Page 82

"It really cannot wait, no."

"Manon."

"Laszlo." How long are we going to play ping-pong with names?

"These gentlemen are only here for the day, my love. Give me thirty minutes and I will come and find you."

"No." Did I hear a gasp somewhere? Nah. Maybe it’s my imagination.

"No?"

Idiot. "No."

I walk to the table and sit down in the empty chair opposite Laszlo, at the other end, putting my bag on the floor. Bending down, I take my sensible hospital sneakers and socks off, one at a time, then put my bare feet up on the polished edge of his very expensive and shiny walnut table, crossing them and leaning back in the chair.

Ahhhh, feels good to stretch my toes a bit, even though I haven’t started my shift yet. I wiggle them and sigh. "I am going to sit here until you are finished, then. Everybody, please, carry on."

"Take your feet off the table, Manon."

"I will take my feet off the table when everybody else has left the room."

He says nothing, but I can see the steam starting to come out of his ears. Showtime. "Manon," he says at last, a word that seems to be torn from his lips at the maximum pain threshold.

Fucking hell, I’m tired of this back and forth.

"Have you got anything you want to say to me about last night, Laszlo?” I throw out into the ether. “About the marina, for instance. Or about the body with no penis that is currently being fiddled with at the morgue, no pun intended." I look at the others with a bashful expression. “No worries, it’s not really the kind of fiddling you’re thinking of. It’s just a bit of dark morgue humor. My husband gets it, don’t you, darling?” My eyes drift back to the man in question.

It seems that all of a sudden everyone has stopped breathing, and someone to my right clears his throat. Then the awkward silence continues. I glance at Rafe, who is staring at Laszlo, and next to him there is a young Tomek. I bet the two of them had something to do with removing that man's penis, although I could be wrong. There are a lot of men on his payroll that I don't know about or have never seen personally, so anyone could have been on that yacht before it went kaboom.

Denis seems lost. I don't think he or any of my father's men know what Laszlo's men were up to last night.

My husband stands up.

"Gentlemen. My apologies. My wife and I are going to need the room. Rafe will take you across the corridor to the small conference room, and I will rejoin you in fifteen minutes."

About a dozen people gather their papers and laptops in absolute silence, then they all leave. Denis touches my shoulder as he goes past me but says nothing. The door closes behind the last of them.

We are alone.

Except this room shares one wall with the room they have all just gone into, and I do not think that wall is anywhere near as thick as it needs to be because I can hear the hum of their voices through it. I do not care because I’m not the one who is responsible for cutting anyone’s pecker off. On the contrary, I’m usually the one who’d sew that shit back on.

Laszlo does not sit back down. He walks the length of the boardroom and stops in front of my chair. He stares at my feet.

"Take your feet off my table, Manon."

"No."

"Now."

I do what he says because I want to look him in the eye when he tells me exactly how he killed that asshole from last night. I want to know every detail.

"Why did you do it? Why did you have to cut off his fucking dick?" I demand, and Laszlo leans in closer so his lips brush my ear.

I start to shiver, a reflex response. I hate myself for it, the fact my body is suddenly lighting up to him saying the most deprived and violent things, especially when he starts talking about killing someone.

"He touched what was mine, Manon, and no one should ever dare to lay a finger on my wife. Did you really think that I would let him be after the way he spoke to you? Violated you? He fucked with the wrong man. He squealed like a pig, ma macabre, when Rafe was cutting his dick off. He pissed himself and he was begging like the fucking coward he was," Laszlo says, and my nipples harden. My heart is racing, too.

"How do you know what he did if you weren't there?" I ask. My palms have gone damp, and there is a heat low in my stomach that I have no business feeling right now, in this particular situation.