Pecking Order, page 46
Ivan then set up promotional campaigns and website space to highlight several Native American reservations and casinos, including those that surrounded the San Diego area. And he continued to enjoy Jacari’s companionship on several travel occasions. Despite her name change dispute, she had become a point of inspiration to her local tribe and to Native Americans nationally, particularly for the younger women.
Ivan joked, “I guess you’re ‘Jacari’ for real now. These young girls are happy to see you drumming all over the country.”
She laughed and told him, “A little bit of independence is good for a girl.”
“As long as that girl can handle herself as maturely as you do,” he commented. He was certain that he and Jacari would maintain their friendship. However, Jacari still served to remind him of a younger, softer, and less experienced version of someone else.
Ivan’s long-term and personal plans remained a work in progress, where he made sure to check in on Lucina’s continued fashion events and celebrity parties. He wanted to show his support as well as keep an eye on any suitor who might think to take her hand in another partnership, either business or personal.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” her girl Maya told him. Ivan had hinted at his concerns to her after dropping by on Lucina’s Christina Aguilera party.
Maya said, “I’ll be the first to break that up and call you if that ever happens. I’m still holding out for you two,” she hinted back with a wink.
That made Ivan feel more secure about his wait. He was fortunate that Maya felt that strongly about him.
Just a little while longer, he told himself as another year of emotional chess went by between them.
BY THE SPRING OF 2006, the wait was over. Ivan made sure Lucina had no excuses to stop herself from giving him three hours of her time. That was all that he asked her for.
He picked her up at her house with a driver, wheeling Ivan’s own Rolls-Royce Phantom in Pacific blue. The interior was a soft saddle-brown leather.
Lucina sat inside the top-of-the-line luxury car and smiled. “Is this yours or Roman’s?”
It was a typical Lucina Gallo response. Ivan was used to it by now. He grinned and said, “I don’t borrow Roman’s cars that much anymore. But I still make money with him, renting them to other people. It’s a good money deal. And I remember you thought he wouldn’t go for it.”
She glanced at him with a smirk. She still looked as fabulous and as fierce as she had when he first met her. She was wearing a white summer dress from Donna Karan, before season.
She asked him, “So, what are you working on now?”
Ivan seemed a million miles away from where she had first seen him in the Gaslamp Quarter. His potential had been met, many times over. That was how Lucina had always pictured him. He only had to manifest it. But somehow he remained the same man in his dark blue jeans, white shirt, and tweed sports jacket. He was still right there with her, and still searching.
He told her, “Like always, I got a lot of things I’m working on now.”
She looked him over and nodded. “That’s good. I’m always happy for you.”
It sounded like a hint of envy to him. Was he as happy for her? Was that what Lucina was thinking? And if they were trusting partners like they had once agreed, then how come she was not where he was?
Ivan smiled it off and ignored her bait. “Thanks,” he commented. He wanted to save everything for later. He had other plans for her. So he enjoyed the drive with no further response.
As they headed across the Coronado Bridge toward downtown, Ivan looked out the window and said, “This is really a beautiful city that we live in. But there are so many others out there, you know.”
Lucina studied him. She responded, “Are you saying you are already tired of San Diego? Obviously, this city has been very good for you, don’t you think? And already you want to leave.”
He was beginning to irritate her more by the minute now. Maybe he wasn’t the same man anymore. And for the record, Lucina loved San Diego.
Ivan grinned, still playing a mysterious game with her. He said, “I’m just wondering out loud what other places have to offer. You never do that? I thought you loved to travel at one time.”
“Who says I don’t like to travel now?” she asked him. “I’ve just been busy lately.”
“All work and no play,” Ivan suggested.
Lucina shot him a look and held her tongue. Was he that smug now?
He is really bothering me now, she told herself. And what is his point today? Is he trying to show me how much of an asshole he can be now that he has wealth? Because I am perfectly fine without him. These men are all the same!
On Ivan’s side of the car, he told himself, I hope we don’t get caught in lunch-hour traffic. Because this is killing me! I just want to surprise her.
They were on Interstate 5 heading north.
Ivan asked her, “You think people can really have what they want at our ages?” He needed to make more conversation with her.
However, Lucina never spoke of her exact age. She refused to allow people to know how old she was. Maya told him that she was only twenty-eight to his thirty-one. That meant she had been twenty-five to his twenty-eight when he first met her. But she always had seemed so much older.
She said, “It depends on a person’s appetite. If you have a small appetite, then you can be happy with a little. But if you have a big appetite…” She shrugged and looked away again. She realized that Ivan’s appetite was much larger than she ever expected.
Once she saw that they were still heading north, past SeaWorld, Lucina became anxious, especially since he had irritated her earlier. She didn’t know if she had three hours left for him. So she asked him, “Where are we going, Ivan? I still cannot ask you that?”
He had told her the rules in advance, days before she had agreed to it. He was not to tell her their destination. She was to find out. And Ivan would not break those rules.
So he told her, “Nope. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
Lucina took a breath and held her piece a minute longer. Ivan looked down at the designer ring on her finger and at the bracelet on her left wrist, and he was tempted to reach out and hold her hand as they continued to travel.
No, he told himself. Just be patient a little while longer. You don’t want to alarm her.
He could have held Jacari’s or any other woman’s hand without a problem. They would have even preferred it. But they were not Lucina.
Once his driver turned off at their exit and began to ascend the hills of La Jolla, Lucina began to assume things.
He bought a house in La Jolla, she told herself. Okay…now he wants to show off everything.
Ivan realized the cat was out of the bag once they began to pass the expensive homes that were spaced out to the left and right of the winding road up the hills of La Jolla.
However, he was pleased that she held her thoughts to herself until they arrived. And as they got closer and closer, Ivan had to restrain himself again from reaching out to hold her hand.
I must have gotten too comfortable with Jacari, he thought. Her affectionate personality has rubbed off on me.
On Lucina’s end, all she could think about was how high they were rising.
Oh, my God, I don’t know if I like this, she admitted to herself. I guess it’s easier to look up here than to be up here. Or maybe I just feel that way because this car is so big. I feel like we are too close to the edge of the road.
She had driven on high mountainous roads in small cars before. Just not any recently. So she forced herself to remember those times and countries, in order to relax. There were plenty of high roads back home in Brazil.
When the Rolls-Royce finally turned in to an extrawide driveway to the right, Lucina was indeed impressed. There was a four-car garage in front of them, and the home above it had a southern view looking back into the downtown skyline of San Diego with no obstructions. The view looked past SeaWorld, past Mission Bay Park, past the San Diego airport, and right into her own Coronado Bridge to the right of downtown.
Oh, my God, this view is heavenly! she admitted to herself.
The driver walked over to open her door and help her out of the car.
“Welcome home, madam,” he had been instructed to tell her.
Lucina’s side of the car placed her directly in front of the view. She’d heard what the driver had said to her, but it hadn’t registered yet. She just wanted to see it all.
Ivan paced over to join her as Lucina walked toward the large, oval-shaped landing beside the garage. The oval, paved with smooth California stone, was big enough to land a helicopter. A three-foot-high stone wall surrounded it.
Lucina stood there by the edge and looked out at the view. To the right was the Pacific Ocean and three of San Diego’s beaches: Pacific Beach, Mission Beach, and Ocean Beach. To the left were the homes on the hills across Interstate 5 in Clairemont. There was a perfect view of the highway traffic below, directly across from where Ivan used to drive to the offices of Hutch & Mitchell Accounting. It was the view he had dreamed about for years.
When he reached Lucina, standing out on the stone landing, he gave her a set of color-coded house keys: green, red, and gold.
He told her, “The green opens the door from the garage, the gold opens the doors to the house from the outside, and the red is for a secret door inside. You may even want to put that somewhere else.”
Lucina remained speechless. She took a deep breath with the keys in her hands and turned to face him. She said, “Ivan…what are you…what are you trying to say?”
She could barely get her words out. And it wasn’t just the house, the view, or the proposition, it was being able to share it all with him. Lucina had been so used to selfish men who built storages of wealth around her, or others who attempted to seduce her with preexisting wealth she had not earned, that Ivan’s surprise was overwhelming for her. She actually felt that she deserved it this time. And more than that, she genuinely loved Ivan. She loved his fairness, his determination, his vision, and his courage. She even admired his stubbornness. She just didn’t know how she could ever bring herself to accept a relationship with him outside of business. So she had fought off the idea, while maintaining enough proximity to him to continue to monitor his progress. She had played the same game that he had played—watch and wait.
Ivan took a deep breath of his own. He told her, “I want us to be partners again. Lately we’ve been more like…associates.” He said, “But all of this right here…this is yours now. I can’t see myself sharing it with anyone else. You’re the one who sparked a lot of my ideas and forced me to make ’em work.”
Lucina just stared at him as if he were a statue that had hypnotized her. She still had no words to respond to him with. She needed to hear more to confirm that it was all real.
Ivan asked her, “You don’t have anything to say?”
She didn’t. She looked away in silence, still taking it all in.
Ivan read her silence as confusion and hesitancy. He wasn’t used to Lucina not being able to respond to him. So he continued to pitch her.
He said, “I’ve had this place empty for weeks now, just waiting for you to get the time to come over here and see it. But just with you standing here, with no furniture or nothing, it’s like…your presence fills the place up alone. You know what I mean? Just having you here to share it with me is like…everything. And I want you to live here. Move in. Decorate it. The whole house. Any way you want to. And I’ll just watch you. This is your house,” he repeated.
He went on, “I don’t want us to be partners like we were, where we do an event together and you leave me and go home at night. I want to make this your home now. I want you to wake up and go to bed here. And we can use your other house as a guesthouse or something. The same with my downtown apartment. That’s your downtown apartment now until we buy something bigger. Maybe a penthouse condo or something,” he told her. “You see all the new spots they’re building downtown?”
He continued, “It don’t matter to me. Whatever you want. You helped me to come up with all this, and I’m setting up now to do more. And I want you with me while I’m doing it so you can do your part. That’s why I’m talking so much about traveling now.” He said, “But I would never take you away from San Diego. I know how much you love it here. I love this place, too. Just look at this,” he reminded her of the view. He turned around and faced it all.
Lucina had heard enough. It was Ivan, all right. He was talking like his old, passionate self and was full of ideas. She shook her head and grinned, holding up her right hand to stop him.
“Ivan. Please. Slow down,” she told him.
Ivan didn’t know what that meant. He asked himself, Is she still fucking turning me down, with all of this? Shit, she’s a hard-ass girl!
However, Lucina did not have those intentions. At least not initially. She was already imagining what Maya would say once she invited her friend over for lunch. Maya would probably joke with her and ask for her own guest room there.
Nevertheless, it was all too sudden. There was too much to consider first. Lucina could not just move in with him on a whim like that, no matter how nice his new house appeared. They had not even been out on an official date. Ever! Ivan had far too many female admirers for her to trust him now anyway. His proposition would also put an obvious price on her head. So ultimately it was an unacceptable deal, as unacceptable as many others had been.
She told him, “Ivan, you are not the first person to offer me a big home.”
Ivan said, “I know I’m not. But I don’t care about those other guys. They’re not me. That’s why you turned them all down. And imagine how many women would love to be in your shoes. But they’re not. And they never will be,” he told her.
Before she could get out another word, he said, “Lucina, the bottom line is this: I choose you today, I’ll choose you tomorrow, and I’ll choose you again next week. In fact, I chose you the first time I ever laid eyes on you. And during all of this time that I’ve been around you, that still hasn’t changed. Did you read that from me when you first saw me out on the sidewalk? Be honest about it.”
She shook it off and told him, “That’s only because you haven’t had me, Ivan. But what about the girls you’ve been with? How come they’re not here?”
It was a good question. But Ivan answered her with poise. “Because they’re not you. They’re not what I want.” He said, “But you, you’re a long-term investment, Lucina. I wanna put you in my retirement fund,” and he broke into a smile.
Lucina heard that and chuckled. She couldn’t help herself. It was corny but clever. A retirement fund meant old age. And she couldn’t see Ivan retiring anytime soon. He loved to hustle too much, a long-term addiction that matched her own fetish for hustling.
Ivan told her, “That’s a good money deal right there. I only love my mother like that.”
When he said that, he stopped smiling. He was dead serious.
Lucina looked into his eyes and read his sincerity. She had heard Ivan talk about his late mother before in his interviews. He held her memory in high regard. His mother had been a strong inspiration for him, as much as Lucina’s mother had been an inspiration for her. Ivan even made her think about her mother back home in Brazil, where she refused to leave. She loved it there too much. So Lucina continued to send her love and money to her family back home.
After Ivan had opened up a soft spot in her armor, Lucina became silent while thinking about their possibilities.
We are so much alike, she told herself. I’ve known that ever since that first night. I could see it in his eyes as soon as I looked at him. So how long can I continue to run away from him? she asked. And he’s right. I did feel this that first night. But it was only a possibility then. Now it is a reality.
Ivan seized the moment and walked over toward her in her silence. He continued to have an urge to hold her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her body and feel her heartbeat against his chest.
Lucina had not trusted the naked intentions of a man in years. Yet it was time now, and it had been time for a long time between them. So she took a step toward Ivan as he closed the gap. And she waited there, hoping he would be able to read her body language.
Ivan read her and understood. She needed affirmation.
She wants to, he told himself. I got her! Finally!
He opened his arms to receive her.
He said, “I’ve been wanting to hold you for a long-ass time.”
Lucina just stared at him and said nothing.
Well, do it then, she thought. I’ve waited long enough for this, too.
Ivan gently held her body inside his arms and slowly closed them around her. Lucina reached her own arms around his waist and squeezed him back. Then she leaned her head gently onto his shoulder, taking in the attractive aroma of his cologne.
Ivan asked her, “So…I guess this means yes, right? You’re back in with me now.”
She smiled into his shoulder. “I guess so…until you act up,” she teased him.
Ivan eased his hold on her to look into her eyes. He said, “Lucina, I expect us to disagree on some things. That’s just human nature. But at the end of the fight, I’m still gonna be loyal to this company. And I know that we’re gonna make a whole lot of money money together.”
Lucina chuckled girlishly. “You liked that line, didn’t you?”
“Oh, that was classic,” Ivan told her. “That got me going. I can’t even lie. But you’re not tired of hustling with me yet, are you?”
She thought about it and said, “No. I’m definitely not tired of that.”
Ivan said, “Well, let’s do it again, then. I spent a lot of money on this house. So let’s get out there and make it all back. I got us set up to be global brand promoters now. And we can throw parties around the world, with company jet service all the way.”
Lucina responded, “Yes, but I think I want to slow down and see the rest of this house first. Can we do that for a minute?”
“Oh, yeah, well, right this way,” Ivan told her with L.A. swagger. “Let me show you how to use your keys with the alarm system.”
