Not a good time to interrupt.
But I don’t have time to spare.
I go stand next to him, remaining quiet and looking out at the lake.
“What happened?” Ravil almost always speaks to us in English. When I moved here from Russia to join his cell, I didn’t speak a word. This was how he made sure we learned—by forbidding our mother tongue until we were fluent in English.
“Nothing. We took care of it.”
He slides a speculative look my way, but says nothing. Ravil is mild-mannered. Cool-tempered. Smart as hell. Not a man you should ever underestimate or cross. I’m fortunate he gave me a place here when I had to leave Moscow. I’ve tried to learn everything I can from him, emulate his ways. I’m rough around the edges, but growing more sophisticated every day.
I shove my hands in my pockets. Apologizing doesn’t come easy to me. I can’t think of the last time I did, actually. But I owe Ravil mad respect. “I should have asked your permission to leave town,” I say, my gaze dropping to the face of his cherubic infant as the baby’s eyelids flutter closed.
“Yes,” Ravil agrees.
Fuck. Nikolai was right. I owe him big time for telling me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Forgiven.” He says it easily, while still making it clear my transgression required forgiveness.
I take a breath but can’t think what to say next. Do I ask for belated permission? Maybe I should, but I can’t bring myself to even offer the possibility of me not going. I have a slice of pure heaven waiting for me in California, and I intend to suck all the juice out of it before I break things off.
I start to tell him this is my last trip, but I can’t make that promise, either.
“You’re figuring things out.” Ravil speaks for me.
For some inexplicable reason, my heart starts thudding. Ravil just spoke aloud what I’ve been pretending to myself I had already decided.
But what is there to sort out? Kayla is in Los Angeles. I’m here. What’s more, I have plans to go back to Russia when things cool down. I’ve saved my money to start my own enterprise there. Not going back isn’t an option—my mother is all alone there.
But he’s right—I clearly haven’t made my mind up yet, or I wouldn’t be going this weekend. My one-month arrangement with Kayla was over last week.
“Yes,” I agree.
“Let me know when you do.” He turns and walks away, leaving me sweating.
Fuck.
Another reason to conclude my adventure with Kayla this weekend.
And yet as I walk out the door to head for the airport, I’m almost certain I won’t.
Kayla
I sip champagne in the lobby of the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, positioned just inside the front doors, so I can be seen by everyone who comes in. I’m in character, playing my part, so I ignore the notion that I don’t belong here. That this place is for the rich and famous, and I’m just a wanna-be actress from Wisconsin.
I haven’t seen anyone famous come in yet, but it occurs to me that hanging out here might be a strategy to get “discovered.” You never know, right? That’s what we tell ourselves, anyway. Me and my roommates and the rest of the unemployed actors in L.A.
My phone rings, and I pull it out of my purse, swiping across the screen when I see it’s my agent.
“Hi, Lara.”
“Kayla, listen, clear your schedule for this weekend. I might be able to get you an audition. I’m working on it.”
This weekend. Fuck.
On weekends, I now belong to Pavel. But this is my career. It has to come first. “Yeah, okay,” I tell her breathlessly. “What’s it for?”
“It’s a new television series directed by Blake Ensign, and I think you’d be perfect for one of the parts. Oh—I have to take this call. I’ll talk to you soon.” Lara ends the call in her typical important-agent fashion, even though she’s not that important. She’s definitely not the agent to the A-listers. Or even the B-listers. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be my agent, would she?
But, whatever. I’m lucky I have an agent. It’s more than most could say.
I sigh and put my phone back in my purse and drink some more champagne to calm my nerves. Pavel, my bad-boy Russian dom, will understand about tomorrow—if the audition even happens.
At least I think he will. The truth is, he may be my dom, we may do the most intimate of things each mind-blowing weekend, but we’re still strangers. I say dom—not boyfriend—because there’s nothing “boy” about Pavel, even though he’s probably the same age I am. And no, I don’t know his real age. There are a million things I don’t know about Pavel. Like what he actually does for a living. Or what made him a sadist—if such things can be defined. They probably can’t. I don’t know what made me a submissive. I just know it turns me on more than all the love-making I experienced before I went to Black Light.
Just the thought of the things he’ll do to me tonight sends a shiver up my spine.
I’m in a black cocktail dress—not as slinky or sexy as I’d like, but it has a built-in collar and an open cutout for my cleavage, which I think is hot. I hope Pavel feels the same way.
I recross my legs. I’m wearing fancy black thigh-highs, the kind with the seam that runs up the back and ends with a tiny satin bow a few inches from my ass. I changed my outfit fifteen times trying to get it right, and I’m still unsure about my choice. I feel slightly like a call-girl waiting for her john. Which is hot in a cosplay kind of way, but it might be a little too close to the truth.
Not that Pavel pays me. The first weekend he flew out to see me—the weekend after we were paired at Black Light, an exclusive BDSM club where we met, he held up a wad of bills before we parted. “This is not payment,” he said in his sexy accent. He manages to be stern and commanding, even when giving me a gift. “Don’t think that for even a second. This is spending money because I won’t be around to take you out the rest of the week.”
I only blinked twice before I took the money, accepting it with Pavel’s kiss to my temple. I’m barely scraping by as a bit-part and commercials actress who does party promotions and light bartending to pay the rent. I’d like to be plucky and proud and tell him I don’t need his money, but I’m really not that person. I’m definitely the “tend and befriend” kind of survivor. Which means I accept help when it comes. When I’d unrolled the bills later at home, I’d been shocked to find it wasn’t a few twenties. It was a wad of hundreds—nine to be exact.
He repeated that the next three weekends we were together, slipping large amounts of money into my purse or pressing them into my hand. “Not payment,” he would say sternly in that sexy Russian accent, daring me to contradict him.
A bolt of excitement strikes like lightning the moment he walks through the glass doors. Power radiates from the man, contradicting his youth and street tattoos. His neatly trimmed beard adorns a square jaw and chin with a dimple in the center. He would be Hollywood handsome except for the distinct air of danger around him. More than one head turns to see who is coming in. It’s L.A., so there are famous people everywhere—especially at the Four Seasons, and Pavel looks like he’s one of them.