Page 74 of Catch a Kiwi
“And if solar’s what’s up and coming,” I said, “are you going to go into that, too?”
He smiled. “You’re too clever. Yeh. Off to Wellington later this week to talk to some people about what’s happening there. I have a few MPs to chat up.”
“Ah,” I said. “Another opportunity. So if you do start … a new company for that? A new subsidiary?”
“Clever again,” he said. “Probably put them both under a parent firm. Got names for me? I’ll ask the marketing people if we go ahead, but I’m rubbish at names. ‘Zephyr’ wasn’t me.”
“Good name, though,” I said, “and a great logo. Distinctive, with the ‘Z’ and the swirls around it like the wind.”
“You looked,” he said. “Yeh, though we pronounce it ‘Zed.’ Seems like we want something like that for the solar, a sun-sounding word.”
“Soleil?” I suggested.
“Too hard to pronounce. And most people don’t know French.”
“Hey,” I said. “We’re brainstorming. That means we throw out ideas until something sounds good. No judgment. Sol. Solar Ventures. Mr. Sun.”
“That one sounds like I’d be doing adverts for it,” he said.
“With a cutout sun around your face,” I said, and we were both laughing. “Never mind. I’ll keep thinking, though, shall I?”
“You do that,” he said. “Parent energy firm, too, while you’re at it.”
“Not D’Angelo Energy?” I asked. “You must admit, it slides off the tongue pretty easily.” I was so far gone, I gotdistracted by the word “tongue.” I could practically feel his on me.
Stop it. Lots of men aren’t interested in using their tongues. Especially rich men.Except that I had a feeling he wasn’t one of them. He’d looked at me this morning like he’d wanted toeatme. I’d practically felt him doing it, and that feeling had been shiver-inducing.
He made a face. “I’ve never liked using my name. Not the Kiwi way.”
“Mm,” I said, determined to keep this on a more elevated plane instead of asking him, “How exactly do you make love to a woman? Can it be as slow and hot and strong as the message I’m getting from you? Would my thighs really quiver and my brain really melt? Would you make it last as long as I’m imagining, until I’m stuffing my fist into my mouth to try to keep quiet?” or whatever horrifying thing I’d blurt out. Instead, I said, “So solar’s different. Retail instead of wholesale, won’t it be?” He looked at me in surprise, and I said, “Well, obviously. Different customer base, and a completely different business model. You’d be hired by commercial outfits, I assume, or governmental ones—office buildings, schools, maybe some apartment buildings—but if you’re talking about government schemes and incentives, isn’t a lot of that going to be retail? People putting solar on their roofs?”
“Yeh,” he said, with a smile in his eyes. “That’s it.”
“A different marketing plan, then,” I said. “A retail ad campaign, more salespeople, lower margins but higher volume.”
“How do you know this?” he asked. “And why the hell are you working as a waitress if you do?”
“I had a business once,” I said. “Much smaller, of course, but it’s still interesting to me.”
“Test preparation,” he said. “University admissionscounseling. I don’t understand it well—we don’t do it—but they do in the States, I guess.”
“They sure do,” I said. “But how do you know that?”
“Delilah.”
“Ah. She shared.”
“Along with Barbie and the Disney princesses. So, yeh, that’s a decision. Whether to invest in that sort of operation. Not exactly what I know, since the only retail I’ve done has been online, but nothing I’ve done has been something I know. Addicted to risk, eh.”
I said, “That’s how you feel to me, but not. Addicted to risk, but holding yourself back and being careful, because risk can be dangerous, too.”
“Got to take the risk to get the reward,” he said.
“So it depends on how much risk it is,” I said.
“No,” he said. “It depends on whether the reward is worth it. If it’s reward enough, if you really want it, you’ve got no choice but to jump. If you want it enough, it pulls you in despite yourself.”
Wait. Were we still talking about solar power? I could feel his heat right through the fine white cotton of his shirt, and his hand lay on his strong thigh, so close to mine. A big hand, and a capable one, the fingers long and clever. My own hand sported barely-peach polish now, but my nails were ridiculously short, and there were calluses on my palms. I looked at our hands, so close together, and tried not to let that matter.
