You Don't Own Me: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (The Russian Don Book 1)

by Le Carre, Georgia

  ‘In that case I will wear my endearment with pride.’

  I take a sip of my drink. Nice cosmo. Just then a souped up, club version of Elle King’s Ex’s & Oh’s comes on. I put my glass down and look at him. ‘I love this song. Do you want to dance?’

  ‘I don’t dance,’ he says staring at me, his body language watchful.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame.’

  ‘Why?’

  I shrug. ‘Because it’s fun.’

  I’m so involved in my conversation with him I don’t notice the couple who are standing next to us until Zane lifts his head and smiles. I look up at a stunningly beautiful couple. The man is without doubt the most handsome man I have ever seen. He looks like he’s a three dimensional photo of one of those impossibly good looking models after they’ve been through a three hour make-up session and been airbrushed for another three hours. As for the woman, she is exotically and extraordinarily beautiful, with blue-black hair and very pale skin. Her eyes are enormous and as green as grass.

  Zane stands up and shakes the man’s hand and, to my great surprise, introduces them to me. The man’s name is Shane. Apparently he owns a club nearby called Eden. The woman is his wife and her name is Snow.

  Shane sits down next to Zane, but his wife excuses herself to go to the Ladies.

  ‘You know what. I’ll join you,’ I say jumping up.

  She smiles warmly at me and though we walk together we don’t try to talk until we get to the girl’s room. The music is so loud there’s no way we can hear each other talk. Once we’ve both used the facilities, we meet in front of the mirrors.

  ‘I love your dress,’ she tells me, stroking her lips with a lip gloss wand.

  ‘Thank you. I love everything about you.’

  She smiles and puts the top back on her lip gloss. ‘So you’re American?’

  ‘Yup. That’s me. American. That’s not a British accent you’ve got going there.’

  ‘I’m half Indian,’ she explains, putting her lip gloss back into her purse and shutting it.

  ‘Um … how long have you known Zane?’ I know I sound desperate, but honestly I might never get another chance to speak to anyone else who knows Zane.

  Her eyes catch mine in the mirror. She knows I’m fishing for information. ‘Not long.’

  ‘I see.’ Looks like she’s not going to play ball.

  Then she changes her mind and turns to look at me. ‘However, my husband has known him for a lot longer, and once when we were going through a very bad period he told me the only person I must turn to if anything ever happened to him was Zane. That I could completely trust him. Even with my life.’

  My eyes widen. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Mmmm … and my husband is not given to exaggeration. Now. Shall we go back and see what the men have got up to while the cats were away?’

  I grin. ‘Yeah. Let’s do that.’

  But as soon as we get out of the Ladies we find her cat is waiting outside.

  ‘Sorry, Dahlia,’ he says. ‘Something’s come up and I’m afraid we have to leave.’

  ‘We must do dinner soon,’ Snow says.

  ‘Yes, that would be nice,’ I say, but I know it will most likely never happen.

  I make my way back to the VIP lounge and see one of those stunningly beautiful ten feet tall creatures that Stella told me Zane usually hooks up with almost lying on my cat’s lap. One of her long legs is slowly rubbing against his and she is staring into his eyes. I stand there frozen.

  As if in slow motion, Zane turns his face away from hers and looks directly into my eyes. His expression is still. His eyes are veiled. Casually he pats the empty seat next to him. He wants me to share him with this Amazonian woman?

  It’s just a test, Dahlia. He just wants to see how you’ll react.

  Fucking sick bastard. I’ll show him how I react.

  I force myself to smile sweetly before I turn around and walk away from them. I have money in my purse. I’ll take a taxi to Stella’s, and he can have that woman tonight. Actually, he can have her for the rest of the month. I’ll move out tomorrow. I am so angry my blood is bubbling and my heart is racing.

  A hand curls around my upper arm.

  ‘You’re not going, are you, babe? You haven’t danced with me yet.’

  I look up at the owner of the hand. He’s just one of those creeps who hangs around the dance floors of clubs making nuisances of themselves. Ordinarily, I would have brushed him off and not even politely, but it occurred to me that fuck it, I should have a dance. I deserve a dance. I haven’t had a dance since I hooked up with the Russian monster.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll dance with you,’ I say, and watch his eyes light up like twinkling fairy lights.

  He pulls me towards the dance floor and immediately starts gyrating close to me. It hits me instantly that this has not been one of my better ideas. The guy is just such a creep his idea of a dance is to keep bumping into me and grabbing my buttocks in the guise of a dance move.

  It happens so fast it’s like one moment I’m dancing with a hairy octopus and the next the octopus is lying flat on his back, out stone cold, on the green rain flashing floor. The women around me are screaming, and the crowd has parted like a scene from Moses. There is only Zane and me. Everything else is just noise and shapes. He stands there looking at me, looking like he is carved out of ice, his face motionless and completely expressionless.

  He holds out his hand.

  ‘You don’t dance,’ I whisper, shocked by the casual violence.

  ‘There’s always a first time for everything.’

  There is no anger left inside me. Only an inexplicable excitement fizzling through my veins and making me tremble. My voice when I speak is shaky. ‘See, if it was me, I wouldn’t have engineered a captive audience for my first time.’

  ‘I’m not you,’ he says.

  I take his hand. It’s hard, sure and warm, and he twirls me around and catches me expertly.

  I gasp in surprise. ‘You lied.’

  ‘I said I didn’t dance. I didn’t say I couldn’t dance.’

  I glance down at the inert man. ‘Do you think he’s all right?’

  ‘Nah. He’ll always be an asshole,’ he says in my ear.

  I laugh. ‘Where did you learn to dance?’

  He pulls me so close to his body I feel it throbbing with vitality and masculine energy.

  ‘We were taught to,’ he says.

  ‘Who is ‘we’?’

  He runs his lips along my jawbone. ‘Curious little thing, aren’t you?’ he murmurs in my hair.

  ‘Is it a secret?’

  Something flashes in his eyes. ‘The door is closed and you don’t have permission to enter.’

  ‘Who has permission?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Isn’t it lonely in your golden castle, Zane?’

  ‘It’s safe. Anyway, why do you want my secrets? You’ll be gone in a month.’

  ‘Why does it have to end in a month? What if it’s good? Can’t we carry on and find something that suits us both?’

  ‘That door is closed Dahlia. Just enjoy this moment. That’s all we have. There is nothing beyond this.’

  My body trembles with pain. I feel as if I’m standing in a boat that’s slowly sinking. Soon the water will swallow it all.

  ‘Nothing?’ I hear my voice ask.

  ‘Nichego.’ There is a wistful sadness in his voice.

  ‘Is that Russian for nothing?’ I ask looking up into his face, searching for that corresponding sign of emotion.

  He nods.

  I press my face into his chest so that I can’t see his eyes. So that he can’t see mine and see how hurt I am. ‘OK. If we truly have nothing after this then why can’t you tell me your secrets? You have nothing to lose.’

  ‘Ahhhhh, Little fox. Don’t you know, the king is never killed by his enemies, but by his courtiers? By the people he trusted with his secrets.’

  ‘You think I would betray you?’

 
; ‘I don’t know. What do you think, little one? If someone was pulling out your fingernails one by one can I still trust you?’

  I shake my head slowly. ‘Probably not.’

  ‘I’m glad you were honest. I prefer an honest coward to a lying hero.’

  We dance, while a man lies inert on the floor. It is the strangest dance I have ever had. A hushed crowd. His minders looking like they are ready for any kind of action. Then the security guards come and pick up the guy on the floor and couples start moving back to dance.

  When we get back to the house, I start to move towards his study and he grasps my wrist in his hands. I look up at him.

  ‘I have other fantasies of you,’ he says.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like having you in my bed.’

  He takes me upstairs to his room. It’s just like the rest of the house. Beautiful, faultlessly tasteful, and cold. He undresses me and we have sex for hours. He makes me come over and over. Eventually, we both end up on our backs, totally drained.

  ‘Just give me a minute and I’ll go,’ I whisper.

  He turns his head to look at me. ‘I want you to stay.’

  Shocked, I stare at him wordlessly.

  ‘Tell me why you really bought the handbag for Olga?’

  I frown. ‘Why do you find it so extraordinary that I bought a handbag for her?’

  ‘No other woman I know would have done something like that.’

  Twenty-one

  Dahlia Fury

  Your naked body should belong only to those

  who fall in love with your naked soul.

  - Charlie Chaplin

  The next day I meet Stella for lunch at our favorite steakhouse. Noah, who has come along, grins in a very friendly fashion at her. In a way that he has never done with me.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asks her.

  ‘Not bad,’ she replies with a laugh and, going on tip-toes, kisses him soundly on both cheeks.

  ‘How’s the new masseuse working out?’ she asks with a sly smile.

  Noah gives a rough shrug. ‘She’s not as easy on the eyes as you, but no complaints from the boss.’

  ‘Oh, you big flatterer you,’ she giggles.

  They exchange some more small talk then Noah moves and sits a few tables away from us.

  I sit down opposite Stella and put the box of shoes on the table, but deliberately put it to one side. I watch her eyes stray towards it. I don’t say anything.

  ‘Is that for me?’ she asks finally.

  ‘Yes,’ I say with a grin, and she squeals with delight and pulls it towards her. She opens the lid and, oblivious to all the other diners who turn to stare, screams, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! They’re so gorgeous.’

  I smile to think what her reaction will be when I give her the Jimmy Choos. She takes them out of the box, and kicking off her shoes immediately tries them on.

  ‘Oh wow!’ she says, standing up. She turns her foot this way and that to admire the shoes. Then she walks up and down the restaurant before coming back to our table and sitting down.

  ‘Thank you,’ she gushes. ‘They look really expensive though.’

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘Remember that personal dresser I told you about. She sources them all from Hong Kong for a fraction of the price you would pay in Britain.’

  Her eyes nearly pop out of her face. ‘Did you get the name of her source?’ she gasps.

  I grin at her. ‘Do you think I’m stupid? Of course, I did.’

  She leans forward. ‘Do they have a website?’

  ‘Not yet. I think at the moment she’s just doing it on the sly without the tax authorities knowing about it. I’ve got her phone number though.’

  ‘Well, go on then,’ she says.

  I text the number to her phone.

  When her phone pings with my message, she says, ‘I miss you a lot, you know, D. Even more than I thought I would.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say immediately because I do. I really do miss Stella’s warmth and laughter and easy chatter.

  She looks at me as if she is about to cry.

  ‘I’ll be home soon, you’ll see,’ I promise blithely. It never even occurs to me then that I could be wrong. That I might never live with her again. That my life could dive into chaos and total darkness of a kind I could never imagine.

  We order our food and she drops her little bombshell.

  ‘I’m going on a date tomorrow night.’

  ‘Wow! Who with?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Just some guy. I’m not really that interested, but I figure I’ll have to start somewhere.’

  I reach out a hand and squeeze her forearm. ‘I’m proud of you. You told yourself you were going to get over Zane and you went out and started the process.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says unenthusiastically.

  ‘Look, it’s almost certain that this is not the guy for you, but the main thing is you’ve told yourself mentally that you’re available again and that’s like a taxi driver putting his taxi light on. Now someone can flag you.’

  She bends her head, chews on her lower lip, then looks up at me pitifully. ‘So how is Zane?’

  I want to tell her how sorry I am that it all worked out so bad for her, but I know she doesn’t want to be pitied. Besides, very soon it will be me in her shoes when Zane moves on to his new flavor of the month.

  ‘He’s all right,’ I say softly.

  ‘How’s it going between the two of you?’ she asks, in a voice that tells me she desperately wants to know and yet she hates herself for being weak enough to ask.

  I decide to be truthful. The last time I didn’t tell her because I thought I was protecting her we nearly fell out. ‘The sex is like nothing I’ve known, really out of this world, but to be honest I don’t know what to think, babe. He kind of blows hot and cold on me. Every time I think we’re making progress he goes and pulls the rug out from under my feet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think it’s because he is determined to keep our arrangement as impersonal as possible.’

  She frowns and nods. ‘I see.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I sigh.

  She stares at me incredulously. ‘Oh fuck! You’re falling in love with him, aren’t you?’

  I look at her sadly. ‘I can’t help it, Stel. I’m pretending I’m fine, but I’m shit scared of what is going to happen when my month is up. It feels as if I’m in a lift where the cables have snapped and I just can’t stop myself from falling.’

  That evening I take a long time over my make-up and hair. Then I zip up my red, high necked, floor-length gown and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is up and I have glamorous drop earrings on. Molly did a fine job.

  I do look good.

  Zane is taking me to see Yo-Yo Ma live in concert. I don’t know if I will enjoy the performance because I’m not really into classical music. In fact, the only reason I even know Yo-Yo Ma exists is because I once had a pretentious boyfriend who had the Bach Cello Suite No. I Prelude as his phone’s ring tone. At first it seemed boring but after a while I started to like it.

  I come down the stairs and Zane is waiting at the end of them. He is sexy and incredibly handsome in a black tux. His eyes lock on mine and never let go. I reach the second last step and am standing six inches away from him.

  ‘Every day you grow more and more beautiful,’ he says quietly.

  I can feel myself trembling with pleasure even as I quip, ‘I was going to say that.’

  He smiles.

  ‘Actually,’ I confess, ‘I really don’t know much about classical music. In fact, I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy tonight.’

  He strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. ‘All music is beautiful and good, but classical music alone is food for the soul, Dahlia.’

  My eyes widen. There is nothing I can think to say to such a profound statement from a man who takes great pains to reveal as little as possible about himself.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWu0j3rUO88

  The h
all is very grand and lofty, and it is full of men and women dressed to the nines. We follow Noah up curving stairs. Noah opens a door and I enter a balcony box. There are only two chairs in it.

  ‘Would you like to have a drink before the concert starts?’ Zane asks.

  I shake my head and sit down on the seat that Noah is holding out for me.

  After we are both seated Noah goes out, presumably to wait outside the door.

  I look around curiously. At the people down below, at those in the other balconies, and at the crowd where I would have sat if I had come on my own, the peanut gallery. The stage is empty and the background matt black.

  Then a hush falls over the people. The lights dim in the theater and the orchestra pit begins to gently glow. The musicians are now faintly visible. Finally, Yo-Yo Ma himself arrives on stage. He is a small, bespectacled, nondescript Japanese man who carries a cello that is almost as big as himself. He bows politely towards the audience. The audience claps enthusiastically and the orchestra stands in reverence.

  Yo-Yo Ma takes a seat.

  There are a few seconds of silence as the musicians prepare to begin. In that expectant silence the conductor begins to move his hands and the first haunting notes fill the air. I realize immediately that I not only know that piece of music, I actually love it. It is Sayuri’s Theme from the movie, Memoires of a Geisha. I turn to tell Zane that and freeze in surprise.

  Zane is leaning forward, his expression rapt as if he is not just listening to the music, but absorbing it in through his very pores. Feeling it inside him. Classical music is food for the soul.

  I turn back to the stage and try to emulate him. Try to see if I can enjoy this kind of music with that kind of intensity. After a while I realize that indeed classical music does something to me that other music does not. Other music makes me want to move my body, but this kind of music makes my spirit soar. So much so I feel almost high as we leave the concert hall.

  Zane takes me to a quiet restaurant. They know him well there and a table in a secluded corner has been reserved for us.

  ‘That was beautiful,’ I say to Zane.

  ‘Good. I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ he says, but something about him feels off and distant. The rest of our conversation is equally stilted and strange.