Ivan caught on to that and felt a rush of energy overtake his body. He felt light-headed. Too much knowledge was traveling to his brain at once.

  Yo, making these bigger deals is fifty times easier than that small shit, he realized. He’s ready to sign the check already. So I can just relax and give him the proposal next week. SHIT!

  Lucina looked at Ivan for his lead again. Her quick-thinking partner was flooded with ideas, and she began to expect it from him.

  “So, what do you think, Ivan?” she asked him again.

  Ivan fell into a cool pose. In his mind, the deal was done. He didn’t even want to think about it anymore. He wanted to enjoy the boat ride now.

  So he nodded and told Lucina calmly, “We’ll just think about all of our ideas and get back to him. Okay?” Then he joked, “We should have all of your girls wear something from Versace out here. The bright colors would all shine under the moonlight and bounce their images off the water.”

  He looked back at Seth and asked him, “Does that happen out here at night?”

  Seth smiled. He said, “You can only imagine how beautiful the nighttime is while out on a full moon.”

  Ivan said, “I can imagine it. I can imagine it right now.”

  He felt gleeful and happy, like dancing across the deck. He thought, I’m about to be a multimillionaire! It’s already in my cards. But I need to be bigger than just parties and a website. I need to form, like, Ivan David Enterprises or something: parties, promotions, marketing, website, real estate, cars, boats, accounting, and whatever the hell else I decide to get into.

  Ivan walked over to the edge of the boat and breathed deep, inhaling the ocean air.

  He said, “It feels real good out here, Lucina. It feels good.”

  Lucina looked at him and smiled in front of Seth. But in the back of her mind, she thought, He’s getting a big head again. I know that look. And she began to feel distant from him. He was a blessing and a curse.

  Eighteen

  Only the Strong & the Smart

  INEED TO FIND the best business plan and proposal writers in San Diego,” Ivan told Thomas Jones over lunch at a small Mexican restaurant. They had met up in the Chula Vista area of the far southeast to look at the wide-open property available for new home and commercial development.

  Thomas said, “You know Henry was a business major. He can write business plans and proposals.”

  Ivan raised a tortilla to his mouth and asked him, “Is he any good at it?” He started munching down his food and mumbled, “I need the best.”

  Thomas scooped up some Spanish rice from his plate and said, “I don’t know about all that. But you can’t write a business plan?”

  “Yeah, I can write ’em,” Ivan mumbled, still chomping down his food. “But I don’t feel like spending that much time doing it. And I can’t shortcut it, with bigger money at stake. So what I want to do is form a small team that does nothing but write my business plans and proposals, and let them hammer out my ideas with the numbers, then I’ll go back over it to make sure it’s right before I present it.”

  Thomas nodded. “That’s what the big dogs do. They’re not sitting around slaving over paperwork. But the paperwork still has to be done.”

  When they finished their food and walked out to their cars in the parking lot, Thomas looked over at Ivan’s black Altima. He joked, “Haven’t you made enough money to buy a new car yet, Ivan? Or you need a business plan and proposal for that, too?”

  Ivan laughed. “Yeah, I’m working on it.”

  Even Thomas had a luxurious silver Infiniti Q45 model.

  As they opened their separate car doors to climb in, a woman yelled out Ivan’s name with urgency.

  “Ivan! Ivan!”

  He turned and looked behind him, spotting Carolyn Padilla, one of Lucina’s gorgeous Mexican girls. She had all the right curves in her black jeans and tight, colorful shirt, with good height to boot. She looked overwhelmed to see him there in her neighborhood.

  “What are you doing in my turf?” she asked him. She pushed her thick dark hair out of her face and eyes with both hands.

  Damn! Ivan thought to himself of her smile and presentation in the bright sunlight. He had been around Carolyn plenty of times, but she always looked more reserved in the party settings.

  “I’m out here checking out new properties,” he told her.

  “Oh, you’re gonna buy a new house here?”

  Ivan teased her and said, “Yeah, then you can come see me and cook breakfast for us in the morning.”

  Carolyn studied his kissable lips, his rainbow-colored eyes, and his diamond-studded ear, all glimmering in the sunlight, with his low-cut hair, stylish clothes, shoes, and sports jacket. She took in the pleasantness of his cologne rushing into her nose, and all of it together made her heart race with excitement.

  She laughed and placed both of her hands over the cleavage of her chest.

  “Oh, my God, you mean that?”

  Ivan was surprised. He had expected for her to smile and laugh, not for her to take him seriously. Or maybe he did expect it and was impressed by the instant results.

  He shook it off and said, “Naw, you might tell Lucina on me. I’m sorry I even said that.”

  Carolyn’s face reflected horror as she denied it. “I would never do that,” she told him. “I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t tell me to do.”

  Ivan was stunned. He had no idea what to say next. She had obviously considered him for a while. There was no other way to explain her exhilaration.

  However, Spanish women had a knack for being overdramatic in romance. So he blew it off with a chuckle. He said, “You’re gonna get yourself into trouble with your jealous boyfriend if you keep talking to me like that.”

  Carolyn dropped all of her giddiness and asked him, “How jealous are you?” She stood poised like a grown woman who knew what she wanted.

  Ivan saw that and told himself, Okay, I’ve gone way too far with this shit, and I have things to do. But the next time I see this girl, it’s definitely on.

  In the background, he noticed two of her girlfriends or family members, who were waiting patiently for her with wide grins of their own.

  He said, “Well, I don’t want to hold us up, I got property to see, and you got people waiting for you. But I’ll tell you what…” He looked into her dark, steady eyes and said, “The next time we see each other, if you respect my business and privacy, then we can have that breakfast. But if not, then we’ll just keep doing business the way we do it. Is that okay?”

  Carolyn nodded. “Yeah, okay.”

  “You sure?” Ivan asked her. He wanted to make certain.

  “It would be just between me and you,” she answered.

  He said, “You got a problem with that?”

  She shook it off. “No, I know how Lucina is. She wants all of us to be…I don’t know, unapproachable. But you know, a girl is a girl.”

  Ivan teased her again. “What does that mean, any guy can have you?”

  Carolyn frowned hard at him. She said, “No. I am very unapproachable when I want to be. But, you know, I still choose who I want to choose.”

  Ivan heard that and read her eyes on him. Nothing else had to be said. She was obviously choosing him.

  She said, “So, after the next party, you make sure you don’t forget about me. Okay, Ivan?”

  He nodded to her. “Okay.”

  She reached out and squeezed his right arm to indicate her sincerity. “Bye.” And when she walked off, she displayed all of her curves to give him another look.

  Ivan watched her return to her friends before he climbed back into his Altima. He sat behind the wheel a few seconds and mumbled, “Yeah…I definitely need to upgrade my car.”

  IVAN AND THOMAS drove around the Chula Vista area, looking at several properties that had already started development, as well as wide-open areas that had yet to break ground. Ivan also asked to see a few commercial areas.

  “You thinking about setting up for business down here, too?” Thomas asked him as they walked around.

  Ivan said, “Well, it’s obvious we’re gonna be dealing with plenty of Mexicans in this area. And they like to party like everybody else. So, if I just bought the property and had the construction guys build a big enough box on it for a club, I could package the club idea to some of these other owners, finance it, and keep a piece of the ownership, while I help them to pack it out with Spanish talent each month.”

  Thomas looked at him and shook his head, amazed. He said, “That lightbulb in your head never goes out, does it?”

  Ivan grinned. “That’s why I can’t be sitting around working on proposals and business plans all day. I need to be out here sucking things up to have ideas to work from. You said that about me a while ago,” he reminded Thomas.

  He went on, “I didn’t leave Hutch and Mitchell’s offices just to lock myself up in an office of my own. I like being out here rolling around.” Then he added, “And you’re right. It’s time for me to use more upscale cars for my everyday image.”

  TO IVAN’S SURPRISE, Lucina helped him hammer out every detail of his first proposals for the luxury car and boat parties. The big and small, public and private combinations helped to make the process a lot easier for them to design.

  For the big luxury car show, the idea was to utilize Xzibit to host a free-to-the-public event out at Mission Bay Park, with plenty of sponsors involved to appeal to the general public of San Diego. Roman Zemeckis would display his cars out on an elevated platform at the park, while Xzibit asked his sales force to explain the luxuries, prices, and design histories of each car, helped along by the eye candy of Lucina’s girls, all wearing tasteful summer dresses.

  “I don’t want them in swimsuits,” she told Ivan. “We want to use this event to partner with fashion designers and retailers to display their summer lineup of dresses.”

  Ivan couldn’t argue with that. It was a solid idea. The San Diego retailers already knew who Lucina was, so including her girls to push their new fashions was good business. Lucina even started her own website ideas to begin pitching to the fashion designers regularly.

  “Shit, we should have done that for you a while ago,” Ivan told her.

  “It’s okay,” Lucina responded. “It’s better late than never.”

  The public car show idea was to have Red Face Lion spin the latest Top 40 music with a supersized sound system out in the park, while security held the crowd at bay to dance and enjoy themselves. They would record the entire event with a professional video staff to edit down for local television, news shows, IDPromotions.com viewers, and DVD copies for future marketing and proposal purposes.

  After the public event, they would send out private invitation packages to a select group of two thousand, including professional athletes who could afford to buy the cars, to attend an upscale private party a month later at the showroom.

  The price tag for both events, including a dedicated IDPromotions.com web page, local media marketing, city permits, sound equipment, an auto stage, insurance, security, and Xzibit’s appearance fee, reached beyond the six-figure mark. But the plans were too enticing for Roman Zemeckis to turn down.

  “We can then make this an annual event as new luxury cars hit the market and San Diego’s millionaire population continues to grow,” Ivan explained to him at his office. “And your dealership will sit right at the center of the attention every year.”

  Lucina sat at Ivan’s side, wearing a gray St. John business suit and skirt that was extremely professional. She added the feminine touch of a pink silk shirt to soften her image.

  Roman smiled at them across his desk and was impressed. He stood up and reached out his hand to congratulate them. “I look forward to doing a lot of business with you guys,” he stated.

  After they all shook hands on the deal, Roman added, “Now, what about a new car for you, Ivan? You still like that cranberry-red GT?”

  Ivan told him, “As a matter of fact, I do. So I wrote out a check for sixty-five thousand as my down payment. I plan to make four more payments in the same ballpark amount to pay it all off this year.” He said, “But here’s what I’d like to do. Instead of me driving the same car or limousines to our events, we’d like to borrow different luxury cars from you and make World Wide Luxury Cars a regular sponsor of all of our events and promotions like Hutch and Mitchell Accounting agreed to.”

  Roman considered it with a pause. “So, you’d like to rent my cars—”

  Ivan cut him off and said, “We can borrow from your personal collection if you let us. But I’d love to drive up in a Rolls-Royce at a yacht party, or a Bugatti at a Padres or Chargers promotion, or an Aston Martin in the Gaslamp. And each time, your company gets the credit for supplying the car.” He added, “And if anything happens to them, you take my GT back as collateral. In fact, we can even designate one of your sales staff as a personal driver and a watchman for the cars.”

  “What if it’s only a two-seater and you have to pick me up?” Lucina asked Ivan with a smile.

  He shrugged it off. “Then his driver follows behind us in another car, and we give him the keys once we arrive at our events like a personal valet.”

  Roman heard all of that and laughed out loud. Ivan was obviously pressing to have access to all the cars. He asked Lucina, “He’s not gonna let me turn him down on this, is he?”

  Lucina grinned. “I don’t think he is,” she answered.

  Ivan said, “It’s better than just leaving them in the garage. You need to at least keep the engines working, right? Think of it like taking a pet for a walk.”

  Roman said, “Yeah, but I’m usually the one who takes the pets for a walk. After all, they’re my pets.”

  “Yeah, but you’re also trying to sell them. And if you let us show them off in front of our crowds of thousands, along with the VIPs who can afford to buy them, then it all leads to good business for you,” Ivan noted. He said, “You already know they’re gonna ask us about the different cars. But if it’s the same car every time, then they only ask us once.”

  With that, Ivan reached inside his dark blue sports jacket and pulled out his check to set on Roman’s desk. Then they fell into a momentary stare-down.

  Finally, Roman grinned and nodded to him. “It’s gonna be interesting working with you, Ivan.” He picked up the check, read the amount, and nodded again.

  Ivan didn’t drive off behind the wheel of his Bentley Continental GT on the first day. After filling out all of the paperwork, he told Roman he’d be back to pick it up the following day. So the boss offered to have one of his salesmen pick him up from his apartment downtown.

  When they left the showroom in her Mercedes, Lucina asked Ivan, “What made you think he would allow you to borrow his cars? That was very presumptuous of you, don’t you think?”

  Ivan shrugged it off. “All you have to do is ask,” he told her. “And he can either say yes or no.” He smiled and added, “Just like you do. You tell me no all the time. He just didn’t.”

  That caught Lucina off guard. She smiled out the window and refused to comment on it. She mumbled, “It looks like I’m the only one telling you no these days.”

  Ivan was hesitant to comment on that. Was she referring to his business or his personal life? Did she know about his relations with Christina and Ashley? Sleeping with two of the twenty-five or so girls he had met through Lucina’s camp was hardly excessive, in his opinion. Nevertheless, Ivan was curious enough to ask about it.

  “What do you mean, you’re the only one telling me no?”

  “I mean that a lot of things have come far too easy for you,” she answered.

  “Is that a bad thing? It’s not like I’m not working for it.”

  Lucina held on to her silence for a moment. Then she answered, “I don’t know.”

  Ivan said, “Just look at it this way. My good fortune has been your good fortune, right? So why complain about it? Let’s just keep rolling sevens and elevens.”

  FOR THE LARGE YACHT and cruise ship promotions, Ivan and Lucina copied the basic ideas of the luxury car show events, but with a few major changes. Since a cruise could never be as public as a park, they created a hundred-dollar cruise party, open to the paying public and hosted by MTV’s Ananda Lewis, who had moved on to host her own television talk show. They also solicited a celebrity guest appearance from Latina movie star Jessica Alba.

  The hundred dollars would include a six-hour celebrity-hosted cruise, with a dinner buffet, two free drink tickets, a $25-off cruise coupon, and a main ballroom party for an eight-hundred-capacity crowd. Red Face Lion would DJ, and Ivan, Lucina, and their staff would do their normal thing to keep the cruise lively. Since Ivan no longer moved without the San Diego media and corporate sponsors involved, they expected another major turnout, even at the steeper price tag.

  “Then we’ll do radio and website promotion giveaways. But we can’t select a whole random cruise. We have to make sure folks take it seriously,” Ivan suggested. “Cruises aren’t cheap.”

  For his media and website promotions, Ivan stated, “We at IDPromotions.com are known for our unique qualities, and we view all our events as an investment well spent for first-class experiences.”

  The smaller yacht promotion would be an invitation-only package for a select two hundred wealthy individuals who could actually afford to buy or rent a boat. The added marketing value of both the celebrity-hosted cruise party and the exclusive yacht cruise would be prerecorded videos of several different yachts and cruise ships that Seth Gardner represented. The videos would be displayed on several television screens on constant replay around the boats.