Modern Romance July 2015 Books 1-4. Maisey Yates

      ‘And I suppose there must have been, well...lots of women?’

      He shrugged, because if a female asked you a question as dumb as that, then they deserved to hear the answer. He thought about the pieces of paper slipped into his hand or stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. About waking up in vast bedrooms on the Upper East Side with some sinewy heiress riding him until he cried out. The tiny thong he’d found stuffed in his jacket pocket when he’d been going through airport security and the knowing wink of the uniformed official when he’d seen it. He smiled. ‘Enough,’ he said succinctly.

      ‘But bouncers don’t get to be big bosses,’ she said, her words sounding forced and rushed, as if she suddenly wanted to change the subject. ‘They don’t get to own companies the size of Lulu.’

      ‘No, they don’t.’ He picked up his wine and swirled it round in the glass, thinking that at one time he could have lived for a month on the money this bottle had cost.

      ‘So, how...’ she waved her hand through the air, as if he owned the expensive restaurant too ‘...did you get all this?’

      He drank some wine. ‘I started to hear rumours that Dimitri’s new protection was not to be trusted. And then one day his secretary contacted me and begged me to help. I’d left months before and didn’t want to get involved, but she was worried sick—crying down the phone and telling me she thought he was in danger. So I travelled to Paris to talk to him but by that time he had become so big that he thought he was invincible. He agreed to see me, but he wouldn’t believe any of the things I’d discovered about the people he was associating with.’ His mouth hardened into a grim line. ‘Dimitri only ever listened when it was something he wanted to hear. So I gave up trying and planned to take a flight out of the city that same night.’

      ‘But something...stopped you?’ she said, breaking into the sudden silence as his words tailed away. And suddenly her eyes were very wide, as if she’d seen something in his face which she wasn’t supposed to see.

      ‘Yes, something stopped me,’ he agreed grimly. ‘It transpired that his new bodyguard was connected to a gang who were on the brink of stealing from my ex Russian boss, and my presence in the city was seen as a bonus, because I knew more about Dimitri’s affairs than anyone else. And that pretty much sealed my fate. They captured me on the way to Charles de Gaulle airport.’

      ‘They captured you?’ she said, only now her voice had a break in it, as if she didn’t quite believe the words she was saying. ‘What...what happened?’

      For a moment the only sound was the tinkly little flourish which came at the end of the jazz player’s song and the smattering of applause which followed.

      He shrugged. ‘They beat me and threatened me. Said I would die unless I told them what they wanted to know.’

      ‘They said you would die?’ Her face had gone completely pale.

      ‘It’s the underworld’s way of suggesting you hand over the information they want,’ he said sardonically.

      And...did you?’

      ‘Are you crazy?’ He picked up his glass but this time he didn’t drink from it. ‘I was expecting to die anyway, so I was damned if I was going to tell them anything first.’

      She was blinking at him as if she’d never really seen him before. ‘You thought you were going to die?’

      He heard the frightened squeak of her voice and thought how protected she’d always been. But then, most people had been protected from the kind of worlds he had inhabited. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed with soft sarcasm. ‘Just like something out of a film isn’t it, Jess?’

      She shook her head, as if his flippancy was inappropriate. ‘So what saved you?’

      He shrugged. Tonight the wine tasted good, just as everything had tasted good when he’d first been released. He remembered falling to his knees on the dank concrete of that underground car park with drops of blood dripping darkly from his nose, telling himself that never again would he take anything for granted. But he had, of course. He’d discovered that gratitude didn’t last very long.

      ‘Dimitri started to believe that maybe I had been speaking the truth and some hunch made him have me followed to the airport. They got to me in the nick of time, and when I was brought back to his place and he saw the state I was in, I think it made him realise he couldn’t carry on the way he was—something his secretary had been telling him for a long time. And he gave me diamonds as a reward for what I’d done.’

      ‘Diamonds?’ she questioned blankly.

      ‘He owns one of Russia’s biggest mines. He gave me jewels which were priceless and he told me to learn to love them.’ He saw her flinch at the word, as if he had just sworn. And maybe he had. Maybe it was easier to think of love as a profanity than as something which was real. He remembered Dimitri’s words as he had run his fingers through the glittering cascade. Learn to love these cold stones, my friend, for they are easier to love than women.

      ‘And did you?’ Jess’s cool voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Learn to love them?’

      He smiled. ‘I did. It’s easy to love something which is so valuable, but I developed a genuine interest in them. They began to fascinate me. I liked their beauty and perfection and the way all that value could be hidden in the pocket of a man’s jacket. I liked the fact that they only ever increase in value and I cannot deny that it gave me pleasure to realise their power over people. Women will do pretty much anything for diamonds,’ he said deliberately.

      ‘Will they?’ came her light answer, as if she didn’t care.

      ‘Some I sold and others I kept,’ he continued. ‘I’m planning to use some of them as the centrepiece of the new launch. No more wristwatches for you from now on, my blue-eyed doll. You will wear my diamonds, Jess.’

      She moved the palm of her hand so that it lay on her breastbone, like someone who had grown suddenly short of breath, but the movement only drew attention to the little pulse which was hammering at the base of her throat.

      ‘So was...’ she seemed to pick her words carefully ‘...was the fact that you bought Lulu just a coincidence?’

      ‘In what way?’

      She opened her lips slowly, like someone afraid of setting off a verbal landmine.

      ‘You didn’t just buy Lulu because I was working there?’

      He gave a soft laugh. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘I’m not...I’m not sure.’

      But Loukas knew she was lying. Would the Lulu takeover have been quite so enticing if she hadn’t been involved? Of course not. Plenty of business opportunities came his way and his emotions were never involved. But this was different and it was because of Jess. He felt the sudden hardening of his groin. Because didn’t her involvement guarantee the kind of satisfaction which went way beyond mere profit and loss?

      ‘I heard the company was struggling because the management had become lazy, and I realised that I could turn it around. Take a famous brand and bring it bang up to date and you can’t fail.’ He smiled. ‘And you know what they say...buy weak, sell strong.’

      She was looking at him in faint surprise, as if she hadn’t expected the slick soundbites of the professional negotiator to come from his lips. He felt the flicker of anger. Because deep down she still thinks of you as a thug. A wall of muscle, without a life of your own or a brain you might be capable of using.

      ‘But of course your connection to the company made the prospect irresistible,’ he said softly. ‘Because I wanted to see you again.’

      To see whether his desire for her had diminished. Whether the sight of her cool face would leave him cold. He glanced at her untouched plate and his gaze moved upwards. He saw the way the candlelight flickered over her neat breasts and suddenly he was overcome by