Ivan was so focused on his thoughts that he barely noticed his alluring companion approaching him from the right side of the boat.

She studied the intense glare in his eyes as the sunlight hit them and made them sparkle. “What’s on your mind, Ivan?” she asked him.

Her soft, feminine hand, with perfectly manicured nails, met his right shoulder. She sat down beside him in her yellow, orange, and red dress, with no shoes.

Ivan barely acknowledged her. He shook off her question and shrugged. “I’m just, ah…thinking,” he answered.

The woman, in her midtwenties, looked similar enough to be a distant cousin. She had the same light brown skin and light-colored eyes, with thick, wavy hair that fell past her shoulders.

When Ivan began to promote a creed of “nothing but the best” for the San Diego Executives’ Club, he meant it. His companion was definitely exclusive company: only millionaires and up needed apply for her attention. Nevertheless, Ivan paid her no mind. She was another expensive prop, like the cars, boats, jewelry, and private jets that he began to utilize for personal pleasure and company business.

She said, “Well, I can see that. But what are you thinking about?”

Ivan wondered if she could follow his eyes and spot the multimillion-dollar houses that held his attention up on the hills. That would be the easiest answer for him to give her. Outside of that, he could not even begin to explain all the issues that were running through his mind at that moment. Nor did he want her to know about them.

His brother, Derrick, in his determination to prove that he could still make his own living, decided to sell exotic strains of marijuana, only to be busted when a teenage girl flipped out in her high on Redondo Beach and started pointing fingers when the medics, police, and her parents questioned her about it, which eventually led all the way back to Derrick.

“Man, how the fuck am I supposed to know who these assholes are sharing the weed with?” Derrick had argued in private with his brother back in L.A.

Ivan had snapped, “But why would you sell that shit in the first place, especially while I still have you on the damn payroll? That’s all somebody needs to say, my money is dirty, and you’ll fuck up everybody’s meal ticket, including your sons’.”

He said, “You know how many jealous white boys are waiting to jump on some shit like that and try to ruin me? They’re already wondering how I did all this shit. They always think we’re illegal.”

Derrick’s marijuana case became an easy misdemeanor that Ivan paid his team of lawyers to beat in L.A., but he was more concerned about the negative publicity his brother might cause him in the future, particularly in regards to Ivan’s finances.