by Juliet Lyons
“Did he ever complain about the company?” I ask, leaning back into the seat.
“No. But then I never asked him much about work. I mean, it’s finance. What is there to say?”
“He wasn’t having any kind of problems with any of his work colleagues?”
She sighs. “None I’m aware of.”
“They just accepted him, just like he was?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t they?”
I decide to go for the jugular. “Forgive me, but you knew he was a vampire, didn’t you?”
Her jaw drops, and she appears faintly appalled. “We were together for five years. Of course I knew. No one as good-looking as Roger could ever be human.”
I stifle a grin. The girl has a point. “I ask because being a vampire would have set him apart from others at the company. Did he ever mention experiencing any prejudice from his colleagues?”
She begins tapping a designer-shoe-clad foot on the wooden floor, her mind wandering back to the meeting she’s due to attend. “Not really. They liked Roger. He could work long hours and didn’t need sleep. The CEO adored him. We even went to visit him at his house down in Surrey for the weekend.” A smile twists the corners of her lips, as if she’s picturing better, less financially difficult times.
“Forgive me,” I say, trying to inject a measure of compassion into my voice. “I am incredibly sorry for your loss.”
She lifts her chin into the air. “I’ve moved on. I’m doing okay. It’s not like there was ever a real future with Roger anyway.”
For the first time since seeing those photos of the decapitated vampire dumped beside the canal, I feel sorry for Roger Devine. This pair was apparently no Bella and Edward.
“I’m sure you have,” I mutter darkly.
“Hey,” she says. “Did you guys consider what I told you last time? About Roger being followed?”
My head snaps up. “Refresh my memory.”
Her brows knit. “Maybe your colleagues forgot to say—though to be honest, they didn’t seem all that interested when I mentioned it. But in the weeks before he died, Roger told me he thought he was being followed.”
“Followed? By whom?”
She shrugs. “He never saw anyone, just said he had an odd feeling. But he wasn’t worried about it. I mean, he was a vampire, for heaven’s sake, and he was in the gym literally every night.” She gazes wistfully into space for a few seconds before continuing, “That’s why it doesn’t make sense that someone managed to kill him. The other officer I spoke to theorized the killer was probably another vampire. I mean, it would have to be, wouldn’t it? Who else would be strong enough?”
“Tell me,” I say, holding up an index finger. “Did Roger have any enemies in the vampire community?”
“No. He always hung out with humans. He said the vampires in London were a feral bunch.”
I cock a brow. Cheeky bastard.
“His maker, Esme, did he ever mention her?”
She shakes her head. “Not really. He told me who she was and that she lived in New York, but when he spoke of her, it was always in the past tense. Why? Do you think it might have been her?”
“Not a chance. Though she is keen on locating a certain Tiffany necklace.”
Roger Devine’s girlfriend flinches, a flicker of anxiety passing across her features. “I don’t know anything about it,” she retorts.
Her fingers tighten around the handles of her leather bag. I’d be willing to bet a thousand bucks that the necklace is currently residing with a pawnbroker in Mayfair. I nod slowly, mulling over her lie, pondering if their financial difficulties might somehow be tied to Roger’s sudden death. The trouble is, even if there’s a link, the woman standing before me isn’t about to give up the information. Her lips are clamped shut, the shutters down on her steel-blue eyes.
I could press the matter, but I’m not sure it’s worth the energy. Besides, she doesn’t seem the type to bump off her undead partner for money, no matter how badly she desires the finer things in life.
Just then, another set of footsteps echoes along the corridor to number thirty-seven.
“Rat-a-tat-tat,” a nasal voice calls, as the front door flies open. A short man wearing a nylon suit and too much hair gel waltzes into the lounge.
Now this is an estate agent.
He sticks out a hand to Roger’s girlfriend. “Miss Baxton? I’m Simon from Carter-Mayhew.”
Baxton. Now all I need is her first name.
She flips her straight blond hair over her shoulder. “Call me Lauren.”
Bingo.
“I’d better be off,” I say, rising from the sofa and motioning to the door. “You know how it is—donuts to eat, vampire murders to ignore.”
The pair appears to have all but forgotten about me. Lauren flicks me a bored look while Simon, the over-gelled estate agent, twitches an uninterested smile. I suffer a brief compulsion to show them my fangs, but in the end, I restrain myself.
“Let me know if the necklace shows up,” I say to Lauren, and then unable to help myself, “It’s funny. I think I saw a similar article at a pawnbroker the other day.”
The look of sheer horror on her face is priceless as I slip out of the apartment, making a dash for the elevators.
At the desk in the foyer, I return the key to the bewildered gentleman sitting at the desk.
“Like Piccadilly Circus up there today,” he says, taking it from my outstretched hand. “Nearly as bad as when we had the coppers in.”
“It’s Roger’s girlfriend and an estate agent,” I say, peering down at him. “I don’t suppose you ever saw anyone following Roger, did you?” I ask. At this point, anything is worth a try.
“Following him?” he repeats, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. “I never saw anything, and he wasn’t the type to confide in the building’s concierge.”
Roger was a snob. Interesting.
“Funny, you being his brother,” the man says, removing his glasses and cleaning them on the front of his smart, navy sweater, “because I could have sworn he was a vampire.”
For once I don’t know what to say. By the time the man puts his glasses back on, I’m ducking out of the door and heading back toward Soho.
* * *
Back at the club, the three Brazilians are nowhere to be seen. Harper is sitting, chatting to Paulo at the bar.
“How was it?” he asks, bouncing off the stool like an eager puppy. “Any developments?”
“Send Charlie into my office,” I say, heading for the door at the back of the club.
“Charlie? I thought you had an appointment with Kandy.”
I spin around on my heel. “Kandy?”
“You asked for her Saturdays and Wednesdays, remember? Or do you want me to get rid of her?”
Ah, yes, Annie. Part of my grand I’m not whipped by Catherine Adair routine.
I shrug. “It slipped my mind.”
Without another word, I continue along the corridor to my office. “Still send Charlie,” I call over my shoulder.
Inside my office, Annie has taken our fake carnal relationship agreement to a whole new level. She is sitting in my leather chair, naked, save for a badly knotted tie and a smile.
I point at the tie. “That isn’t one of mine.”
She toys with it. “I picked it up in the staff room.”
“We have a staff room?”
She swings the chair from side to side. “Uh-huh.”
I stare at her for a few moments, hoping and dreading in equal measure that I might feel turned on, but there’s nothing. Not a twitch. It’s Catherine I want naked at my desk, Catherine I want swinging on the chair. Catherine, Catherine, Catherine. The image of her unraveling at her apartment, my fingers playing her like a rare and beautiful instrument, is enough to drive me to madness. For a moment, I
consider running right back over to East London and picking up where we left off.
Hearing Charlie approach, I snap back into the present. “Stay in that position, would you?” I ask Annie.
“Got it.”
Charlie’s eyes nearly pop out of his skull when he clocks Annie sitting naked at the desk.
I motion to the chairs in front of the fireplace. “As you can see, Charlie, my desk is a little occupied at the moment. Take a seat over here.”
Charlie’s toffee-colored eyes are fastened to the naked woman as he slips into a chair. I snap my fingers in front of his face. “Charlie, focus.”
He swallows, dragging his gaze from her. “Sorry, Boss.”
“So, I went to Roger Devine’s place. I need you to do some digging on his financial situation before he died and on his girlfriend, a human named Lauren Baxton. I also want to know more about the CEO of the company.”
“Right you are,” Charlie mumbles, his eyes straying back across the room.
“While you’re about it, try and find someone who was in touch with Isaac before his death. Girlfriend, flatmate, anyone he might have spoken with.”
“Got it,” Charlie murmurs, a hot flush climbing his neck as his eyes flit from the desk to me and back again.
“Good.” I leap off the chair and wrench open the door. Before I let him through, however, I give Kandy what I hope is a meaningful, sexually charged stare. “I don’t want to be disturbed for the next hour at least, Charlie. Are we clear?”
Charlie looks at me as if I’m the world’s most powerful man and a lotto winner rolled into one. “We’re clear.”
I slam the door shut and Annie moans like a true professional, bouncing in the seat. “Please, give it to me, Mr. McDermott, please. I want it so bad.”
Though the whole thing is a ruse, I feel a pang of guilt as Catherine’s pretty face flashes behind my eyes. I shrug out of my suit jacket and toss it to Annie, indicating with a jerk of my head that she should put it on. She wraps it around herself before smacking a hand down on the desk and making it rattle. Let’s hope it’s enough to fool them.
When I sense Charlie has disappeared back into the bar, I say, “Do you have anything to keep you entertained for the next hour?”
She jumps out of the chair and circles the desk, reaching into one of the fishnet stockings I hadn’t even noticed she was wearing to pull out a cell phone.
“Candy Crush,” she says, waving the phone in the air. “Level one hundred and twelve is a bit of a shit.”
I nod. “Good. Should keep you busy. Would you mind sitting over there so I can get to my laptop?”
Holding the suit jacket across her chest, she no longer seems the self-assured siren of a few moments ago.
“Sure,” she says, frowning.
Reclaiming my seat, I lift my laptop out of the desk drawer as she gets comfy in one of the tan leather armchairs by the fire.
“Do you want that lit?” I say, pointing to the hearth.
“No, I’m good.”
Flipping open the computer, I feel her gaze on me. “What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says, hitting a button on the phone, which explodes with jingly carnival music.
I lean back in my chair. “Say it. I won’t bite.”
She smiles, chewing her lip. “Nothing. It’s just… Well… You’re so different from how they said you would be.”
My eyes narrow. “Who is ‘they,’ and how did they tell you I’d be?”
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “I don’t want to get anyone into trouble, but you have a fearsome reputation. Some say dangerous.”
I level my gaze with hers. “And it’s that dangerous reputation I need you to uphold, Annie. At all times.”
She goes back to her phone, swiping her index finger down the screen at random intervals.
I’ve changed, I realize, staring at her long, bronzed legs folded beneath her and feeling nothing but a deep ache to be back on Catherine’s couch, her hands working me out, her mouth on mine.
After centuries walking the earth, everything is shifting.
And it’s all Catherine Adair’s fault.
Chapter 11
Cat
When Ronin leaves, I snatch the envelope from the table and tear it in two, desperately trying to stop my brain from absorbing the address scrawled across it in spiky writing.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as my eyes betray me, scanning the words like a pair of searchlights in the dark. Even his handwriting is impossible to ignore.
I drop the two rectangles of the torn envelope into the wastepaper basket beside the bookcase and shiver, Ronin’s final words reverberating through my head. I’ll make you come a thousand times over before I’m done with you.
Wentworth is still lounging on the circular table, his chin resting on my laptop. “It’s just lust,” I say to him. “Besides, the bastard laughed at me. He actually laughed.”
The cat brings a paw up to his face and licks it, nonplussed by the revelation.
Glancing down at myself, I realize I’m still wearing just a bra and yoga pants, my body buzzing from Ronin’s caresses. I half close my eyes, remembering how he looked as I took him over the edge—head flung back, magnificent chest heaving, the way his body shuddered in surrender. Was he so intense with every woman he screwed?
A loud crash from next door echoes through the wall, breaking me from my thoughts and sending a sharp stab of horror shooting into my chest. Jesus, I’d forgotten all about Peter. What if he heard us? I was pretty noisy—Ronin even more so. If he knows I had a man in here so quickly after kissing him, what must he think of me?
I dive on the remote and switch the television on, turning up the volume in the hope he’ll assume I always watch TV with the sound blaring. But then, what would I have been watching? Porn?
I switch it off again, my gaze flitting between the wastepaper basket and the table. The pen Ronin used is still abandoned on top of a pile of books. I notice he didn’t even bother to put the lid back on. Says it all, really.
With a groan of frustration, I head for the shower, pulling off my underwear and yoga pants and shoving them into the washing machine on my way through. I may not be able to erase what happened between us, but I can propel myself far enough into the future to keep myself from thinking about it. Getting rid of his delicious musky scent is a good place to start.
In the shower, I choose the hottest, fastest setting and stand beneath the jets, letting the water pummel down on me as I scrub myself vigorously with a scented Jo Malone shower gel. But no matter how clean my body is, my mind remains firmly in the gutter. I can’t help but fantasize about Ronin and me being in here together, my legs wrapped around his muscular thighs as he slides in and out of me. Worst of all, I imagine his fangs at my throat, sinking into my soft flesh as I shout his name into the hot, steamy air.
I shut the water off and sag against the fogged-up glass of the cubicle. Though I can no longer smell Ronin on my skin, I can still taste him, hear his mellow Scottish tones in my ear.
“This will pass,” I tell myself, stepping out onto the mat and grabbing a towel from the hot rail. “It’s fresh. He gave you an orgasm, but he’s still a manipulative, controlling asshole.”
I swipe at the mist on the mirror above the sink and stare at my face in the reflection. My eyes are bright, shining with satisfaction. The eyes never lie.
I turn away from the mirror, a thought crawling into my mind like creepers up a wall. What if this doesn’t pass?
* * *
By the following afternoon, I’m climbing the walls with sexual frustration. I try working on the new V-Date app, but after a few minutes, I find myself staring blankly into the glow of the computer screen, reminiscing yet again about Ronin’s lips on mine. I pick up books and toss them aside after ten minutes, put on a movie
and turn it straight back off. I could go out, but I don’t trust myself as to where I might end up.
Though the torn envelope with Ronin’s address scribbled on it was destroyed early this morning in the flame of a lit match, I’ve memorized the details.
16 Kensington Place, SW1.
The words chatter at me in a monkey voice. If sleeping pills worked on vampires, I would swallow a crate load to get it to shut the fuck up.
When the light outside the window turns milky yellow, I decide enough is enough. A walk will clear my head, help put everything into perspective. I ditch the pajamas I’ve been lounging in all day and pull on a pair of black skinny jeans and a hoodie, tying my curls back into a messy ponytail. After digging gym trainers from the bottom of the closet, I slip out into the hallway, zipping past Peter’s door faster than a whippet from a cage. I haven’t heard a peep from him since yesterday, which makes me believe he heard Ronin and me through the wall.
Typically, Mrs. Colangelo is waiting in the hallway outside her apartment, her hair knotted up in twisty foam rollers. She is the absolute last person I want to have to deal with right now. Meeting with the devil himself would be infinitely preferable.
Even though Peter said she knew about my being a vampire, I slow my pace, keeping my head down in a desperate hope she might let me off the hook.
“I heard noises yesterday,” she pipes up, pointing her index finger to the ceiling, her dark eyes flashing.
My heart sinks. Am I really about to discuss my sex life with Mrs. Colangelo? I ignore the tiny lurch of pride my heart gives out at the notion that, for the first time in many years, I actually have a sex life.
“Oh,” I say with a shrug. “It was probably Peter moving his furniture around.”
She narrows her eyes, sliding a suspicious gaze over the length of my body. “This was not furniture, young lady.”
A wave of anger courses through me. My mind has been looking for a suitable outlet to air its vexation, and staring into Mrs. Colangelo’s triumphant gaze, her eyes as dark and bitter as two black coffee beans, I think I might have found it.
“What was it then?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. A little voice reminds me to go easy, that this is just a sad old lady whose husband recently died, but suddenly it’s all too much.
