She pretends to punch me in the chest, coming this close. “Or the heart.”

Her eyes glint. For a flash, I see something in them. Or maybe it’s just that her words feel like a warning, like she really could deliver a blow to my heart.

I blink then look away.

She lowers her arm, placing her hands in her lap. “I do love it, though.” Her tone is calmer now, more serious than when she riffed on yiffing and feet, on paws and claws. “Always have.”

“Since you were little?”

“My parents sent me to karate class when I was six. I had a lot of energy, and it was a great place for me to burn it off. I grew to love it. The techniques, the skills, and most of all, the fact that you can always improve.” She raises her eyes, meeting mine. In this moment, she seems to be shedding a layer that was between us—the boss-assistant one, maybe—as she ventures into more personal territory. “I also really love teaching it. My favorite is the self-defense part. I really want to keep teaching women self-defense and using martial arts for that. I feel like it’s this one special thing I can do, you know?”

Her voice is vulnerable, like she wants reassurance that her admission means something to me. That I’ll treat it with care. And I will. “I completely know what you mean, and I suspect you’re fantastic at it.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I love working for your company, too, and my job at WH is a fantastic one,” she says. Then a soft smile curves her lips, spreading until it turns into a yawn. A huge open-jawed yawn. She brings her hand to her mouth. “I think I hear a nap calling my name.”

A few minutes later, she’s sound asleep in her seat. A little after that, her head slides to my shoulder. Then, when she’s deep in REM, her upper body slouches down, down, down . . . her head hitting my lap.

And that’s how I spend the rest of the flight with Natalie curled in my lap.

Yes, it turns me on. Yes, I’m fucking aroused. And yes, my mind is filled with a reel of images of where her head could be if she woke up, shifted a few inches, and opened her mouth wide.

I inch back in the seat, trying to give Natalie’s face some distance from the family jewels.

Soon enough, we begin the descent into Las Vegas. She wakes as we land and shoots straight up, her eyes darting all around as if she’s registering where she is as she comes to. “Did I . . .?”

She points at my legs.

“Sleep on my lap?”

She nods.

“Yes.”

Her eyes widen to saucer size. “Did I do that?” She points frantically at my crotch.

Ah, fuck. She noticed the banana in my pocket. I cycle through a litany of potential excuses for sporting wood during her afternoon lap nap when my eyes follow her finger. It’s not my dick she’s pointing at. It’s the wet spot on my jeans. The huge wet spot that could only be caused by—

She brings a hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry I drooled on you.”

I crack up. “Sweetheart, you can drool on me anytime.”

She flashes an apologetic smile, then reaches into her back pocket for her phone, presumably. When she comes up empty, I peer around, spotting it on the floor by my feet, where it must have fallen while she slept.

I reach down to grab it for her, and I do my best to look away, but I can’t help but notice the end of a message from her sister that appears on the screen.

I knew you’d feel this way!

What way, I wonder?

6

The Eiffel Tower is a dwarf. The Ferris wheel spins like a miniature toy, and the rollercoaster of New York-New York wraps around that casino like an architect’s model. Up here, on the twenty-second floor of Lila’s husband’s new palace, we are kings and queens of a city of royals.

This building is one of the tallest in town. Surely it’ll be a home for billboards soon enough, as high as the entire tower, beckoning tourists to glittery extravaganzas for the senses. For now, it’s potentially the site of my next job.

I’m still not entirely sure why Lila wants me rather than someone local, so I ask her. I’ve built a reputation on honesty—no need to change that now. She’s next to me, her arms crossed, a look of pride in her eyes as she gazes at the expansive view of the city of sin from the floor-to-ceiling windows in her living room.

“Do you like it? The place is lovely but the kitchen is a mess, isn’t it?” Lila waves her arm toward the red stove, the black cabinetry, and the emerald green countertop. “Can you turn it around?”

“Absolutely. We’ll tie everything together, and make it the centerpiece of the home you want. But I’ve got to ask, Mrs. Mayweather—why not find someone local? Any contractor would be glad to work in this gorgeous space.”

She turns to me, meets my eyes, and laughs politely. “You’re sweet to say that. But do you know how hard it is to find someone you trust? To let them into your home? Especially in a new city?” Her pitch rises, and she fidgets with her strand of pearls. From her unsaid words, I get the feeling Lila has encountered some bad apples previously. “There are so many predatory contractors disguised as your friend.”

I almost want to knock fists in solidarity, because do I ever know bad apples. My college girlfriend, Roxy, was the rottenest one of all, but I’d have never known it at the time. After graduation, she encouraged me to start a handyman business, became my biggest cheerleader, and helped brainstorm a business plan. When she walked away for some dude on Wall Street making bigger bank, she did everything she possibly could on her way out the door to tear off a chunk of WH Carpentry & Construction with her bare teeth and keep it for herself. She was like a koala bear who turned out to be an alligator.