The Zombie Billionaire's Virgin Witch (Zombie Category Romance)

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  THE ZOMBIE BILLIONAIRE’S

  VIRGIN WITCH

  A Zombie Category Romance

  By

  Joely Sue Burkhart

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Joely Sue Burkhart

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2012 Joely Sue Burkhart

  Cover designer Silviya Yordanova

  http://morteque.deviantart.com/

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in print or electronic form without the express, written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to any organization, event, or person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Adult Reading Material

  The Zombie Billionaire’s Virgin Witch

  A Zombie Category Romance

  Because even zombies deserve a happily ever after

  Rich, gorgeous and powerful, renowned world-wide restaurateur Yiorgos Michelopoulos has it all. Except for the Midwestern ma-and-pa diner that somehow keeps winning the coveted fifth star over his own top-notch restaurants. The stubborn owner refuses to sell and beats him year after year. Infuriated, Yiorgos accepts the man’s risky bet, never knowing the secret to Remy’s success. Until it’s too late.

  When he slips on the ring he won along with the diner, Yiorgos activates a curse that spreads decay through his body like a cancer. Only someone of Remy’s blood can stop his zombie transformation, but the man died soon after losing his restaurant. Luckily, he did have one lone daughter. The plump, frumpy kitchen witch ought to be easy pickings for a playboy like Yiorgos Michelopoulos. But one taste of her Death By Chocolate cake might just be the death of him.

  Devastated by the loss of her father, the family signet ring and their restaurant, Clare Remy’s only hope for supporting her mother is to earn a teaching spot at the Wizard Council’s Academy. Without the family signet ring, she must retain her virginity or lose her power entirely.

  Which makes the gorgeous Greek a very dangerous man.

  THE ZOMBIE BILLIONAIRE’S

  VIRGIN WITCH

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Other Books by Joely Sue Burkhart

  Dedication

  For my Beloved Sister,

  our favorite restaurant,

  Mythos, which inspired Remy’s,

  and all those who

  endured the tornado that devastated

  Joplin, MO

  May 22, 2011

  In loving memory for everyone

  Who lost their lives that day.

  Acknowledgements

  My eternal thanks to:

  Diana Castle for always holding me accountable.

  Sharon Muha for finding my typos.

  Shannon Collins and Cheryl Peugh, my tireless beta readers.

  ONE

  Yiorgos Michelopoulos strode into the steamy kitchen of his most recently acquired restaurant and everyone began disappearing. Wait staff scurried out the swinging doors, presumably to attend to Remy’s guests, but since the dining room was empty—and had been every night for months—they had no cause for haste.

  Other than escape.

  The sous-chef backed away, finding a hiding place in the large refrigerator. Yiorgos hoped the man froze to death.

  The only employees brave enough to remain in his presence were Paul, the acclaimed executive chef he’d sent here two weeks ago to turn things around, and Dmitri, the manager of the restaurant and one of his closest friends. Dmitri had left his prestigious job at a premiere New York hotel and moved his wife and kids to Missouri in order to help him.

  Despite its remote location, Remy’s was proving to be the most formidable nightmare they’d ever faced.

  Without saying a word to either of them, Yiorgos picked up a spoon and sampled the sauce bubbling on the grimy stove—which had been immaculate this morning when the staff had arrived. The rich béchamel curdled on his tongue like spoiled cream.

  Furious, he threw the spoon into the stainless steel sink. “Disgusting.”

  “I know.” Paul moaned, wringing his hands in his stained apron. “I don’t understand it, Mr. Michelopoulos. I cook my most treasured dishes and everything turns out bad, very bad. This whole place is cursed.”

  Grimly, Yiorgos twisted the signet ring digging into the pinky finger on his right hand. The restaurant isn’t the only thing cursed.

  If only he hadn’t put the ring on his finger. He’d forgotten the damned thing even existed after winning it from Emile Remy nearly two years ago, along with his restaurant he’d stubbornly refused to sell. Yiorgos had possessed everything he could possibly want, including the five-star status he and Remy had battled over for years. When his luxury hotel casino in Kansas City had won again last year, he’d put the ring on for spite, to celebrate his ultimate victory.

  Which had triggered a curse the likes of which he’d never known possible.

  “We have to shut it down.”

  Dmitri’s words made him whirl around, his face twisted with a snarl. “I’ve never closed a restaurant in my entire life, let alone this…this…”

  Frustrated, Yiorgos waved his hand at the small kitchen. On the surface, Remy’s wasn’t worth his time and effort. Even at full capacity, the dining room would barely seat one hundred guests. At the height of its success, the restaurant had been lucky to pull in a few grand a night. A drop in the bucket to a man with enough money to buy every restaurant in this entire one-horse Midwestern town.

  Yet for nearly a decade, Remy’s had claimed exclusive five-star status, despite Yiorgos’s efforts to wrest the prize for his own hotel’s restaurant. Only after he’d put on this accursed ring had Yiorgos learned the secret to Remy’s seemingly impossible success.

  Yiorgos owned hundreds of hotels and restaurants across the globe, yet he couldn’t keep one lousy ma-and-pa diner open. Fury made him grate his teeth. Barely holding his curses in check, he stalked into the manager’s office.

  Dmitri followed him and quietly shut the door. “How are you holding up?”

  In the privacy of the small office, Yiorgos allowed his shoulders to slump. Weary of hiding and worrying and plotting to save his life and this pitiful restaurant, he ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing’s fallen off yet, if that’s what you mean.”

  His friend winced, which made a small twinge of regret tighten his chest.

  “It’s that bad?” Dmitri asked in a choked voice.

  Without turning completely around, Yiorgos slipped the signet ring off his pinky. He looked back over his shoulder, allowing Dmitri to see the decay eating away his face. It might only be an illusion, a spell the late Emile Remy had managed to throw upon him before the man lost everything, but without the ring, he would soon look like a walking corpse. “Zombie or mummy?”

  “Zombie,” Dmitri answered automatically, well used to his word games. “Dear God. What are you going to do?”

  Slipping the ring back on, Yiorgos allowed a small smile to curve his
lips, but neither his face nor his resolved softened. “The Wizard Council claims only someone of Remy’s blood can lift the curse. Since he’s dead, the only person left of use to me is his daughter.”

  “Wizard Council.” Dmitri let out an uneasy laugh. “I never knew such a thing existed. If you hadn’t shown me what happens when you take the ring off, then I never would have believed you. Do you think Remy’s daughter can help you?”

  “She will.” Yiorgos promised in the silky menace voice he used for the hardest negotiations. “Regardless of what I must do to learn the witch’s secrets, she can and will help me.”

  Stirring the simmering lentil soup, Clare Remy tried to ignore her mother’s constant harping. The familiar warm tingle in her fingertips promised her magic was working, despite whatever Selma had to say about her cooking.

  “There’s still something missing.” Although that didn’t keep her from eating the whole bowl Clare had ladled out for her. “It’s not as good as what your father used to make.”

  No. She smiled sadly down at the rich soup that had always been his favorite. It’s better.

  He’d be busting at the seams with pride if he were still alive. Instead of cooking at home, she’d be sweating in Remy’s bustling kitchen, exhausted but elated by their customers’ glowing praise. Instead, her only customer was her mother who couldn’t ever be pleased.

  “At this rate you’re never going to pass your trials next month,” Selma continued, her voice sharpening with every word. “You won’t be accepted into the Wizard Council’s teaching program. Whatever will we do then?”

  Clare could only sigh. She understood the worry, because the daily stress of carrying the entire family’s success on her shoulders was getting to her, too. “We’ll get by like we’ve been doing the past two years.” She fought for an even tone of voice. “We’ll have jobs like normal people. The house is paid for. If I can’t cook for some reason, then I’ll…”

  “We’re not normal people!” Selma tossed the bowl into the sink with a clatter. “We’re wizards, descended from generations of extremely powerful wizards. We can’t be reduced to menial labor!”

  Clare preferred to think of herself as a witch, a kitchen witch to be exact. Wizardry sounded so…Arthurian. As though she ought to be slaying dragons and stirring up storm clouds instead of cooking supper in her modest kitchen.

  She ladled out a bowl for herself and began slicing off a nice thick piece of homemade bread.

  “Don’t cut yourself,” Selma said automatically, for the millionth time if Clare was counting.

  She didn’t even try to explain yet again that it’d be impossible for a kitchen witch to cut herself with her own knife. It would be like burning a cake or bread dough that failed to rise. Her magic wouldn’t allow such cooking disasters. Too bad her magic didn’t cover general clumsiness and awkwardness too. Or how about fantastic hair and a killer sense of style? Maybe all those gorgeous runway models were witches too, wielding a type of magic she hadn’t heard of yet.

  One sip of her soup smoothed away all those silly thoughts. She’d take plumpness, clumsiness, and a supreme lack of fashion in order to cook like this.

  “If only we had your father’s ring. Then we wouldn’t have to trust you to stay a virgin.”

  Clare winced. Oh, boy, had she heard this lecture a thousand times. Never mind that she was far from a teenager anymore in need of sex education. Since her cousin had lost her virginity—and her magic—just last month, her mother’s lectures had redoubled.

  Her mother’s healing talent had disappeared as soon as she married. Since Selma wasn’t the head of her family, she had no magic left at all, and now her husband was gone too. The loss of her special ability had always stung.

  Wizards didn’t often marry each other for that very reason. Someone always had to give up their power, unless they were both heads of their own families. With families dwindling day by day… Naturally, she worried that her daughter would suffer the same magic-less fate.

  Although as a twenty-seven-year-old virgin, Clare already felt like a dried up—extremely lonely—crone.

  A tinkling sound announced a magical visitor requesting entry to the Remy home.

  “Come in.” At Clare’s invitation, her mentor, Helga Kettlewich, popped into the kitchen.

  Where Clare thought of herself as curvaceous, the other witch’s full-figured shape loudly and proudly proclaimed her love of fine dining. Although Clare often bemoaned her apparently frumpy taste in clothing, she could only be thankful that at least she wasn’t completely colorblind like her teacher.

  A blazing orange shirt, green polka dot—extremely short for her matronly figure—skirt and blood-red tights completed Helga’s ensemble. With springy gray curls popping up all over her head, she looked like a kooky Halloween-costumed witch, not the supreme head of the North American Wizard Council and quite possibly the most powerful witch in the world both in and out of the kitchen.

  Clare immediately leapt to her feet, but Helga waved her back to her chair.

  “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to interrupt your lunch. May I have a taste?”

  “But of course,” Selma gushed, running about the kitchen to fetch a bowl for their guest as though she had prepared the food herself.

  Biting her lip, Clare didn’t say anything and instead, sat down to continue eating. Her mother had little interaction with the Wizard Council and would relish having a part, no matter how small, in the magical world. Even serving another witch’s brew.

  Helga sat beside her and said in a low voice, “I have an important message for you.”

  Slamming open cupboards looking for their best bowls, Selma didn’t hear or notice the paper Helga slipped to her.

  Clare unfolded the thick parchment and a pit of hell yawned wide and terrifying beneath her feet.

  Yiorgos Michelopoulos.

  The devil himself. The man who’d stolen her father’s restaurant and their family power in one fell swoop, leaving him to die of a broken, mundane heart.

  Which makes my stupid fantasies about the man all the more unforgivable.

  She dropped the letter onto the table as if a hot pan had scorched her bare fingers.

  “It’s urgent,” Helga whispered. “Or I wouldn’t have interrupted your practice for the trials.”

  Gingerly, Clare picked up the paper and scanned the words he’d slashed on the page in a bold, heavy hand. Each word ramped up the furious heat boiling inside her until she nearly screeched as shrilly as a boiling kettle. The audacity of the man! He actually expected, no, ordered, her to come to her own family restaurant that he’d stolen from her poor father. And work for him?

  Forcing herself to remain calm, she folded the paper and slipped it into her apron pocket without replying. She picked up her spoon and tried to eat, but the lentil soup tasted like ashes.

  “It’s an opportunity to regain the Remy ring.” Helga reminded her in a soft whisper. “I saw it on his hand when he came to my office.”

  “The ring!” Selma dropped the delicate china bowl in front of Helga. Only the kitchen witch’s deft hand kept the bowl from dumping its contents in her lap. “What? You must tell me!”

  “It’s nothing.” Clare pushed her soup away, her stomach in knots. Her head thundered, her blood pressure likely through the roof. Why would he contact her now? What could he possibly want with her?

  He’s already taken everything from me that I care about.

  “Mr. Michelopoulos requests Clare’s assistance at Remy’s.” Helga managed to make his summons sound much more polite than his actual note. “Evidently he’s worried that the restaurant won’t be able to retain its five-star competition when the inspector arrives.”

  “Yes, yes, but the ring,” Selma insisted. “Does he still have it? Will he give it back?”

  “He doesn’t promise anything in his note, I’m afraid, but I did see it.”

  Selma sat down heavily in the chair opposite them, as though she had no streng
th remaining in her legs. “I never thought we’d have a chance to get it back. You have to go, Clare.”

  “Mom, I can’t!” Clare hated the tears burning in her eyes as badly as she hated Michelopoulos. “He killed Daddy.”

  “Don’t be absurd. Your father died from cancer that had been developing for years. We just didn’t know it.”

  “Daddy never got sick until he lost the restaurant and his power. What if the cancer spread so rapidly because his power couldn’t keep it in check any longer once he lost the ring? Daddy would still be alive if it wasn’t for that stupid bet.”

  She’d never understood why he would even consider such a risky, foolhardy bet. If he refused to sell Remy’s, why on earth would he consent to the possibility of losing it to his greatest enemy? It just didn’t make sense.

  “If it helps,” Helga said in her gentle voice that she reserved for her sickest patients, “I saw your father myself at least a year before he lost the restaurant.”

  Helga was a powerful kitchen witch, but she was an even more impressive healer. Few wizards could claim more than one talent, which is why she was one of the most powerful wizards in the world.

  “You did?” Clare swiped the tears from her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was his wish to not burden his family with his illness. In fact, he made me promise not to tell you that he was dying so he could choose to tell you in his own way. If I’d known that you blamed Mr. Michelopoulos, I would have told you immediately. I can heal many things, dear, but I couldn’t help your father. The cancer was virulent and barely responded to my magic. I delayed the inevitable as long as possible. The restaurant bet was his last gamble to try to protect you.”