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

We spend the following days in drowsy happiness, recovering from the drama of our time in Monte Carlo and drifting through the warm Mediterranean waters. The days turn into weeks. There are things I could be doing to search for Mikhail, but I let Boris take care of them.

Instead, I smile more than I think I ever have, at Bethany. Always at Bethany. She softens in my arms, falling asleep against me on long, hot afternoons and padding about in my clothes, this time by choice rather than necessity. She’s got plenty of her own things now. We make long silly lists of our favorite things while our legs dangle in the pool. Desert island songs and books. Favorite ice-cream flavors. Childhood television programs. Is this what it’s like to have a partner? A bride-to-be? Someone who loves you? How very strange, and how pleasant it is. I wonder if people know.

One afternoon, she turns to me and asks, “Damir, we’re happy here, aren’t we?”

I smile at her, brushing her beautiful black hair away from her face. “Blissful, princesa.”

“What if we stayed like this, always? What if I said I love you, and you said it back? What if we even got married?”

“My darling,” I breathe, sitting up. “It’s all I want.”

Her eyes brighten. “It is? Oh, Damir!” She throws her arms around my neck. “It’s all I want, too. Let’s just sail away and forget about everything that came before.”

I reach up and draw her arms away from my neck. “What do you mean, everything that came before?”

“Mikhail and Ciara. I’ve barely thought about them these past few weeks, and I don’t think you have, either. We’ve set things right with your sister, and ever since then I’ve felt a change in you. Like that was the revenge you really wanted, and now everything’s all right.”

I consider her words. I’m less tightly wound than I was. I sleep soundly. I feel contentment just by holding her in my arms. But that doesn’t mean that anything’s changed. “I’m the same as I always was, princesa. And I want the same things.”

“You’re not the same. I don’t think it was Mikhail and Ciara you were angry with. I think you were still grieving over your sister, and now—”

“That’s enough!” I roar, getting to my feet. “Who the fuck do you think you are to sit there like some cheap shrink? Nothing’s changed. Mikhail betrayed me with a little whore, and that’s unforgiveable. He won’t get away with what he’s done to me.”

Tearfully, Bethany stands up to face me. Her face is crumpled with disappointment, and when she speaks her voice trembles. “They’re in love like we’re in love. It would be a terrible thing to destroy that.”

“If I set out to do something then I do it,” I say through clenched teeth.

“All right, then,” she says, swiping at her nose. “Confront him. Figure out what happened between the two of you to make you drift apart, and then move on. No one needs to die.”

“Is that what he told you? That we drifted apart?”

“Mikhail didn’t tell me anything. We weren’t close, but I saw how things were between you with my own eyes. You must have been close once, but did you never think to reach out to him and be a brother to him?” She tries to put her arms around me, as if showing me how it’s done. How to be a human being.

I shrug her off. “He never reached out to me!”

She rakes her hands through her hair and gives a moan of frustration. “Someone needs to reach out to someone before one of you ends up dead. Don’t you think that if you just talk to Mikhail—”

“That’

s enough, Bethany!”

She glares at me for a long time, breathing hard. The bliss of the past weeks has broken. Happiness, peace, they never last. What will last are the jewels that are in my safe. My enemies being dead. Those things can never be taken away from me.

“You Ravnikars are stubborn sons-of-bitches,” she mutters. “Mikhail did nothing wrong except protect the woman he loves. People shouldn’t be punished for falling in love.”

“Who says I’m punishing Mikhail for falling in love?”

She grabs her towel from the sunbed and wraps it around herself. “Maybe I was talking about me. I’m being punished for caring about you, that’s for certain. Think hard about what you really want. Even I can only take so much punishment.”

I call out to her, but she walks quickly away. “How am I punishing you, Bethany? Answer me!”

But she doesn’t turn around, and she must sleep somewhere else on the yacht, because she doesn’t come to our bed that night.

In the morning, Boris greets me with some excellent news.

“You asked me to track the flight paths of jets in Africa that belong to any of Mikhail Ravnikar’s known associates.” He’s brisk and energetic, and I can tell he’s discovered something important.

“And?” I ask.