Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
LARA
T he doorbell rings and I hurry out of the kitchen, spatula and apron in hand. I open my front door to Leila. She has a bottle of wine in one hand and a covered dish in the other.
"You said you wanted to talk, so I assumed we'd be staying up late. I brought my famous sweet potato pie and a bottle of Italy’s finest. At least that’s what the guy minding the shelves at the store told me. One bottle is probably not enough, but we both have to go to work tomorrow, so I had to, very sadly, force myself to only stick to one."
Smiling, I move out of the way as she sweeps in.
"Oh my God! What is that wonderful smell?” she asks heading towards the kitchen.
“It’s just me. I’ve been baking scones,” I reply as I shut the door behind her and hurry back towards the pot simmering on the stove.
She looks at the spread of food on the kitchen table. “Have you been cooking all evening?"
"Yeah."
"Why? There’s enough here to feed a whole country. Wait! Good God, are you pregnant?"
I scrunch my face. "What? Why would your mind even go there? You know I always cook when I’m tense."
"Holy shit, this must be serious stress then," she says, trying to find a space on the crammed table to put her pie on. She goes to the drawer and retrieves a corkscrew. "I guess we better start drinking."
"Alcoholic," I tease.
"At this point, I can't even argue. I'm so harassed at work, last week I considered replacing my coffee with neat vodka."
“What?”
"I'm kidding, calm down."
"You better be," I reply.
She starts to pour the wine into two glasses while I put the lid back on the pot and head over to sit next to her. She pushes over one of the glasses, and then she instantly downs more than half of hers.
"Wow! Is your work that stressful?" I ask.
"How stressful could managing a store be?" she asks. "It's not, it's just... I don't know, I think I'm bored. I want a change. I'm looking for other options, but nothing really appeals to me, but not to worry, I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll become a wine connoisseur or something."
"I think those jobs are mostly for people who have an interest in wine but aren't addicted to it."
"Very funny. Still, we're here to talk about you, not me. Tell me what's wrong."
I take a small sip. The man stacking shelves was not wrong, the wine is good. "You’ll find this hard to believe. I don’t think I quite believe it myself, but I had to show a billionaire client a house today."
Her eyebrows fly upwards. "A billionaire client instructed your agency? Wow!"
"Yeah, I know, but that’s not the unbelievable part."
"What do you mean?" she asks, leaning closer.
I tell her everything, every detail. From start to finish. Afterwards, she stares at me, her mouth wide open. I point towards the swan. “And that’s the swan.”
She walks towards the crystal piece and stands looking at it. “Fuck me. That is some expensive shit,” she says in an awed voice.
"I did warn you it was hard to believe," I joke weakly.
She holds up her hand to silence me and for a few moments, neither of us speaks while she processes my situation. When she finds her voice again, she is shooting from all cylinders. “On a scale of one to ten, how ugly is he?”
I pick up my glass of wine and take another sip. “Actually, he’s quite… dishy.”
She walks back to the table and looks sideways at me. “What’s his name?”
“Ivan Ivanovich.”
Wordlessly, she pulls out her phone and googles him. I wait for it. A few seconds later her scream nearly tears down the walls of my tiny apartment.
"Holy fucking shit!" she yells. "This guy! This guy wants to pay you to sleep with him. That's fucking amazing."
"Leila, I can't believe you! That's not amazing at all. He wants me to prostitute myself to him?—"
She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Are you kidding? I’d sell both of us for a hundred and twenty million dollars."
"That money doesn't go to us. It's for the owner," I correct dryly.
"What percentage does the agency get?" she asks crisply.
"I don’t know. I haven’t calculated it, but it’ll be more than I’ve ever earned in my whole life.”
She laughs incredulously. "Seriously. What are you thinking of? What's the problem here? We've both dated guys who weren't even one percent of the man this guy is, and we gave it up for them. I mean, I love you, you’re my best friend and everything, but honestly, you’re stark raving mad if you don’t take him up on his offer. Jesus, Lara. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Nobody else is going to come along and make this offer again. If you don’t take it, you’ll always regret it."
I stare at her with surprise. "Wow, I really thought you’d?—"
"That I'd have some reservations about sleeping with Russia’s version of freaking Adonis?" she cuts me off impatiently. "Hell, I’d be jumping in there with both feet. What you need to find out is why you have any reservations about going for it. I know I’d do it even if there was no money involved."
I consider her question and don't get a clear answer even though I have not been able to get the intriguing and infuriating man out of my mind successfully for even a few minutes since he made his offer.
“Look. Be honest. If we’d met this guy on one of our girl’s night and he came up to you and asked you to go home with him, what would you have said?”
“Yes,” I admit readily.
“There you go,” she cries triumphantly. “It's just sex, Lara. Both of you are going to have a great time, but this time around, you also get to help your father get out of debt."
"Can you not just casually say that," I say. "He doesn't know I know anything about his debt. I found out by mistake when I was trying to pay one of his bills. It’s not really all that much, but if he knows I know, he'll be ashamed and devastated, and I don't want to do that to him."
"He's not here, is he?" she mocks. "Anyway, I think the problem is bigger than you know. The last time I saw him, it didn’t look like it wasn’t really all that much, your dad looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. You shouldn’t pretend with him, Lara. It’s getting to be a serious problem."
"It's just a bit of gambling," I say defensively.
She raises one eyebrow. "And the drinking?"
"He doesn’t do it during the day,” I say feebly. “And I will intervene, but just not yet. He’s going through a hard time right now, with the business being the way it is. It’ll be better once this period is over."
She looks at me, and then she sighs. "People hide just how bad things are from others—you do know this, right?"
I pick up my glass once again and drain it. "Yes, I do. It’s always been a problem. I can remember one time when I was eight years old and my father had gambled away his whole salary and my mom was so furious she refused to cook any food for him for a whole month. The problem has got worse since mom passed away. I will tackle it, but I just don’t want to go in there all guns blazing, I want to do it right, Leila, and not make it worse.”
"Okay, I trust you. Now, let’s get back to the rich, drop-dead gorgeous asshole. Jeez, I love the idea of him. Can I have him?"
I grin at her. “Yes, if you’re willing to share the money…”
"Oooo yes. You know I will.” She stops and becomes serious suddenly. “Listen, Lara, I know I’m giving you a hard time about saying yes, but you don't have to. You've always been more proper and careful than me, and you’ve never just given yourself to anyone. And I’ve always respected that. It’s an admirable quality. And right now, you're only considering this offer because of the weight it will lift off your dad's shoulders, but I don't think he would want you to do that for him. Especially, if it will mean you will lose something important to you."
I nod slowly as her words grind into my head.
"Maybe, the debts are not as bad as I think and if you keep working hard with your videos and ads soon enough, you'll be rewarded and the money will come pouring in.”
“Oh God, if only.”
“Why not? You know me, always looking for the quick, easy fix to my problems, but you’re not like me. You're always wary about the easy way out. That's probably why you feel so unsettled about this."
"Yeah," I reply. "Maybe."
She pours us both another glass, then she clinks hers against mine. "Let's just chalk this up to some cool story we'll talk about in the future when he dies of an incurable STD and ends up in the news."
At her words, something twists inside of me. I stand and walk to the oven. Opening it I take the scones out. "I don't want him to die. He was—he wasn't rude or horrible."
“I’m hungry.” She gets up and heads over to the stove. "Mmmm, beef stew. You make the best stews."
I finally make my decision. I put the tray of scones down. "I won't do it,” I blurt out.
At my bold announcement, she turns around a piece of beef in her fingers and nods her approval. "Good. That's awesome. You stuck to your principles. Now let’s eat Irish stew and be poor together."
Laughing, I join her by the stove, but halfway around the counter, my phone starts ringing and I freeze. My heart starts pounding. I meet Leila’s gaze. She too is frozen in the act of taking cutlery out of the drawer.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” she whispers, her eyes wide with intrigue.
“He doesn’t have my number,” I whisper back.
“Well, answer it then,” she orders.
I feel incredibly stupid as I scramble around frantically looking for my ringing phone in amongst all the food, but as soon as I note that the caller is not one of my contacts, my heart is in my mouth.
“Hello.”
“Lara.” The way he calls my name… smooth, commanding, unmistakable. And my mind goes blank. I cannot believe he is actually calling me. I thought, no, scratch that, I almost believed it was all an improbable dream. That I would never see him again or even hear from him for that matter.
Leila is making faces so I turn away from her and try to put myself in order. My skin is already prickling with anticipation and excitement, which is mad because I’ve already decided I want absolutely nothing to do with him.
"I'm in an illegal gambling club in Brooklyn," he says.
I wonder why he is telling me this, but I am glad he is, because I can add it to the things I find unattractive about him. I want nothing to do with anything illegal. "Well, uh, good for you. Enjoy yourself. Good night, Mr. Ivanovich," I say, prepared to hang up, but his next words shock me into fearful stillness.
"And I’ve got your father with me."
"What?"
"I'll send you the address. I believe you’re not far away. This is not my kind of place so don’t be long."
The call gets disconnected abruptly and seconds later my phone pings with an address in Brooklyn. I look up at Leila and I feel my world is spinning out of control.
“You’ll have to eat by yourself, Leila.”