It was silly to form an opinion of a man he’d never met, but the more Luke looked at Roman Demidov’s pictures, the more disconcerted he felt. Even when the guy smiled, it never seemed to reach his eyes. That ice-blue stare completely dominated every picture he was in, drawing attention every single time. There was nothing attractive about those eyes. If anything, the cruelty lurking in them was downright ugly. The guy was handsome enough, Luke supposed, if one liked cold, assertive men who looked like they could snap your neck and be bored while doing it. Luke certainly didn’t. But, for some reason, he had trouble dragging his gaze away. It was silly. It was just a photograph. A photograph shouldn’t make him so unnerved.
Shaking his head, Luke checked the time on his phone. If he didn’t leave the hotel soon, he was going to be late for his flight to Saint Petersburg.
Luke looked at the door leading to the adjoined room and sighed. James. He should probably tell James that he was leaving Moscow. But then again, Luke wasn’t sure his friend would even notice his absence. James was so depressed he didn’t seem to care about anything these days.
Luke grimaced a little. Seeing his friend in such a state almost made him start questioning his dream of finding love. Considering that love had turned James from a lovely, outgoing guy into a depressed, lovesick mess, love fucking sucked.
Luke’s own experiences were pretty disappointing, too: all of his four boyfriends had turned from Prince Charming to royal dickheads. To be fair, he’d never felt anything remotely close to how love was described in trashy Harlequin romance novels (that Luke wasn’t ashamed of reading) for any of his boyfriends. He’d never felt the sort of love that made him giddy and breathless with it. To Luke’s utter disappointment, what happened in romance novels was the complete opposite of what he experienced in real life. But then again, maybe he just had a special talent for falling into bed with jerks.
Smiling ruefully at himself, Luke headed for James’s room.
Half an hour later, after managing to get James out of bed and extracting from him a promise to eat while he was gone, Luke was finally on his way to the Sheremetyevo airport.
Leaning back against the taxi seat, Luke stared out the window. He felt kind of guilty for leaving James alone. He knew there was little he could do to help his friend, but it still didn’t feel right to leave him while James clearly wasn’t holding up well after the messy breakup with his fuck-buddy/best friend/pseudo-brother/soulmate. Despite knowing James his entire life and being one of his closest friends, Luke knew he could never replace Ryan for James: those two had always been codependent as hell. But Luke also knew he was one of the few people James trusted implicitly. They’d always had each other’s back, had been there for each other when they first realized they were gay, and had even been each other’s first kiss. James was the only person he’d told who he was going to meet.
Luke frowned as his thoughts returned to the upcoming meeting with Roman Demidov. Not for the first time, a sliver of doubt crept into his mind. He was flying blind here. He had no idea what the Russian tycoon wanted from his father. The results of his research on the guy weren’t exactly reassuring, either. Roman Demidov had the reputation of a shark; it was said he controlled his business empire with an iron fist. Luke had searched Whitford Industries’ database, but he didn’t have enough clearance and couldn’t find what connected his father to that man.
God, he was sick of being kept in the dark. Yes, maybe what he was doing was reckless, but it was the only way he could force his father’s hand: if he learned something he wasn’t supposed to, his father would have little choice but to trust him.
Maybe you aren’t ready to be trusted.
The thought made Luke’s stomach flip-flop. It was something he’d been trying to avoid thinking about. What was he going to do if the rumors were true and his father really had dealings with criminals? If his father was a criminal? Would Luke want to be trusted with that sort of information?
“My na meste,” grunted out the driver as the cab stopped. “S tebya dve tyschi rubley.”
Luke flinched and looked out the window. He hadn’t even noticed that they had already arrived at the airport.
“Spasibo,” he said, thanking the driver in his limited Russian and shoving fifty dollars into the man’s hand. Luke had no idea whether it was enough or not: his Russian wasn’t good enough to understand the driver’s strange accent.
The driver shot him an odd look and muttered something under his breath—clearly something uncomplimentary. Quite used to it, Luke grabbed his suitcase and got out of the car, hoping for a hassle-free flight to Saint Petersburg.