A few minutes later, as Bette pushed her room door shut, she let out a guffaw that she’d been holding back.

“Now that was unfair Cade!” she gasped after she recovered slightly. “You know I was trying to keep quiet earlier and yet you drop that story on me!  What was all that about …. yeah, yeah… excuses!  So how did it feel like to fly economy for 13 hours, Mr. Billionaire?  Skip the fart stories, please.  You sure know how to gross a girl out.  How you ever get those A-list girls to go out with you, I’ll never know.  What with all your frat boy jokes and humor.  Gross!  Oh, you reserve those just for me, huh?  One day, when you’re trying to be all smooth with the next gorgeous woman I see you with, I may just walk up to you and her and retell some of those jokes.  “So Cade, remember that story you told me about …”

“What?!!! You better not crack those jokes around Tina or my kids Mr. Burton! Oh … gloves coming off, huh?  Well … how about you lay off my family, mon fille, and I’ll lay off your floozies…”

Bette sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and started to pull her running shoes off, still smiling at the joke Cade had cracked.

“No, I did not get to work out, actually. Ran into an old friend at the gym, so we were catching up.  Meanwhile, the friend I came to Savannah with … she’s one of the experts giving a lecture tomorrow … must have overexerted herself during her workout, so she needed a stretch and massage, and then I helped get her to her room, into a bath, and then into bed … so that’s how my afternoon’s been like.”

She let Cade tell her about what he’d been doing since arriving in Savannah as she pad over to the spacious bathroom of her suite.   She turned the taps on the bath and poured the bubble bath mixture into the frothy end of where the water thundered down from water spouts.

She said a little bid loudly, “I’m putting you on speaker, Cade. Getting ready for a bath … stop it, Burton!  You know that there is no chance in hell that you will ever share a bath with me.  … yes I said never.  Life is just one eternal flirting party for you, isn’t it?  Yes, I am kidding, of course.  I have seen your very serious side.  The side you never let the public see, by the way.  All you let them see is the GQ, Esquire magazine side.  I don’t get that.   Anyway … back to the subject at hand: why are you always flirting with me?”