The Bluffing Game (2 page)

I was about ready to pull off my underwear and pleasure myself when my phone rang. It was Andrea.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Sterling will be arriving at the house in just a minute. If you’d like to wait in the living room, he’ll come to you.”

“Absolutely. I’ll be right down.”

First rule of billionaire client meetings: be flexible. Ready to meet an hour early, ready to wait two hours late. Get back in the game, June. You can fantasize tonight. Or better yet, go down to one of the bars on the bigger of the island, where the mingling resort is, and find a man you don’t need to imagine because he’s really there.

I put my shoes and blazer back on, picked up my briefcase, fixed my hair in one of the many closet door mirrors, and went out to meet my client.

In retrospect, I don’t know if he was really the most attractive man I’d ever met or if I had gone and gotten myself turned on enough that I couldn’t tell the difference. In any case, when I heard a door open behind me and stood up from one of the myriad couches in the parking-lot-sized living room, and saw his toned, lanky, very stylishly suited frame, and heard his voice say my name, I wanted him. Never in my ten years as a lawyer had I allowed myself to fall for a client, but there it was.

“June Jansen, I presume.” He was extremely tall, at least six-five, and thin like a runner in his finely-tailored, slim-fitting clothes. His hair was nearly blond but turned a darker shade in his two-day beard. He extended a hand.

I shook it. “At your service.” How glib. I never introduced myself that way. His hand was huge, firm, and hot to the touch. I buried the thought of it sliding up the back of my thigh.

“How’s the room.”

“Really wonderful, thank you so much.”

I realized he had asked the question in a really uncaring way, a matter of course, but I had answered with such girlish sincerity he did a double take. Shit. Back to the work zone. Hard hat area. Authorized vehicles only.

He smiled, though. Perfect teeth, of course. I reminded myself he probably had to wear years of orthodontia to get them that good, just to break the illusion of flawlessness. He said, “Which room are you in, South?”

“That’s right.”

“Glad you like it. So I have to tell you, I was really impressed with your work on Barks vs. Board of Health.”

I brushed a hair behind my ear, a nervous gesture I only did when I was self-conscious about appearing attractive. “Yes, you’ve told me.”

“What do you think?”

About what? About the case, June. The case. That’s why you’re here. You can’t let your client come meet with his lawyer and then talk to him like he’s an attractive man on the hunt and you’re a willing woman. You can’t. Tell him your plan for the case.

“Well, the good news is, the law is clearly on your side, so we’ve got a good chance of settling out of court if they…”

“A good chance isn’t good enough. Going to trial is not an option, even if we’re sure to win.”

“Stockholders getting nervous?”

“They’ve been nervous for years. Now they’re ready to sell. If this goes to trial, my stock won’t survive it.”

I realized from his face that despite his confident projection, he was just as nervous as his stockholders. If they gave up on him, his futuristic spaceport resort was sunk. He was nearly shaking thinking about it. Even billionaires get scared, when they realize their vast fortunes could shrivel and disappear overnight. It made him suddenly more of a human to me and less of a ken doll, and that snapped me out of my lustful distraction.

“Don’t worry,” I said, letting my professional confidence reassert itself, finally. “I’ve got you covered.”

“So what’s your plan?”

I went through the details of the settlement I thought would appease the opposition that had so rattled him and his stockholders. The opposition was a group of condo owners who were threatening to sue because they, perhaps rightfully, expected the spaceport to be a spectacular failure which would in turn make their property values plummet. I thought it was absurd that they were asking for a settlement instead of a contract addendum, and thought Sterling had every right to simply tell them to shove it. But that would risk a longer legal battle, so Sterling and I went back and forth on some numbers and conditions and decided on both an initial and a follow-up offer for the settlement, and before I realized it the meeting was over.

“Would you like to see the island?” Sterling said.

I played coy. “Is that all the business for today?”

“We can talk again in the morning,” he said, standing up from the armchair now. “The meeting with their lawyer isn’t until afternoon.”

I smiled. “Well, then. What should I wear?”

“Whatever you wish.” He made a little bow, pretending to be a concierge. “On Sueńos de Diamante, you have no one to please but yourself.”

On my own time, anyway, I thought. But damn, he was charming. “In that case,” I said, playing along as if I were a famous film star or something, “let me go look through the fashion warehouse in my house.”

“I’ll send Andrea to answer your questions,” he said.

I felt like Cinderella all over again. Disarming, that was the word for this place, I thought as I walked the wide hallway back toward my room. When you were given everything, what did you need to guard against?

Andrea appeared from behind me. “Mr. Sterling says you’re going out,” she said. “Where to?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” I said. “I have no idea. I’m just going to let him lead me around without a care in the world. Where are all the other people on this island? I feel like we’re all by ourselves.”

“The southern tip of Sueńos de Diamante is all ours,” Andrea said, as we entered my room. “Everyone else is two miles away. Let me give you a tour of your accommodations, shall I?”

We looked through rack upon rack of outrageously fine dresses, gowns, blouses, skirts, complete with more shoes, purses, and accessories than I even had time to look through. Some looked more flattering than others, but I attempted to take to heart Sterling’s exhortation that I please only myself, and put comfort just a notch above appearance. Any man who judged me solely on my measurements wasn’t one I wanted to sleep with anyhow.

Andrea opened the last closet, which brimmed with astonishingly exquisite lingerie, much of it from French brands I had never even heard of. An entire closet of lace and silk, satin and embroidery, enough to clothe a harem and a half.

“You looking to get lucky, this island is the place to do it,” Andrea whispered, though there was no one around to hear. “Every man here has a personal trainer.” She winked.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “Is Sterling married?”

Her smile didn’t fade, but I could tell she was thinking a lot behind it that she didn’t say. “Not technically,” she said. “You want to get lucky with him, you’ll have a hard time, though. He has a woman who meets his needs.”

Of course, I thought. How blind of me. Andrea was his House Mistress in many ways.

“But,” she shrugged, “if he’s in the mood for a change, it’s possible.”

That took me aback slightly. “So is it a purely…” I searched for the right word. “Professional meeting of his needs?”

She smiled again, letting that graciousness hide whatever she was thinking. “You could say that. Tell you what.” She leaned in to me and whispered again in this enormous, nearly empty room. “I’ll tell him you look good naked.”

I suddenly found myself embarrassed at the unprofessionalism of sleeping with a client, even though Andrea didn’t seem to care. “No, it’s a bad idea,” I said. “He knows more about me than I do about him. I should find someone I don’t even have to give my full name to.”

“That’s fun too,” Andrea said. “But you know, the men here have resources. They could find out who you are just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “You gotta take the bad with the good sometimes, I suppose.”

She had a point. Any tryst here could follow me home unexpectedly. Sterling too, for his part, was technically still a mystery to me. Better to know what I was getting myself into before I was in over my head. “You know,” I said, closing the closet full of lingerie and looking for something more practical, “don’t say anything to him about me, okay? Don’t tell him I look good naked. Let him find out for himself if he wants to know.”

“Oh, playing hard to get,” she said, now beaming. “Smart woman. He’ll like that.”

She sauntered out of the room, and I felt an unshakable turning in my stomach that told me I couldn’t trust a word she said.

Two

Sterling
met me outside the main entrance of the house, waiting on the path under the archway and watching the sun turn orange and silhouette the palm trees as its brightness inched closer to sinking behind the Pacific. He kept his hands in the pockets of his slim-tailored tuxedo, and a little strand of his hair waved back and forth in the warm island breeze. I couldn’t tell from the doorway whether he was enjoying the evening or, his mind only on his legal troubles, completely inured to it.

When he heard me come out, he turned from the sun and looked at me with a mature smile. The sun lit the side of his face, now shaven smooth, and the light from the sky brought out the ice blue of his eyes. He was gorgeous.

“Ready to see the island?” he said.

“Ready for you to show me,” I said, and I threaded my hand into the crook of his elbow, ignoring the common-sense voice in my head that kept nagging not to flirt with a client. How quickly my inner resolve had weakened when my body was so close to his. But this was the hideaway of the rich and powerful, their secret pleasure paradise. Common sense had lost its luster—this was an island without rules. Regulations and contracts swamped its beaches in waves, but that was all under the surface, the hidden foundation of paperwork no one was supposed to see. The point of the island was to come and do whatever you wanted. And walking on Sterling’s arm, the warmth of his body soaking into mine, his subtle cologne adding yet one more delicate fragrance to the air, I knew exactly what I wanted.

We followed the same twisting path I had taken in, and at the end, waiting to taxi us to the airstrip, was not a private jet but a convertible seaplane with wheels on its pontoons and big windows on the cabin. The pilot opened the door for us, and Sterling held my hand as I stepped down into it. My choice of heels was not quite ideal for embarking and disembarking from airplanes, but I had traveled in enough upper crust circles to handle myself gracefully. I swept my hands over the back of my dress as I sat, and the silk was so decadent I almost wanted to keep running my palms over it. I wondered if, or perhaps hoped that, somehow Sterling’s skin would be as soft.

He got in next to me, his hip against mine, and I wanted badly to stroke his thigh, but held myself back. Best not to come on too strong. After all, I hadn’t yet seen a sign that he was interested—only the same hospitality as Andrea, with whom he apparently shared benefits. I was confident enough in my looks and style that I knew many men found me attractive, but I had a smooth and enjoyable encounter in mind, and didn’t want to set myself up for something else, especially considering that when it came down to it, a refusal from him could mean the end of my career. Best to take life-altering risks in baby steps.

In point of fact, the kind of casual but still romantic one-night stand I really wanted was something I ought to put off seeking until I had won the man’s case for him. Such a multitude of possible unpleasant outcomes would be more easily avoided that way. This, of course, was my backup common sense talking, and I wasn’t listening because the entire atmosphere of this place carried one clear, unavoidable message: you deserve it all. And I was hoping to arouse his interest tonight because some part of me apparently didn’t want a one-night stand. That part of me wanted a weeklong affair. Multiple days in the bliss of forgetting everything but each other. An amicable end, neither of us pining for anything more. I knew in my gut that trying to have everything could very well leave me with nothing, but in the end, what did a have to lose?

A lucrative client. A very, very lucrative client. My reputation as a professional.

Well, okay, what did I have to gain?

Several days of wild vacation resort lovemaking.

The stakes were clearly not high enough to be worth the risk. My brain was unwavering.

“Look,” Sterling said.

I did. We were airborne, and the small plane had tilted so that from the window we could see the entirety of Sueńos de Diamante, lit orange and full of dramatic shadows from the setting sun as the land rose amid the still, green sea. I hadn’t bothered to look for such a view on the flight that afternoon, and the sight took my breath away.

None of the risk assessments in my head, none of the numerous red flags shooting up about getting too forward and screwing myself over, none of the chattering about leaving behind a hard-earned standing of unadulterated professionalism, nothing mattered. I took Sterling’s arm again, pulled myself close to him, and rested my cheek on his shoulder as we looked out the window at the island.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. And in my mind a cacophony sounded of all the reasons I was making a mistake.

Sterling didn’t push me away. Nor did he pull me closer. He kept looking out the window, and his only acknowledgement of the fact that we were closely touching was to take his far hand off the armrest and give my hand a quick squeeze. So quick, so light I might have imagined it. So chaste it might have been professional, the way two strangers can slow dance to smooth jazz while balancing on, but never crossing, the razor-thin edge of intimacy.

He was hesitant. Or he was afraid to interpret my signals the way I meant them because they were too ambiguous. He didn’t want to overstep, didn’t want to push me. He wanted to be invited.

Or maybe I was making him uncomfortable. Only time would tell.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Famished,” I said.

The seaplane touched down gently onto the water just as it was getting dark, and we stepped out of it onto a marble pier whose posts all curved into elongated carvings of swans. It could have been tacky if done cheaply, but the sculpture work was sleek, exquisite, and the intricate splashes carved where the swans emerged from the pier even had ripples, as if the pier itself was part of the water.

“Seafood?” he said.

“Love to,” I said. I wondered if he was going to make me do all the talking. “What’s your favorite?”

“The broiled lobster is unmatched.” Still the tour guide. Maybe I needed to back off.

We walked through a set of glass doors twice my height, themselves engraved with a mural of a half-dozen dolphins jumping in formation and flowering out in every direction. The doors opened for us, pulled by purposely-inconspicuous doormen in white tuxes, white gloves, and white shoes.

“Welcome to the island of diamond dreams,” Sterling said, reciting the English translation of the island’s Spanish name. Like a commercial announcer, but a very sincere one, he followed it with the resort’s slogan: “The envy of kings.”

We entered a massive rotunda full of gravity-defying multi-tiered chandeliers and a floor of pure glass beneath which blue water brimmed with all colors of tropical fish, the walls of the enormous space reaching out with more sculptures than I could count or even take in—here a bare-breasted mermaid, there a graceful humpback whale. Many of those who stayed on the island must indeed have been rulers of entire countries, and I couldn’t imagine the money and power that must have been riding behind the case I was to help Sterling win.

No wonder he hadn’t flirted with me. No wonder he was so nervous. If he lost, he wouldn’t just be losing tens of billions of dollars. He wouldn’t just be losing a private home the size of a hotel. He would be losing his respected position among the most powerful people in the world. He would be falling from grace, watching his own descent as Icarus must have after nearly reaching the sun.

How foolish of me, how naïve to forget the mindset of the truly powerful.

If I was to pursue him, I would have to do so after making the settlement. Only then might he be interested. Only then, for that matter, might he be relaxed enough to pay my signals some attention.

“Good evening, Mr. Sterling,” said the maître d, waiting for us like a statue in the center of the rotunda. “What dining room would you and your lady prefer tonight?”

“The submarine room, please,” Sterling said.

“Very good. If you’ll follow me.”

Sterling smiled and patted the man’s shoulder. “Don’t trouble yourself. I know the way.”

“Very good, sir.”

Sterling led me down a ramp under the wall sculptures, a ramp that retained the glass floor, and I had the odd simultaneous feeling that I was both in a wide open space and closely confined. The walls, the ceiling, the floor was nothing but glass, and beyond it all, an artificial reef lit night and day and home to all variety of sea creatures. I had to look twice to see where the glass hall turned a corner, and found myself holding close to Sterling like a damsel, trusting him to get me safely where we were going. Fish and eels and turtles swam over and under us, and finally the hallway touched the seafloor, and we walked under a short ways to our table, already set for two, in the center of a spherical room lit by underwater lamps embedded in the reef outside the glass.

“This is marvelous,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too much like a fish out of water, though that was precisely what I felt like in both the literal and figurative senses. We sat at the table, and amid the pregnant pause, before I could stop myself, I said, “You must have a hundred lawyers already, lawyers who are used to dealing with these particular people, and with this… this place.”

He relaxed, as if he had been waiting all day for that question. Before he answered, he waited for a white-gloved server in a white tailcoat to pour us both flutes of French champagne so fine I had never even heard of the brand. “It’s true,” he said. He twirled the champagne in the glass, watching the bubbles. “I have more legal counsel than I can keep track of. Some of them I’ve known many years.”

“So I have to ask.”

“They’ve already failed me. And in doing so, they’ve nearly forced the challengers to take us to court. I can’t have that.”

“I see. So how did you find me?”

“I already told you. Barks vs. Board of Health.”

“What about it?”

Sterling laced his fingers together and rested them on the table. He leaned forward. “We had one conversation this afternoon, and even though it was nothing to you, you listened to me more skillfully and came up with better ideas than every one of the dozen lawyers on my team. They didn’t get to me by being bad at what they do, but in the end, they’re in it for the money and the prestige. You, I don’t know. You were in your element. You’re a hidden talent, June. You don’t know how good you are.”

I was taken slightly aback by the certainty with which he spoke. “I know I’m good. I don’t have doubts about that.”

“But you’re still asking me why you. If you knew, really knew how good you are, you wouldn’t need to ask.”

I took hold of my champagne flute so that I had something to do with my hand. “I appreciate your vote of confidence.”

He laughed as if I’d said something brilliant. “You really aren’t used to this are you?”

I gestured at the ceiling. “You mean this? You’re right. I’ve worked with high-profile clients, but nothing quite like this.”

“That’s good. It means you see clearly how much is at stake.”

I raised my glass. “To winning.”

“To new partnerships.” We clinked and drank. I took only a sip, but he drained his flute empty. The waiter reappeared and refilled it. “Let’s discuss play, not work,” he said. “Are you enjoying your stay?”

“Very much so. Are you enjoying your house, or can you think only of the proposed space port?”

He laughed again, more at himself this time. “This case is so small-minded,” he said. “All these millionaires coming after me for a bigger piece of this island, this tiny pie, when the truth is, there are a billion other pies. Enough for everyone. What’s missing is perspective. Let me tell you a story.”

He downed his next glass of champagne like it was water. “The first time somebody thought up the idea of space tourism, I was first in line to invest. When they flew that first flight, three hundred K a seat, I was on it. I knew it would be different, I knew it would be awe-inspiring, I knew I’d want to do it again as soon as I got back. What I didn’t expect is how sad it would make me.”

I listened like a child hearing an epic bedtime story full of monsters and heroes. I had been a child ever since arriving here, and I was loving it.

“Every part of the Earth I could see was blue and white, barely any land visible, and even though we weren’t really in space, just high enough in the atmosphere that the sky was black, the curve of it was what got me. When you’re on land, when the ground is flat, or even when you’re at the ocean, and you can see a ship sink behind the horizon, you still can’t quite see the Earth as round. You almost can, but it’s so slight you could convince yourself you were imagining it. But up there, you couldn’t mistake it. You couldn’t pretend. The Earth is small. It’s so small. And that’s what made me sad. I don’t quite know why, but the smallness of it was terrible somehow, as if it was just a breath away from disappearing.”

I had never felt even the slightest desire to see Earth from space, so his story felt a bit foreign to me. I couldn’t really identify with it. But it had moved him profoundly. And he was sharing that inner movement with me. I felt full of gratitude that he was opening up, and I wasn’t sure quite how to reciprocate. I couldn’t recall anything quite like what was sharing. An experience of the sublime, perhaps. The closest I could think of was making love to Nick, during our good days, when we had both felt totally safe and cared for in each other’s arms, completely secure, free from all of the stresses of the world and allowed to be ourselves in our own private place. The afterglow, the falling asleep spent and happy, free from everything. That was the closest.