by SR Jones
Konstantin hasn’t finished, though.
“You look like you’re about to cry, and that’s on me.” He sits forward and rests his head on his fisted hands, elbows on the table. “I’ve been fucking pissed at you, Cassie, and it’s not your fault. I need you; you’re going to help me in ways you can’t imagine, but I also want you, and I try very hard not to mix business and pleasure. So I’m pissed at you, but really, it’s not your fault.”
He wants me?
It’s the only thing I really focus on.
A chorus of angels start singing Hallelujah in my head at the idea I was right, and he still harbors an attraction to me. As seems to be the norm when I’m around this man, I engage my mouth before my brain filter switches on. “You want me?”
He laughs, and it’s bitter. “You’re the most fuckable thing I’ve ever seen, and when you called me sir earlier, it was like every filthy fantasy I’ve ever had come true. I think you want things you don’t even understand, and if we went there, we wouldn’t be playing. No role play, no codes, and contracts and rules; just something you seem to need, and I want to give. If I was a good man, I’d walk away and let you figure it all out with some twenty-something, wet behind the ears, kid. I’m not a good man, though, so you’re shit out of luck so far as that goes.”
I gasp, my cheeks heating as I stare at him. Holy hell.
“If you didn’t work for the company I’ve just bought, one day I’d have ended up sitting in a shitty coffee shop waiting for you to walk by because Christ knows why, but I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since I first saw you.”
My legs are jelly, and I sit heavily in the chair and focus on trying to breathe.
“I think, this is fucked up and weird because I barely know you, and I don’t do shit like this, but it’s real. There’s an attraction, a spark the likes of which most people go through a lifetime and don’t feel. I think you’ve experienced something along the same lines, but as we’re both working together, and I’m your boss, doing anything about it would be wrong. At least, according to the stupid British laws.”
I lick my lips. “Probably.”
“I expect there is something in company policy about fraternization between the owners and the staff,” he adds, sounding disgusted at the idea.
“I don’t think there is… I mean, I was engaged to one of the managers.”
I realize immediately how awful that sounds, as if I’m looking for reasons we can go for it; as if I go through life trying to date up the corporate chain.
“Not that I worked here when we met. I was in the coffee shop then,” I add, trying to make it better.
He watches as I rabbit on in an unhinged manner, and then he smiles at me. This one is a new one. Not the smirk, not the patented nice guy smile, but a genuine warm smile.
“Relax, jailbait, I would never have you down as a gold digger.”
“Oh, not even in my jailbait stripper outfit?”
“Nah. You work for your own shit, and I respect that.” He shakes his head with a half-smile playing about his gorgeous lips. “Cassie, who works for her own shit, wants a dog one day, and reads great Russian literature.”
His words are making my heart race so fast I feel faint.
“Cassie, who told me to read Wuthering Heights, and so I did. I liked it. Unreliable narrators are one of my favorite things, but Heathcliff is fucked in the head. I liked that too.”
Oh, I bet he did.
“Cassie, who used to look like the sun but now needs to find her shine again.”
Oh. My. God.
“I’m not alone in this. You’re feeling it too.” It’s a statement he makes, not a question, but I answer it anyway.
“You’re the hottest man I’ve ever seen,” I say in a rush. “But you scare me. I’m not… I don’t sleep around. Your son’s friend was the second man I’ve slept with in my entire life; Tim, my ex-fiancé, cheating scumbag, being the first. But yesterday morning in your kitchen, I wanted you to put me on your counter and do all sorts of things to me.”
“Okay.” He stands, and I glance down to see the bulge in his pants.
“Okay?”
“Yes, okay. I’m going to stop this now. But mark my words, Cassie, you and me? This isn’t over, not by a long shot. When it is, you’ll probably hate me. In the meantime, I’m taking you to dinner one night this week. Then we’ll take it slow, while I’ll break you in.”
“Dinner?” I daren’t even ask about the breaking in. Do I want to be broken in? What does it mean?
“Yeah, I want to talk to you some more about the hacking project you were involved in.”
“Why?”
“All in good time, Cassie. All in good time.”
“Okay. Erm, thank you, Mr. Silvanov.”
“Not Mr. Silvanov.”
“Sorry, Konstantin.”
He grins. This is another new smile for me to catalogue. A wicked, panty-destroying grin. “No, the other name you called me.”
“Sir?” I breathe.
“That’s it, jailbait. You’re getting the hang of it.”
He stalks to the door, holding it open for me, and leans in close. “I’d made my mind up, you and me? Professional relationship only.”
“And now?”
“And now … well, you called me sir. Just remember—all that happens next is on you.”
What is on me? He’s like some sort of enigma machine. He talks in cryptic sentences that make no sense.
On that final mysterious note, he let’s me out and closes the door behind me.
I walk to my desk in a daze. I’m confused, elated, and terrified in equal measure.
Konstantin has come crashing back into my life, and I know he’s going to be someone important.
CHAPTER SIX
Konstantin
This is not me. I don’t worry about what I’m about to do. I want to fuck a woman, and she wants me, I fuck her. I want to take over a company and it’s on the market, or not, I buy it. I don’t prevaricate and wonder about which is the right choice. Most of my life, I’ve acted on instinct. Andrius once said I had a natural cunning, which I could have taken the wrong way, but chose not to.
Why am I so torn when it comes to this one woman? If I had an uncynical bone in my body, I’d say it was because I like her and don’t want to hurt her.
I stare at the door where a moment ago Cassie exited the room, and contemplate the war coming my way, and what role Cassie will have in it.
She’s more than the spoils that go to the victor—she’s going to be an unwitting soldier in my battle.
How can I get her to do what I need without her getting all stressed and refusing?
At first, I honestly thought about simply taking her and holding her at the house, making her do it, and maybe persuading her to do some other things too. You can’t, however, simply have a person like Cassie disappear. She has family, her grandparents, and other people who care. She also has friends she sees regularly. The old man in her building she goes dancing with. No, one doesn’t snatch a girl like Cassie from her life. Which means I need to convince her to do what I want.
How, is the question.
I could offer her a fuck ton of money, but Cassie isn’t into money.
She might be into rebelling, though. I contemplate her life once more. The safe choices she’s made, including getting engaged to that wet blanket, Tim, who I refuse to believe she loved. One glaring exception is her getting involved in the hacking project at university.
Then I start to smile because it isn’t the only exception. I’m one too. Cassie likes me, and I’m most definitely not safe.
Could it be as simple as offering Cassie a chance to walk on the wild side I know she has deep within? What if I tell her, openly, I want her to hack Popov’s files, and let her know he’s a dangerous man. Would she do it purely for the thrill?
I think she might.
Knowing she desires me, I could probably use her attraction to get her to do wh
at I want, but I have no wish to go down that route. When Cassie and I get down to it, there’ll be no ulterior motive. No, I don’t want to mix up this attraction I’m feeling for her with what I need her to do for me.
I can persuade her to hack into Popov’s information, then when she’s done, I can thank her, and wine, dine, and sixty-nine her.
My phone goes off, and I pull it out of my pocket, sighing when I see Liza’s name on the screen. She’s my ex and a pain in the ass. I only put up with her as long as I did because she was absolutely filthy in the sack and looked good on my arm at certain functions. Now, though, she’s old news. I don’t need this right now. I’ve no idea why she’s calling. She’s tried to get into contact a few times, and I’ve ignored her. Once more I let it go to voicemail. A few minutes later my phone buzzes, letting me know I have a message.
I glance at it to see a text from Liza. It says Surprise. Nothing more.
I frown, shake my head, and turn back to the desk, staring at it as if it can solve my Cassie dilemma for me.
My phone buzzes again, and I glance at it, impatient now, and the world stops.
Liza is smiling at the camera, which is angled toward her and down her outstretched arm, and she’s got her other hand resting protectively over a rather obvious baby bump.
For a moment, I tell myself not to panic. She’s just letting everyone know she’s pregnant, right? Deep down, though, I know she’s telling me this baby is mine.
What the fuck? We were careful. I always gloved up, and she was on the pill too.
This cannot be fucking happening. I think of Michael and all the shit I gave him for knocking up the Mafia princess, and look at me? At least he impregnated royalty of sorts. I’ve gone and got a supposed influencer and Z-lister pregnant, and if that’s not pathetic I don’t know what is.
The phone dances on the desk as another message comes through.
You keep ignoring my calls, so this is the only way. Congratulations, K, you’re about to be a baby daddy.
I grind my teeth. Oh, no fucking way.
Firstly, I hate her calling me K. That’s a nickname Andrius gave me, and only he and a few of my close friends get to use it, not Liza. Secondly, I see my future narrowing to nothing more than a prison cell with me trapped inside, my cellmate a woman I can’t stand beyond her obvious surface appeal, and even that doesn’t do it for me anymore. Compared to Cassie, she looks fake, brittle, and trashy.
More buzzing and another text.
I need to see you.
Shit.
I grab my phone and type viciously.
I’ll meet you tonight. 8pm at Maxim’s.
I name the bar we sometimes used to meet at for drinks, before we got down to the fucking around that’s gotten me into this mess.
The place always reminds me of my friend from childhood, Maxim, a boy as talented with paints as he was with his imagination. Maxim was quiet, and sensitive in a lot of ways, and probably still lives in the shithole where we came from.
No, I’m at your office. Meet me now.
She’s at my office? Cheeky bitch.
No. Busy. Tonight, 8pm.
Three lines appear, disappear, and appear again before her next missive.
Screw you, K, I need to talk to you now. It’s urgent.
My thumb almost breaks my phone as I jab at the letters on my screen.
I don’t think that bump is going anywhere fast. I’m not at my office. I’m at work elsewhere. You either talk to me tonight, or not at all.
I wait as three dots appear and disappear once more, then finally, she says:
Fine. See you at Maxim’s.
I rub my temples and sigh. A few minutes ago, I was contemplating what delicious things I might get up to with Cassie, once she’s done what I need her to do, and now I’m facing fatherhood with a woman I can’t abide.
Fatherhood has been something I’ve both craved and dreaded. I crave it because I want to right the wrongs of my past, and I feel in Michael, my stepson, I have a least atoned for some of my mistakes. Biological fatherhood is a different matter, though. I dread it because my own father was the biggest fuck up you’d never wish to meet. He left my mother when she was heavily pregnant. He walked out on us, leaving her to try to survive with two kids and her mother-in-law. Yes, he was that shitty he left his own fucking mother too.
When the news of my success reached him many years later, he tried to crawl back into my life. I didn’t let him, but he took it badly. He was part of a break-in where my wife, Yulia, was raped and killed.
Him doing that, it killed something in me. The last remaining scrap of decency I had was shredded. I sent Vasily to deliver a message, both to my sperm-donor and the wider world. You fuck me or mine over, and you will die—horribly and slowly.
That’s who I am in my native Russia, but that wouldn’t work for me here. Now I wear a mask, a disguise. I go through this life shredding other people, other businesses the way he shredded me, but to look at me you’d think I'm a wealthy businessman. I’ve learned to make small talk; the British love this talking about empty things like the weather or the television. I’ve learned to offer bland smiles and fake reassurance. All the while, I make more money and gain more power, but what for?
I tell myself it’s for Michael. Now … could it all be for someone else? Someone who’s my own flesh and blood? It would be incredible, but with Liza as the mother, it would also be a curse.
Needing to move before I explode and smash up this room, I gather my things and head out of the boardroom. I storm into to the hallway and stalk through the open plan office.
Eyes follow me, and I notice Suzy, Cassie’s friend, watching. Cassie is busy working, head down. As I walk by, she glances up, and our eyes meet. I look away immediately.
If I’m about to become a father, I can’t fuck around with Cassie; no matter how much I want to. I always swore that no matter what I did in this life, no matter how depraved and violent, I would never be like my father and leave my kids in the lurch. You shouldn’t have kids unless you’re one hundred percent committed to both them and the woman you’re going to have them with. I’ve never met a woman I could stand for longer than six months on average. Hence me not having any children.
Now I’m about to be a father and with a woman I don’t remotely like.
The realization of it all hits me hard and makes me want to throttle myself for ever getting involved with Liza.
Once outside, I take in a deep breath of fresh air and begin walking. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that the blue sky, the birds singing, the sun shining down, none of it penetrates the cloak of despair I’m wearing. This news has bought my past rushing back, images of wartime, of my mother dying in agony because we couldn’t afford meds. The photographs of my father, dead, his body a sick map of bloodied cuts and broken bones. It’s all rushing through me, showing me who I really am. Will this poison in me be in my child?
I think of Cassie, my sunshine girl. Wouldn’t my poison also destroy her in time? Would it have stopped me? I doubt it.
It’s as if the moment I realize I can’t have her, I truly understand just how much I want Cassie.
I won’t be my father, though. I won’t abandon my kid. Despite it being the last thing I want to do, I’ll do right by Liza. For my kid. The child she’s carrying.
The enormity of it all is too much to comprehend. I can’t figure out how I feel because my emotions are a mixed-up mess of anger, resignation, despair, and a kernel of something else. Excitement maybe, at having a child of my own. My flesh and blood. There’s no one of my blood left in this world, and that’s a lonely feeling if you let yourself think about it.
When eight rolls around, I find myself in my old haunt of Maxim’s. A place I used to go often to meet women, but haven’t been to in ages. Twenty minutes later, Liza deigns to arrive. She flounces in as if she’s some queen, and I roll my eyes before taking a much-needed sip of whisky. God, get me through this without me los
ing my temper, I pray.
“Hey, K, baby.”
She smiles and struggles up onto the stool opposite mine. Her belly isn’t that big, but compared to her frame it is. She’s always been super skinny, but she looks slimmer now, and when I really look at her face, she’s sallow under her foundation.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“Yes, just tired. It’s tiring being pregnant.” She sounds snappish as if this is my fault.
It takes two to tango, and she enjoyed the dance as much as I did.
She waves the barman over and orders a glass of wine.
“Are you supposed to be drinking?” I ask. Pretty sure she’s not.
“It’s one glass of wine, K, stop being a nag.”
“Don’t fucking call me K.” I shake my head and take another big sip of whisky.
“King K,” she purrs. “That’s what they call you, King K. It’s a good job it’s not King Kong, or you’d sound like a big ape.” She snort-laughs, and I grind my teeth. “I guess if you’re the king, and I’m carrying the heir, that makes me a queen, right?”
“Not my fucking queen. You’re an incubator, so don’t go getting ideas above your station.” Ah shit, and there goes my promise to myself to play nice.
Her eyes flash, and she shakes her head. “If I’m merely an incubator, then I guess there’s nothing to talk about.”
I sigh and rub the shadow already forming along my jaw, despite having shaved that day. I need to control my temper, or she’ll piss off and take my child with her.
She sips at her wine and pouts at me over the rim of the glass. “Let’s not get off to a bad start, okay? You should be nicer. You’re a bitch, K.”
Oh, but she’s making it so hard to place nice.
“Bad start? You text me a picture of your belly as if we’re besties and you’re sharing gossip. You come here, late, and then proceed to drink, while heavily pregnant. You look like shit. Have you been eating right? Taking vitamins?”