Page 20 of Sacrifice

Eve looked around and recognized more than one celebrity as they made their way through the melee. Actors and media personalities chatted together while somewhere out of sight, a string quartet played Vivaldi.

Lucien plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing server and gave one to her. “May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.” He grinned at her wickedly.

They clinked flutes and Eve took an enthusiastic pull from her glass. It sparkled on her tongue. The champagne was going to be much too easy to drink.

Eve might have felt like she was out on a limb, but Lucien knew plenty of people in the crowd. He worked the room. A surprising number of the men greeted him like a long-lost brother, embracing him with a hearty back slap, while women seemed to melt when he took their hand. Eve felt their admiration and was starting to think that the entire room was under some kind of spell when the exception to the rule made their presence felt.

A grey-haired man in his fifties held a small court of his own in the center of the room. Flanked by two women in tight bodycon dresses, he was speaking with enthusiastic hand gestures to a man who looked like he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

The women clung to an elbow apiece, their botoxed faces beautifully blank, and their bodies all but wrapped around him. In a room full of polite wealth, it felt incongruous. Lucien reached down to take Eve’s hand.

Unspoken, she felt him telling her that this was the man they’d come to meet. Taking her hand was such an intimate thing to do, given how little they knew each other, but reading this situation, seeing how the Russian wore his women like a cape, she knew physical contact with Lucien was required if this was going to be convincing.

Petrovsky’s gaze flickered over them at the very last moment of their approach. It was a tactic to make them feel unimportant. Lucien knew that and, somehow, so did she.

“My old friend, Konstantin Petrovsky,” Lucien called out and, completely ignoring the man Petrovsky had been talking to, swept directly through their personal space to kiss him roughly on either cheek.

The Russian oligarch looked pleased by this overt display of affection and tucked his chin back deeply into his jowls. “Lucien.” He tapped the hand of the woman to his left. “Polina, champagne for my guests.”

He’d claimed them as his possessions to take the power. Lucien smiled broadly. It was all part of a game.

Polina detached herself and plucked a bottle of Krug from an ice bucket at their side. She shimmied over to fill their glasses, leaning to give Lucien the full effect of her deep cleavage. Lucien gave her the briefest nod, and she turned to Eve, smile waning.

Up close, her beauty was flawed. From her unfeasibly thick eyelashes to the perfect plumpness of her lips, she wore her make-up so thick it was like a mask. The green tinge of an old bruise peeped through the thinner layers around her eye. She noticed Eve’s eyes running over it and turned away.

So, Petrovsky liked to treat his women rough. Eve turned her attention back to him.

“Your trip to London has been a success, I trust,” Lucien said.

“Da. Of course. My businesses prosper.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps I might have caught you at a lucky time to talk about some business of our own.”

“Luck is for the weak.” Petrovsky raised a challenging eyebrow, and Lucien glared back, his expression hardening.

“Unless you have the luck of the devil,” Lucien growled, tension growing between them.

Petrovsky nodded slowly, then roared with laughter. He patted Lucien on his shoulder and Eve felt for a moment like there was a danger of Lucien tearing it off. Instead, he winked at the champagne-pouring woman and tossed back his drink.

“I’ll drink to that,” Petrovsky added quickly, taking the bottle and refilling both their glasses himself. “Come, let’s take our seats.”

The crowd thinned as the glitterati made their way to the ballroom. Men in tuxedos and women in flowing gowns swept elegantly away through double doors.

Lucien held his arm out in a crook for Eve to take.

“Hungry?” he asked. Suddenly the confrontation with Petrovsky was over. This was to be a game of rounds, it seemed.

Beyond the doors, the ballroom sparkled. Cut crystal chandeliers hung over tables decorated with tall reaching lilies and trailing orchids, ice buckets were filled with wine and champagne and red wine breathed in decanters.

Lucien ran his eyes over the seating plan and guided them to their seats. Name cards positioned Petrovsky with his women on either side beside Lucien and then Eve. Three more unknowns made up their table of eight, alternating men and women in the round.

Eve took her seat, surprised to find a gold-ribboned gift bag waiting for her. More presents. She looked to Lucien in surprise and he waved a hand to guide her eyes on a circuit of the table. Every female guest had received one. Every man: a golden envelope. Lucien immediately took a cheque from his inner jacket pocket and tucked it inside.

It became clear now how this worked. A charity fundraiser with a ticket price way beyond the cost. The ladies were ornaments, beautiful possessions to be ostentatiously spoiled. It was the men who had the money and the expectation to donate was quite blatant and public. Lucien had done his part before the eyes of their table guests were on him. It seemed he had nothing to prove.

An older couple were the first to join them, taking their seats directly opposite, then a man on his own, early forties and good looking. He turned out to be charming company but quailed under Lucien’s protective glare when he seemed to be getting a little too familiar. Eve was both annoyed and delighted by this proprietorial display. If it had been anyone else laying claim on her like that, she’d have given them what for, but as it was Lucien Knight, found that instead she was utterly delighted.

The dinner was delicious. Roasted beet salad with arugula and goat cheese, followed by pan-seared salmon with lemon butter sauce and, best of all, dark chocolate fondant withraspberry coulis and vanilla ice cream. Champagne flowed throughout and Eve was sure she really had got the best end of the deal. Doing her part had meant little more than making sure the necklace was in full view of Petrovsky.

---