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

“You’ve probably got a knife on you somewhere, don’t you? You don’t want to be carrying a weapon when you turn yourself in.”

I lean down to my calf, pull the weapon out of its holster beneath my pants and hurl it onto the sand, and then set off again.

“Oh, Damir?”

“Would you just let me do it, Bethany,” I snarl over my shoulder.

“No.”

“What?”

She laughs. “No, I’m not going to let you do it. What use are you to me and the baby in prison?”

A taut silence stretches while I stare at the dune ahead. “Are you trying to torture me?”

“Yes.”

I push both hands through my hair. “You—you—” I growl in frustration. “Why the fuck are you torturing me?”

“I thought it was about my turn.”

Her turn. Her turn for trickery and power and holding my goddamn life in her hands. When I look back at her, her eyes are glimmering with amusement. “Do you fucking love me?”

She balls both her fists and shouts as loud as she can, “Yes, I fucking love you!”

“Are they mad?” Ciara whispers to Mikhail.

My brother passes a shaking hand over his face and looks like he’s about to fall down from relief. “Yes. And they deserve each other for the rest of their lives. Every infuriating minute of them.”

“Princesa,” I growl, striding across the sand toward Bethany. Her eyes are getting blurry and her breath shudders with tears. “Are you crying?”

“I am,” she says, her voice cracking. “I am crying, you insane bastard. Never try to leave me again, or I’ll put a knife through your heart, do you hear me?”

I press my lips against hers in a desperate kiss. “Never,” I murmur. “Not even if you put a gun to my head.” My hand seeks her belly and I splay my hand there, and the world finally clicks into place around me.

Bethany kisses me back, fierce, desperate kisses. “Ciara’s right,” she whispers. “You’re the only one who can take us back to the start.”

She looks past me to Mikhail and Ciara. My brother has a smile softening the corner of his mouth. Ciara is holding his hand.

“Without you,” she says, “I’m just a lonely, screwed-up secretary. Mikhail a closed-off soul. Ciara an estranged, loveless daughter. Maybe we didn’t need to be put through so much blood and drama to get here. Or maybe we did.” She strokes my hair back from my face, smiling up at me. “You’re totally crazy sometimes, but maybe it’s the oddballs who need love most of all.”

I kiss her, and then bite down on her lip. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood. It tastes like love.

Our love.

“Come on, idiots,” Mikhail says, shaking his head. “Let’s get the hell out of here before the authorities show up. We can’t explain all these bodies.”

I lean down and fish through Navarro’s pockets, and pull out a set of keys. “His boat must be moored somewhere nearby. If we change the tire on the SUV, we can drive around the perimeter of the island and find it.”

We all start walking back toward the house, exhausted and blood-spattered, but together. Ciara and Bethany are next to each other, and Mikhail and I flanking them.

Ciara puts a thoughtful hand on her belly. “Back in London, I once wished doom upon all the Ravnikars who ever were and ever would be. Now I’m carrying one.”

Bethany’s hand slips down to her own belly. “Oh, me too. I cursed them all to hell. With partners like ours, it just sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it, Ciara? Damn you and all your kind forever more.”

“Will they be all right, then? Our babies?” Ciara asks her.

“Oh, yes,” Bethany