by Jennie Lucas
No, Kassius hadn’t built his empire because he wanted luxury. He’d wanted power. He’d wanted revenge.
Occasionally, however, the luxury that could be purchased with unlimited money did bring unexpected pleasures. Such as right now.
“Are you sure?” Standing in front of the designer boutique’s three-way mirror, Laney looked anxiously back at her deliciously ample backside in the tight, short red dress.
Sitting on a nearby sofa, holding a flute of expensive champagne brought to him by a salesgirl, Kassius stared at her. “You are exquisite.”
And she was. The clingy red dress revealed the shape of her hourglass figure to perfection. Kassius couldn’t look away from the glory of her wide hips, tiny waist and—he took a quick, shallow breath—those full breasts—
Frowning, Laney turned back to look at herself in the mirror, her lovely heart-shaped face uncertain, her long dark hair tumbling down her shoulders. She bit her full pink lip. “My grandmother would chew me out if she ever saw me walk out of the house in this.” Her cheeks turned pink as she looked at the short hem. “I’m embarrassed just to let you see me in it!”
Kassius set down the barely tasted champagne. Rising to his feet, he walked a half circle around her. And he smiled.
Money was magic. It had made this all possible.
Designer boutiques and salons had opened just for them, eager for the patronage of the ultrawealthy, mysterious Kassius Black.
Laney had been reluctant to let him buy her anything. So he’d persuaded her with military precision, using logic. First, he’d bought her a replacement phone. That had been relatively easy, because after all, he owed her one. But he’d replaced her old, cheap phone with a top-of-the-line smartphone at ten times the price.
Next, he’d taken her to the most famously exclusive jeweler in Monaco to buy her an engagement ring. As she’d browsed the plain gold bands, he’d quietly purchased in her size a twenty-carat diamond engagement ring set in platinum. He’d overridden her protests that she didn’t need anything so expensive. Of course she needed it. She was going to be his bride.
He’d made sure she didn’t know how much it cost, however. If she’d known, she would have certainly rebelled at the thought of wearing a sparkling rock on her finger that cost approximately the same as three average houses.
After buying the ring, they’d gone for an elegant lunch near the harbor overlooking the yachts, a slight respite before he’d taken Laney to a salon, where a world-famous hairstylist had left his own New Year’s Day house party in Nice to trim and style Laney’s dark, lustrous mane. As a manicurist and pedicurist buffed her nails, a makeup artist shaped her brows, adding just the right shade of lipstick, eye shadow and creamy blush.
Laney had never been pampered in quite this way before. As far as he could tell, she’d never been pampered at all. Obviously. She’d been a virgin who’d—incredibly—believed herself to be frigid until he’d seduced her. She’d been unnoticed by men till now and spent all her time working, providing for her family.
After the salon, she no longer put up a fight. He took her to expensive designer boutiques, buying her clothes, shoes, handbags, an entirely new wardrobe, replacing her thrift store bargains with the chic, sophisticated outfits her new life would require. He’d particularly enjoyed selecting her lingerie. But this—
He lost his breath looking at his bride-to-be.
“Leave us,” he said hoarsely.
The two salesgirls and boutique manager hovering in the background glanced at each other uncertainly. Kassius turned to the manager with a cold glare.
“Now.”
The manager gave a swift nod and clapped his hands at the two salesgirls, who fled before he followed them out. A second later, they heard the bell of the door as they went out into the cold twilight.
Yes, Kassius thought. Money was magic.
As he turned back smugly to Laney, she was staring at him in disbelief.
“Does everyone always do what you say?”
He came closer to her, his eyes intent. He kissed her bare shoulder, brushing back soft dark tendrils of her hair. “Yes.”
He felt her tremble beneath his touch.
“You can’t be...thinking that we...” Laney sounded breathless as she looked up at him with big brown eyes. He saw the quick rise and fall of her breasts. But Kassius was past thinking anything.
Pushing her back against the three-way mirror, he roughly kissed her, cupping her magnificent breasts through the tight red dress.
“Not here,” she breathed, struggling. “They might walk in...”
“They won’t,” he whispered huskily, his lips brushing against her ear. “Benito is no doubt entertaining them outside in his lamentable French.”
“It’s rude kicking them out of their own store, out into the cold after we dragged them here on New Year’s Day...”
“They’re well paid to wait and not to see or hear anything.”
“But if they do—”
“Then let them hear,” he said coldly. “Let the whole world hear, and see, and wish you were theirs. Let them be jealous you are mine.”
He kissed her roughly, and with a sigh of surrender, she fell back against the mirrored wall. He was rock hard for her, his body straining, as he ran his hands along her hips in the red dress, her bare thighs, the cleavage of her full breasts pressing against the tight fabric.
He needed her. Now.
Roughly, he yanked her short red dress up to her hips, revealing her lace panties.
Kissing her passionately, he lifted her bare legs to wrap around his hips, her back against the mirror. Unzipping his trousers, he roughly yanked her panties aside and without asking permission, he thrust himself inside her with a groan, sheathing himself to the hilt.
She gasped, clinging to him, the tight red dress now pushed up to her waist. Her eyes were closed, her head tossed back with pleasure. She swayed her hips as he pushed inside her, thrusting hard and fast until he heard her cry out, until he felt her shake. Hearing that, feeling it, he exploded inside her.
For a moment, he just held her tight against the wall, her thighs still wrapped around his hips, and she held him. Then, slowly, the world intruded. He released her, and she slid back down to stand in front of him. He zipped up his trousers, smoothed her lace panties and pulled her dress back modestly over her thighs.
“I guess we’ll have to buy the dress now.” Reaching out, he rubbed smeared lipstick off her chin.
Self-consciously, she touched her skin, then looked up at him accusingly. “Whose fault is that?”
“Yours.”
“Mine?”
“For being too desirable.” He looked down at her seriously. “I can hardly wait to marry you.”
“When did you have in mind?” she said tartly. “You’ve taken charge of everything today. Are you planning to drag me from here straight to a justice of the peace?” She looked down at the expensive red dress, which hadn’t even been paid for yet but was already wrinkled. “Is this my wedding dress?”
He gave a low laugh. “We have dinner reservations at Le Coq d’Or. We can talk about wedding plans over wine.”
“Le Coq d’Or?” Her lips parted. “How on earth did you get reservations there? I heard the comtesse complain about how impossible it is to get in.”
He shrugged. “I called them today and gave them my name. They suddenly had space.”
“You always get everything you want, don’t you?” She sounded grumpy. “You never even have to wait.”
“I do sometimes,” he said grimly, thinking of the plans for revenge he’d first formulated twenty years before. At her searching glance, he gave her a bland smile. “Shall we tell the boutique staff it’s safe to come back?”
Ten minutes later, Benito and their sedan’s driver were stacking yet more of their shopping bags into the trunk. Kassius held the car door open for Laney, who was now wearing a long, expensive, belted black coat over her red dress, which he’d insisted she
should wear, to keep off the cool air.
“You want to drive?” She looked surprised. “But it’s a lovely evening. Le Coq d’Or is just up the hill. Why not walk?”
“Just up the hill?” He snorted. “It’s a half-hour walk.”
“So?”
He looked pointedly at her feet, now shod in wickedly expensive stilettos. “In those?”
Her ankle turned slightly on the sidewalk, proving his point. She regained her balance and glared at him. “So?”
“Most women I know complain if they have to walk more than a hundred meters in shoes like that. And they’re more accustomed to wearing them.”
Laney tossed her head, looking offended as she retorted, “Most of your other women were probably not accustomed to working sixteen to twenty hours a day on their feet.”
What was she trying to prove? He looked at her, amused. “True.”
“So.” Her chin lifted, and her eyes glittered. “We’re walking.”
Kassius shrugged. “As you wish.” He gave his bodyguard and driver a nod, and they got into the sedan and drove on. Tossing her head, she started walking with a determined stride. Ten steps later, she wobbled in her stiletto heels and had to grab his arm.
“You sure you’re up for this?” he inquired.
“It’s your fault if I have trouble.”
“Because I bought you the shoes?”
“Because you bought me such an obscenely huge engagement ring.” She looked down at it. “It weighs five pounds. No wonder my balance is off.”
Kassius gave a low laugh. Laney fascinated him. She seemed to be so many women, all at once. At the ball, she’d looked like an enchanted princess from a fairy tale. That morning when he’d proposed to her, she’d looked like a bohemian college student in her vintage rock T-shirt and red jeans—vibrant, chaotic, alive.
Now...in the sleek belted black coat and stilettos...with the red dress beneath...
He shuddered with desire, already wanting her again. He took her hand, looking down at her. “We could skip dinner,” he said huskily. “And go back to the penthouse.”
She stared up at him. “Seriously?”
“Why not?”
“Are you trying to starve me?”
“Can’t have that.” He looked appreciatively at her curves and sighed with regret. “All right. Dinner first.”
Her triumphant expression lasted only about ten minutes, which was when the road started to go sharply uphill. Soon, she was wincing with every step.
“I’ll call my driver.”
“Why?” she said through gritted teeth. “Are you tired?”
She was determined, he had to give her that. But he didn’t understand why she was being so stubborn about this. “Just kick your shoes off and walk barefoot.”
“I’m fine,” she panted, forcing her lips into a bright, fake smile. “Six-inch stiletto heels are comfortable to me. Just like fuzzy bunny slippers!”
When they were two blocks away from the restaurant on the Boulevard du Jardin Exotique, she really started to stumble. The edges of her skin, where they were crammed into the shoes, looked red and swollen. The back of her ankle had started to bleed. It was too much. With a low growl, Kassius swept her up into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m not letting you kill yourself for the sake of your pride, you little fool.” Ignoring her weak struggles, he carried her the rest of the way down the block to the expensive, exclusive restaurant with vast windows overlooking the Monte Carlo district of Monaco and all of the bay.
“Bonsoir,” he said pleasantly to the valets and doorman, who were goggling at them. The staff at Le Coq d’Or had no doubt seen a great deal of peculiar behavior they were paid to overlook from their wealthy, spoiled clientele, but apparently this was a new one, even for them.
“Put me down!” Laney hollered, then proceeded to curse Kassius roundly and colorfully until the other men’s eyes widened farther still. She cursed him until he set her down and her feet actually touched the ground, when she visibly winced and her cheeks turned pale with pain.
Now Kassius was the one to curse. Getting down on one knee before her, he yanked off her stiletto heels, one after the other. “Laney, what are you trying to prove?”
“Nothing!”
“These aren’t hiking boots, you little fool.”
“I know, but—”
“But what?”
Her cheeks burned, and she looked away.
And he suddenly knew.
“You’re tougher than any of them, Laney. Better than any woman I’ve ever been with. Is that what you’re trying to prove? Well, you are.” He handed the shoes to her. “And for the record, a million times sexier, too.”
“I wasn’t trying to prove anything.” But her pale cheeks turned red, and he knew he’d guessed correctly. She mumbled, “And I am not sexier.”
Looking down, he said softly, “Want me to prove how much I want you? Right here and now?”
“You wouldn’t,” she breathed, her eyes big and incredibly appealing. But by the nervous look in her face, she was remembering their earlier encounter at the designer boutique. And probably wondering if he intended to take savage possession of her body right in front of the restaurant, with the doorman and valets looking on.
“But I can’t have you faint from hunger.” He gave her a wicked grin. Leaning forward, he whispered, “Not with what I’ve got planned for later.”
Her eyes went big, and she licked her lips, which just made him want to kiss her more.
It was amazing to Kassius how even though he’d just made love to her an hour ago, he already wanted her again. He wondered if his desire for her would ever be sated, and doubted it. But that would just have to wait until they got back to the penthouse. Tucking her stilettos into her expensive new handbag, he led Laney into the expensive restaurant.
The maître d’ spotted him, and his expression became obsequious. “Monsieur Black, welcome. We have your table ready.” The man’s glance fell to Laney’s bare feet, and for a moment his mien faltered, but then his smile reasserted itself. “May I take your coats? This way, if you please, monsieur, mademoiselle.”
Laney held Kassius’s hand tightly as they walked through the crowded restaurant, past the elegant diners and buzz of polyglot conversation in French, German, Russian, Italian, English, Japanese and others. Le Coq d’Or was internationally famous, and well-heeled patrons often flew here on their private jets for a hard-to-get dinner reservation. But conversation seemed to stop as they passed by.
She clung to his hand, and whispered, “They’re looking at me.”
He glanced back at her indulgently. “Because you’re beautiful.”
“Because I’m barefoot. They think I’m a hick.”
“You are with me. You can be whatever you want to be.”
You can be whatever you want to be.
His own words brought him up short. For a moment, Kassius was distracted by a flash of light through the wide windows, of the lowering twilight sun sparkling across the silver sea. A memory floated back to him of his mother’s raspy words as she lay dying.
“You can be whatever you want to be, darlin’.” He could still hear her low laugh. She’d never lost her lilt, the drawl of the American South. “Believe it or not, my own parents wanted me to stay home and be a political wife in a big mansion.”
“So why didn’t you?” he’d asked her then in a low voice, heartsick over her illness and nearly overwhelmed by grief and rage at what he’d just discovered about his long-absent father.
“I wanted adventure,” Emmaline Cash had whispered. “And I got it.” Smiling through her tears, his mother squeezed his arm weakly. “It’s the secret of life. You can be whatever you want to be, darlin’. As long as you’re willing to pay the price...” Her words ended in fierce coughing. From her bed, she’d motioned around the tiny, sagging apartment on the edges of Istanbul. “You don’t have to settle for what others want
for you or for the life you’re born in. You can decide.”
He’d looked down at his mother’s tiny, fragile form beneath the blankets, feeling like he’d been kicked between the ribs. She was too young to die. She’d barely lived.
“Do you have any regrets, Mama?” he’d choked out.
She gave him a trembling smile. “I wish I could live long enough to see the man you’ll be, the family you’ll have someday.” Her smile abruptly faded. When she spoke again, her voice was a low rasp he’d never heard before. “And I wish the first time your father came up with excuses why he couldn’t marry me I’d let myself see him for the liar he was, rather than make excuses. If I’d only been brave enough to leave him right then and there, our lives could have been so different! Maybe I could have found another man who would have loved us. Cherished us. But I was so sure—” Her dark eyes shone with sudden anguish as she put her hand over his. “If someone ever shows you the truth of who they are, if they lie or cheat or betray you, promise me you’ll believe them the first time!” Her voice broke on a sob. “Don’t destroy your life, or your child’s, wishing and hoping and pretending they’ll change—”
“Kassius?” Laney said.
He abruptly focused on her, coming back to the present as they were seated at a prime table by the windows. Numbly, he helped her with her chair then took his own seat as the waiter handed them menus and poured their water.
She looked at him thoughtfully. “So I can be anything I want to be, huh? How about prima ballerina, or a circus lion tamer?”
Kassius gave a small smile. “Why not?”
He wondered what she would say if he told her about his past, told her what had driven him to become the man he was today. She was dying to know. She, like every woman. Like every business competitor or shareholder. They all claimed they needed to know the particulars of his past, as if that could be beneficial, as if that would inspire trust and cooperation.
