Dmitry: A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance

by Ava Bloom

  Chapter Two — Sarah

  I looked up from the couch, where I was currently sprawled out, scribbling in one of my business textbooks when Elaine came in. “Uh oh, what's wrong?” I asked, catching sight of her grim expression.

  Elaine held up another of the familiar envelopes. “Another one of these taped to our door,” she said. She opened the letter and read it out to me: “If you haven't paid the outstanding balance of your rent, some 1700 euros by the end of this month. We will have no choice but to evict you from your flat, keeping your security deposit and all other monies paid to us thus far.”

  I grimaced. “They make it sound like coming up with €1700 in a matter of weeks is easy,” I muttered.

  “Well, we were never supposed to get this far behind on our rent,” Elaine pointed out. “And besides, I'm sure that most study abroad students would just call up their parents or whatever and ask them for the money.”

  “Yeah, but most study abroad students are, like, 20,” I pointed out. “Not 26 and 27.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “You'd think that by this point, we might have it figured out.”

  Elaine laughed. “Yeah, when you suggested studying abroad for grad school, it seemed a lot easier. Remind me why we're here again?” She kicked at part of the chipped tile. “This isn't the glamorous trip to Spain that you sold me on.”

  I shrugged. “Be happy that we got into grad school,” I reminded her. We'd both applied to programs back home but had been rejected from all our top choices—competition was apparently stiffer than we'd expected. By the time we'd found out that we had nowhere to go come fall, most places in the US weren't accepting applications anymore.

  Not that I minded. I was happy to be here in Spain for the year. But all the same…

  “If we just weren't on student visas,” I sighed. “That makes it hard to get work. Or well-paying work, anyway.” Our tuition wasn't very expensive, and nor was our rent, but when you combined the two things, plus all of our daily living expenses like food and utilities, my job at the bar and Elaine's job at the local café weren't giving us nearly enough.

  It wasn't like places had to pay very well when they were paying you illegally, under the table.

  “Did I tell you I almost got myself fired the other night?” I asked Elaine as she made her way into the tiny kitchen area and put the kettle on.

  “No!” she said. “What did you do?”

  “I was doing inventory with one of the Russian dudes, this guy Andrei. I think he's like, a cousin or something. I don't know. Anyway, he's family with the owners of the bar, and so there we were, doing inventory together, and I was stupid enough to tell him to quit dropping all the boxes 'cause I was afraid he was actually going to break something in one of them. And he went off on how I was just another employee and had no right to tell him what to do, and then he threatened to fire me.”

  “Yikes,” Elaine said, shaking her head. “I still don't get why there are so many Russians involved in that business. Isn't this Spain?”

  I laughed. “And aren't we Americans?” I asked.

  “Right, but if we couldn't get our working visas, how do you think those guys did?” Elaine mused. “What's it like working for them anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Regarding their visas, I don't ask questions,” I said. “Might find out something that I really don't want to know.”

  Elaine laughed. “What, you think they're like, part of the mafia?”

  “Wouldn't surprise me,” I said, shrugging. “But then again, I probably just think that because of their accents. They're not bad to work for, really. They've got obscene amounts of money, though. I know they don't pay full price for their drinks, but they're drinking pretty much constantly. They always come and go in really nice cars, and their suits, oh man. Really nice tailored suits.”

  “One too many Hollywood movies,” Elaine agreed, nodding her head. “They're kind of hot though, don't you think? Not like those big, fat mafia dudes in the movies. They don't even have the gaudy chains or anything.”

  I snorted. “Andrei's got an earring. Diamond, no doubt.”

  Unbidden, an image of Andrei from the other night came into my mind. As he'd moved around those boxes, his muscles had been obvious, bulging beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. I'd almost wished it was a little warmer in there, that he'd taken the shirt off so that I could get a really good look at his no-doubt chiseled abs and strong arms. I had already seen the tattoos that he had scattered around his arms, and I wondered how far they went, if they were all over his chest and back as well?

  I shook my head: that was dangerous territory. “I really don't want to lose this job,” I sighed. I couldn't start fantasizing about Andrei; I knew he was a player, and I doubted he'd want me around Ritmo if we had fucked. He'd expect me to get jealous and to interrupt his conquests or something.

  Not that I really wanted to sleep with him anyway. He was an ass. Just, an attractive ass. If he was part of the Russian mob though, he could probably have me killed when he got sick of me. The thought made me shudder.

  “We're going to have to become prostitutes or something,” Elaine sighed, tapping her fingers on the counter as she stared down at the notebook that she kept her budget in. “There's no way we're going to be able to make up all that money this month otherwise.” She cracked a smile. “There's good money in prostitution, right? And I bet it fits around a class schedule pretty well, although maybe not your work schedule.”

  I shook my head. “I can't even imagine being desperate enough to become a prostitute. Especially not for a place like this.” When we'd first moved into our place, I'd been so excited about it that I hadn't cared about how shabby the place was. But in the past months, as rent had spiraled further and further out of our control, I'd started to resent the chipped paint and the rough tiles. The fact that the faucet in the kitchen leaked incessantly, the fact that Elaine and I only had curtains to separate our “rooms” from the main living area.

  “Well, maybe not prostitution,” Elaine said. “But like, one of those massage parlors would probably hire us, right? You know, the kind where they give a happy ending. I bet dudes tip pretty well for that kind of thing too. And it would work better with your bar schedule, give you something to do during the day.”

  I snorted. “You mean, other than going to the classes, which are the whole reason that I'm over here anyway?” I asked. “I'm not whacking someone off for cash. Even if it does tip well.” I couldn't even imagine it. Elaine had always been more...sexual than I was. Sure, I appreciated attractive dudes like Andrei. But I could count on one hand the number of guys that I had actually gone home with. I just wasn't that type of girl.

  “Come on, I bet it doesn't take much,” Elaine said. “That's the whole point of a happy-ending massage, right? They're already so keyed up from the massage that you just give them, a couple quick strokes and they're already coming. Boom, just like that.”

  I felt a blush creep across my face and was glad that she was making her tea and not focusing on me. “If you want to do that, be my guest,” I told her. “But you'd better start looking for a new roommate—or make a lot in tips—because I am going to spend the month focusing on finding a new place to live.”

  Elaine sighed. “You're no fun,” she said. But she was smiling fondly as she said it. “But seriously, what are we going to do? It's not like we're living in a palace at the moment. The whole reason we chose this place was that it was cheap as shit. If we can't even afford this, we're never going to be able to afford somewhere else. And as much as you might like the idea of being like one of those Greek philosophers and living in a box on the street, devoting your life to acquiring knowledge, that's not me.”

  I rubbed at my temples and closed my textbook, knowing I wasn't going to be able to focus on it now. I wished that she hadn't brought this up, but I also knew that she was right, we did need to start brainstorming ways to solve this. We'd been putting it off for long enough—long enough that we had accumulated 1700
euros worth of debt to our landlord.

  “I don't want to live in a box either,” I said, as though that were really a question. “I guess I can try to ask for a raise at work, but even if they give me that, we're going to probably have to negotiate with the landlord,” I said slowly. “I'm not going to make 1700 euros over the course of a few weeks unless I get paid a huge raise.”

  “I could ask for a raise too,” Elaine said. “But it's not like the café really makes that much money to begin with. And I'm kind of scared that if I ask for the raise, they're going to replace me with someone willing to work for even less. It's not like I have any particular skills for my job.”

  “Yeah, at least Ritmo's starting to take off,” I said. “I was getting kind of worried when I first started working there. But they're busy most nights now.” I frowned. “It's actually pretty cool, being there and watching the place grow.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Elaine said. “But you're not going to be there much longer if we can't find some way to pay rent!”

  “I would say we could stop being students, but that's the whole reason we were able to come over here for a year to begin with,” I sighed. “Plus, can you even imagine trying to tell people back home?”

  “There has to be some way to do this, though,” Elaine said. “People do it, right?”

  I shrugged. “I think everyone else got scholarships,” I reminded her. “But by the time we knew we were coming here, it was too late to get scholarships.”

  “Should've deferred for a year and saved up some cash,” Elaine sighed.

  “Too late for that now.”

  “Too late for that now,” Elaine echoed in agreement. She grinned at me over the rim of her mug of tea. “So I guess the only thing to do is happy-ending massages!”

  I laughed and shook my head. “For the last time, no.” I frowned. “We'll figure something out.” We had to, after all. I wasn't going home because of this.

  Chapter Three — Andrei

  I looked around the mostly-empty bar, feeling disappointed even though, rationally, I knew that it was a Wednesday night and it wasn't a surprise for things to be so empty. All the locals would have been out at Apollo on Monday and Tuesday, and everyone would be gearing up for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights in the rest of the city. Wednesdays were usually pretty quiet.

  Still, after seeing Ritmo so busy over the weekend, I couldn't help feeling that the place seemed even more strikingly empty that night.

  Sarah was on the bar again that night, and I wondered if she worked every night. She seemed to be there every night that I was, anyway. If so, it was no wonder that she'd been so worried when I'd threatened her job the other night: she must really be desperate if she was willing to put up with drunken shenanigans every night. I'd never even seen her have a drink on the job.

  I wondered if she thought she wasn't allowed to drink on the job.

  I hopped up on one of the stools at the counter, watching as Sarah cleaned some glasses. “What's your story anyway?” I asked her.

  Sarah looked startled, her hands pausing where they were wiping one of the glasses dry. Slowly, her hands started moving again.

  She had nice hands, I realized, and I could picture them running down my body, stroking my member… I broke off that line of thought before it was fully-fledged. Was Sarah hot? Definitely. I had a thing for a woman in sky-high heels, especially a woman who could work, for hours at a time, in sky-high heels. But the whole reason I'd had to do inventory the other night was still stuck in my head, and I remembered Uncle Evgeni's warning about how business and pleasure didn't mix. Sure, I didn't own Ritmo, but I was there often enough that I didn't need to make things awkward.

  Even if I didn't plan on ever having to do inventory with Sarah again.

  “I'm a student at the university,” Sarah finally said cautiously.

  “I thought you were older than that,” I said in surprise. It was a stupid thing to say; maybe she'd just taken time off before starting school.

  Sarah laughed, though. “I'm a grad student,” she said.

  “Why Barcelona?” I asked. It wasn't exactly that I was curious, but talking to her was a way to pass the time until someone better came along or until I gave up the hunt for someone to warm my bed that night.

  Sarah shrugged and looked off to the side, and I got the feeling she wasn't telling me the truth when she said, “Beaches and boys, that's what everyone wants in their college experience, right?”

  I frowned at her, but I didn't feel like prying to find out what the real reason was. I drummed my fingers against the bar.

  “I wouldn't have thought you'd be talking to me,” Sarah said suddenly.

  I cocked my head to the side. “Why not?

  She shrugged. “You were pretty rude the other night.” Then, she winced, looking immediately as though she regretted having said the words. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “Please, don't fire me for that. Like I said, I'm just surprised, that's all.”

  I laughed. “I'm not going to have you fired,” I told her. “I figure you must be pretty desperate for money if you're willing to work so many hours here.”

  She shrugged again, looking embarrassed. “Between rent and tuition, I'm barely scraping by,” she admitted. “Actually my friend and I are...in search of a new place at the moment.”

  I thought of my sprawling beach house. Thanks to the family funds I always had at my disposal, I'd been able to pick from some of the best places in the city. But I imagined it must be infinitely harder to move to a city by yourself, without family to back you up.

  “I'm sorry I was so rude the other night,” I apologized. “To be honest, it was partly that I had this hot woman chatting me up and had to give it a pass because of the inventory stuff. I was just in a bad mood.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes, but I could see the hint of a smile at the corners of her lips. “Yes, because heaven forbid that there should be even one night where the Russian stallion doesn't get laid.”

  “The Russian stallion?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. There was something pleasant about watching her face slowly flush a bright, hot red. Before I could tease her further, though, my cousin Alexei appeared at my elbow and jerked his head towards one of the booths in the back of the bar. I sighed inwardly and followed him back there, wondering what was going on now. Surely Uncle Evgeni wouldn't be ready again to entrust me with anything else, no matter how gracefully I may have taken my punishment.

  Alexei took a sip of his dark beer, and I had to fight to keep from squirming when he didn't immediately say anything to me. But I knew this game, this power trip, and I wasn't going to impatiently ask him what was going on. Best to sit there, stare coolly back at him, and wait for whatever it was.

  After a long moment, Alexei nodded approvingly at me and then said, “How have you been settling in, cousin?”

  I shrugged, wondering if this was really just a social call. Where Vanya came out with my brothers and I frequently, though, Alexei was much more reclusive.

  “Uncle asked me to let you know that we're expanding the business further south,” Alexei said, and I blinked over at him. I was even more surprised when he continued, though: “There's a package that he wants you to deliver.”

  I frowned. “Isn't he still mad at me?” I asked.

  Alexei shrugged broadly. “He can be mad at you and still assign you work, can't he?”

  “Well yeah, of course he can,” I said, feeling flustered. I hated that I was still so new to all of this, that Alexei and my brothers all had years of experience dealing with Uncle Evgeni and the matters of the syndicate. I felt almost as green as Vanya.

  “We're still working on finding a new spot for our headquarters,” he continued. I listened with half an ear as he detailed how that search was going, dropping some small hints that he was displeased to be redoing much of the work that he'd already done on the previous place that we'd almost had, the one that I'd messed up.

  My eyes were drawn back to the
bar, where Sarah was working. For some reason, my attention was fixed on her that evening. She had personality, I had to give her that. I couldn't remember the last time a woman had told me off like she had, for my rudeness. And that blush of hers, hinting at an inner sweetness that I had yet to explore.

  I frowned as I saw her chatting with one of the regulars, this guy named Steve. He was a big guy, burly, and not at all like the rest of the crowd that Ritmo brought in, but he dressed in tailored suits and tipped well, so we had no reason to kick him out. I tried to remember if I had seen him chatting with any other women at the bar before, but to be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to him.

  I felt a strange surge of jealousy, seeing that he was talking to Sarah. Which was ridiculous, I knew. I had barely had a conversation with the sexy bartender. And besides, she must know by now that he tipped well, and she had mentioned those financial woes before. She was probably just angling to get a big tip from him so that she could afford to pay her rent.

  But I wanted to go over there, to interrupt the two of them, especially when it became clear that Steve, at least, was angling for something more with her. It was obvious in the way that he was leaning towards her, his face animated, the way that he made her laugh.

  “Cousin, what are we going to do with you?” Alexei asked, clucking his tongue at me, and my eyes jolted back to him. I realized I had totally lost track of what he was saying, and I was sure that my lapse in attention—and the reason for it—had been noticed.

  I took a large sip of my own beer, trying to figure out what to say.

  “Is the motherland empty of girls?” Alexei asked mildly. “You act like you've never seen one before.” I sputtered, and he roared with laughter. When he finally calmed down, he shook his head. “Be careful,” he warned. “Uncle has given you another chance. Don't fuck up again or he won't be so kind.”

  “Has he sent people back to Russia before?” I asked curiously.

  “Of course he has,” Alexei said derisively. “What kind of boss would he be if he hadn't? We pay the cops off, but they're not going to turn a blind eye for long if there are too many mistakes causing people to ask questions.”