Ivan grinned, still playing a mysterious game with her. He said, “I’m just wondering out loud what other places have to offer. You never do that? I thought you loved to travel at one time.”

“Who says I don’t like to travel now?” she asked him. “I’ve just been busy lately.”

“All work and no play,” Ivan suggested.

Lucina shot him a look and held her tongue. Was he that smug now?

He is really bothering me now, she told herself. And what is his point today? Is he trying to show me how much of an asshole he can be now that he has wealth? Because I am perfectly fine without him. These men are all the same!

On Ivan’s side of the car, he told himself, I hope we don’t get caught in lunch-hour traffic. Because this is killing me! I just want to surprise her.

They were on Interstate 5 heading north.

Ivan asked her, “You think people can really have what they want at our ages?” He needed to make more conversation with her.

However, Lucina never spoke of her exact age. She refused to allow people to know how old she was. Maya told him that she was only twenty-eight to his thirty-one. That meant she had been twenty-five to his twenty-eight when he first met her. But she always had seemed so much older.

She said, “It depends on a person’s appetite. If you have a small appetite, then you can be happy with a little. But if you have a big appetite…” She shrugged and looked away again. She realized that Ivan’s appetite was much larger than she ever expected.

Once she saw that they were still heading north, past SeaWorld, Lucina became anxious, especially since he had irritated her earlier. She didn’t know if she had three hours left for him. So she asked him, “Where are we going, Ivan? I still cannot ask you that?”

He had told her the rules in advance, days before she had agreed to it. He was not to tell her their destination. She was to find out. And Ivan would not break those rules.

So he told her, “Nope. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Lucina took a breath and held her piece a minute longer. Ivan looked down at the designer ring on her finger and at the bracelet on her left wrist, and he was tempted to reach out and hold her hand as they continued to travel.

No, he told himself. Just be patient a little while longer. You don’t want to alarm her.

He could have held Jacari’s or any other woman’s hand without a problem. They would have even preferred it. But they were not Lucina.

Once his driver turned off at their exit and began to ascend the hills of La Jolla, Lucina began to assume things.