“I didn’t sleep with you to improve my job prospects.” He said that while he folded the towel, skirt-like around his hips. She was so thirsty and he was making it worse. She wanted to lick the droplets of water off the washboard of his abs as much as she wanted to kick him out and be done with this feeling of unease.
“Don’t be so goddamn prickly. That’s not what I meant.”
He inclined his head. “Our own company, Dillon and me. It’s called Ipseity. It means individual identity, selfhood, plus it has the letters I and P for intellectual property. We have the concept, the basic software, we have a business plan. We need legal and commercial advice. We need the time to build it out, investors, I don’t know,” he rubbed his chin, “that’s Dillon’s bag, not mine. But we need venture capital.”
“What if I could get you the money?”
“I must’ve been some lay.”
“I should’ve left you starving and bleeding in the foyer.”
He smiled, but tried to hide it by looking away. “Wentworth money?”
“No. We’re not in the venture cap game. Do you know how many IT ventures succeed?”
“You’re going to tell me.”
“Most start-ups fail. Depending on how you define failure, and let’s go with projected return on investment, then eight out of ten fail.”
“I didn’t tell you to get your help.”
That was true. He’d told her in an attempt to level their risk profile, to willingly put his own job safety in her hands, and show her he was no threat.
And to keep her in bed.
“But you’ll be pig-headed enough not to take it.”
He folded his arms and leant back on the vanity. He was trying not to laugh. He really didn’t care what she thought of him. The panic she’d felt waking in his arms was still in her limbs. He was a one night stand who’d overstayed his welcome but stood in her bathroom as though he owned it. “You’ve been called pig-headed before.”
He licked his lips; a precursor to responding, except he didn’t. She fought the urge to drop her bath sheet, walk across the room to him and lick where he’d licked. “Assuming you’re not on a superhero fantasy kick about your own awesomeness, I know someone you should meet.”
“I don’t need a cape.”
She believed him. There was no trace of fakery in him, no element of false bravado.
“You’d introduce me?”
”I already have.”
He cocked his head, unfolded his arms and braced against the vanity. “Jay?”
“Ask Dillon if he knows Jay Summers-Denby.”
Mace planted a hand over his face. He spoke through his fingers. “I know that name. That’s Summers-Denby? Dressing gown, bandaid, BLT, hissy fit, wants to get in your pants?”
She walked passed him towards the bedroom. She needed to be away from him and dressed. From the falling light outside she knew it was getting close to dinnertime. “He has a global venture cap fund. And he’s not interested in what’s between my legs.”
“Shit.”
She picked her dress up from the floor. Mace followed her into the bedroom and watched while she went to the drawer for fresh underwear. “If you’re thinking you should’ve been nicer to him, you’re on the money.”
9: DNA
He’d have to let Dillon take a good swing at him. That was all Mace could think about as he dressed. He’d been in a room with Jay Summers-Denby, the man Dillon quoted like he was the Messiah, the venture capitalists to end all venture capitalists, and he’d snarled at him, virtually challenged him to compare dicks, and flaunted his sexfest with Jacinta.
Fuuck.
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