The Rule of Luck (32 page)

“Hello, Lotus. Glad to see you're doing well,” he said in that deep voice of his, a slight hint of a Russian accent present. Sometimes it felt like that voice could slide around your mind, commanding you do to things you weren't entirely sure were a good idea. Or maybe I was the only one he had that effect on?

“I'm fine, Mr. Petriv. Thanks for asking.” Lotus continued to stand there gaping, mouth slightly open. I rolled my eyes. Was it
always
going to be like this when other women had his attention?

“Dog shit, Lotus. Remember?” I reminded her, none too subtly.

Lotus shook herself and flushed a brilliant shade of red. “Oh right. Sorry. I forgot. I'll get that cleaned up right away. Excuse me.”

In a flash, she was at the supply closet, gathering up some rags and a spray bottle of cleaning solution. Then she disappeared into the backroom, slamming the door so hard behind her, I winced.

“Sorry about that. It's been an interesting day.”

“Another dog card reading?” Alexei asked, arching an eyebrow. He left the doorframe and crossed the shop to me, fighting to stop a grin from filling his face. “How many has it been this week? Three? Four?”

I shrugged. “Four, but who's counting?”

“You are.”

“Lotus is enamored with dogs lately so she keeps booking pet readings whether I want them or not. She seems to think I should ask you to get me one too.”

He laughed. “Do you want a dog?”

“Not if they're going to get excited and shit on everything I own. At least this latest did it on my table, so that's something new.” I looked around the shop—a shop that wasn't as successful as I'd hoped it would be. I was doing okay, but not like I had been back home, and I couldn't figure out why. I missed Charlie Zero and his business savvy.

“I assume you were able to convince the owner to stay for a reading of her own?”

“Of course, but you know they're only here because they're hoping to catch a glimpse of you. It's like I have to beat the women away with a stick and it's getting exhausting.”

He'd reached me now and his hands were on me, sliding along my neck to tilt my face up. Even in my highest heels, my eyes were barely level with his shoulder. My gaze locked with his and my neck arched under his hands. “You have to stop doing this to yourself, Felicia. You're making yourself crazy and imagining things that don't exist. I have no interest in any other woman.”

I swallowed. “I know, but it's hard when I have yet another Martian blueblood in here, judging me. I never cared about any of that before and now…Now it seems to be bothering me all the time.”

His expression hardened. “I hate it when you do that, compare yourself to things I have no interest in, because there is no comparison.” He looked like he wanted to say more or maybe even yell at me. Instead he stopped and his mouth quirked at the corners. “Besides, you're the only one who can keep me from jumping off the deep end into megalomania—or so you keep reminding me.”

“Very funny. Someone needs to keep you humble or you'll think you own the tri-system.”

“Actually, I believe I only own half of it, or thereabouts,” he said drily. His hands drifted down my body, coming to rest in the small of my back. “Tell me who was here and made you feel this way, and I'll deal with it. Then it's no longer a problem.”

It sounded tempting, but I'd noticed that sometimes Alexei's way of dealing with problems tended to be extreme, with no chance for the other party to recover. Depending on what he was after, such as securing ownership of most of the off-world asteroid mines, it ran the gamut from driving his opponents to financial ruin, undercutting prices on business rivals, or pitting family members against each other and taking advantage of the chaos. While none of it was technically illegal, it didn't sit well with me—and those were just the things I knew about. The Tsarist Consortium was considered a legitimate corporate and political entity with plans to revolutionize lives throughout the tri-system, but you could never forget how it started, or where its roots lay. They'd come a long way, but not far enough in some people's minds.

Long before me, I knew that as Alexei worked his way up the Consortium hierarchy, he'd seduced both wives and girlfriends, using his looks and his perfect body to gain whatever secrets they'd offer him regarding the men in their lives. Then he'd use those secrets to either buy or steal whatever it was he was after. I suspected that was why he didn't seem to care about how he looked or the things he was able to do. To him, his body was just another tool to be used.

“I'm a big girl. I'll get over it. It just puts me in a bad mood whenever I have to deal with one of…them. Privileged and entitled, with no idea what the rest of us have to deal with. So much for One Gov's unity ideals and all citizens being equal under the law. What are you doing here, anyway? Aren't you supposed to be at your office holding secret closed-door meetings all day?”

“My plans changed and I needed to see you,” he said, leaning in to brush a kiss along my throat.

It made me sigh and melt into him, my hands sliding over the ridges of well-muscled abdomen until my arms were around his waist under his jacket. My head dropped to his shoulder and the kiss at my throat turned into something more heated. Soon, he kissed along the line of my jaw and his tongue ran the outer edge of my ear. My hands fisted in his shirt as I wondered how fast I could get to his bare skin. Still, some measure of common sense clamped down on my lust-filled brain.

“This is all really nice, but Lotus is in the other room and I have another appointment in about fifteen minutes.” Weird how my voice had gone all breathy and I was barely holding my own weight as I leaned into him. How the hell had he gotten one of my legs hooked around his hip and my dress bunched at my waist so quickly?

He raised his head and the dark look he gave me made my toes curl and had me squirming against him. “We both know I don't need very long to get you exactly where I want you.”

No, he didn't. Still… “I don't have time for this right now! It might get awkward when my next client walks in and you have me bent over the reception desk.” Which he'd done to me before and I'd totally do again even if it was a bit uncomfortable. “Come to my place tonight. I can have dinner ready for seven if I rush.”

Was it weird we didn't live together? Maybe. I wasn't sure. It was another one of those things I didn't think about too much or I'd start doubting myself and let my insecurities eat away at me. I'd never been so on edge in a relationship before. With Alexei Petriv the highs were so high, they could be terrifying, but the lows were equally scary. How could I hold on to someone so frighteningly perfect and fundamentally dark when the only thing I had going for me was luck—another thing I filed under unresolved issues not to be examined too hard.

Alexei let me go, setting me on my feet and letting my dress settle around my hips. His expression became rueful. “That's why I'm here now, and what I wanted to talk to you about. There's been a slight change in plans.”

I frowned. “Slight change how, exactly? Does this have anything to do with the big project you've been working on? The one that's supposed to free up more of your time?”

“Or get me out of the Consortium muck, as you so elegantly put it.” He grinned a little and I jabbed him lightly in the chest with my finger.

“Hey, that's not what I said! Just that sometimes the Consortium does things that scare me and I don't want to have to pick a side.”

“I know what you meant.” He caught my hand and kissed the knuckles. “I can't say I was thrilled with the Consortium's approach either, but at least now the mining unions are under unified leadership and we avoided an all-out revolt with the workers. There were issues with some of the mines collapsing, but production yield didn't drop, and no one in the tri-system knew the difference. The troublemakers were handled discretely to avoid publicity, and it showed both the unions and the Consortium in the best possible light. The union leadership would rather deal directly with me than any One Gov agents they send into the field. My being here on Mars has actually made things easier.”

I rolled my eyes. “Isn't it lucky you were here, then?”

“Yes, it was.” He kissed the inside of my wrist before letting my hand go. “And now that it's done, I'm scaling back. I can focus on things closer to home and spend less time directly on-site. That means more time for us.”

My breath caught in a tiny gasp. “Really?”

He grinned. “Yes, really. Unfortunately”—and there the grin faded—“I still need to wrap up this union project and the final timing has been advanced significantly. I'll need to be off-planet for a few weeks to ensure all the key players are in place. Konstantin specifically requested I attend negotiations, so I can't delegate it to someone else.”

Konstantin Belikov. The name made me shiver. At nearly five hundred years old, the man had seen things and lived through events that would have sent most people screaming. He'd survived the Dark Times on Earth when the polar ice caps melted, earthquakes ravaged continents, and billions had died. He watched as humanity terraformed Mars and turned it into a paradise, and laughed as they struggled to do the same with Venus, with still less than spectacular results. He knew how to work every angle and drafted plots inside of plots. He was ruthlessness personified and lived his life to ensure the Tsarist Consortium would one day replace One Gov as the ruling power in the tri-system.

He'd all but raised Alexei and ensured Alexei took over as head of the Consortium. He also wasn't pleased I'd lured him away to Mars since wherever Alexei went, so went the Consortium's power. And frankly, I resented the accusations. When I left for Mars, I hadn't even known Alexei was alive. I wasn't in a position to lure him anywhere. I was just glad I was safely here on Mars, and Belikov was hundreds of millions of miles away on Earth. Sometimes though, I wondered if that was far enough.

I ran my hands absently over his chest, enjoying the defined ridges as I looked up at him. “A few weeks? How long is a few?”

“Two, possibly three at most.”

“
Three?
You've never been gone that long before! Where are you going? Is it safe? Is it to the mines on Vesta or Pallas? Can't someone else go instead?” It was the only thing that made sense since it wasn't possible to travel to any of the asteroid belt mines and back in a few weeks. Vesta and Pallas both orbited Mars, so a three-week trip was doable. Didn't mean I liked it though.

“I'm afraid not. This is something I need to oversee personally. The union leaders will only work with me and those collapses need to be fully investigated.”

“But it's for so long. Will you at least shim me?”

He touched my hair, running his finger through the strands and toying with the mesh. I might have made a joke about how he was more handsy than usual, but right then, I needed the contact. “Konstantin requires a complete blackout on this. Close-looped Consortium access only.”

I frowned, not happy with anything I was hearing. A secret mission and that sneaky asshole Belikov was involved. Alexei would be gone for possibly three weeks and I couldn't contact him. It went without saying my gut kicked me hard enough to almost knock the breath out of me. That scared me too. I hadn't had a feeling this intense in months—not since I'd arrived on Mars. I thought everything had settled down. Apparently I was wrong.

“I know it's a long time to be out of contact,” he murmured, brushing a hand along my cheek and tilting my face back to his. “I also know you don't trust him, and neither do I to some extent, but he has significant power in the Consortium.”

“I don't have a good feeling about it. Are you sure you have to go?”

A kiss on each of my cheeks, then my hairline. “I'm doing it for us,” he whispered. “When this is finished and I've secured the Consortium's power base on Mars, we can begin making inroads into One Gov's leadership. That's when I can pull back. I may be the head of the Consortium, but I'm not here to appoint myself king of Mars.”

I knew there was something in his words I was missing, but my focus had turned inward, picking at my gut feeling like a tongue wiggling a loose tooth.

“And unfortunately, we're leaving tonight. They're waiting for me outside. I just couldn't go without seeing you first.”

That brought me up short and broke through the fog. I pulled back enough to look at him, my roaming hands going still. “Right now? You're leaving me
right now
, for three weeks?”

“I know, I'm sorry, Felicia. I was just informed of the change in plans today. You know I would never tell you like this if I could avoid it.” Alexei's hands were on my forearms, his thumbs stroking the inside of my wrists. And he looked genuinely sorry too, sorry enough that I had a moment where I wondered if I could pull him into my card reading room and convince him to stay. But no, Lotus was back there, and my gut was kicking me hard enough that I needed to pay attention to it. Unfortunately the feeling was so vague, I didn't know what to focus on.

So I said what, to me, was the most logical thing in the world: “I need to run my cards.”

His hands tightened, stopping me when I would have pulled away. “No.”

“Why not? It won't take long.”

“No,” he said, more firmly this time.

“But…” I looked up into at his face, bewildered. “Something isn't right and I want to check into it.”

“No, Felicia. Don't.” His voice had gone very soft. “I don't want you to run a spread for me. Not now. Not ever.”

Stunned, I'm sure my jaw dropped open. This wasn't anything we'd ever talked about before. Actually now that I thought about it, he'd never really asked me to run the cards for him except for when we'd first met. There was a seriousness in his tone that made me wary. “But it's what I do. I'm good at it. Why wouldn't I run them for you if something feels off?”