“You make the best coffee here.”
Then he breaks off some of the cream cake and puts it in his mouth.
“I don’t get how you’re not fat,” I blurt out. “You eat cake here every day.”
He chews and swallows. “I know, and because of this I’ve had to up my training time. If one keeps active, one can indulge. You eat the cakes,” he whispers as if it’s a secret. “I’ve seen you. But look at you, you look amazing.”
I do?
Oh. My. God. He thinks I look amazing. Not fit, or healthy, but amazing.
“I don’t look amazing,” I say with a snort, and then I wish I wasn’t such an idiot. A femme fatale would have murmured thank you in a throaty whisper and walked away mysteriously.
Can you walk mysteriously? I don’t know. Great, now I’m thinking about my walk, and I’ll be all self-conscious when I head back to the counter.
“Oh, trust me, you do.”
It’s the first time he’s been anything but friendly in what he says to me. There’s something there in the way he looks at me, but verbally? Nothing but friendly. His eyes darken as he watches me, then he bites his cake again, chews, swallows, licks his lips and grins. “You’re almost as tempting as the cakes, Cassie.”
Then he breaks into a grin, and I can only stare. I’ve never seen him smile like this before. He’s given me a lot of friendly closed lip smiles, and a few small, teeth showing smiles, but not this full-on grin that makes him so gorgeous I can’t stop looking.
“I better get back to the counter,” I say, and turn and almost run back to the till, and the safety to be found behind it.
I’m hot, and my heart is beating too fast. For the rest of the time he sits and drinks his coffee, and I keep casting glances toward Konstantin.
If only I was brave, I might tell him how I felt. If only I wasn’t determined to be sensible and good in this life, I might go to him and tell him to meet me tonight at some hotel. Once there we would tear one another’s clothes off, and I could get to see if the promise of his body is matched by the reality. We could unleash our inner wild demons and just tear the place, and each other, up. I won’t, though, will I? Because unlike Konstantin, who I bet embraces his inner beast, scares me.
“Earth to Cassie.” The annoying nasal tones of Jeff, the manager, interrupt my flight of fancy.
“Sorry, yes?”
“Can you go and clean the stockroom please; it’s a total mess.”
Shit, I can’t Konstantin watch from in the stockroom. I sigh and nod. “Of course.”
With one last glance at the mysterious Russian who I’m becoming more and more hopelessly in lust with, I head into the gloom of the back and the cleaning that awaits me.
Chapter Six
Konstantin
The Soldier Returns
London-Six months ago
To say life has changed is an understatement. Following Yulia’s death, I became more driven than ever. Colder. Harder, yes. But greedier too. More demanding, of myself and those around me. I put together a team, the best. The legitimate business employs some of the top headhunters, business development managers, and asset managers to be found in the developed world. The less legal side … well, that has Vasily and Denis as the hired muscle, and the brains who assists Vasily, that too-pretty for his own good bastard, Bohdan.
I’ve earned incredible, obscene really, amounts of money over the last two years. I’ve taken over and restructured major companies in the UK, US, Russia, and France. If my wealth were known, I’d be on the world’s richest lists, but I don’t need that kind of scrutiny.
Leaning back in my office chair, I look out over the ever-changing London skyline. It’s a strange city, a mix of old beauty and modern ugliness. For real beauty, I like to travel to places like Florence or Avignon. This city is for business. I have homes here, California, and Moscow, all for business. And Paris for pleasure. I retain staff at all my homes, and whilst my business employees are mostly legit these days, I still have a small army of hardened men who will carry out my dirty work for me and who are based in Moscow.
My own head is so stuck into business here in London, I sometimes forget who and what I really am. I’m a soldier, a fighter, a warrior forged in fire, pretending to be a civilized gent wrapped in fine suits. I forgot who and what I was once before, and something precious got taken from me; it’s not a mistake I should make again. It’s easy, however, to get sidetracked into thinking you’re nothing more than a legit businessman when you wine and dine with the British Prime Minister and his mistress.
The empire I’ve built here has eclipsed the murkier empire I started all this with in Moscow.
Currently, I’m working on two different business takeovers, trying to get planning permission from the London authorities for a new business venture, which involves greasing palms and making threats. Not quite the level of threats Vasily makes in Moscow, but threats all the same. Slowly but surely, I’m abandoning the seamier side of business to Vasily and Bohdan, and becoming ensconced in London life, as my legitimate wealth and power grows. Not that I’m above using dark tactics to get what I want, but why risk illegal activities when I can make much more money legally? Ah Britain, de-regulation heaven. There’s a huge chunk of cash to be made in London with its lax ways when it comes to the financial world.
Staring at the files on my desk, I sigh and wonder where this increasing restlessness comes from.
I should be happy. After all, I have it all, right? I’m a powerful, handsome, wealthy man. I fuck supermodels, and I own multiple homes and a fucking airliner. A small one, but an airliner, nonetheless. Yet, I feel empty. Life is … boring. It’s grim, and it should be anything but with the way I live, but the grimness? It comes from my soul, coated in a gray soot of sorrow and rage that I can’t seem to shake no matter how hard I try.
The events of two years ago have indelibly changed me, and they’ve changed my stepson too.
Michael hasn’t been the same since his mother was murdered. The truth of the ugly horror of her death never came out, but it’s bad enough he knows she was murdered. Unlike me, he thankfully hasn’t become hard, but he’s emotionally sloppy. He gives too much to those who don’t deserve it, picking up friends who are only using him, but who he seems to believe are his brothers in some way.
His need for affection, for a family of his own making might be partly my fault. I love him, and I’d die to keep him safe, but I’m not very good at showing affection. I know he thinks I’m cold. He’s wary of me. Why, I don’t know; I’d never hurt him. He’s the one person in this world who could betray me and live to tell the tale.
Yet, somewhere along the way, I’ve messed up with Michael and now? Now, he’s fucked up again, and he’s done so in a way that draws me back into the murky world I have one foot out of. He’s got another girl pregnant. How can he make the same damned mistake twice?
When I found out, I hit him. The only time I’ve ever struck him, and I’m ashamed of it, but fuck me… How can he keep getting women pregnant? He understands biology, the idiot.
Worse, the girl he’s knocked up is an Italian mafia princess. If he marries this girl, we will be tied to the Italian mob in a way I don’t like. If he doesn’t marry her, we will be targeted by the Italian’s in a way I most certainly will not like.