Chapter 3
LYRA
The last time I walked through these doors, I was Alexander’s fiancée and the company’s best event coordinator, and even then, I didn’t quite feel like I was supposed to be here.
Now I’m neither of those things. But I’m back, nonetheless, my badge clipped to the lapel of a blazer I had to iron twice this morning because my hands kept shaking from nerves.
The elevator takes me to the thirty-eighth floor, the executive level. The doors open, and I’m immediately face to face with a young woman carrying a tall stack of folders. Her dark hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. There’s an expression of cheerful chaos on her face.
“Oh, sorry! Shoot. I didn’t—” She backs up, putting some distance between us, then peers around the folders with brown eyes that are both warm and sharp. When recognition hits, she nearly drops her whole stack.
“Lyra?”
“Anya?”
“Oh. My. God.” Anya Volkova rushes over and sets the folders on the nearest desk, then turns back to me with a smile so wide, it nearly cracks her face. “You’re here! You’re actually here!”
“Not expecting me?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean… well, Julian said that you were coming. But I thought there was no way you were going to get embroiled with the family again. Not after what happened.”
Anya Volkova is Julian’s half-sister and the youngest of the Volkov siblings. Unlike her oldest brother, Anya is warm, bubbly, and extroverted. I find it hard to believe they’re related.
“Well, what can I say? Your brother made quite a case.”
Did he? Or is it because his hand on the small of my back caused me to overlook how bad this idea actually is?
“Yeah, he can be pretty persuasive.” She puts her hands on her hips and looks around. “God, this place has been a disaster without you.”
“Wait, are you working here now?”
She smiles. “Sure am.”
“Since when?”
“Well, I’ve been working with Julian long distance for a while. But in person? Since he called me last night. He told me there’d been a last-minute staffing change, as he put it.”
“Sophia.”
She winces. “Yeah, I heard all about it. Apparently, she was kind of a you-know-what to you last night at the gala.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, whatever gets you back in the building.”
As we walk, I take in the familiar bustle of the executive level, admiring the sweeping views of Manhattan through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Anyway, I’m working as Julian’s PA. But I’m just part-time for now. This guy Joe is going to handle the other shifts—I met him an hour ago, and he’s really great. Ex-military, zero small talk, makes amazing coffee. Between the two of us, I think we should have the big man covered.”
“Speaking of which,” I say as I scan the floor, half-expecting to spot Julian watching us from afar. “How are things going? I know it’s only the first day since he’s been back, but…”
She purses her lips and nods, making it clear she understands what I’m getting at.
“Julian is Julian. He’s been here since six, he’s on his fourth espresso and already made two interns cry.”
“Yikes.”
“He’s a lot, Lyra. I love him, but he’s a lot.”
I can’t help but smile. Anya reminds me of him—she’s got the same directness, the same no-bullshit attitude. But she has a much lighter personality and is quicker to laugh.
I remember Alexander being dismissive toward her at dinners, talking over her, and treating her like she was nothing more than an annoying kid sister. She never fought back, not out of passivity, but because it seemed like she’d decided he wasn’t worth the effort.
We stop just outside a frosted glass door with J. Volkov—CEO etched into it. The sight is a little surreal. When I worked here the first time, this office had been empty. Julian’s been gone for three years. Knowing there’s now someone on the other side of the imposing door is odd, to say the least.
“For what it’s worth,” Anya says, “I’m really glad you’re here. Julian told me what Alexander and Sophia did to you. It’s disgusting, and I said so to Alexander.”
“You did? When?”
“Last night,” she says. “As soon as I heard.”
I lean forward conspiratorially. “What did he say?”
She scoffs, then rolls her eyes. “He told me to mind my own business. And now I’m working here and he’s not.”
That makes me laugh.
“Anyway,” she says, “he’s waiting for you.” She nods toward the door. “He told me to bring you straight in when you showed up. Good luck!”
With that, she opens the door, gives me a wink, then heads back down the hall to collect her tower of folders.
I stare at the open door for several seconds, still unable to believe I agreed to come back.
After several steeling breaths, I step inside.
Right away, I notice that Julian’s office is nothing like Alexander’s. Alexander’s was all glass and chrome, designed to impress, like a shrine to his success, or, at least, his imagined success.
Julian’s, on the other hand, is simple, elegant, and masculine, with dark wood, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and a large, antique desk. The windows face east, so the morning light cuts across the room in sharp, clean lines.
Julian sits behind the desk, reading something on his phone. His jacket is off; his sleeves rolled to his forearms. The Bratva tattoos are visible now—dark ink winding up both arms. When he looks up, his eyes narrow in a way that is now familiar.
The feeling of his eyes on me causes my pussy to clench, and my heart rate picks up so quickly, I can hear the blood thudding in my ears.
“You’re early,” he says.
“You said eight,” I say, my mouth suddenly dry.
He checks his watch.
“It’s seven fifty-two.”
“Well, on time is late.”
His mouth turns up into that whisper of a smirk, another familiar move.
“Sit.”
I slide into one of the chairs across from his desk.
Julian pushes a small binder toward me. It’s tabbed and professionally created. I reach for it, my fingers brushing his. The contact is brief and incidental, but I gasp lightly as heat creeps up my neck. I try to regain my cool as quickly as possible.
The cover of the binder reads Irina Volkov Foundation: Annual Gala & Benefit Program.
“This is the next major event,” he says, sitting back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. “The foundation hosts it every year. It funds children’s shelters, emergency foster placements. It was my mother’s last grand project before she died.”
“Irina,” I quietly say, repeating the name on the cover. I open the binder carefully, eager to put my eyes somewhere other than on him.
“My mother started it when I was seven,” he says. “She believed that how a society treats its most vulnerable citizens is the most honest and truest measure of its character.” He pauses, then shakes his head. “But you know this already.”
I nod. “Knowing it was part of the job—is part of the job. I know she passed from cancer when you were ten. Your father tried to keep it going. Then he passed. And since then—”
“Since then, it’s been a shadow of what it once was, a way for Alexander to throw parties and look like a philanthropist. He never understood what it was for, never cared.”
“But you do.”
“I understand what she wanted it to be. Whether or not I’m the right person to carry that out is a whole other matter.” His eyes meet mine and stay there. There’s fire in his gaze, whether intentional or not.
“Anyway,” he goes on, “that’s where you come in. If there were any doubts about your abilities, they were put to rest last night. The gala was flawless.”
The vulnerability he shows as he talks about his mother’s foundation catches me off guard. I can sense it’s not a subject he broaches with just anyone.
But the way he’s looking at me is making it very hard to talk about children’s shelters.
Get a grip, Lyra. Focus on the damn work. It’s your first day back, for Christ’s sake.
“The event is in six weeks,” I say, noting the date, once again grateful to have something to focus on other than him. “That’s a tight timeline.”
“I know. That’s why I need someone who doesn’t require a learning curve, someone who’s done the job already, an expert.”
“Flattery,” I say with a small smile.
“Fact.”
He pushes out of his seat and comes around the desk. I catch his scent—cedar and coffee—and I want to lean into him, to touch him.
My heart’s racing faster. Why is he so goddamn close?
“There are some details that I wanted to draw to your attention,” he says.
He leans over me and flips through a few pages. “The donor breakdown. Third column.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
But I don’t see it, not really. I’m staring at the page without reading a single word because his breath is grazing the side of my neck, and I’m so turned on that I can hardly think straight.
“Learn those names. I want you to be intimately acquainted with them.”
He stays there for what feels like forever, as if he knows what he’s doing.
Finally, mercifully, he pulls away and returns to his side of the desk, easing back into his chair.
“There are a few other things I want to go over, as well.”
“Of course.”
We work through the binder together, discussing venue options, donor lists, program structure—all the important details. Julian is sharp and surprisingly knowledgeable about the finer points of event planning.
Every time he leans forward to gesture toward the binder, I find myself acutely aware of his hands. They’re big and rough, and there’s a scar across his left knuckle that I want to ask him about but don’t. I catch myself licking my lips as he speaks, his voice alone making me hungry for him.
“Focus,” I mutter to myself when he steps outside to take a call. “You cannot be thinking about your new boss like this.”
But I am. And I can’t seem to stop.
I do my best when he returns, making notes in the margins of the pages. I ask intelligent questions. Outwardly, I’m the picture of professionalism.
But inside, I’m fucking on fire.
I’m mid-sentence about seating logistics when the office door opens and Anya leans in, her expression apologetic.
“Yes?” Julian asks.
“Sorry to bother you,” she says. I have a feeling that she has bad news. “It’s Alex.”
Julian narrows his gaze. “What about him?”
“He’s here, and he wants to see you.”