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

I glance at the documents in my hand, and then back at Damir. This is just great. Two minutes alone with Damir Ravnikar and I’m in peril of my life.

Georgios plunges his fingers into Damir’s eyes, and Damir shouts in pain and pulls back. That gives the other man the chance to rally, taking a tighter grip on his five-inch blade, and swipes at Damir.

Damir leaps back with a yell, blinking furiously. I see the shift in him. The Now you’ve made me angry expression that descends over his features. I saw it happen to Mikhail Ravnikar once. He’s the most peaceable of surly souls usually. We were leaving a lunch meeting together down near St. Paul’s, and the pedestrian crossing changed to a walk signal. I stepped out onto the street, and a car came around the corner and nearly plowed into me. I screamed, the car squealed to a halt, and then the driver had the temerity to blast his horn at me, as if I’d been in the wrong.

Mr. Ravnikar stepped out onto the street, slammed his hands on the hood of the car and glared through the windshield at the driver. He didn’t even say anything, but the driver turned pale. Then Mr. Ravnikar stood, straightened his tie, and politely escorted me to the other side of the road. I remember saying, “Wow, sir. That was kind of awesome.” But he didn’t reply.

What I saw in Mr. Ravnikar that day was just a flicker of the beastly. Damir seems to transform like a werewolf under the full moon. His eyes grow black, his shoulders hunch, and he seems to get bigger. If I was his attacker I’d run away yelping with my tail between my legs.

Apparently Georgios sees what I see, because he hesitates. Then he seems to decide that he has nothing to lose, and lunges at Damir. Damir backhands him across the face and sends him flying. The expression of surprise on Georgios’ face is almost comical. His knife falls from his hand and it skitters over the carpet, and he falls heavily to the floor.

Damir drags him up by fistfuls of shirt and slams him against the wall. His voice is soft and deadly. “It’s very simple, Georgios. If you marry her, I’ll kill you both.”

I squirm a little on the floor. The pitch of his voice and the expression of fury on his face is melting me.

“It was so long ago! I’ve fallen in love. Can’t you understand that?”

Damir looks disgusted by even the mention of the word love, and punches Georgios so fast and so viciously that I almost don’t see his fist move. Georgios crumples to the floor. Damir moves around him, puts a foot against his back, and shoves. The man goes sprawling across the carpet.

“Get out of my sight.”

I peep up a little over the desk. Georgios gets unsteadily to his feet, his back to us. He seems to pass a hand over his face in despair. What star-crossed drama have I stumbled into?

Georgios has been beaten, but apparently he’s a desperate man, because he dives for the knife on the floor, picks it up, and slashes. The tip of the blade catches Damir on the chest. Damir yells and drops his own weapon. A thin, red line appears on his shirt, and then spreads. I gasp in outrage. How dare this man hurt Damir? I lunge for the phone on the desk, intending to call the police.

“Put that fucking phone down!” Damir shouts. I look up in surprise. He’s grappling for his knife while fending off Georgios. Any second now, Georgios’ blade is going to go plunging into someone’s guts. Maybe Damir’s, but maybe mine, because he’s just realized I’ve been here all along and is glancing at me with pure hatred.

“Are you freaking crazy?” My voice is so high I’m probably transmitting on inhuman wavelengths. Damir hasn’t got a weapon, and he’s injured. My heart is currently trying to pound its way out of my chest.

Damir’s teeth are clenched with effort. “Put. It. Down.”

“I’ll call security, then,” I throw back, but as soon as I start to dial, Georgios’ body comes barreling toward me, and I have to dodge away. Damir has flung the man at the forty-fourth-floor plate glass window. It doesn’t break, and Georgios goes stumbling into a bookcase, books and files cascading everywhere. An enormous glass vase shatters all over the floor.

Damir strides over, hauls the man up by his collar, and sinks his fist into his face. Blood spurts all over Damir, and he’s about to land a second hit when Georgios manages to fling his arms around Damir’s waist and tackle him to the ground.

I look around for a weapon. The room was bristling with knives just three seconds ago

but now I can’t see any. I have to do something. In the movies the girl always stands to one side wailing, Oh, stop, stop! instead of diving into the fray and it drives me crazy. Two against one, and we’ll be able to beat this Georgios no problem. I snatch up an ornate silver letter opener from the desk and brandish it like a weapon.

“No,” Damir snarls from the floor, his arms and legs locked around Georgios’ body as they grapple with each other. “Smash his fucking head in.”

That’s a much better idea. I put the knife opener down and pick up a heavy carved box that looks like it’s for cigars. I stand over the two writhing bodies, both smeared with blood, hesitant now to actually hit Georgios. I mean, I don’t want to actually kill a man. What if I do it accidentally?

Hesitating was a mistake. The man’s hand shoots out and takes hold of my ankle, and he yanks me off my feet. I go down shrieking and land painfully on my elbow. I drop the box, and then one of my hands lands on the hilt of a knife.

A knife!

I snatch it up, my eyes still closed because of the pain in my throbbing elbow. I feel someone trying to wrestle it from my grip and I resist with all my strength.

“Bethany,” a man growls in frustration.

My eyes pop open and focus on two icy blue-gray ones. It’s Damir, and he’s trying to get the knife from me. A dumb part of my brain goes, He knows my name?

Of course he knows my name. I email him for Mr. Ravnikar all the time.

Georgios sinks an elbow into Damir’s kidneys and he grunts in pain, and I hastily let go of the knife. Damir swings it around in a vicious arc, roaring at the top of his lungs as he slices right across the intruder’s shoulder and chest. Blood gouts over us.

All over us.