But without Eva, it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. None of it mattered.

  I tried so hard not to watch the video.

  So I spent three days doing nothing but watching it.

  Chapter 18

  Her

  I HAVEN’T BEEN BACK to the economics class for a couple of weeks. Now it’s definitely time for a return. I wear my nicest cream suit with a peach silk shirt.

  When I walk into the class, everybody turns around. They all burst into loud applause and shout. I don’t understand. Then I see, they were all huddled around a laptop. And, of course, they’re all watching That Video.

  Everybody’s smiling, grinning, clapping. Everybody except him. Right in the back. A dark glower the weight of an ax on his brow, his eyes are on fire. If he’s really not a gangster, he sure as hell looks like one.

  He barges through the room, shoving his way through the class. I back out of the door. Not to escape, I know I can’t do that. Just so we have some space together. Even if it’s on the echoing landing over the foyer.

  I start, “I came to tell you…”

  “It was Armand, wasn’t it?”

  “No, Valentin. It was me. I made him do it.”

  “He thought I wouldn’t find out.” He takes a step toward me and I step back, instinctively. He snarls, “I know people in the business. I got a call from a producer. A slimy rat who had wanted to be my musical director forever. He told me about the video. Sent me a link where I could see it.”

  “Armand is not to blame.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I fired him.” I fall back against the wall. Armand said that was what would happen, but I didn’t believe it. “Now my business is in ruins. My life is in ruins. Everything is a wreck. I wish I’d never met you.”

  I had told myself I would be strong. I really can’t give in to Valentin. I have to make him understand.

  “I love you, Valentin, but I can’t step back into the cage. Don’t you see? It was you who set me free. You can’t lock me back in again.”

  “All I know is that I need you. I have to have you, Eva. Now that I found you, I can’t be without you. You have to come back to me.” He holds out a hand. “Come back to me. Come to the apartment.”

  “I can’t, Valentin.” Even though I know that my choice is going to be between either Valentin or amortization and yield. At least I know how to fight with Daddy.

  “Come with me.”

  “No, Valentin. You fired Armand because he helped me. He didn’t mean for the video to get out. Neither of us did. But it happened. And it’s given me opportunities.” His face darkens. “Opportunities that I’m going to take advantage of, Valentin. If you can’t cope with that, well, I hate it, but I understand.”

  “I will cope.”

  “Can you?”

  “I don’t know.” A cloud passes across his face. His fists bunch. Then, “Yes. Yes, Eva. For you, I can cope with anything. Come back with me now.”

  “Give Armand his job back.”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “No. But I do. Show me, Valentin.”

  “Come with me. I’ll call him later.” The pull is so great, but I know myself now.

  “Call him, Valentin. Do that first.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Yes, I do. But it’s what I want. I want to hear you call him before I come with you. I need to know that I can do what you tell me without thinking, but that I won’t be giving up myself.” I stand firm. “Call him.”

  I’m proud of myself. We’ll be a team, or we’ll be nothing.

  The cloud on his face darkens. As he’s calling Armand, I’m thinking, Daddy will disapprove so much.

  But I want him. I really want him. So bad I could choke.

  He chases me up the stairs, up to the glass box.

  His playlist has started up before I’m even in the room. The box. The world-class view, the whole of Manhattan spread out beneath me, it means nothing.

  I want him to tell me what to do. To boss me. I can’t even allow the other thought into words, but I know I want that, too. I want the sting. The burn. That shock. I want to feel his hand.

  I want that shock. That dominance.

  I back away from him, around the glass walls of the room. His shoulders lower as he prowls after me.

  I shake my head. He quickens. I can’t keep the smile off my face completely. Maybe because I’m moving backward, perhaps it’s because I’m so close to the window, but I get as the grid of the city rotates far below me, I have an unsettling sense of vertigo, like I might lose my balance at any moment.

  He advances, beckoning with his hand for me to come to him. I shake my head and speed up. Then I squeal as he reaches out. Grabs my hair. My eyes widen and water as he holds me still.

  And he comes to me. Looms over me. Holds my hair tight. And high, so that I’m almost on tiptoe.

  And he slaps my ass.

  “Lift the skirt.”

  I try to shake my head. He spanks me again. “The skirt.”

  I tug the hem of my skirt. “It’s too tight to pull it up high.”

  His eyes flash. “Pull it. Even if it rips, pull it all the way up. Up to your waist.”

  I do as I’m told. The air is cold on my bare ass.

  “I’m feeling exposed,” I’m right by the window.

  He laughs. I don’t understand. “The windows are one way reflective. No one can see in.”

  I can see everyone, but no one can see me. I kind of wish I’d known that before. My Valentin is a tricky man. Always ready with a surprise.

  On my bare, pale flesh, above my cream silky stockings, he slaps my cheek again. The sting makes me jump and wince. And the buzz, the afterburn is delicious.

  He pulls my hair back, yanking my face up. His mouth fastens on mine. Big and overwhelming, he takes what he wants. Devours me. Pulls me to him.

  “Open your shirt.”

  My fingers fumble with the buttons. He just reaches up and rips down through them all. The little white pearl buttons flip and ping away like flying fish. The air cools my hot breasts as they heave, now only covered by the laciest and tiniest bra I could find to contain my proud, generous breasts.

  I realize that he has gotten me to think differently about my body now. As he tears the front of the bra open.

  “Dance.”

  I shake my head.

  “Dance like you did in that video.”

  I shake my head again.

  That gets me a slap. And a growl. And a grin.

  “Now dance.”

  The track is starting.

  I’ll do it for him. I want that so much. But I want more from him first.

  I yelp and pull up my knee as I jump from the next slap. Then one more.

  So, with my skirt scrunched up around my waist, red marks glowing on both the cheeks of my ass, with my shirt and bra ripped and hanging open, and my tits swinging, apparently for all of New York to see, the beats pump through me and the feeling that I had dancing for that video comes back to me.

  I raise up my hands. Bend my knees and swing them side to side. The wanton attitude, the dirty thoughts I had while I strutted across the set, all come flooding back. I rotate my hips. Filthy slow. Twerk my ass. Shaking my tits.

  This time, it’s turbo charged. I’m looking out the window. As I stretch up my arms, twirl my fingers, and start the moves, I really can’t believe that I can’t be seen up here.

  Then I remember how Valentin would be if we could be seen and I realize it must be true, what he told me about the glass being one way. Still, it gives me an extra kinky buzz, looking down to see everyone in Manhattan, whether they can really see me or not.

  And Valentin is going to have to get over me being seen.

  A hungry look in his eye lets me know what’s coming.

  I dance away as he steps toward me. I keep moving. Faster as he keeps on coming.

  “Drop your panties.”

  I skip away. But he catches me. Of course. His spank is right on target. Hard enough that he winces from the sting in his hand. I twerk at him for another. And I get it. Then I slip my panties down with the wreck of my skirt. Step out of them. He chases me to the window. He grabs me from behind. Pushes his hand up between my thighs.

  I’m splayed with my legs wide apart and my hands on the window. I sag as his thumb presses up inside me and his fingers tease and taunt my bud. He uses his other hand to pull my hair. Turn my head. Pull me to him to take a filthy, wet kiss.

  While I’m still moaning and jigging from the torment of his thumb, he grabs my hips and lifts me, flipping me over till I’m upside down. He hangs my thighs over his shoulders and buries his face in my wet channel.

  I pull at his zipper and haul out the great, hot trunk of him and plunge my mouth on it. I feel like it’s going to choke me before I’ve got a suck on even the bulb. But, with patience and determination, I find that I can get the thick body of him all the way over to the back of my throat. My tongue is pressed hard and my lips stretch wide, but eventually, I’m able to swallow most of him into the warm, wet massage of my throat.

  He works me and plays me with his lips and his tongue until I’m trembling, helpless and buzzing like a firetruck for the third and then the fourth time. Before I can return the favor, though, even though I tasted the delicious dark tang of his precum, and I felt him start to throb at least twice. Or was it three times? I’m feeling kind of vague now.

  So he drops me back to my feet, still facing the world, wet and in a nothing but shoes, stockings, and a few shreds of what was a really nice shirt, I’m splayed against the window, leaning on my outstretched hands and looking up Broadway while he splits me wide from behind. He stretches and reams me, slamming harder and harder. My knees give way, and my weight is all suspended on his hard rod.

  When he thickens, vibrates and finally erupts, I’m too lost in my own upturning ocean to hear anything but the guttural of my name from deep in his chest.

  Curled up and drowsy, I murmur as he tells me, “I love you, my beautiful dancer. you are everything to me.”

  “I love you, too, Valentin.”

  Epilogue

  Her

  HE WANTS TO KNOW, and I have to tell him. “Daddy wants me to join his business. And it’s a good business. He worked hard to get it to where it is, and I don’t blame him for wanting to see it carry on. There’s more to it than just that, though.

  “I don’t think that he wants me to fly the nest. He lost his brother, then Mama, and I’m all he’s got. And, plus, he’s always been very overprotective of me. After Mama left, he waited at the school gates for me, almost every single day. I didn’t realize until much later that he was working extra hours at night, often until two or three in the morning, to make sure he had time to spend with me in the late afternoons and early evenings.

  “He’s lost too much. I understand. Really, I do. But I have to have my own life.

  “But that’s a part of why he’s kind of anti-Russian. His brother got involved with some bratva business. Wound up going to jail, taking the whole rap. Nearly brought Daddy’s business into it, too.

  “The worst of it was that momma had always taken a shine to Uncle Mike. She blamed Daddy for not being more supportive. I think it was kind of an excuse, to be honest, but she left Daddy to start a relationship with Uncle Mike.”

  I never saw Valentin look shocked before this moment. “While he was in jail?”

  I nod. “Still going on. And he’s still in jail. I’m not so sure how much of what Uncle Mike told us about all of that was true, to be honest. All of what he said he didn’t know? I’m not so sure. I think he was into the scam more than he let on to us.”

  Epilogue

  Him

  I INSISTED THAT EVA take me to meet her father. As soon as I saw how reluctant she was, I immediately became more determined. When she called him, from hearing her end of the conversation, I could see how difficult a man he would be. I had an inkling of what objection he would raise, and it turned out that I was right.

  As well as being prejudiced against Russians, he didn’t want to let his little girl go. Well, I couldn’t blame the man for wanting to keep his daughter under his own protection. For that much, I respected him.

  He welcomes me with Eva into the office of his catering business. It overlooks a huge, industrial-scale kitchen.

  “Mr. Carral, it’s good of you to see me.”

  “You are bratva, Mr. Vasilichkov. I can smell it on you. I don’t want you having anything to do with my daughter.”

  “I know that what you want more than anything is for Eva to be happy,” I tell him, “that’s what we both want. I will give her everything she wants. I can make her happy, Mr. Carral. I know that you wouldn’t want to stand in the way of that.”

  “Don’t try to schmooze me, bratva. I know what you are about.”

  “Daddy,” before I can stop her, Eva jumps in, “please. Hear Valentin out. He’s an honorable man.”

  “That’s one thing you know about gangsters. They’re always ‘men of honor,’ at least by their own standards.”

  I’m getting impatient, but this is all just part of the test. I know that he will have told her, if I really care for her, I’ll make an effort with her father. I know the kind of speech he will have made. I know that’s how he will frame it.

  Whatever I say or do, I can only come out of this in the wrong. My task here is not to be right, only to prove that I’m willing to do what it takes to get along with him. And, however much he tries to insult me, I will smile and take it. He’s Eva’s father.

  It takes time. I have to visit the man three times, let him take us to dinner twice, listen to his long stories, all of which seem to have a Russian villain, but in the end, he gives his blessing, and agrees to give her away at the wedding.

  I love Eva, completely. He’s part of her. Though, I have to say, in the back of my mind is an instinct that I will have to repress. Seeing the man, knowing that he’s part of her, I’m thinking, if I can ever find that part, I’m going to strangle it.

  If it were my choice, I would never see the man again, but I know how important he is to her, so I will suffer anything—almost anything—to get along with him, and to make her happy.

  All the fun I can get out of the family connection is, at every opportunity I get, I take him aside or catch him in a corner, and confidentially offer him red and blue Beluga caviar. “Special price,” and I touch the side of my nose.

  Once he let slip that he was angry with a manager. I said I could have the man, ‘taken care of’ if he wanted. That left him red-faced.

  Epilogue

  Her

  The wedding was simple, short and formal, but it really was wonderful. Daddy came to give me away, and he was graceful. Armand served as Valentin’s best man.