The Soldier - S.R. Jones Page 0,24

some lights. I prefer Cassie’s crooked, dimpled grin.

She’s got freckles too, just a few, smattering her nose and cheeks. Normally, I go for glamorous women, but I love that her golden blonde-brown hair is natural. I can’t see the regrowth someone like Liza gets after a few weeks between salon trips.

Her eyes are what I love the most, though. They’re such a stunning shade of warm light green, surrounded by thick brown lashes that I bet turn lighter after long summer days.

Slowly, as if scared to do so, she swivels her gaze my way. I don’t look away, not immediately, and I see the intake of her breath, the parting of her lips, the way her pupils dilate.

Yeah, she might be engaged, and she might be far too sensible to ever take a roll in the sheets with a thug like me, but part of her wants to.

God, the things I could do to her, teach her. There’s something in Cassie, something I get a glimpse of every now and again; a connection, a recognition of a darker, wilder part she tries to keep locked away. I see it, though; I see her.

Pity she’s decided to bury it so deep she’ll settle for a man who buys her a shitty little ring, and doesn’t want to travel with her, or entertain her dreams. Her choice, though.

I down my coffee, stand, throw my cup away and walk out without a backward glance.

I’m going to cut her and this stupid, cliched, twee little coffee shop out of my fucking life, like a cancer. One sharp incision and done. I won’t be coming back here.

Cassie is leaving. Cassie is getting engaged, and she’s nothing to me, so I need to put her out of my mind.

I do too. Every now and again, I think of my gorgeous dirty-blonde barista, but I don’t go back to the coffee shop anymore, and I put all my energies into the latest takeovers.

Life carries on as normal, which for me means boring, stressful, boring, stressful, in alternating measures. I break up with Liza, and after a brief flirtation with a world-famous supermodel, who looks thirty until she takes all her makeup off, and then she looks gawky and young, I become oddly celibate. I’m not a man who denies himself the fun things in life, but I stop fucking around, I stop dating, and I focus entirely on business.

Yet, every now and again, for some unknown reason, I think about my little blonde barista and where she is now. Sometimes, at night, I awake from filthy dreams about her, and I tell myself it’s because I’m not getting any, which for a man like me is an unnatural situation. Those dreams sometimes linger for hours, though, teasing me, taunting me, and I must forget her all over again.

Then one day, six months later, Cassie comes back into my life … or at least her picture does.

My little ray of sunshine is back.

Epilogue

Konstantin

London-Now

I’m looking at the staff roster for a firm I’m planning a hostile takeover of. My right-hand woman in this venture, and many others, Margaret, is by my side as we go through the staff profiles, including their photographs, education, roles in the company, and salary. It’s a firm that started as a company making computer games, then they ventured into IT and set up a consultancy. They’ve diversified too far in recent months and lost money, but their talent pool is phenomenal. This will be a keeper, not a break it up and sell it loser.

Some of the staff will go, but many will stay.

My mind is only half on work, which isn’t like me. I’m worrying about my son, about Michael. The boy is about to get married into the damn Italian mob, and I’m still not sure if it’s the right thing for him to do.

Plus, things in Moscow have been hot lately. I’ve been over there quite a few times recently, and I really feel like the soldier I used to be, only this time, I’m fighting two wars—a corporate one in London, and a murky, underworld one in Moscow.

“Cassie Evans,” Margaret says and pushes the papers with the photo clipped to the front my way.

For a moment I stare, not hearing anything else Margaret says.

That name. Cassie. I’ve not heard it in so long, and slowly the picture percolates into my confused brain. This is the Cassie, my Cassie, little Miss Sunshine from the coffee shop, but she’s working in IT