God knows, Lazar Import & Export would be a stressful place to work even if she weren't lying through her teeth every day. It was the most vicious, spiteful, back-biting workplace she'd ever experienced. There wasn't a chance in hell of making friends with her co-workers. She stared critically at her reflection in the cloudy mirrored walls of the elevator. She'd lost weight. Her skirt was riding too low over her hips. But who had time to eat in Lazar's lair? She was lucky if she could find a moment to pee during the course of the day.
The elevator stopped and pinged on the ground floor as she was freshening her lipstick. The door slid open, a man stepped in, and the door rolled shut behind him. The elevator seemed suddenly very small. She shoved her lipstick into her purse, a light, tickling awareness rippling across the surface of her skin, like a breeze rustling long grass.
She was careful not to look at him directly, mindful of elevator etiquette, but she gathered considerable information out of the corner of her eye. Tall, maybe a little over six feet Lean. Darkly tanned skin, she noticed, sneaking a furtive glance at the big hands that emerged from the cuffs of his suit—his very elegant, very costly suit Probably Armani, she concluded, peeking at the cut of-his sleeves. A summer hanging out in Barcelona with that shameless clotheshorse Juan Carlos had taught her a lot about the subtle nuances of men's fashion.
He was looking at her. She felt the weight and heat of his gaze against the side of her face. She would have to look straight at him to confirm it For once, her curiosity was stronger than her fear.
Maybe it was the skull and crossbones in her dream that suggested the image, but the thought blazed through her mind the moment she raised her eyes to his.
He had the face of a pirate.
He wasn't classically handsome. His features were too harsh and craggy, his nose bumpy and crooked. Midnight-black hair was cropped short. It stuck straight up, like a velvety black scrub brush. His broad cheekbones jutted out, with deep hollows beneath them. His eyebrows were thick, black slashes and his mouth was both grim and sensual. But it was his eyes that shocked her. They were black, heavy-lidded and exotic. They stared at her with searing intensity.
The eyes of a marauding buccaneer.
His gaze slid down over her body as if he saw through her prim gray suit, through her blouse, her underthings, right down to the shivering flesh beneath. His appraisal was bold and arrogant, as if he had every right to stare. The way a pirate captain might look at his helpless captive ... before he dragged her down to his cabin for sport.
Raine tore her eyes away. Her overactive imagination promptly went crazy with the pirate metaphor, erasing the Armani and dressing him in pirate's garb; flowing blouse, tight knee breeches that showcased his... his assets, a cutlass thrust into a crimson sash, a golden hoop in his ear. It was ridiculous, but she felt flushed, panicky. She had to get out of this elevator before the mirrors steamed up.
To her immense relief, the door pinged and opened on the 26th floor. She lunged to exit, stumbling into the man who was waiting to enter and murmured an incoherent apology as she ran for the stairs. Walking up would make her late, but she had to regain her composure.
Oh God, how pathetic, and how typical. A hot, sexy guy gave her the eye in an elevator, and she fell to pieces like a terrified virgin. She'd blown her once in a lifetime chance to be ravished by a pirate. No wonder her love life was a non-issue. She sabotaged it before it even got going. Every damn time.
The working day began inauspiciously. Harriet, the office manager, swept by as she was hanging up her coat, her thin face pinched with disapproval. “I expected you earlier,” she snapped.
Raine glanced down at her watch. It was 7:32. “But I—it's only—” “You know perfectly well that the updated OFAC compliance report has to be finished and Fedexed by noon! And we still haven't gotten an answer from the Banque Intercontinentale Arabe about those blocked funds for the wine shipment. It's already 4:30 in the afternoon in Paris, and our distributors are drumming their fingers. Somebody has to negotiate that order for Brazilian espresso beans, and you're the only one in me office right now with halfway decent Portugese. To say noming of the fact that the new pages of the website still aren't ready. I would appreciate it if you would take responsibility for your work, Raine. I cannot keep track of everything”
Raine muttered something apologetic, teeth clenched, and sat down, punching in the code that took her phone off voice mail.
“And another thing. Mr. Lazar wants you to serve the coffee, tea and pastries at the breakfast meeting,” Harriet went on.
A jolt of terror made Raine leap to her feet.
Harriet's lips pursed. “I was not looking forward to telling him you were late.”
Raine's stomach fluttered with dread. “But he's never— but Stefania always—”
“He wants you,” Harriet cut in. “What he wants, he gets. The coffee is already brewing, no thanks to you, and the caterers have just delivered the food. It's in the kitchen. The china and silver are already laid out in the conference room.”
Stefania poked her face into Raine's cubicle. “Make sure to get the geisha girl choreography just right,” she advised. “With Lazar, it's got to be aesthetically perfect. One spilled drop of coffee, and you're toast.” She studied Raine with a critical eye. “And freshen up your makeup. Your left eye is smudged- Here, take my lip liner.”
Raine stared down at the lip liner pencil, speechless with dismay. This was the first time Victor Lazar had publicly acknowledged her existence. She'd seen him, of course; he was impossible to miss. He swept through the office like a storm wind, scattering people in front of him and dragging them in his wake. He was as dynamic and intimidating as she remembered from her childhood, though not as tall.
The first time he'd seen her, his piercing gray eyes had flicked over her with complete disregard, leaving her weak-kneed with relief. He evidently saw no connection between his newest executive assistant and his tiny, eleven-year-old niece with the white-blond braids that he hadn't seen in seventeen years. Thank God.
His sudden interest in her now seemed sinister.
“Go, quick, Raine! The meeting was scheduled for seven forty-five!”
Harriet's razor-sharp tone galvanized her. She scurried to the kitchen, heart thudding. This was no big deal, she told herself as she unwrapped the food. She was serving coffee, croissants, bagels, mini-muffins and fruit. She would smile, look pretty and gracefully withdraw, leaving Lazar and his clients to their business. This was not rocket science. It was not brain surgery.
She poured herself a cup of the strong, vicious brew that was always available in the staff kitchen and gulped it down so fast it scalded her mouth and throat. She had to get a backbone surgically implanted, if she really meant to go through with this. She should be pleased that Victor had noticed her. She had to get close to him if she wanted to investigate her father's death. That was why she had taken this nightmarish job, that was why she was living this surreal life. The tombstone dream had left her no other option.
For years she'd tried to unravel that hellish dream. She'd come up with dozens of logical explanations: she missed her father, had unconscious anger about his death, needed a scapegoat, et cetera. She'd studied dream psychology, gotten psychotherapy, tried creative visualization, hypnosis, yoga, every stress-reducing technique she could think of, but the dream persisted. It burned in her mind, weighing her down, derailing every effort she made to get her life on track.
A year ago she started having it every night. That was when the real desperation began. She grew dizzy, wild-eyed, terrified to go to sleep. She tried deadening herself with sleeping pills, but couldn't bear the headaches the next day. She was at her wit's end, watching her life grind to a halt— until 3 A.M. on her twenty-seventh birthday. She'd started upright in bed, chest heaving, and stared with wet, burning eyes into the pitch darkness, still feeling the cruel strength of Victor’s arm clamped around her shoulders. By the time dawn lightened the windows of her room from black to charcoal gray, she had finally surrendered. The dream demanded something of her, and she could no longer say no to it. It would break her in the end if she kept trying.
She had no proof, of course. The record of events was clear and conclusive. Her father had died in a sailboat accident. Victor had been out of the country on business, then Raine's mother maintained that she and Raine had been hi Italy at the time, refusing to discuss the matter further. Once, when she was sixteen, Raine had asked her mother if she believed that her first husband's death had been an accident Her mother had slapped her hard across the face and then burst into noisy tears, pulling her shaken, bewildered daughter into her arms and begging her forgiveness.
