Lap of Luxury (Love Don't Cost a Thing)

At six-feet-four, he’s as tall as the doorway and immaculately dressed in a dark suit, his black curls neat and beard trimmed. “I asked you three times already. Get in here.” He turns and strides back into his office, his shoulders up around his ears.

“Coming,” I call in a sing-song voice, and stand up. We’re having one of those days, are we? Lately, more often than not, we’ve been having one of those days, in which he’s in a non-stop, barely controlled temper. I don’t know what’s setting him off. Nothing’s changed around here. Maybe that’s the problem.

He and Damir Ravnikar have been working together for nearly twenty years, almost as long as I’ve been alive, and they kind of seem to hate each other. Which is a challenge, seeing as they run the company together.

Or maybe it’s just that Mr. Ravnikar’s not getting any. Does he even have sex? Maybe he hasn’t downloaded that software update yet.

“I was just answering some very important emails for you,” I tell him as I head into his office. I wasn’t. I was checking how many likes I had on Instagram.

Apparently Mr. Ravnikar isn’t fooled as he mutters darkly, “I’ll bet. I told you I needed the minutes from yesterday’s board meeting as soon as possible.”

“Yes, you did. And I sent them to you already. Also, I sent you the update you wanted about the Croatia development.”

Mr. Ravnikar sits down at his desk and checks his emails. I may trawl social media when I get bored, but I do my job, I do it well, and he should know that by now. A moment later he locates my emails and I see annoyance flicker on his face that he can’t chew me out for being inefficient.

“Fine. Good.” He brandishes a large envelope at me. “I need you to take these contracts to the financial director at Enterprises, and he needs to sign them in front of you. I’m not having him fuck me around on this again. Then you’re to take them to the post office and send them signed delivery to Dubrovnik. Is that clear?”

I pick up the envelope and turn it in my hands. So that’s what’s eating him. Last month, Mr. Ravnikar emailed some contracts to the company’s passive-aggressive financial director, who claimed never to have got them. The director then vague-blamed my boss for the project being delayed, probably to ingratiate himself with Damir Ravnikar. Pathetic.

“Crystal clear. Can I have a raise, though? Being a courier isn’t part of my job description.” I knowing I’m pushing my luck but it’s worth a try. Occasionally I can persuade Mr. Ravnikar to give me a bonus for the slightest things. Pounds and pence, they’re like Monopoly money to him, but what with London rents and expenses, I never feel like I’m getting anywhere. I have no safety net and an uncertain future. The insidious humiliation of always being dependent, knowing you’re a drain and unwanted, is still clinging to me.

Mr. Ravnikar turns back to his computer. “Counter-offer. Do this and I let you keep your job.”

It was worth a try. I scrunch my hand through my black curls and head back to my desk. “Like you’d ever get rid of me.”

“I promise you it’s tempting.”

I laugh and grab my coat. I like working for Mikhail Ravnikar. Despite his grumpiness, he’s a gentleman, always seeing me into cabs when we leave meetings or work functions together and checking that I have everything I need to do my job. That was a shock the first time it happened. Usually these businessmen are all me, me, me. As his PA, I should be responsible for getting his cabs and seeing that he has everything he needs, but it seems he’s got an inner code that means he can’t get into a cab or go through a door before me or one of his colleagues. Not friends. I don’t think Mr. Ravnikar has any friends. And girlfriends? Oh, boy.

I’ve seen him with a woman exactly once. I was hanging out in a swanky hotel bar on a Thursday night, trying to see if I could score a dinner with a man who might be persuaded to buy me something expensive that I can sell for cash. I’m not sugaring, per se. I never ask these men for money, only presents. Mostly, I’m trying their life on for size. If I married a wealthy man, would I feel safe, then? Happy? Wanted?

Loved?

Mr. Ravnikar must have had a late meeting with a hotel guest because he was sitting on the other side of the bar. I was bored and about to wander over so he could buy me champagne, when a very strange thing happened.

A woman approached him.

Now, Mr. Ravnikar’s a good-looking man, and you can tell he’s loaded just by looking at him. His suits are tailored and his cufflinks and shoes are designer. When this woman asked if she could join him, he pinned her with his unfriendly blue gaze, and nodded. It was the most grudging nod I’d ever witnessed. The young woman beamed at him and sat down.

I wasn’t interested in scoring my own man after that. This was a far more interesting spectacle. I hid my face behind the wine list and watched them covertly, fascinated to see how my boss behaved around a woman. She looked older than me, around twenty-nine, and was wearing a tight pink dress with her hair perfectly coifed. She pulled out her best flirting techniques, one after the next. Touching his knee, stroking the tips of her fingers “absent-mindedly” down her neck, laughing at every other thing he said. Mr. Ravnikar responded to her questions politely, but he never cracked a smile. In fact, as their conversation progressed he seemed to grow ever so slightly annoyed. Fifteen minutes later, he paid for their drinks, and left. Alone.

The woman in the pink dress seemed disconcerted for a moment, then spied another target and moved on.

I left not long after that, too, still no more enlightened about Mikhail Ravnikar’s love-life than I was before. Is he just not interested in women, or was she not his type? Does he prefer paying for sex because it’s easier to be unemotional about it?

I stopped in my tracks on the way to the Tube stop. Now, there’s a thought. What if he would prefer paying for sex, but finds prostitution unseemly? What if he had a sugar baby instead? Some pretty young thing to coo at him and screw his brains out a few times a month, but who would know better than to overstep any emotional boundaries. She could take his cash, he could get the girlfriend experience without the drama and maybe cheer the hell up.

I shrugged and kept walking. Whatever. It’s not my problem. Though if he was getting some, he’d probably be less grumpy to work with.

As I head out the glass front doors of our office building toward Ravnikar Enterprises, I remember that evening. I still think having a sugar baby would be an amazing solution for Mr. Ravnikar. Every now and then I’ve considered sugaring myself, but I don’t think it’s for me. Sugaring means shutting up and putting out even when you don’t want to. I’m not very good at shutting up. Or putting out. I can see myself getting fifteen minutes into a date with some old dude and telling him his breath stinks, he’s boring as hell and he’s insane if he ever thinks he’s getting his mits on my perky ass. Bye-bye allowance.

A nice, rich, sickly octogenarian would suit me, preferably one who’s allergic to Viagra. It’s not as if any man is able to make me come, so I’d like no part of the bedroom stuff if I can help it.

I make a sharp right into Ravnikar Enterprises. The inside of the building is sleek and hushed, with a few cocky City boy types stepping out of the elevators. A few of them glance over their shoulders to look at my ass.

You wish, my eyes glare back.

This is where most of the Ravnikar Enterprises employees work. My boss prefers to have his office elsewhere. I don’t know why, but I suspect it’s because he likes to keep some distance from his crazy-ass little brother.