Operation Heartbreaker

Operation

HEART

BREAKER

All You Need is Love

Christine Thomas

Operation Heartbreaker

Christine Thomas

KINDLE EDITION

Editing: Christine Hochberger

Translation: Kerstin Kellis

Cover design: ©OrangeShell

Cover Photo: Shutterstock

Copyright © 2015 C. Thomas, Cologne

All rights reserved.

www.heartbeat-books.blogspot.com

Please respect this author’s hard work! No section of this book may be reproduced  in any way (photocopy, micro image or other processes) without written permission by the author, or distribute or copy it by use of electronic systems.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created by the author’s imagination and are used fictiously.

This novel is for one of my dearest friends,

Melissa.

Thank you for everything,

you are the best!

Prologue

Seattle Times – Entertainment section – All U Can Ask

Dear readers out there,

This is your Ally. Today, I have a special tidbit for you. You all know him, love him and dream of him at night. He is the hottest hunk at the New York Stock Exchange and a darling of the gossip columns. You have seen him hundreds of times attached to the hips of Hollywood stars like Lindsay Lohan and Rihanna, imagining yourselves in their place. Everybody wants him nobody gets him, not even for the briefest of statements. Who am I talking about? Well, Mr. Bad Boy, Viktor Iwanow, of course, son of the Russian oligarch, Sergej Iwanow.

Out of the blue he has agreed to an interview, and I am the lucky girl who gets to squeeze him for some answers. And the best thing about it: I am meeting him in Paris, the city of love.

And that’s where you come in!

You can’t seriously expect me to ask him about the potential of Crysler stocks, or if he wants to buy shares of Facebook? Well…rather not. I am much more interested in finding out how he got his astral body and which tattoos he is hiding under his starched shirt.

What do you think?

What should I ask the hottest guy of all times?

Write me! I’m looking forward to your replies.

As always, your

Ally

01

Viktor was starring at the monitor, frowning, while running his knuckles over his bristly chin. Though he had only been following this blog for a few weeks, he was pretty sure this wasn’t Ally’s work. Her style was easygoing, not uncouth.
Hunk
and terms as
the hottest guy of all times
didn’t sound like her. She had to assume he would read this article. Ally had fought too hard for this job to maneuver herself into a precarious situation right before an important interview. They would see each other in a few days, how was she going to explain this verbal faux pas to him?

The door opened and his assistant, Michail, entered the office.

“What now?” he asked without looking up.

“It’s about the donation, Viktor.”

“Donation?” He scrolled all the way to the end of the article, but so far nobody had commented on it.

Michail cleared his throat, a sign that he was under time pressure. Nothing unusual, Michail’s appointment schedule was always filled to the rim. It had to be, because Viktor pushed all the annoying responsibilities he didn’t want to deal with to him. Something that, at a rough estimate, pertained about ninety-five percent of his tasks.

And why not? Why would he be paying for a bunch of employees if in the end he would have to take care of everything himself?

“We had agreed that you’ll become charitably active,” his assistant offered helpful. “The young women who launched compromising images to the media…?” he added at Viktor’s blank expression.

Ah,
that
donation.

At the party last weekend he’d been so shitfaced he could barely remember. At about four o’clock he’d left the club with two or three girls–details were sketchy on that. He only remembered the brunette who could bend herself like a pretzel. Marie? Claire? Or Marie-Claire? Whatever.

When he woke up around noon with a hangover from hell, his diligent assistant had already put the two into a cab and  discreetly obliterated the evidence of the stormy night.

That usually included deleting the pictures on smart phones. Unfortunately, one of them had already sent a photo during the night. It took Michail all Sunday to convince
TMZ
to not put the picture online since it would put Viktor’s current projects into a bad light.

As if he had projects.

“I would suggest an orphanage. That kind of thing always goes over well with the press.”

No way he’d wanted to be connected to a bunch of parentless brats. That would look too much like bad conscience. Chicks love puppies, the cuddlier, the better.

“An animal shelter.” He looked back at his monitor. “Nothing exotic. No spiders, lizards or rats. Just kittens or fluffy pets with floppy ears.”

“Good choice.” Michail handed him a folder. In it was a check of one hundred thousand Euro plus another for the online magazine of two hundred fifty thousand.

“Is that the current rate for a lousy photo?”

Michail shrugged in a way that signaled: I wouldn’t insist in not having warned you, but…

Alright already. His father had held a gun to his head–literally. The usual
the party life is over now
sermon. The last thing his dad needed was a son in prison. Not because his fatherly emotions would suffer, but business.

Shaking his head he signed. Three hundred and fifty thousand bucks for a night he couldn’t even remember.

When had his life become so goddamn dull?

~ * ~

A shrill whistle disrupted the tense silence. The girls stepped onto the mat, bowed and got into basic position.

“Ichi. Ni. San,” their teacher, Mr. Mallone, called out.

As soon as the San had come out of his mouth, Ally stepped forward and threw her friend, Julie, flat onto her back with one thrust of her fist.

“Good
Gyakuziki
,” Mr. Mallone called over.

“Yes, well done,” Julie grumped, rubbing her sternum.

“You’ve got to pay attention to your defense,” Ally commented dryly and helped her up.

“My horoscope said that I shouldn’t even be here today.”

“Right” Ally remarked with an obvious lack of interest. The horoscope-craze of her best friend wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. Julie barely did anything without the permission of the stars. She usually started with the prediction in the
Seattle Times
. If that didn’t offer anything valid, she browsed the internet until she found the desired result.

“And where should you be instead?”

“At the airport, of course. Today is a perfect day to travel, can you believe it?”

“Spectacular,” Ally replied unmoved and went back to attack position.

“Though it’s a bit strange,” Julie mused. “I mean, after all, you’re the one flying to Paris tomorrow and I am left in the dust.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hajime,” their teacher called out. Before Julie could bat an eyelash she found herself in the horizontal again.

“That’s not fair,” she groaned.

“What?” Ally kneeled down and smirked.

“You had private lessons for years.”

“That’s why I can give you some advice on how to get better. Wanna hear it?”

Julie waved her hand. “Don’t! I’m only in this course to escape swimming. Can you imagine me in a bathing suit?”

Since she’d already seen her friend in her skimpy tankini at various occasions it was clearly a rhetorical question. Contrary to herself, with her boyish physique, her friend played in the Double-D-league. She crinkled her nose, but kept her mouth shut.

“Exactly!” Julie came to her feet, moaning.

“By the way, your horoscope said, you have to prepare for a bad surprise today. It’s probably your flight getting delayed or something like that. I wouldn’t put anything past your editor. She’s gonna screw you and fly off without you.”

As if on cue, she landed on her back for the third time.

“Ugh!” Julie closed her eyes for a moment.

“Why would she do that?” Ally didn’t like the direction this conversation was going.

“Isn’t that obvious?“ her friend aspirated breathlessly, squinting.

Instead of answering, she pulled her friend to her feet.

“She is going to sell your story as hers, duh. Why else would she insist on flying with you?”

“Yame,” Mr. Mallone called out, blew his whistle for the last time, thereby ending the class.

“Thank God!” Julie exclaimed. Instead of bowing to Ally in the prescribed way she saluted and couldn’t escape the gym fast enough. But not without throwing Marc Cunning a yearning glance. He was in their grade and by far the hottest guy at the Redmond High.

“
He
wouldn’t have to ask twice to get horizontal with me. I mean, did you see his biceps? He should always wear black–and leave off the top completely, don’t you think?”

Ally shook her head. “He’s wearing a
Keikogi
.” During karate lessons the class was wearing the traditional martial arts clothing, a loose jacket, also called
Uwagi
, and a simple pair of pants, the
Zubon
. Whoever could make out muscles underneath all the layers would either have to have x-ray vision or be called Julie Watson.

“You should see him at football!” Letting out a sigh, Julie started making her way to the locker room. “If you’d come to the games for a change, you could admire their abs for hours as it’s expected of a seventeen year old.”

They remained serious for a moment, then burst out laughing.

Since they were the only girls at karate, Julie could pursue her rapturous inclinations, which were not exclusively aimed at Marc, though he was her favorite target.

Ally enjoyed the more practical aspect of being the minority. This way they had the showers to themselves and didn’t have to deal with bitches like Miranda Summers. They used to be friends with her, but that changed when three years ago Julie started to grow in places where absolutely nothing was going on for Miranda. When Miranda took photos of Julie in bra and panties and put them on
Facebook
, it was like a death wish. Julie, computer ace and highly-gifted hacker, swore revenge and it was dreadful. She didn’t settle for pictures in underwear, but took a photo of Miranda’s naked backside under the shower. A few hours later she put the pictures on both Miranda’s
Facebook
and
Twitter
sites and changed the passwords. For three days, Miranda couldn’t get into her account because Julie kept changing the entry codes. But long lasting anger wasn’t Julie’s thing. She’d wanted to send a message, and that one had hit home: Don’t mess with me!

Needless to say, from then on they were declared enemies.

As soon as they had reached the changing room, Ally darted to her backpack and pulled out her iPad.

“What’s the rush?” With a groan, Julie plunked down on the wooden bench in front of the locker.

“I’m curious if there are any comments to my current blog.” As soon as she’d unlocked the tablet a familiar tune for an incoming message broke the silence.

Julie grinned. “You’ve got mail.”

With a frown Ally read the message from her editor in chief. “Damn it. I’m supposed to come by her office later.”

“Is that bad?”

“Don’t know.” A blatant lie. The energy attached to the mail was a mixture of anger, disappointment and frustration. How she knew? She had no clue even if her life depended on it. She just felt it and so far had never been wrong about these things. Unfortunately.

She‘d tried everything to protect herself against the unpredictable moods and emotional states of her fellow human beings. Autogenic training, yoga, or the ever-well-liked I-build-myself-a-wall-technique. Wall? You’ve got to be kidding! All those tricks had made it worse. When she was six, she had begun to memorize all US states and their capitals and recount them in her mind, to screen herself from undesired emotions. Later, she’d added the European metropoles and then all the capitals of the world. But since she took on the emotions of others without thinking, her attempts to shield herself remained an impossible mission.

A few years ago it had gotten so bad that she couldn’t hide it any longer. She was afraid to leave the house. Afraid to go to school. Afraid to meet other people.

Since she was born with a heart defect she was regularly checked by her uncle’s personal doctor. At one of these occasions her fears had been unveiled, for the ECG had looked like a two-minute earthquake with a 9.0 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Dr. Edwards attended to her problem while her uncle didn’t hide his disappointment. He was seriously miffed by the fact that she’d hidden her abnormality all those years, when it had really been one of her biggest fears that he, who was always so rational and level-headed, would consider her a freak because of her over-sensibility. After a thorough interrogation about when she felt what, how strongly and how often, the dose of her heart medication had been increased.

It didn’t really make sense. Why didn’t she get different pills? Seriously, what did a heart defect have to do with her over-sensibility?

Dr. Edwards ignored her questions. Instead he reminded her stone-faced never ever to forget her medication. She didn’t intend to, after all, her life depended on it. One shouldn’t mess with a heart defect, right?

Ally was completely clueless why she was cursed of excessive empathy. It looked as if she was the only person in Seattle who had to deal with it. Maybe even the only person in the entire US. What did she know? During her night long researches she’d never come across a case like hers. Some were similar, others were even quite close. But the combination of a heart defect and emotional over-sensibility was unique to her, and her alone.