Steve picked her up at eleven, a black town car idling at the curb while Jessie smoothed the skirt of her pale yellow sundress for the third time. He'd told her business casual, but Stacey had helped her pick this one—something about the color bringing out her eyes, making her look approachable. Professional but warm. She'd spent twenty minutes on her makeup, a light hand, just enough to feel polished.

"You look nervous," Steve said as she slid into the back seat. He was already there, coffee in hand, dressed in a charcoal suit that fit him like a second skin. His smile was easy, familiar now. "Don't be. This is just practice. No stakes."

"I know." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I just want to make a good impression."

"You will." He said it like a fact, not a compliment. Then he handed her a folder. "Here. Client background, talking points, the product specs. He's already committed to the purchase—this is just a formality. But I want you to run the full pitch. Pretend he's a new prospect, someone you have to win over."

Jessie opened the folder and scanned the pages. Marcus Webb. Fifty-three. Regional director for a chain of surgical centers. Married, two kids in college. Golf enthusiast. The photo showed a heavyset man with a bald head and a wide, practiced smile—the kind of smile that said he'd spent decades shaking hands and closing deals.

"He's a friend of yours?" she asked.

"Client. Longtime. He trusts me." Steve took a sip of his coffee, watching her over the rim. "That trust is the only reason he agreed to a lunch meeting with a new hire. Don't waste it."

"I won't."

"I know you won't." His voice softened, and he reached over, brushing his knuckles against her arm. A brief touch, there and gone. "You're a natural, Jessie. You just need to believe it."

The car pulled into the lot of a restaurant she didn't recognize—white stucco walls, wrought-iron accents, valet parking. A place that looked expensive in the way Vegas did: glossy and intentional, every surface polished to catch the light.

Steve led her inside, one hand resting lightly on the small of her back. The gesture felt possessive and protective at once, and Jessie found herself leaning into it, letting his heat guide her through the dim foyer and into a private booth near the back.

Marcus Webb was already there, rising as they approached. He was broader in person, his handshake firm and calloused, his eyes scanning Jessie with the quick assessment of a man who'd learned to judge people in the first five seconds.

"Steve," he said, his voice a low rumble. "Good to see you."

"Marcus." They shook, and Steve gestured to Jessie. "This is Jessie Miller, our newest outside sales associate. She's going to walk you through the latest line."

"Pleasure." Marcus extended his hand, and Jessie took it, meeting his gaze. His palm was warm, slightly damp. "Steve's told me about you."

"All good things, I hope." She smiled, the one she'd practiced in the mirror this morning. Open. Earnest.

"He said you were striking." Marcus's eyes lingered on her face a beat too long. "He wasn't wrong."

Jessie felt heat rise to her cheeks. "Thank you."

She slid into the booth across from Marcus, and Steve took the seat beside her, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers. The proximity was grounding, a reminder she wasn't alone in this.

Lunch arrived—salads, seared fish, wine that Steve ordered without asking what she wanted. She'd taken a small sip, letting it sit on her tongue, trying to remember the notes Stacey had taught her to look for. Oak. Vanilla. Something warm at the back of the throat.

"So, Jessie," Marcus said, setting down his fork. "Steve says you're fresh out of college."

"Yes, sir. Bainbridge, Georgia. I studied business with a focus on healthcare administration."

"Georgia." He smiled, something knowing in it. "That explains the accent. Sweet. Southern."

"It comes out more when I'm nervous." She laughed, a small, self-deprecating sound. "I'm working on it."

"Don't. Clients love it. Makes you seem trustworthy." He leaned back, gesturing with his fork. "Go ahead. Give me your pitch. I'm a tough room."

Jessie took a breath. Opened the folder. She'd rehearsed this in the mirror last night, timing herself, marking the places where her voice wavered. She knew the specs cold: the new monitoring system, the integration with existing hospital software, the cost savings over the previous model.

She started speaking.

It came out stiff. She could hear it—the rehearsed quality, the way her sentences had the shape of memorization rather than conversation. Marcus's eyes drifted to the window, then back to his plate. He nodded at the right moments, but his attention was somewhere else, and she felt herself floundering, the words tangling in her throat.

"The interface is designed to reduce training time by—" She paused, losing the number. "By approximately—"

"Forty percent," Steve said smoothly. "Based on the pilot studies at Cedars-Sinai."

Jessie's face burned. "Right. Forty percent."

Marcus looked at Steve, then back at her, and she saw it—the moment where he made a decision about her. She was the pretty new hire, the one brought along for decoration. Not taken seriously.

She wanted to disappear.

Steve's hand landed on her knee under the table, a firm, steady pressure. Stay calm, it said. Stay in it.

"I think what Jessie means," Steve said, his voice easy, "is that the interface is intuitive enough to achieve that forty percent reduction within the first quarter. No ramp-up period. No extended downtime."

Marcus nodded, but his eyes had already moved back to Steve. "Sounds like the same spiel you gave me last year."

"It's better," Steve said. "I'll have the data sheets sent over. But the real selling point is the modular design—hospitals can scale it to their specific departments without reconfiguring the whole system. Jessie, you had the numbers on that, didn't you?"

She did. She had them right here, in the folder. But the moment had slipped, and she knew it.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I have the breakdown in the appendices."

Marcus's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then set it face-down on the table. "Look, I appreciate the lunch, Steve. You know I trust your judgment. But I've got a conference call in—" he checked his watch, "—twenty minutes. Can we wrap this up?"

Jessie's chest tightened. She'd lost him. She'd been in the room for forty minutes and she'd lost him in the first five.

Then she thought about the way Steve had looked at her at dinner. The way he'd said men would want to be the reason she smiled. The way Marcus's eyes had lingered on her face when she walked in.

She thought about what it would feel like to be powerful.

"Mr. Webb."

Her voice came out differently this time. Softer. She leaned forward, just slightly, letting her hair fall forward, framing her face. And then she smiled—not the earnest, practiced smile from before, but something warmer. Something that reached her eyes and made them catch the light.

She laughed, a low, gentle sound, and touched his arm.

"I know I'm new at this," she said, her Southern drawl thickening the way it did when she let it. "And I know Steve's probably sold you on the technical specs a dozen times. But I think you and I both know that's not really why we're here."

Marcus blinked. His expression shifted—surprise, then curiosity, then something softer. "Why are we here, Jessie?"

"Because you trust Steve. And Steve trusts me." She held his gaze, her hand still resting on his arm, light as a whisper. "And I think, if you give me a chance, I can show you why that trust matters."

The silence stretched. Two heartbeats. Three.

Then Marcus laughed, a genuine sound, and leaned back in his seat. "Well, I'll be damned." He looked at Steve, shaking his head. "Where'd you find this one?"

"Georgia," Steve said, and there was something in his voice Jessie hadn't heard before. Something like pride. Or hunger.

Marcus's eyes came back to her. "You know what? I like you, Jessie. You've got presence." He picked up his pen and signed the form she'd placed on the table, his signature a quick, practiced scrawl. "Send the full proposal to my office. We'll talk next week."

"Thank you, Mr. Webb." She smiled again, and this time, it felt real. "I appreciate your time."

"Call me Marcus." He stood, buttoning his jacket, and shook her hand one last time. "And good luck. You've got something special."

He walked out, his footsteps fading toward the front of the restaurant. Jessie sat frozen, her heart pounding, her hand still tingling from where she'd touched his arm.

She'd done it.

She'd actually done it.

"Well."

Steve's voice was low, almost reverent. She turned to look at him, and found his eyes fixed on her with an intensity she hadn't seen before. He wasn't smiling. He was watching her the way he'd watched her at dinner, but deeper now. Like he was seeing something come into focus.

"That was impressive," he said.

"I don't know what came over me." She laughed, a nervous, breathless sound. "I just—I saw him slipping away, and I thought about what you said. About my smile. About wanting to be the reason someone smiles back."

"And?"

"And I wanted to feel what that was like." She met his gaze. "To have power."

Steve's hand found hers on the table, his thumb tracing a slow circle on her wrist. His touch was warm, deliberate, and she didn't pull away.

"You felt it," he said. "Didn't you?"

She nodded, her throat tight.

"That feeling," he continued, his voice dropping lower, "is the most addictive thing in the world. More than money. More than sex. It's the feeling of someone giving you exactly what you want because they can't help themselves."

Jessie's breath caught. His thumb was still moving on her wrist, tracing patterns she couldn't follow, and she felt something open inside her—a door she'd kept locked her whole life, swinging wide on its hinges.

"I think," she said slowly, "I want to feel it again."

Steve's smile was slow, almost wolfish. "Good."

He released her hand, and the absence of his touch was like a cold wind. But his eyes stayed on her, and she knew, with a certainty that settled in her bones, that this was only the beginning.

The waitress came by to clear the plates. Steve ordered coffee for both of them, and Jessie sat in the booth, the folder open in front of her, Marcus's signature still wet on the page.

She touched the ink with her fingertip, feeling the slight raised ridge where the pen had pressed into the paper. Evidence. Proof that she'd done what she set out to do.

But it wasn't the signature that mattered. It was the way Marcus had looked at her when she laughed. The way his resistance had crumbled under the weight of a single touch. The way she'd felt, for one electric moment, like the most powerful person in the room.

She wanted that again.

"What's next?" she asked, looking up at Steve.

He sipped his coffee, his brown eyes warm and knowing. "You have a follow-up meeting with Marcus next week. He'll want to see you again—not just the proposal. You."

"And I go?"

"You go. And you do exactly what you did today." He set down the cup. "You make him feel like he's the only person in the room. Like his attention matters more than anything else in the world."

"And then?"

"And then you ask for what you want." His gaze held hers. "And he gives it to you."

Jessie's heart was a wild thing in her chest, beating against her ribs. She thought about Stacey's warning. She thought about the way Stacey had looked at her, worried and protective, and she thought about how she'd kept the dinner from her, the wine, the way Steve's hand had felt on her hip.

She thought about keeping this, too.

"I won't tell Stacey," she said quietly, the words out before she'd fully decided to say them.

Steve raised an eyebrow. "About the meeting?"

"About any of it." She met his eyes. "She wouldn't understand."

"Understand what?"

"That this isn't what she thinks." Jessie's voice was steady. "She thinks you're using me. But today—" She gestured at the signed form. "Today, I was the one with the power. I made him sign. He didn't make me do anything."

Steve was silent for a long moment. Then he leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his voice dropping to a murmur. "You're right. You did. And I want to show you how much more of that you can have."

"How?"

"Trust me." He reached across the table, his hand open, palm up. An offering. "Come with me to the next meeting. Let me teach you what I know."

Jessie looked at his hand. The clean nails, the silver band of his watch catching the light. A salesman's hand. A predator's hand.

She thought about the way Marcus's resistance had melted. The way she'd felt, for one perfect moment, like she could have anything she wanted.

She placed her hand in his.

"Okay," she said. "Teach me."

Steve's fingers closed around hers, warm and firm, and he smiled—a slow, satisfied smile that made her stomach tighten.

"I will," he said. "But first, let's get you back to the office. We've got a lot of work to do."

He released her hand and stood, pulling out his wallet to leave cash on the table. Jessie gathered the folder, her purse, the small slip of paper with Marcus's signature, and followed him through the restaurant, past the white stucco walls and the wrought-iron fixtures, out into the blinding Vegas sun.

In the car, she sat in silence, the folder in her lap, Steve's presence a steady warmth beside her. She watched the Strip slide past—the neon, the tourists, the glittering facades of casinos that promised everything and delivered nothing.

But that wasn't true. They delivered something. They delivered the feeling of winning. The rush of having power over someone else's attention, their desire, their will.

She'd felt it today. And she wanted to feel it again.

Steve's phone buzzed, and he glanced at it, then at her. "That was Marcus. He wants to move the follow-up to Thursday instead of next week."

"He does?"

"He does." Steve's smile was sharp. "You made an impression."

Jessie looked down at the folder, at Marcus's signature, and felt something settle in her chest. Not the cold stone from Stacey's warning. Something warmer. Brighter.

A hunger she'd never let herself name.