Roman considered it with a pause. “So, you’d like to rent my cars—”

Ivan cut him off and said, “We can borrow from your personal collection if you let us. But I’d love to drive up in a Rolls-Royce at a yacht party, or a Bugatti at a Padres or Chargers promotion, or an Aston Martin in the Gaslamp. And each time, your company gets the credit for supplying the car.” He added, “And if anything happens to them, you take my GT back as collateral. In fact, we can even designate one of your sales staff as a personal driver and a watchman for the cars.”

“What if it’s only a two-seater and you have to pick me up?” Lucina asked Ivan with a smile.

He shrugged it off. “Then his driver follows behind us in another car, and we give him the keys once we arrive at our events like a personal valet.”

Roman heard all of that and laughed out loud. Ivan was obviously pressing to have access to all the cars. He asked Lucina, “He’s not gonna let me turn him down on this, is he?”

Lucina grinned. “I don’t think he is,” she answered.

Ivan said, “It’s better than just leaving them in the garage. You need to at least keep the engines working, right? Think of it like taking a pet for a walk.”

Roman said, “Yeah, but I’m usually the one who takes the pets for a walk. After all, they’re my pets.”

“Yeah, but you’re also trying to sell them. And if you let us show them off in front of our crowds of thousands, along with the VIPs who can afford to buy them, then it all leads to good business for you,” Ivan noted. He said, “You already know they’re gonna ask us about the different cars. But if it’s the same car every time, then they only ask us once.”

With that, Ivan reached inside his dark blue sports jacket and pulled out his check to set on Roman’s desk. Then they fell into a momentary stare-down.

Finally, Roman grinned and nodded to him. “It’s gonna be interesting working with you, Ivan.” He picked up the check, read the amount, and nodded again.

Ivan didn’t drive off behind the wheel of his Bentley Continental GT on the first day. After filling out all of the paperwork, he told Roman he’d be back to pick it up the following day. So the boss offered to have one of his salesmen pick him up from his apartment downtown.

When they left the showroom in her Mercedes, Lucina asked Ivan, “What made you think he would allow you to borrow his cars? That was very presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”