as I need to. My lawyer has told me it may take some time to finalize the custodial details, and I’ll do whatever the courts require.” I’d hired a lawyer almost immediately after getting the call from Kentucky Children’s Services back in New York, and she’d advised me to set up a residence here until things were settled with Willow. That included figuring out long-term custody arrangements based on what happened with Ian’s charges…and what back-up plans could be depending on whether or not the SEC filed charges against me, as well. Depending on how all that went down, Louisville could become ‘home’ for a long while. Now that my brothers and I were so unstable, I had half a mind to never return to New York City. Having a Louisville outpost just made sense right now. It was my place to let the dust settle and figure out my next steps.

  She smiled warmly. “Any questions for me?”

  How the fuck am I supposed to make it through my days if I might go to prison and Willow won’t eat the bologna sandwich?

  “No.” I crossed my arms, pretending to think. Only more unhelpful questions sprouted inside my head. “I’ll be going back to work soon, so I’ll need to figure out what to do there.”

  “Ah, yes. Babysitter references.” Bev flipped through the pages of her clipboard and presented me with a sheet. “Actually, skip all the names on here and go straight to the last one. It’s a private nanny agency—the best of the best in Louisville. You look like you can afford it.” She sent me a wink before she headed for the door.

  “Thank you.” I skimmed over the entries, finding the agency she’d referenced. Bev waved to Mom and said her goodbyes before letting herself out. The door snicked shut behind her.

  “Well that was painless,” my mom commented as she came around the kitchen island. She reached for the sheet. “You plan on hiring one of her recommendations?”

  “I don’t see much choice. I need to get back to work ASAP, and I don’t plan on asking you to become Willow’s full-time grandma.”

  My mom sent me a look, her lips pursed. “Trace, you know I would.”

  “I know you’d do anything for me.” I wrapped my arm around her in a side hug. “And I appreciate that. But I’m not trying to capsize your life just because I got dealt this hand. It’s my responsibility. I’ll handle it." Besides, I didn’t want to make my mom grapple with even more than she had on her plate recently. Finding out about her husband’s infidelity beginning twenty-five years ago was one thing. Now all her kids were waiting to find out if they were going to prison for financial fraud. We were more fun than a barrel of fucking monkeys.

  She drew a deep breath and nodded, a few gray wisps escaping her thick braid down her back. “You’re right. You will. There’s nobody better for this than you, Trace.”

  “Aw, come on. Not even Damian or Axel?”

  She snorted. “I stand by what I said.”

  We smiled at each other as I headed back over to Willow.

  “All right, Willow. What about some screen time? I know that motivates the youth. If you have four bites of bologna, I’ll give you ten minutes of Peppa Pig.”

  She frowned up at me and didn’t budge. What a negotiator. I needed to work on my skills.

  “Okay. Twenty minutes of Peppa Pig.”

  Her hand shot out in the direction of my mom in the kitchen, which I took to mean give me the damn plate. My mom’s brows rose as she brought the plate over. I smirked, satisfied, as though I had any clue what I was doing.

  “Maybe I have a shot at this dad thing for real,” I told my mom as Willow took a tentative bite of her sandwich. I made my way to the flat screen TV near the fireplace, grabbing the remote.

  “I always thought you’d make a great daddy. Your brothers too.” She sighed wearily, coming down to her knees in front of the food truck as Willow nibbled at her sandwich. “Just didn’t imagine things playing out quite like this.”

  That was the understatement of the century. Willow wasn’t the only thing I hadn’t envisioned playing out like this. I never expected to be back in this city after I left the last time six years ago. Back then, I’d been traveling from New York every other week courting a big-ticket client who turned into a grade A nightmare. But during all those visits, I’d fallen for his niece. Hook line and sinker. I’d been a breath away from asking her to marry me.

  Until she told me to fuck off, that was.

  I supposed these unpleasant flashbacks from my former life in Louisville were par for the course here. That meant I had no time to waste in writing a different reality. One that included no vestige of the former failure of my past. Time to get my present and future on track. I wasn’t about to combine new parenthood with remote work investing millions of dollars an hour. At least not yet.

  I picked up the babysitter listing again and found the number for Aurora’s Nannies.

  “All right. Let’s see what Aurora’s got for me.” I dialed the number. Willow took one last bite of her sandwich and then scampered over to the couch, looking up at me expectantly. Her little face looked gaunt, like the type of face you’d expect to see peeking through a grimy window in a Charles Dickens novel. Not at all the pudgy cherub face plastered in diaper ads, which I received too many of now that my smartphone knew a toddler was in my life. I deflated a little. What had this girl lived through until now?

  “Aurora’s Nannies, how can we serve you?” The chipper, feminine voice on the other end of the phone snapped me back to reality. I cleared my throat.

  “My name is Trace Fairchild. I’m looking for a nanny for my…” I blinked, looking at Willow. “…daughter. It’s urgent. I’m new to the area and I’d need a nanny as soon as tomorrow, if you can accommodate.”

  The woman on the other end cooed, and then said, “Why, of course we can accommodate you hare at Aurora’s. Would you be able to come to the office? That would expedite the process for sure. We can get your paperwork filled out, look at available nannies, and make our selection today.”

  Relief trickled through me. “Excellent. I’ll be there within a half hour.”

  At least there was still one person in the world happy to hear from Trace Fairchild. After everything my brothers and I had been through over the past seven months, sometimes it seemed like the entire world was against us. The active SEC investigation sure didn’t help the ole reputation, especially since the Fairchild brothers had been media darlings before the investigation was launched. Now, our names were splattered everywhere, all the time. Less of the celebrity gossip splatter and more of the rotten egg on the front door splatter.