“Let me guess.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Private equity.”

“Insurance,” he replied.

She scoffed, as they always did. “That sounds boring.”

Sun Tzu. Knight knew that the battle was already won before he launched into the next line in the familiar script.

“It is boring—until you lose something you care about.” Her curiosity crept incrementally.

“What do you care about?” she asked reflexively, as they always did.

“Making enough money so I don’t have to care,” he quipped dismissively.

Knight turned, assessing the young woman.

“You should really insure your eyes.”

The girl leaned in, intrigued. “How much are they worth?”

Now he was the one pausing for dramatic effect as she batted her eyelashes at him. “Three hundred thousand.”

It was probably more than she had expected for just the eyes, and in truth, Knight always rounded up. The validation attracted her to Knight, who had now firmly established himself as the arbiter of her self-esteem.

“And the whole package—what’s that worth?” she asked.

As Knight scanned her with clinical detachment, she mugged ever so slightly. He didn’t enjoy the game as much as he enjoyed the total domination of his opponent, which it inevitably led to. The conquering.

“One-point-eight million. That would cover your ‘total loss’ based on your demographic and potential earnings.” Knight paused, meeting the young woman’s eyes. “But I’m guessing you dropped out of college to pursue modeling, and you’re not getting any younger.”

The girl recoiled. “What is that supposed to mean!”

Knight explained that her market value was in free fall. In five years, she’d be closer to a million. In ten years, half that.

“You can’t put a price on everything,” she said with a hint of desperation, as if her own self-worth was wrapped up in her objection. Her words reminded Knight of the bullfights he had attended in Catalonia. The bull was incapable of making any choice but to charge the flapping cape, only to end up with a sword between its shoulder blades. Knight drew his sword.

“Name one thing you can’t put a price on, and I’ll tell you how much we’d pay out if you lost it.”

The model pursed her lips, silently searching for an answer that wouldn’t come.

Knight’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. If his boss was texting him at this hour, something very expensive had died. He winced as he read the word Miami.

The girl studied him, intrigued. “What is it?”

“Boring work stuff,” Knight replied as he knocked back his drink and rose to leave, knowing he would be spending the rest of the night rushing to the airport and popping Ambien and scotch in first class on a red-eye.

The girl took him by the hand, longing in her $300,000 eyes. “Wait. What are you worth?”

Knight was briefly disappointed that he wouldn’t get to enjoy the spoils of his conquest—she was top shelf, even by his standards—but he took pleasure in the fact that his departure would only enhance her feelings of desire for him.