The Bluffing Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

helicopter, or a giant house, or even that enormous mattress in my room, but this arm around me—this. This I needed.
    We landed on a helipad I hadn’t even known was there on the roof of the Sterling House, and once the wind and noise of the chopper had subsided, he walked me back down to the living room. Sterling went to the bar and poured himself a drink, and asked me if I wanted anything.
    “No thanks. Best not to have a hangover during the meeting tomorrow. You might give some consideration to that yourself.”
    He spun around with a smile, walked over to me, and poked me on the sternum. “Are you going to tell Victor Sterling what to do in his own house on his own island? Really?”
    I smiled too. “I am your counsel.”
    “Legal counsel, nothing more.”
    “Unlike Andrea.” Whoops. Looked like I’d had enough champagne now that my filter was gone. That was rule number two: Never get drunk with a client. At least not before the verdict.
    Victor shook his head. “Please. She likes to brag that she sleeps with me, but she’s a gold digger. I’m just her treasure trove. We’re more like fuck buddies than anything.” He took a sip of his drink. “We have a consensuality contract we sign every time we do it, saying we mutually decided to engage in physical activities together, without coercion in either direction, and that this is a completely separate engagement than our employer-employee relationship, having no bearing on it whatsoever.” He drained his glass. “How’s that for foreplay?”
    “Sounds stimulating,” I said, wondering how two people could become so separated from the commoner’s world that such a thing could even make sense to them, and be so distrustful of each other’s motives yet still want each other’s bodies.
    “Yeah, fuck that,” he said.
    “So what kind of foreplay do you prefer?” I said. A bold, loaded question. Hadn’t I given up on him for tonight?
    “I’ll show you,” he said, and set his drink down on the bar, loosened his bow tie, and walked straight past me to a Steinway Grand in the corner of the enormous living room. “You like jazz?”
    “What else?” I said, following him.
    He sat on the piano bench, cracked his knuckles with a comic theatricality I suspected only his slightly drunk self would allow, and then began playing the chords to “The Way You Look Tonight.”
    I stood by. He played with grace and a lot of coordination for a tipsy man, and with such ease he must have practiced every day. The chords continued.
    “Aren’t you going to sing?” I said.
    He leaned back as he played, and said, “It takes two to tango. I’ve always preferred this song sung by a woman.”
    Now here was a risk I hadn’t counted on. I nervously smiled. “I don’t know, I may not remember the words.”
    He took the sheet music from in front of him and tossed it onto the wide back of the piano in front of him. “Go get them.” He continued to play.
    I reached over for them.
    “Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “The words don’t come to you. You go to them.”
    I took his meaning, and found myself in a spot I hadn’t been in some time—the edge of my comfort zone. Me, singing jazz on top of a piano? You had to be kidding.
    “All right,” I said. “If this is happening, I’m having another drink first.”
    “Mi alcohol es su alcohol,” he said, grinning, rocking lightly from side to side as he kept the chords coming.
    Getting into the spirit of things, I removed my heels and hurried over to the bar, poured myself a shot of sweet vermouth, and tipped it back. Sufficiently buzzed, I ran back to the piano, put my back to it, and pushed down, lifting my backside onto the black wood. I twisted and pulled my legs up, too, and unable to keep a straight face, I nearly giggled while I crawled swimsuit-model style to the front of the piano, and plucked the sheet music up. He laughed, and I lost it, too.
    “All right, give me a second,” I said. I read the words—how could I