by SR Jones
My boyfriend cares for me, and he’s been hinting at us settling down. This belongs in the good column, right? So what if Tim doesn’t give me butterflies? He’s kind and caring and steady. I need steady after the crazy that is my life. If he asks me, I’ll say yes because I know it’s the right thing to do. The adult thing.
He likes reading like me, although very different things. I love the classics, whereas he enjoys reading sports biographies. I like musicals, sweeping historic sagas, and war films. He enjoys superhero films and anime. My favorite food is Italian, and his is Thai. I’ve always wanted to go to Russia, China, and Vietnam. India and Nepal. To visit different cultures and meet different people. Tim likes holidaying here in the UK. He doesn’t like the heat, but he also doesn’t like the cold. Says the UK climate is perfect.
I want a dog, but he likes his goldfish.
Yes, we have our differences, but he cares for me, and he’s kind. My mum used to say that kindness was the most underrated of human qualities, and I tend to agree. My grandmother says it too, and I bet it’s where Mum got it from.
Still, there’s a part of me, a tiny, hidden away part that longs for adventure and something … more. I love reading the grand Russian novels. In some ways, I long for the romance, but also the tragedy of Anna Karenina, or to live through the history depicted in War and Peace. There’s a wildness to me, and I stamp it down ruthlessly because that very wildness became a sickness in my mother, and that’s my biggest fear. The temptation is always there, though, a tiny niggling voice telling me to live. To go right to the edge of life and truly feel.
There’s a terror in that, though. Mum felt, deeply. She lived right up at that edge. When some might shed a tear at a sad film, Mum would sob. When some danced self-consciously, Mum threw her arms to the heavens and spun around until dizzy and giddy. She was beautiful, and she burned too bright. I’m scared of burning at all.
A safe life is a good life. No one really wants to live through seismic history. What was it my great gran used to say about living through the war?
“It wasn’t like the films, Cassie,” she’d say when I begged her to tell me stories as a child. “It was mundane and yet terrible. A boring, endless horror. Every day waiting to see if you’d be bombed. Hearing about deaths of those you loved. There was no glamor, not really. We only recall the glamor in the retelling.”
So I tell myself to grow up. To accept my small life and be happy with it because the alternative could be so much worse.
And yet … I still get these crazy romantic ideas sometimes. Flights of fancy about traveling to far flung lands or living through great history.
I start as a figure comes into focus through the cloudy, wet glass.
Konstantin.
What a name! He could be a character from one of my grand novels. He’s not. He’s a customer here at the coffee shop. A regular. He comes in most days during the week, and each time my stupid, naïve little heart beats double time.
The first moment I saw him, I felt it, the wildness within me stirring, clawing to be free.
I crave the moments he comes, but I also dread them.
I dread them because the way he makes me feel with one look, a sideways glance, or a flash of a smile is so much more than how my boyfriend makes me feel with his deep declarations of love, his kindness, and his care.
My traitorous soul yearns for a man I barely know, above my lovely, thoughtful boyfriend. A man who probably isn't very nice.
Konstantin is dangerous. I understand this despite not knowing much about him.
The way he carries himself tells you that he’s not a man to be trifled with. He has more magnetism in his little finger than most people have in their whole being. He’s somehow regal as if he's a monarch and everyone else mere minions, but he's rough too, and it's a fascinating juxtaposition.
The first time I saw him, I had been cleaning tables, and he’d come in for a coffee. I’d noticed him straightaway. Who wouldn’t? The man is well over six feet tall and powerfully built. He’s the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome but with an edge of danger and threat.
The second time he came in, I was serving. I felt my cheeks warm as he smiled at me and asked for a latte in the sexiest voice I’ve ever heard.
Oh, his voice. Deep, but rough, raw somehow. It matches his accent. I thought maybe he was Russian, and when we finally got to chat a little, my suspicion was confirmed.
We have shared interests. I love dogs; he loves dogs. I love reading the classics; he loves reading the classics. Well, those might be the only things we talked of that we have in common.
The reason Konstantin is so dangerous to me; however, it’s more to do with the one thing I know for sure we have in common. This man has a wildness to match my own. Hell, he has a wildness to obliterate my own. His isn’t hidden deep away like mine. His is on the surface, open, and only covered by a barely-there veneer of civility.
The door opens, and Konstantin enters with a gust of wind and a splatter of rain, before he shuts the door and runs a hand through his thick dark hair. Today, his hair is shiny and wet with rain. Water droplets even cling to his curly dark lashes. Those lashes are the only soft thing in a hard face.
Deep gray-blue eyes sweep the room and pause when they land on me. I can’t move for a long moment, paralyzed in the tractor beam of his charisma and focus.
He smiles and raises one hand. I raise mine and wave back, then realize I’m waving at him with the cleaning cloth. I flush and turn back to the table, focusing on the task at hand. Why does this man make me feel this way?
Sometimes, I wonder if it is purely all a flight of fancy. Maybe, because he’s Russian and I’ve been on such a Russian reading jag of late? Falling into those romantic tales of hard times and historic events can make you lose your mind a little. It followed on from a long period of reading Chinese literature, and before that French; all of it tragic.
“I’m finished.”
The voice to my right makes me jump, and I turn to see my colleague, Alisha, standing beside me.
“Oh, okay.” I smile at her. “Don’t get too wet.”
“I’m already wet,” she says in a whisper, with a big wink.
I frown, not getting her meaning, then follow her gaze to Konstantin.
Ugh. Alisha is incorrigible. A total flirt and sex obsessed. She’s also gorgeous in a way I categorically am not.
The idea she’s noticed Konstantin and thinks he’s hot pisses me off.
“You’re filthy,” I tell her with a forced smile.
“Bet you anything not as filthy as him. He’s hot as fuck. I’d climb that big bastard like a tree.” She watches him order his coffee.
“He came in on Wednesday when you were off, and he wasn’t wearing the suit,” she says conspiratorially as if it’s a great secret.
“And?” I don’t get where she’s going with this.
“It was boiling, remember? He had on a t-shirt and jeans, and oh. My. God.” She fans her face. “Cass, that man’s body is a crime.”
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I hate how prim I sound, so soften it with a smile.
“Let me tell you, my boyfriend and I have a list. Five famous people we can fuck. He’s on my list.” She points at Konstantin.
“He’s not famous.”
“I know, exactly!” She rolls her eyes. “I’ve had to bump Ryan Gosling for him. So if I get the chance, I’m taking it, and my boyfriend can’t say a thing.”
I snort and shake my head, laughing despite myself. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“Pretty sure it is. Anyway, catch you later. I’m off.”
“Bye.” I watch her walk out the door. Her slender, long legs encased in skintight faded jeans with holes in the knees. She’s wearing a low-cut t-shirt, and I think she’s had a boob job because the tops of her boobs look like two orange halves. Her hair is long, straight, and glossy brown, and it hangs down her back in a curtain. She’s stunning, and for a moment I fe
el dowdy.
“How are you getting on with Stalingrad?”
I squeak and turn to see Konstantin behind me, coffee in one hand, and a plate in the other holding a cream cake.
“It’s long,” I say lamely. “And I get confused with the names, so I’ve printed a list of them off and stuck it by my bed.”
He raises one brow. “Doesn’t that make it more like homework than reading for pleasure?”
“No… I like big, complex books.”
“Yes, you like War and Peace, no?”
“Yes, but Anna Karenina is my favorite. Well, that and Wild Swans, and of course Wuthering Heights.”
“I haven’t read Wuthering Heights,” he says.
For a moment, I forget myself. I forget how insanely hot he is and how he makes me blush, and I shake my head at him. “What?” I blow out a breath and cock my head to one side. “You can’t not have read Wuthering Heights. You like great literature, or so you’re always telling me.”
“I do.” His mouth twitches a little, kicking up at one corner.
“Well, Wuthering Heights is one of the greatest,” I say.
“I should try it then?” He sits at the table I’m finishing cleaning and smiles at me.
“Yes, definitely. I’d be interested to hear what you thought of it.”
“Then I shall read it, Cassie, and then I’ll come and tell you what I thought of it.”
“Okay, deal.”
He smiles at me, takes a sip of his coffee, and groans.
He groans. Like I imagine he might groan while having sex, and immediately all my flustered attraction comes roaring back.
“You make the best coffee here.”
Then he breaks off some of the cream cake and puts it in his mouth.
“I don’t get how you’re not fat,” I blurt out. “You eat cake here every day.”
He chews and swallows. “I know, and because of this I’ve had to up my training time. If one keeps active, one can indulge. You eat the cakes,” he whispers as if it’s a secret. “I’ve seen you. But look at you, you look amazing.”
I do?
Oh. My. God. He thinks I look amazing. Not fit, or healthy, but amazing.
“I don’t look amazing,” I say with a snort, and then I wish I wasn’t such an idiot. A femme fatale would have murmured thank you in a throaty whisper and walked away mysteriously.
Can you walk mysteriously? I don’t know. Great, now I’m thinking about my walk, and I’ll be all self-conscious when I head back to the counter.
“Oh, trust me, you do.”
It’s the first time he’s been anything but friendly in what he says to me. There’s something there in the way he looks at me, but verbally? Nothing but friendly. His eyes darken as he watches me, then he bites his cake again, chews, swallows, licks his lips and grins. “You’re almost as tempting as the cakes, Cassie.”
Then he breaks into a grin, and I can only stare. I’ve never seen him smile like this before. He’s given me a lot of friendly closed lip smiles, and a few small, teeth showing smiles, but not this full-on grin that makes him so gorgeous I can’t stop looking.
“I better get back to the counter,” I say, and turn and almost run back to the till, and the safety to be found behind it.
I’m hot, and my heart is beating too fast. For the rest of the time he sits and drinks his coffee, and I keep casting glances toward Konstantin.
If only I was brave, I might tell him how I felt. If only I wasn’t determined to be sensible and good in this life, I might go to him and tell him to meet me tonight at some hotel. Once there we would tear one another’s clothes off, and I could get to see if the promise of his body is matched by the reality. We could unleash our inner wild demons and just tear the place, and each other, up. I won’t, though, will I? Because unlike Konstantin, who I bet embraces his inner beast, scares me.
“Earth to Cassie.” The annoying nasal tones of Jeff, the manager, interrupt my flight of fancy.
“Sorry, yes?”
“Can you go and clean the stockroom please; it’s a total mess.”
Shit, I can’t Konstantin watch from in the stockroom. I sigh and nod. “Of course.”
With one last glance at the mysterious Russian who I’m becoming more and more hopelessly in lust with, I head into the gloom of the back and the cleaning that awaits me.
Chapter Six
Konstantin
The Soldier Returns
London-Six months ago
To say life has changed is an understatement. Following Yulia’s death, I became more driven than ever. Colder. Harder, yes. But greedier too. More demanding, of myself and those around me. I put together a team, the best. The legitimate business employs some of the top headhunters, business development managers, and asset managers to be found in the developed world. The less legal side … well, that has Vasily and Denis as the hired muscle, and the brains who assists Vasily, that too-pretty for his own good bastard, Bohdan.
I’ve earned incredible, obscene really, amounts of money over the last two years. I’ve taken over and restructured major companies in the UK, US, Russia, and France. If my wealth were known, I’d be on the world’s richest lists, but I don’t need that kind of scrutiny.
Leaning back in my office chair, I look out over the ever-changing London skyline. It’s a strange city, a mix of old beauty and modern ugliness. For real beauty, I like to travel to places like Florence or Avignon. This city is for business. I have homes here, California, and Moscow, all for business. And Paris for pleasure. I retain staff at all my homes, and whilst my business employees are mostly legit these days, I still have a small army of hardened men who will carry out my dirty work for me and who are based in Moscow.
My own head is so stuck into business here in London, I sometimes forget who and what I really am. I’m a soldier, a fighter, a warrior forged in fire, pretending to be a civilized gent wrapped in fine suits. I forgot who and what I was once before, and something precious got taken from me; it’s not a mistake I should make again. It’s easy, however, to get sidetracked into thinking you’re nothing more than a legit businessman when you wine and dine with the British Prime Minister and his mistress.
The empire I’ve built here has eclipsed the murkier empire I started all this with in Moscow.
Currently, I’m working on two different business takeovers, trying to get planning permission from the London authorities for a new business venture, which involves greasing palms and making threats. Not quite the level of threats Vasily makes in Moscow, but threats all the same. Slowly but surely, I’m abandoning the seamier side of business to Vasily and Bohdan, and becoming ensconced in London life, as my legitimate wealth and power grows. Not that I’m above using dark tactics to get what I want, but why risk illegal activities when I can make much more money legally? Ah Britain, de-regulation heaven. There’s a huge chunk of cash to be made in London with its lax ways when it comes to the financial world.
Staring at the files on my desk, I sigh and wonder where this increasing restlessness comes from.
I should be happy. After all, I have it all, right? I’m a powerful, handsome, wealthy man. I fuck supermodels, and I own multiple homes and a fucking airliner. A small one, but an airliner, nonetheless. Yet, I feel empty. Life is … boring. It’s grim, and it should be anything but with the way I live, but the grimness? It comes from my soul, coated in a gray soot of sorrow and rage that I can’t seem to shake no matter how hard I try.
The events of two years ago have indelibly changed me, and they’ve changed my stepson too.
Michael hasn’t been the same since his mother was murdered. The truth of the ugly horror of her death never came out, but it’s bad enough he knows she was murdered. Unlike me, he thankfully hasn’t become hard, but he’s emotionally sloppy. He gives too much to those who don’t deserve it, picking up friends who are only using him, but who he seems to believe are his brothers in some way.
His need for affection, for a family of his o
wn making might be partly my fault. I love him, and I’d die to keep him safe, but I’m not very good at showing affection. I know he thinks I’m cold. He’s wary of me. Why, I don’t know; I’d never hurt him. He’s the one person in this world who could betray me and live to tell the tale.
Yet, somewhere along the way, I’ve messed up with Michael and now? Now, he’s fucked up again, and he’s done so in a way that draws me back into the murky world I have one foot out of. He’s got another girl pregnant. How can he make the same damned mistake twice?
When I found out, I hit him. The only time I’ve ever struck him, and I’m ashamed of it, but fuck me… How can he keep getting women pregnant? He understands biology, the idiot.
Worse, the girl he’s knocked up is an Italian mafia princess. If he marries this girl, we will be tied to the Italian mob in a way I don’t like. If he doesn’t marry her, we will be targeted by the Italian’s in a way I most certainly will not like.
I’m not sure what the fuck the answer is, and it’s giving me a headache. I don’t want to be connected to them. It’s not because they walk on the illegal side, which doesn’t bother me. It’s because they’re the damn Italian mob. They’re too … emotional. In that way Michael will fit right in.
Michael has been one fuck up after another, but who can blame the kid? His dad left him, his mother got murdered, and he got stuck with a cold bastard like me. I do love him, though; even if I find it hard to show. He’s about the only person in this world I care about these days.
Well, him and the pretty little barista at my favorite coffee shop. I’d be pissed at the world if anything happened to her. She’s like bottled sunshine in the shape of a person.
I first frequented the coffee shop a month or two ago, and I loved the homely, warm feel of it. My life doesn’t have a lot of that, and I don’t normally crave it, but for thirty minutes a day, the coffee shop provides some comfort. It’s smells like heaven, and the cakes and shit are as good as the drinks. I’ve had to up my gym sessions since I found the place.
