“It’s fine. I have hotel points withMarriott.”
“Well, it’s impressive,” he said as he went into the living area. He walked around, checking out the space, calling back to me when he got to the bathroom, “Damn, that’s a bigshower!”
“If you accept this deal, you’ll be seeing some really bigshowers.”
Jace walked back in as I relaxed on the sofa, and plopped down besideme.
“So you know I was asking you if you wanted to talk about the campaign,” I added. “Notto…”
“Yeah. I was talking about that too. Why else would I come up to your room?” Jace smiled, so much mischievousness on that innocent face of his. Yet there was something not innocent at all about it too. “But since you brought it up, do you have that happen a lot…mixing business and pleasure? Or do you have rules about that kind ofstuff?”
“Eh, not too many rules in my industry,” I replied. “In fact, most of the guys I know tend to mix it up to the point where you can’t really see where pleasure ends and businessbegins.”
“But you’re a pretty powerful guy, from the way you talk. How do you know if someone’s sleeping with you because they want to or if they’re just usingyou?”
“I don’t mess with anyone I think is using me. No point when I can fuck whoever Iwant.”
“So cocky. I respectthat.”
“I don’t imagine you struggle in thatdepartment.”
“Nah. I’m good theretoo.”
I found my gaze continually moving down to his crotch, and he seemed to notice, so I decided to put my attention back on the whole reason I was there. “So…what are you thinking sofar?”
“What would you do if you were in myshoes?”
“Run like hell,” I admitted, and even as I said the words, I wondered why I was sabotaging my ownefforts.
“There’s that honesty again. Why don’t you tell me how you reallyfeel?”
I chuckled. “Not serving me right now, but I wouldn’t be doing it for a cause like the one you mentioned. I’d just be using the money on me, and I know how that turns out. It’s nice knowing you have something you can do to make adifference.”
“I’ll miss working at the station, but if that money is on the table and it can be used for something good, I’d be kind of a bastard if I didn’t do it just because it might be a littledifficult.”
“You have a very interesting perspective, Jace. I’ll get Carter to send over a preliminary contract with my company and a disclosure that you promise not to work with any competitors while this deal is underway. Not anything that implies you have to take on whatever deal Hacksmore comes up with. Just to protect my company’sinterests.”
“Oh,wow.”
“You have to understand, it’s not that I don’ttrust—”
“But kind of,” Jace interrupted, his eyesnarrowing.
“Well, I don’t really know you. I’ve worked with a lot of people, long enough to know when you need to stop trusting. Is that okay withyou?”
“Dax, you don’t know me. You don’t have any reason to trust me. Trust is something a personearns.”
I was sort of blown away by his statement. “I really hope you’re everything you seem tobe.”
“What does thatmean?”
“Just…not every day I get to meetBatman.”
Jace laughed at my reference to our previous discussion. “I like hanging with you too, Dax. You’re a pretty coolguy.”
An awkward silence filled the room as we gazed into one another’seyes.
This heat radiated from my solar plexus and filled my cheeks as my mind bombarded me with fantasies of all the things we could do to oneanother.
