Page 14 of Skins Game

“Tell me about that one,” he said, pointing to a slim, curved specimen halfway up her wall.

“Good eye,” she said, walking back toward him and into her office. The Tyvek coveralls blended out her form, but the loose swing of her arms was more relaxed. “That’s a katana, a two-handed, single-edged sword. This one’s an antique, at least a century old.”

She reached up and took it down from its hooks.

Kingston vaguely wondered if he should fear for his life because some people didn’t take kindly to venture capitalists raking over their employers, even though they remained employees.

Oh, but wait. He was the new sales guy, not their venture capitalist overlord.

He leaned against the door jamb as she reverently held the katana with two hands. She said, “It’s a beautiful specimen. I bought it in Japan a few years ago.”

“So you have traveled?”

She lifted her shoulders again, and each shrug was cuter than the last. “I had the deal all ready to go, and I went with Gia and some of the guys to a trade show. I met the dealer in the hotel lobby and followed Gia and the boys afterward.”

“Traveling with friends is the best.”

She flicked a glance up at him and then away. “Yeah.”

“Which sword is your favorite?” he asked.

Yes, he was interrogating her, but most people like to talk about themselves.

She hung the katana back in its place and lifted another sword from the wall, another curved blade but more delicate.“You picked out my favorite, but this scimitar is a great piece, too.”

“A scimitar? Like the Scimitar wedge?”

She turned it over carefully, gingerly keeping her fingers away from the blade. “Exactly like the wedge. I forged this one a few years ago, working with a master blacksmith who showed me how to carbonize the iron and fold the steel.”

Her elfin grin at him while holding the deadly blade was the first absolutely genuine smile he’d seen from her, an enchanting mix of delight and shy pride, and she took his breath away.

She said, “It’s a wicked blade.”

The steel gleamed in the sunlight from her window, picking up the fine striations on the razor-thin edge. “Is it sharp?”

“Grab a paper from the printer, and I’ll show you.”

Kingston slid a blank page out and held it taut between his hands.

“Nah,” she said. “That’s too easy. Just dangle it from two fingers.”

“You’re not going to cut my fingers off, are you?” he asked as he switched how he held the paper. “That would mess up my golf game.”

Nicole was holding the sword en guard, the tip weaving in the general direction of his eyes. “Maybe you should worry that I’ll run you through.”

He shrugged and held out the paper with two fingers. “Friends of mine would not be surprised that a woman killed me with a sword. They would assume I’d had it coming. Show me what you’ve got.”

With delicate flicks of her wrist, Nicole carved easy slices in the paper, the sword tip so sharp that the steel parted the paper rather than nudging it away.

In seconds, Kingston was holding fringe. “That’s amazing!”

Her smile broadened, genuine mirth showing through. “Learning how to forge it inspired the wedge design.”

“Was it?” Kingston asked, keeping her talking and not looking away. He didn’t think he could blink.

Nicole admired her blade, twisting it in the sunbeams. “Humans have only been casting and forging golf clubs for a little over a century, but the human race has been making weapons of war for millennia. Our institutional knowledge is inweapons,not sporting equipment.”

“That seems like an indictment of humanity, that our effort over thousands of years has directed toward warfare.”