Page 5
But the train is full steam ahead and I don’t know how to stop it.
“I’ve imagined you like this so many times,” he murmurs. “Flushed and breathless, saying my name.”
His hand abandons its trek upward and slides down instead. Over my stomach. Toward the waistband of my skirt.
I grab his wrist. “Kir, I really think we need to?—”
“Stop.”
We both freeze. That wasn’t me who said that.
It wasn’t Kir, either.
And if it wasn’t him and it wasn’t me…
In unison, Kir and I look up at the pool of darkness in the mouth of the hallway. It’s not as empty as it was a minute ago. On the contrary, it’s filled almost unbelievably.
There’s a man standing there. Ahugeman. Impossibly broad shoulders, gray hair swept straight backward. He’s in a midnight-black suit, white shirt, no tie, and the puff of chest hair I can see in the deep V of his unbuttoned collar is as thick and silver as his beard.
I’ve never laid eyes on him before, but I know at once:
It’s Lukas Lazarev…
…Kir’s father.
2
RAE
LAZAREV GLOBAL INTERNAL MEMORANDUM
TO: All Executive Staff
FROM: Office of the Chairman
RE: Immediate Personnel Transfer
Effective immediately, Ms. Rae Everett will report directly to the Office of the Chairman.
Kir’s hand yanks away from me.
He steps back so fast he nearly trips over my chair. His face has gone white, like someone just drained all the blood out of him with a straw.
I’ve worked for Kir Lazarev for eighteen months. In that time, I’ve seen him eviscerate board members and watched him reduce a senior VP to tears over a typo. I’ve witnessed him hang up on a Fortune 500 CEO mid-sentence because “I don’t have time for this level of stupidity.”
I’ve never seen him scared.
Until now.
“Father.” That’s something else I’ve never heard before: Kir’s voice cracking. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”
Lukas Lazarev doesn’t respond. He just stands there. Filling the hallway. Filling the whole damn floor, it feels like.
He’s bigger than I imagined. The photos don’t do him justice. In pictures, he looks intimidating. In person, he looks like a giant that could crush you without noticing.
He reaches into his jacket pocket and withdraws something. I can’t make out what it is until he sticks one in his mouth, cups his hands over it, and strikes a lighter. A cigarette, I see. The flames dance over the rough planes of his cheeks.
While his hands work, his eyes sweep across the scene. I can only imagine how it looks from his perspective. Me, the lowly assistant, pressed against the window with my blouse untucked and my lipstick smeared halfway up my cheek. Kir, three feet away by now and retreating further, hands shoved in his pockets like he doesn’t know what else to do with them.
