She smiled at him anyway. “I would love to see what one of those houses looks like up there myself.”

I know you would, Ivan thought with a grin. He saw no point in expressing that to her, either. He just planned to enjoy the rest of his peaceful boat ride away from the office.

WHEN IVAN RETURNED to the eighth-floor office of Ivan David Enterprises in Mission Valley that next morning, Jeff and Paul had breaking news for him. Ivan had mimicked the setup of Hutch & Mitchell Accounting by renting an entire floor with cubicles out in the center with main offices and conference rooms surrounding them. Jeff and Paul shared a corner office with their computer equipment, Ava Tate had a second corner office for editorial, Eddie K. had a third corner for sales, and Ivan’s executive office was in the final corner at the farthest end from the receptionist booth. In between the corner offices were smaller spaces for all of his business team members, including Mike Adams.

Thomas Jones had sold their close-to-campus hub for four hundred thousand dollars to a fraternity organization, who liked the setup so much that they had the furniture included in the sale price.

Ivan stopped by Jeff and Paul’s office that morning to hear their urgent update. Both of them had upgraded their wardrobes since their move into a more professional building. They both wore sports jackets and button-up shirts themselves now, and without Ivan asking them to do so. They just figured it was time for them to look the part of creative executives. With the remarkably increased revenue of the website, they would earn nearly a million apiece before taxes that year. And for their first full year out of college, they would do tremendously well for themselves.

Jeff told Ivan, “Jacari contacted us while you were out of the office yesterday. She said she has a break to come back home soon. She’s just getting back to New York from a month over in Italy.”

Ivan nodded and said, “Damn. So she’s really blowing up with this modeling thing.”

“Yeah, she’s a San Diego superstar now,” Paul commented. “But there was some flack recently over her name. A lot of Native American bloggers were saying that “Jacari” was not an authentic tribal name. They were saying that her real name is Kaya.”

Ivan shrugged it off. “Does it really matter? She took up a one-word model name, that’s all. What’s wrong with that? People do stuff like that all the time in L.A.”

“Yeah, well, she said something about her father wanting to meet you, too,” Paul commented.

Ivan looked at Paul relaxed behind his fine wood desk and repeated, “Her father wants to meet me? About what? I haven’t met or even touched his daughter yet,” he joked.

They all laughed.