Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing Book 2) Read online

  Mr. Ravnikar sits down at his desk and checks his emails. I may trawl social media when I get bored, but I do my job, I do it well, and he should know that by now. A moment later he locates my emails and I see annoyance flicker on his face that he can’t chew me out for being inefficient.

  “Fine. Good.” He brandishes a large envelope at me. “I need you to take these contracts to the financial director at Enterprises, and he needs to sign them in front of you. I’m not having him fuck me around on this again. Then you’re to take them to the post office and send them signed delivery to Dubrovnik. Is that clear?”

  I pick up the envelope and turn it in my hands. So that’s what’s eating him. Last month, Mr. Ravnikar emailed some contracts to the company’s passive-aggressive financial director, who claimed never to have got them. The director then vague-blamed my boss for the project being delayed, probably to ingratiate himself with Damir Ravnikar. Pathetic.

  “Crystal clear. Can I have a raise, though? Being a courier isn’t part of my job description.” I knowing I’m pushing my luck but it’s worth a try. Occasionally I can persuade Mr. Ravnikar to give me a bonus for the slightest things. Pounds and pence, they’re like Monopoly money to him, but what with London rents and expenses, I never feel like I’m getting anywhere. I have no safety net and an uncertain future. The insidious humiliation of always being dependent, knowing you’re a drain and unwanted, is still clinging to me.

  Mr. Ravnikar turns back to his computer. “Counter-offer. Do this and I let you keep your job.”

  It was worth a try. I scrunch my hand through my black curls and head back to my desk. “Like you’d ever get rid of me.”

  “I promise you it’s tempting.”

  I laugh and grab my coat. I like working for Mikhail Ravnikar. Despite his grumpiness, he’s a gentleman, always seeing me into cabs when we leave meetings or work functions together and checking that I have everything I need to do my job. That was a shock the first time it happened. Usually these businessmen are all me, me, me. As his PA, I should be responsible for getting his cabs and seeing that he has everything he needs, but it seems he’s got an inner code that means he can’t get into a cab or go through a door before me or one of his colleagues. Not friends. I don’t think Mr. Ravnikar has any friends. And girlfriends? Oh, boy.

  I’ve seen him with a woman exactly once. I was hanging out in a swanky hotel bar on a Thursday night, trying to see if I could score a dinner with a man who might be persuaded to buy me something expensive that I can sell for cash. I’m not sugaring, per se. I never ask these men for money, only presents. Mostly, I’m trying their life on for size. If I married a wealthy man, would I feel safe, then? Happy? Wanted?

  Loved?

  Mr. Ravnikar must have had a late meeting with a hotel guest because he was sitting on the other side of the bar. I was bored and about to wander over so he could buy me champagne, when a very strange thing happened.

  A woman approached him.

  Now, Mr. Ravnikar’s a good-looking man, and you can tell he’s loaded just by looking at him. His suits are tailored and his cufflinks and shoes are designer. When this woman asked if she could join him, he pinned her with his unfriendly blue gaze, and nodded. It was the most grudging nod I’d ever witnessed. The young woman beamed at him and sat down.

  I wasn’t interested in scoring my own man after that. This was a far more interesting spectacle. I hid my face behind the wine list and watched them covertly, fascinated to see how my boss behaved around a woman. She looked older than me, around twenty-nine, and was wearing a tight pink dress with her hair perfectly coifed. She pulled out her best flirting techniques, one after the next. Touching his knee, stroking the tips of her fingers “absent-mindedly” down her neck, laughing at every other thing he said. Mr. Ravnikar responded to her questions politely, but he never cracked a smile. In fact, as their conversation progressed he seemed to grow ever so slightly annoyed. Fifteen minutes later, he paid for their drinks, and left. Alone.

  The woman in the pink dress seemed disconcerted for a moment, then spied another target and moved on.

  I left not long after that, too, still no more enlightened about Mikhail Ravnikar’s love-life than I was before. Is he just not interested in women, or was she not his type? Does he prefer paying for sex because it’s easier to be unemotional about it?

  I stopped in my tracks on the way to the Tube stop. Now, there’s a thought. What if he would prefer paying for sex, but finds prostitution unseemly? What if he had a sugar baby instead? Some pretty young thing to coo at him and screw his brains out a few times a month, but who would know better than to overstep any emotional boundaries. She could take his cash, he could get the girlfriend experience without the drama and maybe cheer the hell up.

  I shrugged and kept walking. Whatever. It’s not my problem. Though if he was getting some, he’d probably be less grumpy to work with.

  As I head out the glass front doors of our office building toward Ravnikar Enterprises, I remember that evening. I still think having a sugar baby would be an amazing solution for Mr. Ravnikar. Every now and then I’ve considered sugaring myself, but I don’t think it’s for me. Sugaring means shutting up and putting out even when you don’t want to. I’m not very good at shutting up. Or putting out. I can see myself getting fifteen minutes into a date with some old dude and telling him his breath stinks, he’s boring as hell and he’s insane if he ever thinks he’s getting his mits on my perky ass. Bye-bye allowance.

  A nice, rich, sickly octogenarian would suit me, preferably one who’s allergic to Viagra. It’s not as if any man is able to make me come, so I’d like no part of the bedroom stuff if I can help it.

  I make a sharp right into Ravnikar Enterprises. The inside of the building is sleek and hushed, with a few cocky City boy types stepping out of the elevators. A few of them glance over their shoulders to look at my ass.

  You wish, my eyes glare back.

  This is where most of the Ravnikar Enterprises employees work. My boss prefers to have his office elsewhere. I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s because he likes to keep some distance from his crazy-ass little brother.

  I head into the building past reception, swipe my pass and call the elevator, and I pray that I don’t run into Damir Ravnikar. He’s kind of…weird. Super attractive, in that Ravnikar way. Those brothers have some slick genes. But where Mikhail Ravnikar is soft around the edges when you catch him in a good mood, Damir Ravnikar is as tightly strung as a bowstring and about as soft as granite. I’ve never seen him smile, and you could cut your fingers on his cheekbones and cleanly shaved jaw. His eyes are like gunmetal and as cold as the Grim Reaper’s. I know, because his eyes have landed on me a handful of times at work functions, and I’ve felt frozen to the bone. And kind of hot at the same time.

  His corporate staff is always kissing his ass, but he has this other group of men around him, too. Bodyguards, apparently, but to me they look like well-dressed thugs. I hear whispers that he’s neck-deep in arms-dealing and money laundering and isn’t afraid to throw down to get what he wants. With a body like his, big and broad in his expensive suits, and his faintly scarred knuckles, I believe it.

  Like I said, in a place like the City of London, he’s weird.

  I stick my head into the financial director’s office, but he’s not in there. I wander down the corridor, peering through the glass next to each door as I go. No one’s around. Maybe there’s a big meeting scheduled now. I don’t really want to go back to Mr. Ravnikar’s office without getting these documents signed, so I keep searching. The whole floor is silent, which it shouldn’t be in the middle of the afternoon. Horror-movie silent, the sort that comes right before a jump-scare.

  All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I wonder if I’m about to hear a child whispering a nursery rhyme, or find an Eldritch monstrosity clinging to the ceiling tiles and leering at me with a face full of teeth.

  Which is just ridiculous because—

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  I yelp and spin around. Damir Ravnikar is looming over me, unnaturally close. His sharp, cold eyes fill my vision. Am I looking for someone? I have to think hard before I stammer out, “Mr., um—the financial director.”

  Damir stares down at me. He feels bigger than his brother at this close angle. Under his ferocious gaze, my nipples, just an inch from Damir’s broad chest, start to harden.

  Oh, god. Not now.

  The thing about me—the super fucked up and secret thing—is that I like horror films. Like like them. As in, some people watch pornos to get off, and I watch slasher flicks and gore-fests. Being scared of Damir Ravnikar has my whole body lighting up like a Christmas tree.

  He turns abruptly and walks into his office. “Come in. I’ll call him.”

  I take a shuddering breath and follow in the wake of his silky cologne. My heart is still pounding. Other places are pounding, too. I’m too afraid to get too close to him so I loiter in the doorway. The younger Ravnikar brother is in his shirtsleeves and his broad back is to me as he picks up the phone. Bright sunshine is coming through the window and his body is outlined in gold. Most horror films take place in the dark, but I’ve always been extra fond of ones that happen in broad daylight. I like my monsters where I can see them.

  Damir punches out the numbers as if in slow motion, my eyes fixated on his every move. I suck my lower lip into my mouth, appreciating the muscular lines of his torso. I shouldn’t be enjoying the fact that he just made me jump out of my skin.

  Shouldn’t be. Will stop. Any minute now.

  Damir turns to me. “No answer on his phone. I—”

  His eyes fasten on something over my shoulder, and his face changes from an expression of bland disinterest to one of fury and h
atred. Without looking at me, he lunges for me and pushes me—practically throws me—behind him.

  “You,” he snarls at someone in the doorway. I go tumbling to my knees behind Damir’s desk, and when I manage to pull myself up, I see that Damir is tensed in rage.

  “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” says a nervous male voice.

  “Friend,” Damir sneers, like he’s tasting something bitter. “I told you the last time I saw you that I would rip your guts out and make you eat them if I ever saw you again.”

  I peer a little further around the desk and see a man in his mid-forties, sandy-haired and pretty, in a goggle-eyed and chinless sort of way. I don’t recognize him.

  The stranger grimaces. “You Ravnikars can really hold a grudge. It was a horrible mistake. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”

  Her?

  Damir reaches into his desk draw and pulls out a knife. A big, fuck-off hunting knife, incongruous in sanitized, corporate Central London. But not, strangely, incongruous in Damir’s hand.

  “I want to burn you alive and hear you screaming,” Damir says softly. “If you’re tired of our agreement, we can try that.”

  The stranger visibly swallows. “This has gone on long enough. I came here to tell you that I’m going to be married, and I need your assurance that my wife and I—”

  “Georgios,” Damir raps out over him. “You know that’s not allowed.”

  Then the man reaches inside his jacket, and somehow I know that he’s going for a weapon. Damir must know too, because he lunges at Georgios, knife-first.

  Georgios ducks away and pulls out his own knife, slashing at Damir, his teeth bared. Damir dodges to the side, grabs the man’s wrist and pushes it up, and then punches his assailant in the guts with the hilt of his knife. They grapple with each other, jaws tensed, eyes sparking with fury.

  I glance at the documents in my hand, and then back at Damir. This is just great. Two minutes alone with Damir Ravnikar and I’m in peril of my life.

  Georgios plunges his fingers into Damir’s eyes, and Damir shouts in pain and pulls back. That gives the other man the chance to rally, taking a tighter grip on his five-inch blade, and swipes at Damir.

  Damir leaps back with a yell, blinking furiously. I see the shift in him. The Now you’ve made me angry expression that descends over his features. I saw it happen to Mikhail Ravnikar once. He’s the most peaceable of surly souls usually. We were leaving a lunch meeting together down near St. Paul’s, and the pedestrian crossing changed to a walk signal. I stepped out onto the street, and a car came around the corner and nearly plowed into me. I screamed, the car squealed to a halt, and then the driver had the temerity to blast his horn at me, as if I’d been in the wrong.

  Mr. Ravnikar stepped out onto the street, slammed his hands on the hood of the car and glared through the windshield at the driver. He didn’t even say anything, but the driver turned pale. Then Mr. Ravnikar stood, straightened his tie, and politely escorted me to the other side of the road. I remember saying, “Wow, sir. That was kind of awesome.” But he didn’t reply.

  What I saw in Mr. Ravnikar that day was just a flicker of the beastly. Damir seems to transform like a werewolf under the full moon. His eyes grow black, his shoulders hunch, and he seems to get bigger. If I was his attacker I’d run away yelping with my tail between my legs.

  Apparently Georgios sees what I see, because he hesitates. Then he seems to decide that he has nothing to lose, and lunges at Damir. Damir backhands him across the face and sends him flying. The expression of surprise on Georgios’ face is almost comical. His knife falls from his hand and it skitters over the carpet, and he falls heavily to the floor.

  Damir drags him up by fistfuls of shirt and slams him against the wall. His voice is soft and deadly. “It’s very simple, Georgios. If you marry her, I’ll kill you both.”

  I squirm a little on the floor. The pitch of his voice and the expression of fury on his face is melting me.

  “It was so long ago! I’ve fallen in love. Can’t you understand that?”

  Damir looks disgusted by even the mention of the word love, and punches Georgios so fast and so viciously that I almost don’t see his fist move. Georgios crumples to the floor. Damir moves around him, puts a foot against his back, and shoves. The man goes sprawling across the carpet.

  “Get out of my sight.”

  I peep up a little over the desk. Georgios gets unsteadily to his feet, his back to us. He seems to pass a hand over his face in despair. What star-crossed drama have I stumbled into?

  Georgios has been beaten, but apparently he’s a desperate man, because he dives for the knife on the floor, picks it up, and slashes. The tip of the blade catches Damir on the chest. Damir yells and drops his own weapon. A thin, red line appears on his shirt, and then spreads. I gasp in outrage. How dare this man hurt Damir? I lunge for the phone on the desk, intending to call the police.

  “Put that fucking phone down!” Damir shouts. I look up in surprise. He’s grappling for his knife while fending off Georgios. Any second now, Georgios’ blade is going to go plunging into someone’s guts. Maybe Damir’s, but maybe mine, because he’s just realized I’ve been here all along and is glancing at me with pure hatred.

  “Are you freaking crazy?” My voice is so high I’m probably transmitting on inhuman wavelengths. Damir hasn’t got a weapon, and he’s injured. My heart is currently trying to pound its way out of my chest.

  Damir’s teeth are clenched with effort. “Put. It. Down.”

  “I’ll call security, then,” I throw back, but as soon as I start to dial, Georgios’ body comes barreling toward me, and I have to dodge away. Damir has flung the man at the forty-fourth-floor plate glass window. It doesn’t break, and Georgios goes stumbling into a bookcase, books and files cascading everywhere. An enormous glass vase shatters all over the floor.

  Damir strides over, hauls the man up by his collar, and sinks his fist into his face. Blood spurts all over Damir, and he’s about to land a second hit when Georgios manages to fling his arms around Damir’s waist and tackle him to the ground.

  I look around for a weapon. The room was bristling with knives just three seconds ago but now I can’t see any. I have to do something. In the movies the girl always stands to one side wailing, Oh, stop, stop! instead of diving into the fray and it drives me crazy. Two against one, and we’ll be able to beat this Georgios no problem. I snatch up an ornate silver letter opener from the desk and brandish it like a weapon.

  “No,” Damir snarls from the floor, his arms and legs locked around Georgios’ body as they grapple with each other. “Smash his fucking head in.”

  That’s a much better idea. I put the knife opener down and pick up a heavy carved box that looks like it’s for cigars. I stand over the two writhing bodies, both smeared with blood, hesitant now to actually hit Georgios. I mean, I don’t want to actually kill a man. What if I do it accidentally?

  Hesitating was a mistake. The man’s hand shoots out and takes hold of my ankle, and he yanks me off my feet. I go down shrieking and land painfully on my elbow. I drop the box, and then one of my hands lands on the hilt of a knife.

  A knife!

  I snatch it up, my eyes still closed because of the pain in my throbbing elbow. I feel someone trying to wrestle it from my grip and I resist with all my strength.

  “Bethany,” a man growls in frustration.

  My eyes pop open and focus on two icy blue-gray ones. It’s Damir, and he’s trying to get the knife from me. A dumb part of my brain goes, He knows my name?

  Of course he knows my name. I email him for Mr. Ravnikar all the time.

  Georgios sinks an elbow into Damir’s kidneys and he grunts in pain, and I hastily let go of the knife. Damir swings it around in a vicious arc, roaring at the top of his lungs as he slices right across the intruder’s shoulder and chest. Blood gouts over us.

  All over us.

  It spatters over my face and blouse like rain. Georgios screams in pain and falls back. Damir is up on his feet in an instant. The man, sensing it’s over, scrambles up and flees, stumbling as he goes, dripping blood.

  Rather than giving chase, Damir lifts the receiver and punches a number with one bloody finger. His eyebrows drawn tightly together, he speaks quickly. “Lock the building down. No one gets in or out. There’s a man on the loose covered in blood. Find him,” he snarls, and slams the phone down.