Jayson was still watching him.
“You understand it,” Jayson said.
“I understand it.”
“Good.”
Piper looked out the window. The Pacific rolled below them.
He knew he would eat whatever Jayson wanted him to eat, sleep wherever Jayson wanted him to sleep, and he would be up all night, with a hurt rib, with men who treated him like a high priced sex doll.
Nine years of this structure and he had been paid sweetly for this gilded cage that was now showing its age.
***
The jet touched down at San Carlos Airport, just outside of Atherton. The driver was waiting for them upon arrival.
Jayson was already standing, and reaching for a jacket, halfway out of the cabin before Piper had unbuckled his seatbelt, because he was in no hurry for what was to come.
Piper followed him down the stairs before they got into the waiting black SUV.
They went directly to a friend of Jayson’s house that sat on a stretch of road lined with gates. High walls. Cameras mounted everywhere.
A gate opened before the car reached it. The drive curved through landscaped oak trees, cross-lit from above and below.
They pulled up to a door that opened before the car stopped.
Two men in dark suits stood just inside, not large, not visibly armed. Neither of them looked at Jayson first. Both of them looked at Piper. One of them said, “Mr. Ashton,” before Jayson had introduced him.
Piper had been famous for a long time. He was used to being recognized. This was not that. This was something more commoditized.
The floors in the house were pale stone. The ceilings were high in the cavernous mansion. A woman in a cream-colored dress took his bag. Piper turned and she was gone.
“Your room is upstairs,” Jayson said. “Dinner is at nine sharp.”
“I’m staying here? Why not your place?” Piper asked as Jayson gave a look that answered his question immediately.
It was ten past eight. Jayson walked off down a corridor. One of the men at the door indicated the staircase and Piper went up to his room to change.
A wall of windows faced the valley. His bag was already on a low bench at the foot of the bed, unzipped, folded back, the clothes he had packed neatly arranged inside as though someone had inspected them and approved. A suit he didn’t own was hanging in the closet. A charcoal Tom Ford, cut narrow throughthe shoulders. A crisp white shirt hung underneath it. Jayson had Piper’s measurements on file for a night like this.
He stood in the middle of the room.
Then he stripped off his travel clothes, showered, and slipped into the suit, which fit perfectly. The suit hugged every part of his body that would get a rise out of these men.
He looked at himself in the mirror.
Ok Joan, showtime.
***
Dinner was on a terrace that opened off the back of the house and looked out to an abyss of backyard.
A long table, nine men already seated when Piper arrived, all of them stopped the conversation they were in to look Piper up and down like he was the main course.
A staff member, silent, guided Piper to his chair.
His seat was second from the end. Jayson sat on the opposite side of the table. The ten of them were now all at their seats. Piper counted them the way he counted a defense. All men, all older, all rich as fuck.
