by I. T. Lucas
But it looks like it ends here.
Nathalie will be so disappointed.
I wanted to find you in time to tell you that she and Andrew are getting married and are inviting you to their wedding. We all want you to be there, though it would’ve been weird with Fernando around. He thinks that you guys are still married.
The other good news is that Nathalie and Andrew are expecting a baby. Can you believe it? We are going to be grandparents!
I’m probably writing this letter in vain, and you’ll never get to see it. But I pray that you do and that you’ll call me. If you get to read it in the next few days, you could still make it to the wedding. But whenever you get this letter please call me. There is so much more I need to tell you. Nathalie misses you and needs you.
Yours always,
Bhathian
Shoot. Eva noticed that she was crying only when fat tears hit the sheet of paper and the ink started to dissolve. Quickly, she wiped them away with her hand, and then patted the paper dry with a corner of the comforter.
Nathalie was married and was having a baby.
Eva’s heart ached so bad it felt like it was going to explode. There was nothing she wanted more than to be with Nathalie and witness her grandchild’s birth. But the best thing she could do for her daughter and her baby was to stay away and not bring danger to them.
Maybe she could take a peek, though?
Wearing one of her more elaborate disguises, she could sit in Fernando’s café and have her fill of looking at Nathalie. Maybe Andrew, her husband, would come to visit her at work and she could get a look at him as well.
Staring at the phone number, she knew she wasn’t going to call. She had nothing to say to Bhathian. Her curiosity about what his life had been like wasn’t worth the reopening of old wounds.
Besides, she preferred remembering Bhathian as he used to be. Young and handsome and so damn sexy that he’d melted her panties away.
In the back of her mind, she wondered what would have happened if he’d found her. Would he have offered to marry her? Become a father to his daughter?
Not likely.
He’d only wanted to ease his conscience by paying her off. Nothing more. That day when she’d told him she was pregnant, Bhathian had made it perfectly clear that he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her.
Drained by the emotional turmoil the letter had brought about, Eva took off her clothes, tossed them on the floor, and crawled naked under the covers.
But sleep refused to come.
Instead, she was stuck in memory lane. Bhathian had been the best lover she’d ever had, and there had been many over the years to compare with, but there had been more than just sex between them.
There had been a connection.
Even before discovering the pregnancy, Eva had wanted to come back and look for Bhathian, but working undercover prevented any kind of a relationship. She needed to wait until her mission was over. But apparently Bhathian hadn’t felt the same; otherwise he wouldn’t have cast her out as callously as he had.
“Patricia, check out the passenger in 3a,” Margo whispered in Eva’s ear.
It wasn’t Eva’s first undercover stint, but none of her previous assignments had lasted that long. Three months into the job, and she was thinking of herself as Patricia Evans, a first class TWA flight attendant, and not Eva Paterson, a DEA agent.
Dang it, she was developing a case of split personality.
“What about him?”
“He’s hot.”
Eva pretended to peek. She’d noticed the guy as soon as he boarded the plane, it had been impossible not to. Well over six feet tall and heavily muscled, he was too handsome for his own good. Eva stayed away from guys who looked like that, not that any she’d met had come even close. The overly good-looking ones were bad news, thinking of themselves as God’s gift to women and expecting to be worshiped.
If anyone were to be worshiped it would be her. Her dream guy would have eyes only for her, and adore everything about her. Trouble was, it was hard to meet anyone while working undercover, skipping from place to place, and pretending to be other people. Besides, she doubted her dream guy even existed.
“Let’s invite him to go out with us tonight.”
“You do it,” Eva told Margo. The girl made a sport out of picking up the cutest guy on every flight, preferably one of those sitting in first class.
“What’s the matter, Patricia? Too prim and proper to ask a guy out?”
“Pfft, please. I don’t need to. If I’m interested in a guy, I can make him ask me out.”
“Prove it.”
Eva rolled her eyes. She was stuck working with a bunch of immature twenty-something girls. At forty-five, she was done with those kinds of games. Not that any of them suspected her real age. Eva was lucky to look the same as she had twenty years ago.
“Fine. I’ll show you how it’s done.” When in Rome and all that. A good undercover agent had to fit in with her coworkers.
Sauntering from one passenger to another, she asked each about their meal preference and a few polite questions about the purpose of their trip. Out of the twelve seats, only eight were occupied, and no one was sitting next to the hunk in seat 3a.
She flashed him the perfect smile. Not too sexy and not too forward, but friendly and with a slight indication of interest. For most men it was enough. “Good afternoon, sir, did you have a chance to look over the menu?”
He turned away from looking out the window and regarded her with his incredible gray eyes. “I’m afraid not. Would you mind joining me for a minute and going over the selection?” He pointed to the vacant seat next to him.
Smooth. The guy had just earned himself several bonus points. She wasn’t supposed to, but a first-class customer’s wishes were not to be ignored.
“I’ll be happy to.”
“I’m Bhathian,” he introduced himself.
She pointed at her name tag. “Patricia.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He offered his hand.
Eva hesitated, and not because Bhathian’s hand was the size of a frying pan. Sitting so close to him, she could almost feel the magnetic pull between them.
There was no doubt in her mind that the moment their hands touched sparks would fly.
Not that she had a choice. To refuse would’ve been rude. Eva forced a smile. “The pleasure is all mine.”
His hand closed gently around hers, and instead of sparks, a soft wave of warmth spread through her, intensifying rapidly into an erotic inferno.
With a gasp, Eva pulled her hand away.
By the confused look in Bhathian’s gray eyes, he’d felt it too. For a long moment they just stared at each other. Eva was the first to shake it off. With a Herculean effort, she schooled her features into a professional expression and asked, “The menu. What would you like to know?”
Chapter 7: Carol
“What’s today’s special?” Anandur asked.
Carol cast him an annoyed look. “You can wait another thirty seconds until I’m done writing it on the board.”
“I’m hungry.”
“So? I’m making only one main dish a day. You’ll eat whatever I’ve made.”
“True. But I want to know what it’s going to be.”
She took a step back from the blackboard to admire her handwriting. “As you can see, we are serving spaghetti. One with meat sauce and the other one with a vegetarian souse.”
“Spaghetti? What happened to the fancy stuff you were cooking before?”
Carol shrugged. “I’m not a professional cook, and I’m having trouble with the huge pots. It was fine to cook elaborate dishes when the quantities were smaller, but as more of you guys went for it, I had to scale up and things didn’t come out right. I decided to move to easier things and get more ambitious once I got the hang of it.”
He patted her shoulder. “Smart move.”
“Yes. I’m a genius ain’t I?” She grimaced and glanced at Ro
bert who was sitting by himself at one of the tables and pretending to read a newspaper.
Right. She knew exactly what he was doing. Trying to make her jealous. It hadn’t taken long for the other clan females to realize that there was no great love between her and Robert, and the floozies had decided that he was up for grabs.
Robert hadn’t gotten that much female attention in all his years put together, and the bastard was having the time of his life.
The girls had a serious case of hero worship and didn’t care that he was an ex-Doomer, or that he was as boring as a dry stick. Robert had proven himself worthy by rescuing Carol from his sadistic commander. Helping her escape, he’d saved her life while sacrificing everything he had. After his treasonous act, there was no going back for Robert.
Guilt had become Carol’s constant companion. The three months she’d promised him in exchange for his help had come and gone, and she was still with him, not because she wanted to be, but because she felt like an ungrateful bitch every time she thought of leaving.
In her heart Carol knew she would be doing Robert a favor by setting him free. As the only immortal male around who wasn’t a relative or already taken, he was the object of desire of every single clan female, which apart from Amanda meant all of them. No wonder the girls had started clamoring for his attention the moment they’d sensed he was up for grabs.
But he wasn’t. Carol hadn’t released him yet.
She sighed. Robert was a decent guy, handsome, devoted, hardworking, and Carol owed him her life. For the past six months she’d made a real effort to make their relationship work, and sometimes it hadn’t been all that bad. But she was getting more and more frustrated with him and with the new lifestyle she’d been forced into because of him.
The administrative job Kian had given Robert was easy, and all of it was done sitting on his butt, while Carol sweated over pots and pans in the basement kitchen.
She wanted her old, carefree life back.
Never mind that it had been her idea. It had seemed such a good one. She loved to cook, so when Nathalie had mentioned that more than pastries and sandwiches were needed on the menu, Carol had offered to cook the dish of the day. It had been okay at the beginning, and she’d even had fun, basking in all the compliments on how amazing a cook she was.
But now that the entire Los Angeles clan—or at least those residing in the high-rise or keep as some of the old timers still insisted on calling it—was showing up for lunch, the task had become too demanding.
She needed help.
The thing was, Kian didn’t want any humans working in the café, except Nathalie of course, but then she was Bhathian’s daughter and Kian’s sister-in-law. Besides, Nathalie wasn’t going to remain human for long.
None of the other clan members wanted the job of an assistant cook. Carol’s only option was to admit that she’d gotten in over her head and that the dish of the day had been a bad idea. Sandwiches for lunch were perfectly fine, and those who wanted more could eat out somewhere else. There were plenty of restaurants in the area they could go to.
“You want to talk about it?” Anandur offered. “You look upset.”
She was tempted. Out of all the Guardians, Anandur was the only one she really liked. Kri, the girl Guardian, was okay, but she was a tomboy and her size was intimidating. Brundar was scary, and so was Bhathian. Yamanu was just weird, and Arwel was always drunk. Carol didn’t know Onegus well enough to form an opinion, but she had a feeling that the overly charming chief Guardian was too full of himself.
The problem with Anandur, however, was his big mouth. Telling him anything was like announcing it to the whole clan.
“Do you know anyone who wants to work in the kitchen? I need help.”
“You can ask Amanda to lend you her butler.”
“Onidu? She will never agree to part with him.” The Odus were some sort of biomechanical robots. There were only seven of them, all serving the goddess and her children. Too rare and valuable to be borrowed by a lowly clan member like herself.
“Try her. Amanda is gone most of the day, and Onidu has nothing to do other than stare at Dalhu painting in his studio.” Anandur chuckled. “Talk about watching paint dry.”
She snorted. “True.”
“Anyway, if you let him go a few minutes before she comes back from the university, Amanda wouldn’t even feel his absence.”
It all sounded very reasonable except the part about talking to Amanda. Carol was a nobody who’d gained some questionable fame after getting abducted and tortured by the Doomers, but that didn’t mean she could just walk up to Annani’s daughter, the princess, and ask to borrow her butler for a few hours a day.
“Could you do it? I mean ask Amanda.”
Anandur arched a brow. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I’m a nobody. Why would she want to talk to me?” If Amanda were a male it would’ve been different. Carol knew how to handle men, even those she was related to. They were so easy to manipulate, especially by a fragile-looking, pretty girl. Amanda was a beautiful woman herself, and smart, a neuroscience professor. Carol’s feminine charms would not work on her.
“It’s nonsense, but if it makes you so uncomfortable, I can ask her.”
Carol stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed Anandur’s cheek, or rather his bushy beard, which felt like kissing a scrubbing brush. “Thank you, you’re the best.” She rubbed her lips. “But you really should shave that mop off. It’s scratchy.”
Anandur smoothed his thumb and forefinger over the dense, red hair. “Why? I don’t hear any complaints from the ladies.”
She chuckled. “They must be thralled.”
“That’s an insult. I don’t thrall women before the sex, only after.”
Carol rolled her eyes. “It was a joke, you big dummy. Of course you don’t. You’re a Guardian. There is no way you’d break one of the most important clan laws.” Unlike her, who’d done it on several occasions, getting drunk or high and talking too much. Blurting out stuff that could endanger the clan was a serious offense. She’d even spent time in solitary confinement for it. The first time Carol had been caught flapping her mouth in a bar, she’d gotten away with a warning, the second time Kian hadn’t been that lenient.
Anandur pointed a finger at her. “That’s right. I always follow the rules.”
“For some reason I doubt it.” Anandur might obey the law, but she was sure he bent it as far as he could.
“Smart girl. By the way, why don’t you go to a culinary school? Or at least take a course? You should learn the basics of working in a professional setting.”
Carol shook her head. “I don’t have patience for that. I’m more of a hands-on kind of girl.”
Anandur slapped his forehead. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? You can ask Gerard to be an apprentice in his kitchen. What better way to learn how it’s done than to observe the best chef in town?”
That sounded wonderful for so many reasons. Watching Gerard work his culinary magic would be amazing. But more than that, she was dying to see his clientele. From what she’d heard, Gerard’s restaurant—By Invitation Only—attracted millionaires, movie stars, and high-ranking politicians. Getting access to that kind of crowd was a dream come true for a woman like Carol. So many successful men she could seduce. The best part, though, was getting away from the keep and from Robert at least for a few hours every day.
“You think he’ll agree?”
Anandur rubbed his beard again. “He is a prima donna. Perhaps you should ask Kian to talk to him. You know that he and Gerard are partners in that restaurant?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“They are. And the way I see it, it’s in Kian’s best interest to have you train with the guy. After all, he is Nathalie’s partner as well.”
Carol’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t leave her alone here. She has no one else to help her in the café, and she can’t handle it by herslef. Not in her condition.”
“
We’ll get Onidu to help Nathalie. With you gone, there will be no more cooking in the basement, so he can help here.”
“Did anyone tell you that you’re brilliant?”
Anandur’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Yeah, once or twice.”
Chapter 8: Robert
“How is it going, Robert?” Kian entered Robert’s office.
He’d been given an actual room, and not a closet or a pantry like what he’d had at Sebastian’s base. On the other hand, at the Doomer base he’d been second in command, while here he was a lowly clerk.
Did he miss his previous status? A little.
But he sure as hell didn’t miss the Doomer lifestyle of endless battles, or serving under his sadistic commander. Not that Sebastian, aka Sharim, had mistreated Robert or any of the other soldiers. As a commander, Sebastian had been one of the best to serve under, but the bastard had tortured Carol and numerous other females over the years.
Clerking wasn’t so bad. It was peaceful, and working in such luxury was a treat. His office was freshly painted and came equipped with a brand new desk, top of the line computer, and all the office supplies he could think of.
The only problem was spending his long workdays alone. Other than Kian, and occasionally Kian’s assistant Shai, no one stopped by to talk.
“Good. I negotiated a discount from the windows supplier. The interior doors vendor refused to budge on the price, but I got him to upgrade instead.”
The clan was building a new stronghold somewhere in Malibu, and Robert had been given the job of purchasing building materials. Regrettably, Kian didn’t trust him yet to leave the keep and visit the building site, but Robert had access to the blueprints, so the clan’s cautious regent must’ve deemed him at least somewhat trustworthy.
It was an impressive project, and once completed, it would provide a more secure stronghold for the clan. The idea was to split its population between the two locations. Some would remain in the high-rise, and some would move into the new “village” when it was ready.