“That’s…an interesting thought. You brought me the file folders. Is there anything else?”
“Ahhh…well, the new website is very effective – we’re getting double the number of new client applications.”
“Write up a report and send it to me.” He looked down at his desk, frowning at the papers there. She was clearly dismissed. It shouldn’t sting so much, but it did. Every single time.
She bit her lip, turned and walked out of the office. If she’d glanced back really quickly, she would have seen something astonishing. She would have seen Lukan looking at her with infinite longing, his gaze wandering over the length of her full body and lingering hungrily on each curve. She would have seen him practically caressing her with his eyes, and for once, she would have seen the ferocious, frightening glower melt into a look of raw hunger.
But she didn’t look back. She let the door shut behind her and quickly walked away, shoulders hunched together against the continuing hurt of his rejection.
Chapter Three
“He’s impossible to please,” Talia groaned to Rosamund at a client meet-and-greet party at the Anders Tower Penthouse, two days later.
There was music pumping through the speakers in the background, but not loud enough to drown out the conversation, and the air was fogged with hairspray and perfume. “Every task that he gives me, I get done before deadline, and he can barely grunt a thank you. He’s always having me deliver things to his office, and he asks for me specifically, but he hardly even looks at me. This morning I gave him the latest batch of clients, and he just growled. I mean literally growled, like a wolf. Seriously, he’s a real beast.”
“Maybe he’s a dragon. He’s big enough to be one.” Rosamund giggled. “Does he smell like sulfur?” Rosamund was a dragon freak. She had dragon sculptures and pictures on her desk, and tonight she was wearing green dragon earrings.
Talia snorted. “Do dragons smell like sulfur?”
“Pretty sure.” Rosamund took a bite of cheesecake. Rosamund, like Talia, was a healthy, full-figured girl who liked to eat. Talia had overheard Alexandra telling their accountant that the reason she’d hired “a bunch of fatties” (her phrasing) to work at the agency was so that none of her clients would end up running off with the help.
Talia raised an eyebrow. “And you know this how? Given that they aren’t real?”
“I read it in a book.”
“Nerd.” Talia grabbed Rosamund’s plate and stabbed her fork into the cheesecake. She took a bite and let out a low moan of satisfaction. Sweet, mildly tart, perfect. Ahh, heaven on her tongue.
Rosamund slapped at her with mock outrage. “Bitch.”
“Maybe, but I’m the bitch that’s got your cheesecake.”
Rosamund made a grab for the plate, but Talia held it out of her reach.
“Get your own cheesecake!” Rosamund said indignantly.
Talia flashed a wicked grin. “I could. But then I’d have to walk through the forest of swizzle-sticks all the way over to the dessert bar.” ‘Swizzle-sticks’ was their code name for the female clientele.
These parties were a mixed bag. Part fun, part drudgery.
Talia was expected to mingle with the guests and help start conversations and introduce people to each other. She normally loved to mix and mingle. She was a natural born chatterbox; her mother claimed she’d been born talking.
Unfortunately, most of the women there were basically carbon copies of Alexandra – models or former models, thin, hungry, and unfriendly. Their only assets were their stunning good looks. And the male clientele were wealthy, frequently older businessmen who were rude and expected their every whim to be catered to instantly, or they’d pout like big babies. On the bright side, because Talia didn’t look like they thought a woman should look, they ignored her completely, which was nice.
And even better, there was a huge buffet there, which was completely ignored by the all the skinny female clients, Dessert bar, sushi bar, tables and tables of appetizers. Talia had spent the last of her paycheck on her family’s electric bill and medication for her father, and she’d skipped lunch today, so now she was diving into the buffet like there was no tomorrow.
Talia had dragged Rosamund to the party supposedly to help her, but actually just so she’d have someone to talk to who knew words other than “I want” and “give me”.
Rosamund looked over at the crowd of models. “I bet they’d like to eat dessert.”
“Did I hear someone say cheesecake?” asked a mechanical voice, and Mar-ee glided up to them, holding a tray loaded with appetizers and little squares of cheesecake with toothpicks in them.
Mar-ee was a totally cool retro-bot. She was one of the pieces of tech that Lukan’s other company was developing.
She was a metallic-looking female bot with a flared metal French maid’s apron. She had metal curls artfully arranged in a 1950s hairdo, and a metal cap trimmed with metal lace. Lukan had several other retro-bots like her, but Mar-ee was the one who had the most personality, and Talia adored her.
“Hello, Mar-ee, how are you today?” she asked the bot.
“I am fine, thank you for asking,” Mar-ee said. “May I offer you a delicious salmon canapé?”
“You may offer me two,” Talia said, and took them.
“The models do not like my canapés,” Mar-ee said, sounding sad. Whoever had programmed Mar-ee had done a marvelous job with her. Her metal skin moved like human skin. She could frown, laugh, raise an eyebrow, and look upset or happy. She could laugh and she could grumble. Talia couldn’t imagine why Lukan’s other company hadn’t started producing these creations.
Rosamund squealed in delight. “You actually cooked these?”
Marie’s metal lips flexed in a smile. “Yes, I have many functions.”
“They don’t know what they’re missing. You’ve done a marvelous job with them,” Talia assured her.
“Thank you. You are my favorite human,” Mar-ee said, with that tinny tone to her voice. It was true – Mar-ee seemed to have a special affinity for Talia. “And you are my second favorite human,” she added to Rosamund.
Rosamund laughed. “As long as you keep bringing me cheesecake, I will gladly accept second place.”
Alexandra thought it was ridiculous that Talia treated Mar-ee like a person. She muttered “freak” every time she saw Talia talking to her. Right now, she was standing next to a wealthy client across the room, alternating between glaring at Talia and looking hungrily at Lukan.
Talia couldn’t blame her for that, she guessed. She’d learned to live with the ache of longing that she felt for Lukan ever since she’d met him, but it wasn’t easy. She’d dreamed about him every single night for the past year. Every. Night. Technically, she’d already had more sex with Lukan than most married couples had in their first ten years of marriage. It was just that he always vanished when the alarm clock went off at six a.m.
“There you guys are! Save some cheesecake for me, you oinkers.”
Cora Lee walked up to them with a grin. She was one of the few models who was always nice to Talia; Talia loved her to pieces. Cora Lee had been a plus-sized lingerie model, and after Talia had met her shopping at a plus-sized clothing store, she’d suggested that she sign up at Million Dollar Matches. She’d presented the idea directly to Lukan, who’d told her to go ahead. Alexandra had been furious when she’d heard about it.
Personally, Talia thought Alexandra put way too much emphasis on the female clientele’s looks and not enough effort into finding out about their personalities, what they would like and dislike in a man, and what the men would like in a woman. For that matter, she didn’t even really explore whether or not the men and women were genuinely looking for, and ready for, a relationship.
She did ask about superficial things like hobbies, favorite types of food, favorite movies, and that kind of thing, but that only ensured the couple would agree on things to do for the first few dates. A long-term relationship needed to go deeper tha
n that. Alexandra just assumed that if a woman was a knock-out, men would fall all over her, and if a man was rich, women would drool all over him, and that would make a happy match.
“Wow, I’m not going to miss these meet markets,” Cora Lee said, grabbing a cheesecake square and popping it in her mouth. “Get it? M-E-E-T?”
“I do not get it,” Mar-ee said, her metallic eyebrows pinching together in a frown. It was amazing how she did that. It looked like she had metal skin.
Talia guffawed so loudly that several of the models looked over at her, their pretty lips curling back in scorn. Oops. She never had mastered the art of the ladylike laugh.
Then she looked at Cora Lee in puzzlement. “Wait. Are you going somewhere?”
“Er…yeah. I’ll miss you guys. I just wanted to let you know I met a great guy and I’m moving in with him, but he lives a long way from here. Overseas. I wanted to thank you for inviting me to join Million Dollar Matches, and just…I’ll miss you. Don’t let Alexandra treat you too badly, you’re way too good for her. Both of you.”
Talia felt a swell of happiness for her friend. Success! She’d been starting to worry that Cora Lee wouldn’t find anyone here at Million Dollar Matches – most of the men didn’t seem to be her type. “Oh, wow. Congratulations! What’s he like?”
“He’s…” Cora Lee’s lips quirked in a smile. “Different. Great. Handsome and charming.”
“Well, I’ll really miss you too. Please remember to write or email. Maybe even invite us to the wedding?”
Cora Lee looked faintly sad. “I wish I could. I don’t have any family, and I’d love to have you guys there.” And she walked off.
“Well, that was weird,” Rosamund said to Talia. “And a little worrying. What if he’s Bluebeard?”
Talia snorted. “What if you’re a crazy person with an overactive imagination? And what if you’re a crazy person who’s standing between me and the dessert tray?”
“What if I’m a crazy person who just finished the last piece of cheesecake?” Rosamund flashed her a wicked grin. Talia glanced at Mar-ee. It was true. Rosamund had eaten all the cheesecake bites from Mar-ee’s tray.
“Curse you!”
Talia hurried across the room to refill her plate. Lukan was there by the banquet table. Alexandra was standing next to him, but he had his back to her, as if deliberately shutting her out.
Lukan gave Talia an odd look. “Shouldn’t you be home with your family?” he asked. “It’s rather late.”
Her grandparents, whom she and her father had moved in with after her father was injured? Did he think they were senile? They weren’t, at all. Poor, and on a fixed income, but quite independent. They chopped their own firewood, caught their own fish, canned their own food from their garden, and volunteered at a food kitchen.
“They’ll be fine,” she said. “They’re pretty independent. They don’t need me there.”
He gave her an odd look and shook his head, with a frown of…disapproval? Why? As she walked away she heard Alexandra say, “You see what she’s like? And to think you stuck up for her.”
Now what had that all been about, and why was everyone acting weird tonight?
When she got back to Rosamund, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Rosamund was wearing a shawl, but it had slipped off her left arm.
“Is that a bruise on your arm, covered with makeup? It almost looks like fingerprints.” Talia looked closer as Rosamund flinched. “Like somebody grabbed you.”
Rosamund self-consciously pulled her shawl back over her arm. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
Talia’s eyes blazed with anger. “Don’t worry about it? The hell you say. Who did this?”
Rosamund looked at the ground. “Giorgio.” Figured. He was the rude, smug photographer Alexandra had recently hired to take pictures of all the models. “He kept making passes at me. He said I should be grateful that he’d have sex with me, with me being as fat as I am. When I turned him down the other day, he grabbed my arm really hard and started dragging me across the room towards the couch. I only got away from him because a couple of the girls came into the room just then, and he let go of me and pretended like nothing was wrong.”
Talia was horrified. “Why didn’t you report him?”
“Because Alexandra would never take my side and I really need the money.” Rosamund was putting her sister through nursing school.
“I’ll kill him,” Talia growled.
“No, no,” Rosamund protested. “You might get in trouble too, if you say anything.”
“Rosamund, there’s no way he’s getting away with sexual harassment, emotional and physical abuse. I’m going to go take care of it. Listen, Alexandra may not care, but Lukan won’t tolerate it. He’s very protective of women.”
It was true. At the building where Million Dollar Matches took up two floors, a girl with a food cart came round at noon selling sandwiches, frothy coffee, and amazingly moreish cupcakes. A few weeks back, one of the security guards had cornered her in the elevator and groped her. When Lukan had heard about it, he’d thrown the security guard out himself. Physically thrown him out onto the sidewalk, like the sack of garbage he was. There was no way he’d stand for Giorgio hurting Rosamund like that.
Talia looked around, but Lukan had vanished. She walked around the room, but she didn’t see him anywhere.
She tapped Mar-ee on the shoulder. “Mar-ee, take me to Lukan right now.”
“That is not a good idea,” the retro-bot said.
“Is he in the bathroom?”
“No. He is not in the bathroom. He just…he would not want me to take you to where he is right now.”
Talia didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t going to tolerate anyone abusing her friend, and she wasn’t going to let this matter wait for another second. “Mar-ee, you have to obey humans, don’t you? Isn’t that how Lukan built you?”
Mar-ee gave a shrug of her metal shoulders. “Well, you, specifically. I have to obey you.”
Well, that was odd. But Talia didn’t have time to wonder why Lukan would build a retro-bot that was specifically meant to obey her orders.
“Mar-ee, take me to Lukan, now! It’s urgent. It cannot wait. If he’s mad, I will tell him it’s my fault and I made you do it. ”
“Very well. Follow me.” Mar-ee turned around and glided smoothly across the room on mechanical wheels. The wheels were for show; they spun as she moved, but she actually hovered an inch above the floor.
The next thing Talia knew, she was being led through a door in the back of the room, and down one hallway after another. Talia had never realized how vast this floor was. How could this many halls even fit inside this building? It was like a maze back here; she’d never be able to find her way out again on her own.
Then they reached a door with a security panel that scanned Mar-ee’s eyes before it let them in.
The door opened onto a really large elevator, and Mar-ee led her in.
“This thing would fit at least twenty people,” Talia said, looking around. “Where does it even go?”
“Brace yourself,” Mar-ee advised her, without answering Talia’s question.
Talia felt a ripple of unease. “For what?”
“You will see.”
The elevator began…pulsing. Everything was pulsing. The air felt crackly and Talia felt as if she were covered in static electricity. Her ears popped, as if she were on an airplane.
Everything was humming, vibrating…her teeth rattled in her head, and she wanted to cry out, but somehow she couldn’t…
And then, mercifully, it stopped and the door opened.
“Follow me,” Mar-ee said, her voice sounding very far away, and again Talia found herself hurrying after the retro-bot, down hallways, and through a big double set of doors.
They were on a roof-top, and somehow it wasn’t late in the evening anymore. It was sunset.
The Anders building didn’t have a flat roof-top like this. And the sky was the wr
ong color; it was a strange purplish hue. The blazing sun that melted into the horizon looked too big, and the Manhattan skyline had vanished, replaced by a city with tall pointy spires and…flying cars?
Off in the distance, on either side of the city, were forests and mountains and rolling hills with purple and silver vegetation.
Talia swayed where she stood, feeling shockingly disoriented.
Something whizzed overhead. A silver vehicle the size of a mini-van, hovering over the rooftop. When Talia looked up, her jaw dropped. There were two moons in the darkening sky overhead. She looked at Mar-ee, her eyes wide with shock.
Mar-ee took off a metal bracelet she’d been wearing and slapped it onto Talia’s wrist. “Universal translator,” she said. “I always carry an extra one with me. You never know when you’ll need one.”
Consciousness faded, and Talia slumped into Mar-ee’s arms.
Chapter Four
“Talia!” a voice cried out.
She looked up, her head swimming. That sounded like Cora Lee.
She struggled to sit up, then climbed to her feet, with Mar-ee helping her.
“Are you all right? What happened?”
Someone brushed Talia’s hair out of her face. It was Cora Lee.
“What are you doing here?” Talia asked her, bewildered.
“What are you doing here?” Cora Lee squealed, sounding delighted. “I only came to the party because I wanted a chance to say goodbye to you and Rosamund before I moved here. I didn’t know you’d been accepted too!”
Talia looked around in amazement. There were drinks trays floating around like flying saucers. Serv-bots mingling among the guests. There were exotic swirly trees that resembled the sculptures in Lukan’s room, potted in silver globes. The light was provided by colored orbs that floated overhead, and tinkling music seemed to come from the orbs as well. There were a dozen gorgeous women from Million Dollar Matches, mingling with a group of fifty or sixty…men. Sort of men.
All of the men had pointy, fur-tipped ears. They were all huge, like Lukan. It was a room full of men who looked like super-sized linebackers…and beautiful women…and a few enormous wolves strolling through the crowd. Well, they looked like wolves the size of horses. And some of the men were having conversations with the wolves, which nodded as if they understood human speech.
The Vulfan's True Mate (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Starcrossed Dating Agency Book 1) Page 2