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

Damir grimaces, as if it was some terrible personality flaw that made him do it. I kick him in the shin.

“Ow! Bethany, will you quit it!” He looks at Navarro’s mangled corpse on the ground. Flies have started buzzing over the shattered flesh.

“I’ll admit,” Damir says slowly, “that pursuing Navarro wasn’t the tangent I thought it was. Since I reclaimed Nataša’s jewels I’ve felt… Things have been different. Somewhere between Monte Carlo and here, I seem to have lost my fucking anger.” He glares at me like I’ve done him grave injustice. “You can probably blame her.”

I smile and shake my head. “No, you fool. It’s because you were never really angry with Mikhail. It was this piece of shit—” I kick the corpse “—and your father who destroyed your hope and your love for your family. Are you going to leave another blood feud in your wake and force your children to fight it out on a beach one day? Or are you two going to hug it out?”

Damir glares at me, and there’s so much fury on his face that I think he’s going to start shouting. Then he turns to Mikhail and holds out his hand. “No more Ravnikar blood is to be spilled. Not by us, and not because of us. Your child is my child. Your woman is my sister.”

Mikhail still doesn’t move. He glares at Damir’s hand, and then looks at Ciara, pale and injured by his side.

“You want it all to be over,” Mikhail says slowly, “after everything you’ve done? Just like that?”

Damir watches him in silence, and then throws back his head and laughs. He grins boyishly at Mikhail. “Your face! You looked at me just like that when I turned up on your doorstep twenty years ago. You have to admit, brata, that for all the drama of the last few weeks, it hasn’t been boring. All Ravnikars love drama. What was it you called him, Ciara?”

“A BAMF,” Ciara says, a smile tugging at the corner of her injured mouth. When Mikhail looks at her blankly, she explains, “A bad-ass motherfucker.”

Mikhail’s spine straightens a little, as if he can’t help the swell of pride that his girlfriend thinks he’s a BAMF. With a casual shrug of his shoulder, he says, “I just did what needed to be done.”

Damir places both his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Ravnikar Enterprises is gone, but we could set up something just as good again. Maybe even better.”

Mikhail points a forefinger at him. “No. You’re not doing th

is again.”

Damir spreads his arms, baring his teeth roguishly. “Doing what again?”

“Upending my whole life and then charming me into some hair-brained scheme of yours like you did twenty years ago.”

“Ravnikar Enterprises, a hair-brained scheme? It made you ridiculously rich.”

“But at what cost?”

“Come on, Misha. You haven’t been bored the last twenty years, have you?” For the first time, there’s nothing sarcastic in the way Damir says Misha, and Mikhail doesn’t tell him not to.

“We’re going to be fathers,” Mikhail points out. “Now is the time for boring.”

Damir sighs gustily and rubs his hand over the back of his neck. “All right. I suppose boring wouldn’t be too hard to bear, under the circumstances.” His eyes flicker to Ciara. “What do you say? Will you let me work with Misha? Can I be an uncle to that little one?”

Ciara gnaws her lip, thinking. “Damir, it’s not up to me. You’re the one who has the power to hold us together or drive us apart. I don’t have any other family now, and neither does Misha. You need to decide whether this is what you want. And not just for a few weeks. Forever.”

Damir gazes at her for a full minute without speaking. Then he turns and thrusts his hand at Mikhail once more. “It’s what I want.”

Slowly, with as much hope sparking in his eyes as caution, Mikhail takes his brother’s hand. As they shake, a smile blooms over his face. A smile like I’ve never seen from him before. The same one is on Damir’s face.

They unclasp, and Damir glances at Ciara. He clears his throat, and says quickly, “I suppose you want an apology.”

She looks at him coolly. “I don’t need an apology. I just want you to do better for all of us from now on.”

He nods his head, and then he turns and looks at me, that charming, boyish smile on his face. “I guess you got what you wanted, princesa.”

What I wanted.

Happiness has expanded through me as I’ve watched them talking, but as he turns that rueful grin on me, something snaps. What I wanted? At the end of all the terror, the blood, the captivity, he has the temerity to stand there and act like this was all my idea?

He’s tortured me, body and soul. It’s time I returned the favor.

Damir leans down to kiss me, but for the third time that day I turn my face away. “I’m glad Mikhail and Ciara forgive you, Damir. I truly am. But what makes you think that I forgive you?”