“Communications.”
“No wonder you need money.”
&nbs
p; She sucked in her breath, wanting to tell him she didn’t need the money, especially his. Well, not that she couldn’t use more—a lot more—to pay off her student loans, but it wasn’t like she was destitute. Especially not after she got hired at the Tribune.
“How much do you get from the Scarlet Auction?” he asked next.
“Forty percent.”
Out of two hundred thousand, that would be eighty thousand dollars. She could do a lot with eighty thousand dollars. But his transaction was directly with Jake, so she wouldn’t see any of it.
Vince walked in carrying bags of what was probably lunch. He leered at her as he walked by before placing the bags on the table.
“Where’s Jake?” Vince asked.
“On the water,” Benji replied.
Vince helped himself to some bourbon, then sat down at the table and unpacked a sandwich for himself. Benji’s cellphone rang and Kimani heard a guy on the line say, “Hey, Ben.”
So his name was Ben. Might even be short for Benjamin. She stored the information in her mind to look up a guy named Ben or Benjamin that was associated with the Chinese Basketball Association and went to Stanford’s business school. She was pretty sure she could come up with his full identity.
She couldn’t make out everything the man calling Ben said, but she heard something about his date having a cousin willing to come to the lake.
“Don’t bother. I got my own,” Ben replied.
“Yeah? Cool,” said the other guy “I mean, I’d share mine if I had to, but I’m not really into the threesome thing—unless it’s two girls on one of me, of course. See you soon.”
Kimani stayed the impulse to toss her tea at Vince, who blatantly ogled her as he chomped on his potato chips. Ben hung up his cell, glanced at Vince, then removed his jacket from the back of the sofa.
Rising to his feet, he held out his jacket to her. “You said you were cold.”
She looked up at him first in surprise, then gratitude. Taking the jacket, she quickly shrugged it on. The material was amazing. She had never worn anything so silken before.
“What’s here?” he asked Vince, peering into the bags on the table.
“Tri-tip, pulled pork and turkey,” Vince answered. Finishing, he wiped his crumbs off the table, threw the wrapper and potato chip bag in the wastebasket, and went off to do whatever it was he did. Before leaving, he spared Kimani only a brief glance, less interested now that she was covered.
“What’s your preference?” Ben asked her.
“Um, turkey,” she answered. He was being nice to her, but at some point, he was probably going to want a blow job just like Jake. Could she bring herself to do it for the sake of a story?
“Chips or potato salad?”
She shook her head. She hoped Claire was getting something better to eat than pickles, but she rather doubted it. They ate in silence at first, but she had too many questions to keep quiet. She wanted to know him better, for the story and so she could prepare herself for what might come.
“Can I ask a question?” she ventured.
“I don’t have anything against you talking,” he replied.
“Why weren’t you at the Scarlet Auction last night?”
He propped his feet over the edge of the coffee table. “Why do you care?”
She shrugged her shoulders in feigned nonchalance. “Just making conversation. Jake only paid thirty thousand for me.”
“Yeah?”