The Vampire Affair #1

by Vivi Anna

  Furnished in high-end fixtures with warm flowery paintings adorning the walls, Carmen’s office screamed opulence. I basked in elegance while the rest of the agency was just one big floor space separated by tiny, white cubicle walls. One big push and they would all come tumbling down. I had the urge on more than one occasion to do the pushing.

  “You’ll never guess who’s in town,” Carmen stated, pointing a long red fingernail in my direction.

  “Um, Norman Reedus?”

  Her arched eyebrow got even more arched, which I never thought possible.

  “You know, from the Walking Dead? He’s hot right now.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  Shutting my mouth, I leaned back in the chair.

  “Jonathan Devane.”

  I shot forward as if leaning on a pin. “What? You’re kidding? Why?”

  Carmen arched an eyebrow. “What’s with you?”

  Chewing on my lip, I slowly sunk back into the chair and crossed my legs. “Too much caffeine.”

  “Right. Well anyway, he’s in town, no one knows why, and I want a story.” Carmen got out of her chair and rounded her desk to sit on the edge. I leaned toward me. “I want to know why he’s here. I want to know whom he’s doing while he’s here. I want to know everything, Makayla. Everything.”

  “Okay.” Looking at Carmen’s eager face made me cringe inside.

  “If you get me this story, Mak, you will be well on your way.”

  “Well on my way to where?”

  “Anywhere you want to go. I know people at Entertainment Weekly. I think you’d fit right into their family of writers.” Carmen smiled.

  I hated when Carmen smiled. It meant that evil was afoot. Satan was offering a contract. Except the offer was very tempting. Do a cut and paste on Jonathan Devane, and get a better job at a better magazine. Sold.

  “Where’s he staying?”

  “At the Palliser. That’s all I know. His publicist is being a real ass. He’s not releasing anything.”

  I stood up, straightened my suit jacket, and squared away my shoulders. I lifted my chin and smiled.

  “I’ll get you your story and more. I guarantee a very dirty piece.”

  Carmen stood up and offered her hand. We shook, sealing the bargain.

  “Fantastic. I knew you were the right girl for the job, Mak. Other people may think you spineless and meek, but I say, Makayla Bradley’s got balls as big as a bull’s.”

  I nodded and marched out of Carmen’s office. I felt strong. I felt invincible. I would be victorious. Glancing around the crowded office watching my colleagues typing on their keyboards and talking into their Bluetooth’s, my bravado slowly leaked from my pores. Who thought I was spineless?

  My balls quickly shriveled up into sun-dried raisins.

  Chapter Three

  As I doodled on my desktop blotter, I picked up the phone and dialed the number to Jonathan’s hotel. My first and second attempts to speak with him had been rudely blocked by his annoying and obnoxious publicist, David Beckett. So I’d just have to try once more, just for fun. Persistence paid off. That was my motto.

  The hotel operator answered. “Fairmont Palliser. How may I help you?”

  “Jonathan Devane, please.”

  “One moment.”

  While the hold music tinkled in my ear, I added glasses to the little happy face I had drawn on my paper.

  David answered on the second ring. “Who is this?”

  His annoyance made me smile. With one bold swipe of my pen, the little smiley guy with glasses was destroyed.

  “Julie Smith from the Calgary Sun,” I said pinching my nose.

  “So if I called the Sun they’d know who you were?”

  “Of course.”

  “Listen, Ms. Smith, Ms. Doe, Ms. Bradley, whoever you are today, Mr. Devane is not doing interviews. He has no comment, and he’s really not interested in anything you have to say.”

  “But if I could have five minutes—,”

  “Thank you, and have a nice day.”

  I was used to people hanging up on me. It was the nature of my business. But David Beckett’s snub really pricked my butt. He was a rude, condescending little ass. It would not surprise me to discover him to be the snide cocky guy from the Toronto club. He fit the pompous egotistical profile.

  Well, if Jonathan wouldn’t talk to me on the phone, I’d just have to visit him at his hotel. I was positive Jonathan nor would David be too happy to greet me.

  After picking lint off my three-seasons-ago designer suit that I picked up from a used clothing store, I walked through the doors, after the cute doorman opened them, and paused in the entrance. Putting my cell phone to my ear, I pretended to have a conversation as I surveyed the lobby, figuring out my strategy.

  I needed a plan. I couldn’t ask for Jonathan at the front desk. They would certainly phone up to the room to announce my arrival. David Beckett would never allow my admittance. He would probably call security. Somehow, I had to get up to Jonathan’s room.

  I would knock on his door and when he answered, I would politely ask him for a few minutes. If he declined, I would pounce on him with a multitude of questions. He couldn’t ignore all of them. Well, he could slam the door in my face. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Then I could claim he was hostile and rude and obviously hiding something.

  As I carried on the fake conversation, I slowly moved toward the elevators. To the casual observer I would seem like a businesswoman on an important call. When I reached the wall, I pressed the up button. The hotel security guard smiled at me as I passed him. I smiled back pleasantly, maybe a little flirty.

  The doors opened. With a sigh, I entered, and the doors closed without incident. Grinning like a fool, I glanced at the floor buttons. Damn! I didn’t know in what room he was staying. Panicking, I pressed the top button. He was most likely in a penthouse suite. I’d check there first.

  The elevator stopped at the top floor. I peeked around the wall. The hallway was empty. With caution, I stepped out and looked one way, then the other. I’d knock on all the doors if I had to.

  I turned left and knocked on the first door. No answer. Putting my ear against it, I listened but heard nothing. I went to the next one. No one home. As I was about to knock on the next door, the elevator slid open.

  I dug in my purse and produced a credit card, pretending to slide it in the locking mechanism. I glanced briefly down the hall to see who had stepped off on the floor. I was pleasantly shocked to see a tall, sleek woman with black sunglasses on and a cap of raven black hair under a head scarf strutting down the hallway in blood-red three-inch mules.

  I recognized her from an interview I had done months before. Tatiana. No last name. The latest in supermodels, a pretentious bitch and recently linked to Jonathan Devane. A local heroine from a nearby small town, Tatiana talked with me at an evening charity fashion show in town. Halfway through the interview, Tatiana broke down into tears and poured out her guts. During a moving honest story, she confessed to an odd and creepy blood fetish—and to being bulimic.

  Naturally, after the story ran, she denied it all and claimed I had made most of it up. It also could have been that at the time of the interview, alcohol drowned her brain cells, and she couldn’t remember confessing her secrets. Or it could’ve been the mention I made that her breath had smelled like something had died in her mouth.

  Tatiana sashayed down the hall, her hips swaying side to side like a pendulum. I watched as she knocked on the very last door. It opened and Tatiana went in. Grabbing my notebook from my purse as I rushed down the hall, I frantically recorded the time of Tatiana’s arrival.

  Carmen would be ecstatic. Jonathan and Tatiana’s relationship had supposedly ended. In last week’s tabloids, someone mentioned a very public display of theatrics on Tatiana’s behalf. Tatiana called Jonathan several vile names and threw her wine in his face at a very posh Toronto restaurant. Now she was here, meeting him in a hotel half way across the
country.

  I took out my cell phone and dialed the office.

  “Serena? Get your butt down to the Palliser. I just saw Tatiana go into Jonathan’s room. I don’t know how long she’ll be here. You need to get pictures.”

  Just as the door to Jonathan’s room opened, I disconnected. I held my breath as a man of mammoth-sized proportions stepped out into the hall. He shut the door behind him and stood off to one side. As I stopped at the neighboring room, he glanced at me. I smiled at him as I rummaged around in my purse, but he didn’t smile back. I used my phone again.

  “Warner? It’s Bethany. I think I left that silly old card key in the boardroom. Could you check for me please?”

  I paced around the hall as my pretend assistant checked the fake boardroom looking for my non-existent hotel card key.

  “It is. Great I’ll be right there.”

  I ended my pretend call, gave a little sigh and walked back to the elevators. Damn. There goes that plan. As I waited for the doors to open, I glanced back toward the mammoth. Unmoving, the guy stared straight ahead. I didn’t realize Jonathan had bodyguards or security. This giant acted like the secret service. As one didn’t become rich and powerful from being nice to everyone, I supposed Jonathan had enemies. He had gained a reputation for being a bastard.

  The elevator doors opened. Movement caught my attention, and I paused, glancing to my right. From the far back hall, a chambermaid pushed her cleaning cart to the first room.

  I let the elevator doors close. I had an idea. A devilishly brilliant idea.

  I quickly walked down the hall to the open door of the far room and peeked in. A chambermaid stood with her back to the entrance, pulling sheets off the king-sized bed.

  “Excuse me?”

  The woman looked up from her work and turned to face me. “Can I help you ma’am?”

  “Yes, I think you can.” I opened my purse and took out my wallet.

  As I sauntered down the hall to Jonathan’s room, I adjusted my shirt again. The housekeeper’s uniform itched at my skin. The notebook tucked into my bra didn’t help either. It kept threatening to fall out.

  Pushing the cart, I prayed silently that I could pull this off. If not, I’d be out fifty bucks. I definitely looked like a hotel cleaner. My hair was pinned up neatly under the little blue hat. My blue uniform fit okay. A little big in the waist, it hung past my knees, which kept up the frumpy look I was going for. I even had on glasses, which I carried around in my purse. My eyes were 20/20, but I liked to wear them for esthetic reasons or for covert operations such as this one.

  When it came to clandestine campaigns, I was no rookie. On several occasions, I had passed myself off as someone else. Once, I convinced an attendee at a ten-year high school reunion that I was a certain graduate so I could gain entrance. I had a hot tip that a big Hollywood star had graduated from this class and planned to attend.

  The whole night I pretended that I was so-and-so, hoping so-and-so didn’t show up. So-and-so didn’t show up, but the Hollywood star did. As soon as I sat down with a glass of wine and a small paper plate piled with petites fours, I pounced on her.

  I didn’t get the interview, but I did get a story when the starlet tossed her drink on me and proceeded to curse up a storm. Who knew that she had even known some of those words? Her fans certainly didn’t.

  I would do just about anything for a story. Some colleagues didn’t approve of my methods. I was determined to do what I had to do, to make a name for myself and get on with a bigger and better magazine. Being tired of working for a trashy small-time magazine made me a very dangerous woman.

  I needed this story. It had the ability to catapult me to the big time. I’d be known as the reporter who exposed Jonathan Devane for the womanizing, unscrupulous, business fraud I thought him and not the charming, moral, champion of the Canadian artists he portrayed himself to be. Everyone had secrets. And I was determined to sniff his out.

  Locking eyes with the mammoth as I pushed the cart to the door, I smiled demurely.

  “I’m sorry, miss, but you’ll have to come back. Mr. Devane’s in a meeting.”

  Yeah, meeting of the sex organs maybe.

  “Really? This is my last room on this floor. That would mean I’d have to come all the way back up here after my shift.”

  “I’m sorry, miss.”

  “Could you check with Mr. Devane? He’d never know I was there. I’d be in and out as soon as I changed his sheets and brought him fresh fluffy towels.” I patted the pile of white terry cloth towels and batted my eyelashes at him.

  He turned and opened the door. “Wait right there.”

  I grinned. This was going to work. I quickly adjusted my bra again. The notebook was poking out of the top of my breasts.

  The mammoth stepped out again. “You may clean the bedroom and bathroom. But be quick.”

  I nodded and smiled. Grabbing my stack of towels and hanging my spray bottle from my belt, I moved past him and into the room.

  Expansive and elegantly decorated, the suite was bigger than my apartment and had at least two more rooms. There was a large bank of windows but they were blackened out by thick window coverings. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was night time.

  I tried not to stare at everything. Tatiana sat at the intimate table for two, sipping something red and nibbling on a piece of kiwi, and naturally, ignoring my arrival.

  I rushed to the sliding bedroom doors. Still gazing at Tatiana, I slid open one side. Taking a step forward, I smacked right into six foot one of rock-hard male muscles and flesh. Blindly, I reached out to stop from falling backwards and grabbed onto his arm. He wrapped his other arm around my waist and pulled me close.

  He smelled yummy, like spiced apple rum cake, my favorite dessert. His arm was solid steel under my grip, and I imagined the rippled muscle under the thin fabric of his dress shirt. God, he was more gorgeous than I ever remembered. If I didn’t look up and meet his gaze, I’d be all right. Just don’t look up, I chanted to herself.

  “Are you all right?” His voice, low and husky, with a wee bit of Irish cream, rumbled over me. Pure sex. My thighs instantly tingled.

  “Yes,” I squeaked.

  I could tell he grinned down at me as I could feel the intensity of his one hundred-watt smile on my flushed face. Don’t look up! Don’t look! But I could feel his magnetism tractor beam dragging my head up. I was powerless to resist.

  Just one tentative peek at his flawless sculpted face couldn’t hurt, could it? I slowly raised my head and looked up at him.

  Jonathan’s eyes were bluer than I remembered. Blue like the ocean. Hooded by dark long eyelashes, they seemed to draw me in. I pursed my lips and craned my neck up...reaching...for...

  Damn! What was wrong with me? I bit down on my lip and pushed back out of his arms.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  He eyed me for a long moment, then his lips twitched up into a smile. “No problem. It was my fault.”

  For a second I thought that he recognized me. But then I shook that away. Men like him didn’t remember girls like me.

  Afraid to look at him again, I kept my head down. The risk was insurmountable.

  He stepped out of the way as I rushed into the room, sliding the door shut behind me, but leaving an inch open so I could hear their conversation. I set down the towels and slipped my notebook out from my cleavage. As I peered through the opening in the door, my breath came in hard pants. I was very close to hyperventilating.

  “You should complain to the management about her.” Tatiana popped the rest of the kiwi into her mouth.

  “Why? I scared the poor girl.” Jonathan walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink.

  “Are you still mad?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “No, surprisingly, I’m not.”

  I caught his look and felt my stomach do a back flip. It was hungry, as if he was thinking about a meal. Rubbing a hand over my belly, I swore under my breat
h. Whoa, get a hold of yourself.

  Tatiana used her long blood-red fingernail to dig out a kiwi seed from between her teeth. “I’m not sure why you were mad in the first place.”

  “That is exactly the reason this doesn’t work. You never know why. You’re completely oblivious to everything around you.”

  Tatiana stood up and slunk over to where Jonathan was standing. Grinning like a Cheshire cat, she placed a hand on his chest.

  “I’m not oblivious to you.”

  “Two weeks ago you were calling me slime and throwing wine in my face. Why are you here now?”

  She rubbed her hand up and down his chest, snuggling in closer to him.

  “I thought you were having an affair with that hussy Jordan Jarvis.”

  “Jordan and I are friends. We were discussing an upcoming movie project. Not that I have to explain that to you.”

  “I know, darling. It doesn’t matter. I forgive you.” She pressed her lips to his, fisting her hands in his shirt.

  I frantically wrote notes in my book. Good stuff. A possible affair with a very young up-and-coming actress. Brilliant.

  Moving her hands down, Tatiana cupped him through his pants. “Let’s get naked.”

  Oh, this was getting better. I opened the door a little wider. I would definitely not be offended by a little peep show. Actually, I’d probably pay money to see this.

  “Tat-.“

  “Oh, don’t worry about the maid.” She nibbled her way around his neck. “Maybe we could ask her to join us. It’s been a long time since we’ve done that. By the looks of her, I’m sure the price would be low.”

  I bristled at her comment and bunched my hands into tight bony fists.

  Jonathan held Tatiana’s shoulders and gently pushed her away.

  “It’s over."

  “I know. That’s why I forgive you.”

  “No, it’s over between us. You officially ended it weeks ago, but it was over before it even started.”

  Tatiana backed up as if she’d been slapped in the face. “I knew it. You’re entranced by that bitch, Jordan. You want to convert her.”

  Convert? I frowned. Was Jonathan involved in some sort of cult? Scientology. That must’ve been it. He was a billionaire and good looking. He’d be a perfect candidate for a scientologist. Carmen would shit a brick when I told her.