“All right, I’ll be ready in less than a half.”

“Please make it less.”

Ivan paused. “I thought you said to take my time.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it,” Lucina stated.

Ivan laughed it off. “All right, man, I’m coming.”

“Ivan, I am not a man,” she corrected him.

He paused again. Yeah, she needs to loosen the hell up, he told himself. No wonder these girls are not liking her.

He responded, “What, you haven’t had any in a while? Loosen up a bit.”

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Aw, shit! Now, what is she gonna say to that? he thought.

Lucina told him, “We’ll be waiting for you out front,” and didn’t respond to it at all.

That made Ivan curious about what she was thinking. She’ll let it out on me sooner or later.

He clicked back over to Chris. “Hey, I’m sorry, but I gotta get ready for this party now.”

“Was that her?” Chris asked him.

“Her, who?”

“You know, Miss Gallo.”

Ivan smiled. They all have a competitive thing for Lucina, hunh?

He said, “Yeah, but I needed to get ready anyway.”

“All right, well…don’t be surprised to see me there.”

Ivan was silent again. He wanted to tell her not to come. He just didn’t need the extra confusion that night. But once Chris hung up on him, he decided to let it slide.

He made it down into the limo, dressed, ready, and smelling good in closer to fifteen minutes.

“See, that was faster than I thought,” he stated to his partner in the back of the limo.

Lucina remained silent. Ivan read her sulking attitude and told himself, All right, let me get this over with.

He looked into her face and said, “Lucina…” He waited for her undivided attention. When she turned to face him, he told her, “I apologize. I didn’t mean to say that. Okay?”

She looked into his eyes for his sincerity. Once she read it from him, she nodded. “Thank you. So, you’ve been getting a lot of great feedback on the magazine article,” she commented. She went right back to business as if nothing had happened.

Ivan said, “Yeah. That ‘Mr. Likability’ thing was a great touch.”

Lucina told him, “You’ll get a lot more attention tonight, too. So make sure you keep it moving.”

She didn’t even look at him when she said that. Ivan began to feel the strain of an attractive man and an attractive woman in a lucrative partnership again.

It would be a lot easier if it was just two guys or two women in business, he assumed. Then again, a whole lot of men and women don’t get along with each other like that. Or maybe it would be easier if one of us was ugly.