The Perfect Ten Boxed Set

by Dianna Love

  Her smile suddenly felt strained. Yes, she was smart. Yes, she was attractive, in a blond ambition kind of way. And damn right she was driven. But somehow when he put all those attributes together — all attributes she happily owned up to individually — the picture didn’t feel terribly flattering.

  Ignoring the stiffness in her face, she let her smile broaden. “Then you won’t mind drawing this little bit of blood.”

  A slight hesitation, long enough to make her rethink pushing the issue. What was she doing anyway, aggravating her new employer like this? The man had literally saved her life, then handed her a job that solved all her problems, and here she was baiting him. She really did need to learn when to keep her mouth shut.

  He shrugged, as if it were of no import. “Certainly. If that’s what you want.”

  Huh? What was he up to now, with the sudden acquiescence? Because despite the six-of-one, half-a-dozen-of-another attitude he currently projected, she’d lay strong odds he wasn’t nearly that blasé about it. She couldn’t have misread him that badly. She angled her chin in a challenge.

  “Great. It makes infinitely more sense than waking Eli.”

  He nodded agreeably. “Then by all means, I’ll do it. I thought only to keep the employer/employee relationship as straightforward as possible. You may be my patient for now, but I hope you’ll be in my employ much longer than you will be in my care.”

  That rat! With his reasonable tone and his plausible explanation, he’d turned the tables on her.

  Well, she refused to feel like she was being unreasonable. It did make more sense for him to do it than to rouse poor Eli, who seemed to be on call 24–7.

  Plus, she knew his rationalizations were just that — rationalizations. She’d felt his reluctance like a palpable force between them.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, but we’re both professionals. I hardly think either one of us is going to get confused if you draw my blood this one time.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said, his voice loose, a little mocking. Casual, casual. “Just sit tight and I’ll get the kit.”

  He left the room to retrieve the phlebotomy supplies.

  Ainsley wilted immediately. God, she was a fool to antagonize him. And he was antagonized. As smooth as he was trying to play it, he was pissed. No question about it.

  She didn’t have long to flay herself about it; he was back in under a minute. Plunking the kit down, he readied the materials and donned fresh sterile latex gloves.

  He looked up, his eyes cool, thoughts purposely shrouded. “Left arm?”

  “Seems to work best.” She extended her arm, having already rolled up her sleeve.

  He tied the rubber tourniquet off, then reached for an alcohol prep pad, which he tore open. Grasping her arm, he swabbed the inside of her elbow efficiently. Then, with every bit as much practiced ease as Eli displayed, he probed for the best vein, introduced the needle and quickly filled the requisite number of tubes, each with a different colored cap. Though she watched his face carefully, he didn’t betray by so much as a twitch any untoward emotion.

  Stranger and stranger. Had she been that far off base? Had she completely imagined his ambivalence?

  “There. All done.”

  He applied a gauze pad to the site and withdrew the needle. Automatically, she took over, applying steady pressure to the site while he released the tourniquet.

  Okay, Ainsley, you’re an idiot. A vain, self-centered jerk. You pose no more of a threat to this man’s composure than a gnat circling his head.

  Then he stood so abruptly that his chair shot backward, careening into the wall where it left a small but definite dent in the drywall.

  “You can run off to bed now. We’re done here.” With that, he left the room, samples in hand.

  Ainsley watched him thoughtfully, wondering when it would strike him that the samples had to come back to this lab.

  Chapter 6

  AINSLEY WOKE to a violent thunderstorm.

  She lay there a moment, wondering if she’d imagined the ear-splitting crack of thunder that still echoed in her head. Then another boom sounded, shaking the house and rattling the windows. She jack-knifed up in bed, heart pounding. Holy Mother of God, that had to have been close!

  She reached for the lamp at her bedside, turning the switch. Nothing. That’s when she noticed the clock radio that usually glowed at her bedside had been extinguished. Great. No power. The electrical storm must have knocked the electricity out.

  Or, oh shit, had lightning struck the house itself? It sure sounded close enough. Was the house already on fire?

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed her clothes and began to struggle into them. She was poking her bare feet into her athletic shoes when her door burst open.

  “Ainsley? Thank God you’re all right.”

  The voice was Delano’s, but she couldn’t see him.

  “Del? What’s happening? Has the house been hit?”

  “We have to leave. Now.”

  Another boom and a flash rocked the house and briefly revealed Delano, closer now than his voice had suggested just second ago.

  “Are you sure we should go out there in that? I mean, unless the house is on fire, wouldn’t we be safer in here?”

  “That’s mortar fire,” he clipped. “The house is under attack.”

  Under attack? “But who … why—?”

  “Just come.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door.

  “My purse!”

  “Quickly.”

  She dashed back to grab her bag from her bedside, then Delano was tugging her forward again. Within seconds, they were racing through the halls at a dead run.

  “We’re going too fast. I can’t see anything!”

  “I can see. Just stay close.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “There are tunnels below. But save your breath. We have to get clear before they get close enough to get a lock on our infrared signatures.”

  He was worried about their infrared-freaking-signatures? That had to mean they were dealing with attackers who had heat-seeking weapons…

  She stumbled, but he righted her before she could fall, then tugged her onward at a pace even faster than before. Which was way faster than she was capable of running. It was his speed and strength that impelled her. She forgot to worry about slamming into unseen objects and merely concentrated on keeping her feet churning beneath her fast enough to avoid stumbling again.

  They ran for what seemed like forever, but was probably a matter of minutes. Delano quickly learned to announce corners before they negotiated them. “In five seconds, we’ve got a left turn, 90 degrees. Left again in five. Right. Steps. Left. More steps. Five, four, three, two, one … ramp.”

  By the time they reached the ramp, her leaden legs could no longer respond fast enough to keep up. He’d merely slid an arm around her and lifted her clear of the ground, pelting down the ramp without losing a fraction of his speed.

  Before she could marvel at his endurance, he stopped and set her back on her feet.

  “We’re here.”

  “Where is here?”

  As though in response to her question, a very dim light came on. She was standing in a cavern of some sort. And in the center of the cavern, resting like a great sleeping beast on the rock floor, sat the strangest looking aircraft she’d ever seen. A helicopter, she realized. Well, maybe a helicopter. It had rotors, anyway. That’s about where the resemblance ended.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s our ticket out of here.”

  Out of here? Reflexively, she glanced up, straining to see the roof of the cavern. Though she could not discern it through the inky darkness, she felt its looming, containing presence, heard it in the way their voices bounced off the walls. How was a helicopter going to get them out of this cave?

  A man detached himself from the shadows, a pair of helmets in hand. “Fuelled up and ready to go, boss.”

  Eli! A
pang of guilt pierced her. She’d forgotten all about him in the headlong rush to escape the bombardment above.

  “Oh, thank goodness, Eli! You made it out.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Now put this helmet on. We’ve gotta strap in, pronto.”

  She accepted the helmet, but before she could put it on, the floor beneath her feet started to vibrate. Her gaze flew to Delano, who pointed upward. She glanced up to see the ceiling above them sliding open, exposing cold pinpoints of starlight in the pre-dawn sky. A retractable roof!

  She should have been relieved that an escape route had opened up, but all she felt was scared and confused. Who was Delano Bowen to command these resources? More importantly, who was he to attract a military-style attack on his house? “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand any of it.”

  “I’ll explain later. But trust me, we have to get out of here, and we have to do it quickly.”

  Her answer was to jam the helmet on.

  Minutes later, she finished strapping herself into the seat Delano indicated. He and Eli sat up front. Even before their seatbelts were fastened, they’d run through an ultra-rapid pre-flight check. Then Eli powered up the engines. Faster than she would have imagined possible, the beast lifted smoothly off the ground.

  Ainsley squeezed her eyes shut. She would have characterized herself as a comfortable flyer, but one glance at the cavern walls closing in on them as the craft ascended convinced her that this was one takeoff she was better off not watching.

  “It’s okay.”

  At the soothing sound of Delano’s voice inside her helmet, she opened her eyes.

  “Eli can fly this thing in his sleep, and it’s very maneuverable. Oh, and his helmet is equipped with night vision sensors. He can see like it’s high noon.”

  Good. That was all good. “What about the heat-seeking technology you mentioned?”

  “It won’t be a problem now that we’re inside the craft. It’s equipped with the latest in low-observable technology.”

  Dear Jesus, stealth technology? Wasn’t that restricted to military use? “This is a stealth helicopter? We’re invisible?”

  “Nothing is invisible, especially to the naked eye. But the craft is designed to minimize its radar signature and hide its heat signature. Once we’re away, we’ll be very hard to track.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s the getting away part that has me concerned right now. They’ll be able to see us, won’t they? And hear us?”

  “Not to worry. I left them a little something to keep them preoccupied.”

  “Clear,” came Eli’s voice in her ear.

  She glanced out the window to see the lights of the city on the horizon, a scant three miles away. They were indeed clear of the cavern.

  “Time to give our visitors their present.”

  On cue, a spectacular explosion erupted perhaps a thousand yards away, tearing the west-facing, ivy-covered stone wall right out of Delano’s house. Flames leapt high into the air. In the orange illumination provided by the fire, debris drifted gracefully to the ground.

  Ainsley gasped, recognizing the corner of the house that had just been destroyed. “Your lab! Del, they blew up your lab!”

  “No, they didn’t. I did.”

  Just then, Eli nailed the accelerator, or whatever the equivalent of an accelerator was in a big-assed stealth helicopter, and they screamed off. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, they were racing along at what felt like an altitude of mere inches above the surface of the glittering river that bisected St. Cloud.

  He’d blown up his own lab? “Delano Bowen, you’ve got some explaining to do.”

  “More than you know. But I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait.”

  “No!” Her voice rose on a note of hysteria, which she clamped down on immediately. She hadn’t done all those years in as an OR nurse in a major trauma center for nothing. “You’re not putting this off,” she said, and this time her tone was calm, authoritative. “I want to know what’s going on here, and I want to know it now.”

  “I’d love to oblige, but I’m afraid it’s impossible just at the moment. See that on the eastern horizon?” He released his safety harness, removed his flight helmet and crawled out of the cockpit.

  Her heart leapt into her throat, scattering her composure. Were they being pursued? Was he going to man some hidden high-tech defense system? She craned her neck to scan the eastern horizon for hostile aircraft, but the pre-dawn sky was empty.

  “I don’t understand. What am I supposed to see?”

  “The sun,” he said dryly. “It’s about to rise. Which means I need to seek shelter.”

  She felt her heart thudding in her chest, hard enough that she could count each and every painful contraction. Time seemed to bow and wobble, and the very air between her and the rest of the world turned liquid, heavy, oppressive.

  Omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod, omigod.

  She sucked in a shallow breath. Then another, deeper one. On the exhalation: “You’re a vampire.”

  “I’m afraid so. Though I had hoped to break the news in more favorable circumstances. “

  “Did you? Did you really?” It was a struggle to keep her tone of voice out of the fishwife register. “Or did you plan to keep me in the dark indefinitely?”

  His brows came together. “Look, I’d really like to have this out with you, but in five minutes, I’m either going to be dead to the world or just plain dead. I strongly prefer the former. So if you’ll excuse me…”

  With that, he brushed past her to flip open the top to what she’d taken for some kind of cargo storage box. Then he climbed inside its satin-lined cavity and sketched her a casual, self-mocking salute. “Until tonight.”

  Then he lay down and pulled the lid shut.

  The lid!

  To. His. Fucking. Coffin!

  Montreal at night. One of his favorite spots on earth. Delano gazed out over the sea of lights spread virtually at his feet, and waited. And waited still longer. But for once, the pulse of the city failed to steal into him to quicken his own heartbeat.

  Instead, he felt … nothing.

  Dammit. It was a sorry vampire whose blood was not stirred by the prospect of all that vibrant life down there on the streets.

  Of course, it was a sorrier vampire still who had to be carted into his penthouse, in full daylight, delivered up like an inanimate piece of furniture.

  Or a numb, cold piece of statuary.

  His brows drew together in a frown. What was this odd feeling dragging at him? What was this strange mood? He looked inward and saw the answer.

  Melancholy.

  His gut clenched. Sweet Jesus. Bring on the mortar shells. Let a hundred enemies rain fire from the sky. But please, God, keep the monkey of depression off his back. Stronger men than he had stepped outside at dawn to witness their last sunrise, impelled by an unrelenting weariness too profound to resist.

  The woman. Ainsley Crawford. That’s what brought it on.

  These past few days, she’d looked on him as though he were an ordinary, if not entirely trustworthy, man. Until that moment in the helicopter. He’d seen the shock, the shift in her eyes when he’d had to seek shelter from the sun.

  What he would give to have her look at him again the way she had before…

  Delano heard the door open behind him but did not turn. That would be Eli, bearing sustenance and a status report.

  Eli came to stand beside him at the window. “Ah, Montréal,” he said, pronouncing it the French way. “Good to be back, isn’t it?”

  Delano sighed and turned his back on the nighttime tableau. “I must be getting old, Eli. The blood doesn’t pump like it used to.”

  Eli looked singularly unconvinced, but said, “It’s been a rough twenty-four hours, I’ll grant you that much.”

  Delano raked his hair, still wet from the shower, back from his forehead. “It was our Czech friend, of course.”

  “Yeah, it was Janecek, all right.” Eli moved away to place the
unit of blood he carried in the blood warmer. “Our sources in Prague confirm he was Stateside as of last week, and he was spotted in New York two days ago. And just in case we might have had any lingering doubts, the blast you left for them took out one of his key lieutenants, a merc by the name of Liam Hanlon.”

  Delano whistled. “Hanlon? Are we sure about that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Janecek would be extremely pissed. As would Hanlon, if he were still around to reflect on his fate. Word had it Hanlon had made a deal with Janecek. When he’d served long enough and faithfully enough, he would be rewarded with his master’s eternal kiss. If nothing else positive came out of last night’s firefight, the world was far better off without a merc-turned-vamp rampaging around it.

  “The body?”

  “Our people let their people retrieve it.”

  “What about police?”

  “Nothing to worry about there. The scene was sufficiently sanitized before their arrival. The HAZMAT team that went in was 100% ours.”

  Always good when the contingency plans one laid so carefully actually fell into place. “The media? How did they characterize it?”

  “Natural gas explosion. No injuries, since you were out of town and your staff had the week off.”

  More good news. “Repairs to the lab?”

  “Already underway.”

  He nodded his satisfaction. “Sounds like everything is under control.”

  Eli coughed, to disguise either a laugh or a snort. “Under control. Absolutely. Except for that little detail that the Butcher of Bohemia is apparently out for your head.”

  “Indeed.”

  Eli shot Delano a hard look. “You know, I can do my job better when I have the full picture.”

  “Point taken. When I have the full picture, I’ll fill you in.”

  Eli blew out an exasperated breath. “Okay, I appreciate it’s a little early for definitive conclusions, but if you had to speculate, what would you say? What’s this about?”

  “If it were just me he wanted, he could have ambushed me any number of times over this past week, but he chose to strike my home, my lab. So I would say I have something Radak Janecek wants. Or perhaps something he wants to see destroyed.”