The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  A kill.

  She wet her lips. “I was thinking, if I’m feeling this good tomorrow, I’d like to go home.”

  His eyebrows shot up. Expression at last.

  “Impossible.”

  Impossible? The single word caused a fist of tension to close around her stomach. Impossible because he didn’t judge her well enough, or impossible because he refused to let her go?

  “What, am I a prisoner here or something?”

  “Of course not.”

  Another jolt of relief. “Then I want to go home.”

  “Have you forgotten you may be infected? I’ll have to monitor you. We’ll need frequent blood checks. No, you must stay here.”

  She propped herself up higher in the bed. “Of course I haven’t forgotten my exposure, Dr. Bowen. But I don’t see why I can’t go home. Send Mr. Grayson over as often as you like. Or send him over to stay with me. I just need to go home.”

  “Why?” He leaned closer as though he genuinely wanted to know the answer. “There’s no one waiting for you there. No husband, no children, no pets, no dependents. Why do you need to go home?”

  Pain, raw and unexpected, sliced through her. Is that how he saw her, alone, lonely?

  “Thank you for highlighting so succinctly what you consider the barren nature of my life. But it just so happens that I believe there’s more to life than marriage and children. Like career. Like making a difference in people’s lives.”

  “Ah, yes, your career.” He sat back in his chair, raking back the strand of hair that fell on his forehead. “I understood it was dealt a serious blow last month when you resigned from the hospital authority under a bit of a cloud. A charting episode?”

  Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Her heart lurched, then thundered. How did he know that? How the hell did he know it? Who had he been talking to?

  She paled as another thought struck her. How did he know about her domestic living arrangements? How had he known she lived alone?

  That eyebrow again, lifting eloquently. “What, no comment on the charting debacle?”

  Anger surged, choking coherent thought. “The circumstances of my leaving the hospital are nobody’s business but mine!”

  “You don’t think a prospective employer should be permitted to investigate a potential employee’s track record?”

  “Who did you talk to?” she demanded.

  “I hardly think that’s relevant.”

  “It sure as hell is relevant. They agreed to give me a clean, if not particularly enthusiastic, reference.” She found the hydraulic lever on the side of the bed and raised the head of it while she talked. “That was the deal, in exchange for my leaving. That’s all they wanted, to get rid of me. The allegations were bogus and they knew it, but they didn’t care.”

  “So you were framed?”

  “Yes, I was framed, dammit!” She paused a few seconds to bring herself under control. When she continued, her voice sounded more like her own. “Okay, I know that probably sounds pretty lame, but it’s true. They saw me as a whistleblower, not a team player. So when these allegations were raised, they jumped at the chance to get rid of me.”

  “I know.”

  “This all happened because I reported an anesthetist’s gross criminal misconduct. But I had to! Those surgeons, or at least some of them, had to have known about his drug problem, yet no one would come forward. Sooner or later, someone would have come to harm, maybe even died, and—”

  “I know. You did what you had to. I wholeheartedly approve of your decision.”

  That brought her up short. “You know about all this?”

  “Of course. When I pay as much for information as I did in this case, it has to be comprehensive.”

  She blinked. “You paid for information on me?”

  “You should be pleased to know the personnel department is keeping up its end of the bargain. Your reference is clean enough, for anyone making a conventional inquiry.”

  “But that wasn’t good enough for you?”

  He shrugged. “As you can see, my research is a little sensitive. I need people whose discretion I can trust absolutely.”

  She snorted. “You found it reassuring to learn that I was a whistleblower? I would have thought that little detail would be a deterrent. What, for instance, makes you think I wouldn’t rat you out? Something tells me your research might not be in strict compliance with the Tri-Council’s ethical standards for research involving humans.”

  He smiled. It started slow, then spread until it suffused his whole face. And oh, Christmas, he was gorgeous when he did that. Which was the absolute last thing she should be thinking. This man had violated her privacy!

  “Okay, what’s so funny?”

  His smile faded much quicker than it had appeared. “You are a fearless little thing, aren’t you?”

  Her neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been sitting in that bed, thinking what an unprincipled rogue I am, what a disgrace to the healing arts. You’ve wondered about your own safety, about the wisdom of staying here under my care. Indeed, you’ve wondered whether I would let you leave. Even now, I can see you second-guessing whether the hospital might be a better bet, after all. And yet you dare to raise the specter of reporting me to Health Canada for regulatory breaches. You are, Ms. Crawford, quite a piece of work.”

  Dammit, she’d let her mouth run on again. When would she learn? Ignoring the heat that rose in her cheeks, she tilted her chin.

  “If that sounded like a threat, I apologize. I hardly know enough about your research to even speculate about compliance issues. And I would certainly not reward you for saving my life by jeopardizing either your livelihood or your research. As I’m sure your investigation revealed, Dr. Bowen, I have trouble staying silent in certain situations. Which begs the question again, what made me look like a desirable employee for such a … delicate project?”

  “Your financial situation.”

  Ainsley gasped. “You investigated my finances?”

  “I believe I mentioned I expect a thorough job when I commission an investigation.”

  Of course! That’s how he knew about her domestic situation. Did he know about Lucy and Devon?

  She schooled her face into what she hoped was an expressionless mask. “So, what did that highly illegal investigation tell you, Dr. Bowen, to convince you that I was the candidate you wanted?”

  “It told me that until you left your employment last month, you earned very good money. That you’d been working as many extra shifts as you could safely work without compromising your patients’ safety. That you live in a modest bachelor apartment and drive a vehicle that was bequeathed to you by an elderly patient, a vehicle that is sadly past its prime. You take very little vacation, and spend virtually nothing on yourself, and you have no drug habits to support. Yet you have a significant appetite for money. Money which barely has time to hit your bank account before it gets transferred offshore.”

  For the second time in the last ten minutes, her heart hammered against her ribcage like a wild thing. Which made it hard to keep her face impassive. “Again, you viewed this as a good thing?”

  Another smile, this one tight and controlled. “Quite definitely. You need immediate employment to keep the dollars flowing into that bank account. And despite your former employer’s agreement to stay mum on that little cloud over your head, your employment opportunities are limited unless you’re prepared to relocate, which takes time and money. Just as obviously, you need your employment to be lucrative, stable and predictable. All of which augured well, I thought, for a mutually beneficial relationship. Your need for cash, my need for discretion…”

  “And did your impeccable source tell you any more?”

  “About the money? No. Certainly I could have pursued it further. I’d have had to switch channels, but I assure you, the information could be had. Information is the one commodity that can always be purchased.”

  “So … what? You decided you’d a
lready spent too much money on your little investigation?”

  “Hardly little. And money was not the issue, you may be sure.”

  “Then why not pursue it to the bitter end?” Her voice broke and she had to pause. Goddamn him. “Just think — my humiliation could have been complete.” She blinked rapidly to forestall the tears that burned the backs of her eyes and tickled her nose. “You could have fed my Big Secret back to me and watched me sweat even harder.”

  “Humiliate you?”

  His face turned thunderous and he came to his feet.

  Despite herself, she shrank back, just the merest of movements, but he detected it. And it seemed to infuriate him further.

  “Ms. Crawford,” he said through thinned lips, “as hard as this may be to comprehend, I couldn’t give a damn about what your so-called big secret is. You could be using your money to bankroll an insurgence in Haiti or to establish a training camp for white supremacists in Arkansas for all I care. The only thing that matters to me is that it exists.”

  “But you had me investigated.”

  “I did. And if you want to accuse me of exploiting your situation, I guess you could make a pretty good argument. But I will not wear the mantle of your torturer. If you believe that, I’ll have Eli drive you home tomorrow, or to the hospital, or wherever you wish to go, and you can take your chances on your own. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been up all night. I’d like to get a little sleep before we take this conversation up again.”

  He turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

  “Wait!”

  He’d moved outside the circle of light cast by the lamp, but the room was already beginning to lighten with the approaching dawn. A new day on the way. A day she would live to see because of his intervention. He’d stopped just short of the door. Though he didn’t turn, he did angle his head as though to listen.

  “I’m sorry. You saved my life. I know that. And I know I must sound ungrateful. It was just such a shock, hearing you talk so … knowledgeably about my employment situation and my finances. I just—”

  “Do you still want the job?”

  She’d sensed him angle his body toward her a little more, but she could tell by the way his voice bounced off the wall that he hadn’t completely turned around.

  Did she want the job? Oh, man, crunch time. Could she take the leap of faith? Did she have any choice? She wet her lips. “What are your terms?”

  He turned fully around to face her and named a figure that surpassed her annual income last year by a good margin, even with the crazy extra shifts she’d logged.

  What on earth was he expecting for that princely sum?

  “I won’t have to do anything … illegal?”

  “Not even close.”

  His answer came without hesitation, but just like before when she’d intuited his plan to hunt down and destroy the vampire who’d attacked her, she detected the space between what he said and what he thought. What he actually thought was he’d take care of any shady stuff himself.

  That knowledge should have sent her running for the hills, but she found it oddly reassuring. He clearly didn’t know — or maybe he just didn’t care — how transparent his thoughts were to her. Certainly it would make a refreshing change from the minefield of politics, ego and subterfuge she’d had to navigate every day at the hospital.

  “You said there’d be a phlebotomy element?”

  “Yes.”

  “These subjects I’d be drawing blood from … would they be human or vampire?”

  A sigh. “I thought we’d agreed vampires are human.”

  Whoops. “Sorry.” She chewed the inside of her cheek a moment. “So they’re vampires, then? Infected, mutated, however you want to describe them.”

  “Yes, they’re vampires. But they pose no threat. They’re nothing like the rogue that attacked you. These people are civilized. They come voluntarily, and they have a vested interest in the continuation of my research.”

  “They want to be turned back, you mean?”

  The room had lightened sufficiently for her to see him shrug. “Some hope for that outcome. Others are quite happy with their lot, and just come for the free lunch.”

  Free lunch? She laughed, a short, startled sound. “You supply them with blood?”

  “Think of it like a Methadone clinic. If opiate addicts can get their regular dose of Methadone at a clinic, they stay off the streets and out of trouble. They lead productive lives instead of engaging in round-the-clock criminal activity to support their addictions. Vampires are no different. If these people can get human blood through a legal, or at least not out-and-out illegal source, then everyone wins.”

  She felt her forehead crease into a frown and immediately lifted her hand to smooth it. God, she had to stop doing that or her forehead would look like a roadmap. Or rather, more like a roadmap than it already did.

  “Aren’t they worried about what you’ll use this research for?”

  “Oh, I make full disclosure. I’m working on a vaccine to protect the very high-risk populations — the homeless, the drug-addicted, the mentally ill who roam our streets. The prime targets for the predators like the one who attacked you. Still, I’ve had to work hard to gain their trust, particularly those who don’t embrace a so-called cure. They have to trust that the vaccine won’t be turned against them, or used to deprive these peaceable citizens of viable sustenance.”

  Her mind whirled and spun. In a world where pharmaceutical policy decisions were dictated by the bottom line, how could he hope to control the fruits of his labor?

  “In all conscience, can you offer them that assurance?”

  “I have offered it, so let us hope I can deliver it.” He cleared his throat. “Now, shall we discuss the hours of work? As I suggested when we talked by telephone, we’re a dusk to dawn operation here. Now you understand why.”

  As she’d told him on the phone, day or night made no difference. She was quite accustomed to shift work. What she wanted to pursue was the sunlight thing. “It’s true, then? The mythology about vampires and daylight?”

  He laughed, a low, amused sound. “Yes and no.”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “No, vampires don’t explode into columns of fire, nor are they instantly reduced to a pile of ash. But they do have a severe photosensitivity.”

  “Like a sun allergy?”

  “Precisely. But more profound than anything you’ve ever seen in one of your ERs.”

  She called on her memory to dredge up what details she’d retained. Somehow the immune system started treating the sun-exposed skin as “foreign,” triggering an allergic reaction. She’d even seen a few cases in the emergency department over the years.

  “How profound are we talking?”

  “Acute solar uticaria.”

  Hives… “How acute?”

  “Very. If it were a hand or a forearm that got exposed, and if the exposure were brief, it would probably be manageable. Anything more is deadly. Full-on anaphylactic reaction.”

  Her stomach clenched. What a way to go. Lips swelling, airway closing… She shook the mind-picture away. “Why don’t they just carry an EpiPen?”

  His face had gone flat, expressionless. “Usually the poor bastards are caught out in the open, without shelter. A single-dose injection of epinephrine isn’t going to save them in that instance, even supposing it operates the same on a vampire, given their genetic mutations. Which we don’t know for sure. Understandably, no one wants to volunteer for that particular trial.”

  She let her breath escape. “That really sucks.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “I’m not much of typist or a filing clerk.”

  He laughed. “That’s okay. I’m not very good with dogs.”

  She laughed, too. A dizzy, giddy, flirting-with-hysteria kind of laugh. Man, she must be tired. “You know what I mean. For the job. The clerical component. I’m a great charter, but I’ve never had much to do with that other stuff.”


  “Ah, of course. I think it’s safe to say you’ll be better than me. You certainly couldn’t be any slower.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Okay you’ll take the job?”

  She ordered her twanging nerves to settle down. “Yes, I’d like the job.”

  “Excellent. I think we’ll deal very well together.”

  Deal very well together? Sometimes he used the strangest turn of phrase. “When do I start?”

  “I think we’d better put you on the payroll immediately,” came his wry reply. “After all, you wouldn’t be lying there if you hadn’t come for the interview.”

  Immediately. Thank goodness. An infusion for her desperately dwindling bank balance. “It could be a day or two before I’m up to scratch,” she cautioned.

  “There’s no hurry,” he said. “You need to recuperate. And remember, we’ll have to do frequent blood work to monitor your situation. In fact, I’d like you to stay here for the immediate future so we can keep a close eye on things. Would that be agreeable?”

  A shiver went through her at the reminder of her exposure, which she’d almost managed to forget for a few minutes. And once again, he was right. It made sense to stay here while she needed close monitoring.

  Whoa, Ainsley! Ten minutes ago, she’d been ready to fight her way out of here. What had changed?

  Well, number one, despite his slayer routine, he seemed genuinely devoted to helping the vampire community co-exist peaceably with the broader community.

  God, had she just framed the thought vampire community?

  She forced her thoughts back to why she felt better disposed to staying here.

  Well, he’d actually asked this time, more of an invitation than a decree. She didn’t feel so much like a prisoner.

  Plus her future didn’t look quite as gloomy as she’d assumed. Worst case scenario, if she were infected and Delano … er, Dr. Bowen were unable to halt the progression, it didn’t mean she’d automatically turn into a ravening predator like her attacker. Clearly, there were kinder, gentler vampires.

  “Ms. Crawford?”

  “Ainsley,” she said. “If we’re going to work together, I guess you’d better call me Ainsley.”