Page 49

“No,” he agrees. “You were not.”

I force myself to meet his eyes. They’re glacial. Devoid of warmth. The man from last week who drove me home and unlocked my door and told me to get some sleep is nowhere to be found.

That man might as well have never existed.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It won’t happen again.”

“I know it won’t. Because if it does, we are finished here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He turns away from me and walks toward his office. “Get back to work.”

I watch him go. But he pauses at his door. “And Ms. Everett?” he calls over his shoulder.

I freeze halfway to my desk. “Yes?”

“The next time you feel the need to cry, do it on your own time. Not mine.”

An hour passes. Maybe more. I don’t look up from the papers on my desk and I don’t check the time.

Then Lukas’s door opens.

I look up before I can stop myself. It’s not him, though.

It’s Natasha who walks out.

She’s wearing a fur coat now. It’s huge, white, and obscenely posh. Did she skin a polar bear? Knit a cloud? Whatever it is, it swallows her whole, trailing behind her like she’s some kind of snow queen. Her blonde hair tumbles loose around her shoulders. Her makeup remains perfect.

She looks like she just stepped off a runway. Or out of a James Bond movie.This,her outfit says,is a woman who drinks champagne for breakfast, always matches her bra to her panties, and has never worried about how much something costs in her entire life.

My face burns as I remember her body. The long, pale limbs. The huge, gravity-defying breasts. The neatly manicured strip of blond hair that disappeared between her thighs.

I wonder what it would be like to be her.

To have sex with Lukas, you mean?

I can’t help it; the thought just slithers in, unwelcome and insistent. What would it feel like to be pinned beneath him? To have those scarred hands on my skin? To hear that gravelly voice telling me what to do?

If I were still me, I’d no doubt be terrible at it. Awkward and fumbling and completely lost. I’ve never done it before, so Iwouldn’t know where to put my hands or how to move or what sounds to make.

ButNatashawould know.

If there’s anyone in the world who’s up to the task of handling a man like Lukas Lazarev, it’s her. This stunning, fearless woman who waits naked on leather couches and asks strangers if they want to fuck her… She probably knows things I can’t even imagine. Tricks and techniques and swirls of the tongue. Ninety-nine secret ways to make a man lose his mind. She’s a walkingCosmo Sex Tipsarticle.

I bet she’s never been nervous a day in her life.

Natasha spots me watching her. Her red lips curve into a smile.

Changing course, she walks over to my desk. The fur coat swishes with each step. It’s a miracle to me that she doesn’t sprain an ankle in those six-inch, spike-heel stilettos, but she doesn’t seem fazed in the least.

I tense up and my hands go numb as she stops right in front of me. Her perfume wafts over me like a seductive tease. “Little mouse,” she croons, “a word of advice. Woman to woman.”

I gulp and nod, because that seems vaguely like the correct thing to do in this situation.

She leans down. Her green eyes bore into mine. “This isn’t a game you should be playing.”

“I’m…” I blink like a dumbstruck deer. “I’m sorry? What game?”