LITMIR.BIZ

      For Finn, Pia and Reif.

Chapter One

      COULD a man really die of boredom?

      Leonid Aleksandrov stared down at his plate of—what had he ordered? Beef? Lamb?—and tried to blank out the blonde actress prattling away at him across the table as if he was one of her girlfriends.

      To be fair it was most likely nervous chatter because, he had the good grace to acknowledge, he was a man on the edge. At the end of his tether, his executive assistant, Danny Butler, would say, and even a blind Russian boar could sense that.

      But how could he be anything else? The tragedy that had occurred this week was newsworthy all over the world and the press were once again snapping at his heels to get a piece of him. Questioning who he was and sniffing into his past. Looking for Mafia connections one minute and then calling him a hero the next. But a true hero didn’t have things in his life he regretted, did he?

      Not that anyone would find anything on him. Seventeen years ago Leo had created a new identity for himself and thanks to Mother Russia being a country of smoke and mirrors he’d been able to bury the misery of his real childhood and reinvent a whole new one.

      A much more palatable one.

      So far no one knew any better. The press surmised that he was a dangerous man and, somewhat ironically, they didn’t know the half of it.

      But what on earth had possessed him—on his first day back in London—to take the latest ‘it girl’ to lunch at this high-end, nosey London eatery? On her birthday of all days.

      Ah, yes, sex. Respite. A moment’s relaxation. The gym had failed this week and he’d been looking for another outlet.

      But no doubt Danny had thought no-frills sex in a hotel room was a bit cold-blooded on the actress’s special day; hence the lunch date.

      Leo shook his head. Danny had been with him for eight years now and even though he was as close to

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