Page 88 of Skins Game

He shrugged. “The hotel suite comes with a thousand-dollar credit at the spa that someone will have to use up while I’m at the trade show.”

“Well, I didn’t say I would work thewholetime.”

The building was essentially a lounge with a few discreet ticketing and information counters tucked away near the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Costa Mesa.

As soon as they walked in, a man wearing a navy blue uniform that was not Air Force but kind of close approached them, holding a silver tray with drinks on it. “Hello again, Mr. Moore. I assume this is Miss Nicole Lamb?”

“Yes, indeed,” Kingston said, taking the two glasses off the tray and offering the champagne glass to Nicole. “Mimosa?”

Nicole loved mimosas. “Yes, thank you.”

The guy who’d approached them said, “I’m Vasily, and I’ll be your point of contact today. Your plane should be leaving shortly. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask Ms. Lamb to show some identification, as it is her first flight with us. If you’ll just follow me to the counter?—”

And they walked toward the counter where there was no line or even people milling around. A similarly uniformed lady smiled at Nicole as she glanced at Nicole’s offered driver’s license and typed quickly into the computer. “Excellent, and thank you, Ms. Lamb. Your flight will be leaving in about fifteen minutes. If you’d like to help yourself to some hors d’oeuvres, the brunch buffet is against the wall to your right, or you can order from the waitstaff.”

Kingston squired Nicole over to the buffet. When she dithered, uncertain about all this, he grabbed a plate, tossed some flaky pastries, and led her over to a hightop table. “Do you want coffee?”

“Oh, I had a cup before I left home. I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked. You usually have three cups before noon at Sidewinder.”

“If it’s not too much trouble?—”

Kingston flagged down a waiter who practically tire-screeched as he stopped beside their table. “A caramel macchiato for the lady and a cappuccino for me, please.”

The plane was a small, silver jet, and the seats inside looked like the leather-clad loungers Nicole had only seen when she’d passed through first class to get to the normal-people part of the plane.

Once they were on board and settled in seats so luxurious that Nicole almost fell asleep immediately, a flight attendant wearing the now-familiar blue uniform offered them yet more mimosa.

Nicole lifted it off the tray and fixed Kingston with a pointed stare. “This is a private airplane.”

Kingston was sipping his mimosa and raised one eyebrow over the rim of his glass. “Why, yes. Yes, it is.”

“Are you flying private every time you come into the office from Back East?”

“Not always.”

“But enough to where they know you by sight.”

Kingston set his mimosa on the table between their chairs with a rueful smile. “The plane is serviced by a flight management company. I booked the plane for today. Vasily and the desk attendant looked up my ID before we arrived at the airport and were looking for us. I’ve never met Vasily before.”

“And yet, that doesn’t happen when I fly Southwest to Las Vegas for the weekend with friends.”

His amused smile irritated her as he picked up his champagne again. “No, I suppose not.”

Nicole leaned forward, her elbows on the table and her hands clasped as if she were staging an intervention like back in college when she’d been a resident assistant in the dorms. “Look, Kingston, I know you’re a big shot and bringing in good amounts of money for Sidewinder—I mean,greatsales numbers—but Sidewinder is having cash flow issues. I don’t know if you noticed, but ten percent of the staff was laid off, and everyone thinks more cuts are coming. Maybe we could have flown on a regular airplane. Maybe you should be flying on regular airplanes all the time.”

He shrugged and vaguely gestured to the airplane’s fuselage with his champagne flute. “It’s not coming out of Sidewinder.”

“Then where is it coming from? Do you have a sugar mommy or something? Or a sugar daddy? I won’t judge.”

“No, no. I am not trading ‘services rendered’ for private flights.”

Though Nicole sort of was, but she wasn’t going to look at that too closely.

“Another business venture I’m associated with provides private flights,” he said.

She squinted at him. “Do you have a second job? Because I think your contract with Sidewinder says you can’t do that.”