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

“I have my future to think about,” she says icily. “Let go of me.”

The waiter arrives with a bottle of champagne, and I keep hold of Bethany’s hand. He pours two glasses and then departs.

“You need money?” I ask.

“I want to quit. I don’t want to date a piece of gristle, as you called him, but young men are such a pain in the ass. They always want to—” She breaks off, her cheeks coloring, and lifts her champagne flute to her lips and takes a large swallow.

“They always want to get their hands on you?” I ask softly, my eyes flicking over her. She doesn’t want other men to touch her body. That’s good. Very good.

Bethany puts her glass down and tries to pull out of my grasp again, but now that I’ve got her pinned down I’m not going to let her go so easily. “Tsk. It’s very rude to run out on your husband.”

She gives me a sour look.

“You don’t like men to touch you? Or just men who aren’t me?”

Her eyes snap away from mine in panic, and she glances around the restaurant as if looking for a savior. Foolish. No one can save her from me.

“If you don’t let me go, I really will cause a sc

ene. One that will have the manager calling the police.”

Her voice trembles, and I wonder what she’s more afraid of: what I might do to her, or how she feels about what I might do to her. “Please do, and then we can go upstairs for that loud, angry sex we talked about.”

Bethany takes another sip of champagne. She’s silent for a long time, and then says, “I don’t want to date pieces of gristle. I don’t want to date anyone at all. I was going to be a lawyer.”

I turn my champagne flute around on the tabletop, but I don’t take a sip. “Oh?”

Her lower lip, so soft-looking that a feather-touch might bruise her, quivers slightly. Heat plunges through me. How incredibly sexy she looks when she’s afraid.

“Yes. I’m clever, you know.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Instead, I’m going on dates with horrible men.” Her gaze travels back to mine, and I see from her expression that I’m included with these horrible men. “I could have been earning good money on my own a year or two from now.”

I’ll bite. “Why aren’t you?”

“I had to drop out.”

“Then go back. Mikhail can find someone else to make his coffee.” I’ll enroll her myself if it means getting her away from my brother. I imagine cute, student Bethany, her hair piled on top of her head as she scribbles notes and absent-mindedly chews on her pen. Tied up in my bed and spanked when she doesn’t get one hundred percent on a test. Hell, yes. Let’s do that.

I’m opening my mouth to tell her she can have anything she wants as long as she takes it from me, but suddenly she frowns over my shoulder.

“I thought Carlton Alders was dead.”

“What?” I lift my hand from hers and glance behind me, realizing my mistake even as I’m doing it. Of course Alders isn’t there. No one’s there.

When I turn back, Bethany and her clutch are gone. I see the flash of her red dress disappearing behind a marble column on the far side of the restaurant. I could chase her down, but for now I’ll let her think she won that round. I grin and pick up my champagne glass and toast her fleeing figure.

“Run, run, princesa. You only make the chase all the sweeter.”

I would like to spend the following days in pursuit of Bethany, but events don’t play out that way. The next morning I’m in the office when I get a call from Boris.

“I have Georgios. He was hiding out in Leicester.”

Triumph swells through me. Georgios Navarro, the man I hate above all others.

“Excellent. String him up in the basement.” I’m smiling as I put the phone down. My schedule is full, but I’ll make time for Georgios.