Again Gia's eyes prickled at the kindness of perfect strangers.
Of course she'd never use it because to do that would put the Rutherford brothers and their families in the crosshairs of Enricho Donatti. And she'd never be able to live with herself if anything happened to them.
Not wishing to offend a good-hearted gesture, she took his card, slipped it into her purse.
"Thank you." Gia waited until the taxi exited the building before swiping her key card into the strictly private lift that sped her directly into Daniel Gillespie’s penthouse apartment.
She was living on borrowed time.
It felt like she was in a rowing boat with no oars cut adrift between the Titanic and the iceberg.
Chapter Three
No matter how many times Gia entered Daniel’s apartment, the sheer scale of the immense space along with the floor to ceiling windows framing a sparkling New York skyline, it never ceased to catch her breath.
Again the idea nudged her, she should throw herself on Daniel Gillespie’s mercy and ask him for help.
But she couldn’t do it.
He might be every woman's wet dream and she'd had a few of those herself but Daniel had never known the unique scorch of an unfilled belly or the need to concern himself with the balance of his bank account. And these days the way her whole system went on a state of high alert, if he so much as looked at her, was beginning to worry her. In fact, it worried her a lot.
But there was something dark about Daniel that both attracted and yet in a weird way repelled her. And it was that push and pull sensation that confused and alarmed her because she simply couldn't understand it.
Compared to his brothers, working for Daniel was a walk in the park. Although their working relationship was successful, it was an association based purely on business. Not once had Daniel concerned himself with his PA, except when he’d insisted she take two weeks off after Liam had been killed.
And of course since then her whole life had imploded.
The quality of her work had suffered too. She was making stupid mistakes and although Daniel had said nothing, those amazing blue eyes had burned a hole straight through her as they’d held hers, when he'd softly pointed out yet another simple error. Instinctively she knew he was losing patience. He'd even hinted that perhaps she needed an assistant. But Gia resisted the idea. However, if she carried on like this, he’d demote her back to the administration pool or, worse, sack her.
Exhaustion, marrow deep, was a constant presence in her life these days, and that exhaustion now tugged at Gia’s mind and battered her soul.
God, she was so very tired.
Kicking off her sneakers and shoving the grey hoodie from her head, she padded through the opulent apartment, bare feet sinking into a luxuriant carpet of ivory wool.
She made her way to the sumptuous marble of the guest bathroom, which was bigger than the entire ground floor of her old home.
In the mirror the too pale face of a woman life continued to kick while she was down stared back at her. She’d lost pounds she could ill afford to lose and it made her look too fragile. Gia didn’t see large brown eyes or the clear skin pulled too tight across high cheekbones or the full mouth or the glossy hair the color of bronze and treacle. All Gia saw was failure as a granddaughter, failure as a wife and failure as a personal assistant.
Refusing to give in to creeping self-pity, she slapped cleanser on her face.
With jerky tugs she pulled tissues out of a box and swiped off the layers of fire engine red lipstick and make-up. It took longer than usual to dissolve three coats of coal black mascara.
By the time she was finished her naked skin glowed, but the brown eyes were too bright, too big for her face. Dark circles pooled under those eyes.
Christ, she was a mess.
But she lifted her chin at the woman in the mirror and straightened her shoulders.
She desperately needed a couple of nights of decent sleep or she’d be worse than useless when her boss returned from a family emergency in San Francisco. The rumors going around the office, were that something had happened to James Gillespie's wife. Gia liked Charlotte Gillespie a lot. The girl was shy but unfailingly polite and pleasant to the staff. The office gossip doing the rounds was that Charlotte had been unwell, which meant James Gillespie had taken time off to be with his wife. An event that was unheard of in the entire history of the company. The Gillespie brothers had never taken a day off work in their lives. Gia hoped nothing bad had happened to the girl.
Switching off the light, she moved to the hall closet and pulled out a pillow and single comforter she’d stashed there before padding into the vast lounge area to organize a makeshift bed on the couch.
No way would she take advantage of the four bedrooms in Daniel’s magnificent apartment.
Using the bathroom facilities and sleeping on a soft velvet couch was one thing, sleeping in a bed in a bedroom was quite another.
Tugging the cash from her bra, Gia tossed it on a stone coffee table the size of a family car. She started to pull down the zipper in the side of her dress when she stopped. The most peculiar feeling of awareness that she wasn’t alone prickled the hair on the back of her neck. Gooseflesh erupted along her skin.
She stood absolutely still.
Her heart rate soared as, very slowly, she turned.
A couple of days ago Daniel had sent her a text message to say he’d been delayed in San Francisco and when to expect his arrival.
The room was lit by a solitary lamp next to the couch and her eyes searched the dark corners of the apartment but found no one.
Gia took a careful inhale, told herself to calm the hell down.
It was probably just nerves caused by stress. Although this wasn’t the first time in the apartment she’d had the feeling that she wasn’t alone, but it was the first time she felt... spooked.
She shrugged off the unpleasant itch under her skin, slid out of her dress, unclipped her strapless bra and quickly slid onto the sofa to burrow under the comforter. But since her heart was still going crazy in her chest she kept the light on. These days darkness only encouraged relentless dreams of everything she'd lost, her past and life before Liam’s death. She was determined not to be a victim or to fall into the black pit of depression. Telling herself things would look better in the morning, she closed her eyes. Like a stone tossed into a deep pool, she sank into sleep.
Now there was a sight a vampyre didn’t see every day.
Long, long legs, naked legs, drew Daniel’s eyes to the barely decent dress.
Jeez, he’d need a crowbar to ease her out of the soft gold leather.
The thought did wondrous things to his groin.
What the hell was Gia doing in here, in his apartment in the middle of the night?
And why the dress?
The money tossed onto the table made him wonder in something like disbelief that she was moonlighting? Moonlighting, while working for Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch was a sackable offence.
Through the vast windows that surrounded Daniel's apartment the skyline was inky as his mind raced through possibilities. All was quiet except for a police siren in the streets far below and a jet in the sky thousands of feet above.
His mind went back to the very first time he'd met Gia Del Russo. She'd walked into his office for her interview for the position of his personal assistant with slightly hesitant steps.
'Holy Christ' had popped into his head. For a split second her sad brown eyes had widened and he'd thought he'd blurted the words right out. She wasn't quite a leggy red-head, more a leggy brunette. A man didn't live for two hundred and twenty five years without seeing gorgeous women of all shapes and sizes. Of course he had. But he'd never seen anything like Gia Del Russo. His heart had actually done a little skip and jump. Gia was gorgeous with a beautiful and full mouth, soft, womanly, kissable. And then he'd spotted the rings on her wedding finger and that heart had dropped with a heavy thud right to his shoes.
Delight to devastation in three seconds.
She was out of bounds and not for him.
Over time he'd learned to savor her shy smile and admire her work ethic, but the brown eyes were still terribly sad. He'd wasted many hours wondering why.
When her husband had been killed, murdered, he'd wanted to hold her close. He'd wanted to offer comfort. Okay, eventually more than comfort. Then he reminded himself to dump the guilt, it wasn't his fault the man was dead.
Using the skill of his kind, he moved silently towards her.
To find her in his apartment, living out of her suitcase and now sleeping naked on his couch was not normal behaviour for Gia.
For months he’d known something was very wrong with her.
Initially he’d put the weight loss, the distraction, down to the fact she was grieving over the death of her husband.
But recently her behaviour had become skittish.
These days she was too highly strung and nervous.
Not of him, he was sure of it. He was an empath as well as vampyre. And he knew the woman had no idea of his true feelings for her. No way could Gia know he’d fallen madly in love with her the first moment he’d set eyes on her. The fact she’d been married had meant hands off. When you were a vampyre, those were the breaks. He’d accepted his situation along with waiting for his chance with her.
Of course if the marriage had been unhappy he’d have made his move. Although to be honest, it had been difficult to tell if she’d been happy or not because for some reason Gia was one of the few humans he was unable to read.
The way her husband had died, murdered, had come as a shock. The firm had done some digging. Apparently he’d been involved in organized crime, which meant plenty of suspicion from the partners in Gillespie, Pattullo and Hindmarch had fallen on Gia.
Daniel refused to believe she was involved in the criminal underworld in any way.
But after seeing the amount of money she'd thrown on the table tonight, now he wondered if he'd made a mistake? After all, he couldn't ignore the fact that she’d been sleeping in his apartment for a number of nights. She’d need to be pretty desperate to do such a thing. Watching her now, the way she slept, the way certain scents lingered on her clothes made his nostrils twitch. Alcohol, nicotine and lust rose from the cash on the table and Daniel was beginning to question if he’d got her all wrong.
Gia was absolutely stunning.
In many ways the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
Tonight, she looked as if she’d been well ravished with her hair the color of flaming chestnuts and too pale skin. With care he took a deep inhale, but he couldn’t detect the scent of a human male's seed on her. Even if she’d used a condom, he’d still have smelled it.
No.
Gia had not had sex.
However, he could sense the odor of something else, something familiar.
Something toxic.
Fear.
Anxiety and distress were pumping out of her pores.
The way she'd turned to look directly into the place he was standing had caused his stomach, his thighs and all the muscles in-between, to tighten.
Daniel was used to his physical reaction around Gia.
Her face with wide eyes and full mouth oozed brazen forbidden sex.
Those eyes were treacle brown and sharp with intelligence.
She'd stared right at him, but even as he'd held his breath, he knew she couldn’t see him.
One of the little tricks inherent in his kind was the ability to remain totally still, to blend into shadows.
She'd stripped, releasing small ripe breasts from her bra, and his erection had fired in a way that made him wince even now.
Her face was so unhappy and her narrow shoulders held too stiff and tight.
Many times he’d wondered why she never smiled, why she always looked as if she was waiting for an axe to fall.
But again, that was normal for Gia.
What was not normal for Gia was that she'd been standing naked in his apartment.
He drew in a breath, naked she was absolutely stunning.
Daniel had just managed to stop his vampyre from growling deep in his throat.
Again those big brown eyes had searched the room.
The way her ribs stood out stark in the weak light annoyed him. Actually, it annoyed him a lot.
She turned her back to him and gave him a fabulous view of her tight little ass.
Christ, she was wearing nothing but a scrap of silk, a thong.
She'd climbed into her improvised bed on his couch, snuggled under the comforter, and gave a little sigh that sounded suspiciously teary.
His protective instincts roared to the fore and his vampyre rose, tilting his head and studying her carefully.
Down boy, Daniel told him, she’s in no fit state tonight to tangle with you.
Self-restraint and a relentless patience were at the centre of Daniel’s success as a lawyer.
He could outwait an opponent.
He waited now.
Chapter Four
Dyunik monastery
The wind shrieked, gusts buffeted and swirled as if trying to push the solid rock of Dyunik monastery down into the eternal cavern below. The weather was never still up here, even in summer. Since winter often held all who lived within in a clenched and icy fist, no one was surprised the blizzard had roared for six long days and nights.
In the highest tower of an edifice built on the edge of a cliff high in the mountains of the Northern Caucasus, the head of The Order sat behind a huge desk made of tempered glass that wouldn't have looked out of place in a science fiction movie. Vassili's fingers flew over the virtual keyboard. He might believe in the old ways, when it suited his purposes, but he was also wise enough to fully embrace technology.
Due to his own impatience, he had lost the support of the vampyre council. He accepted the fact, accepted too that he'd made a rare error in judgement to trust in Precedential Elder Damasio Casta's savage hatred of magic for his support. When push came to shove, Damasio would always side with the others of his kind, the Elders.
However, there was one loss Vassili was unwilling to accept... Charlotte Gillespie. She was a witch. A pregnant witch, which meant the odds of her child inheriting the trait were high. Two for the price of one. The fact she was with child meant the use of force to seize her was impossible. However, there were other means. Namely, drugs.
"You have the Vox?" he asked his top research medic, who was the only one involved in his plan. It paid to keep the details of his more... irredeemable activities among a carefully selected few.
The other man nodded at Vassili's reference to a drug outlawed by the vampyre council for thirty years; a drug that, until his researchers had significantly modified the blueprint, turned a vampyre into a weapon. "The dose is diluted." The vampyre hesitated, a rare show of weakness. When Vassili's brows rose in silent question, he stuttered, "My Lord, I believe we may have stumbled upon a vaccine for the Ebola influenza virus."
Vassili's eyes narrowed into black slits. "And who gave you permission to research the virus?"
"Constantine Mabille reached out to us. We could hardly refuse," he blurted out the last part.
Hmm, he knew Constantine was asking for help from research centres throughout the world, but this time the Precedential Elder was overstepping his bounds, again. Any requests of his researchers should have come through him.
Vassili didn't hesitate.
"Let them perish."
The vampyre blinked, but simply nodded once in agreement.
Vassili's dark eyes studied his assistant's pale face carefully. He wouldn't have tagged him as a vampyre overly concerned with the plight of humanity. If everything went to plan and humans no longer ruled the world, the Order would need to stand firm with no weak links. His assistant would need careful watching.
"You are sure Vox will not harm the unborn child?"
"Yes. I tested three pregnant subjects. They sle
pt for six hours and awoke with only a slight headache due to dehydration."
Any risk to Charlotte Gillespie and her child was unacceptable.
"Dehydration is dangerous to a pregnant female," he snapped.
"We will give her fluids intravenously. She will be fine."
"Good," said Vassili. "Make sure to inform me of the moment she arrives in New York," he added in dismissal and received a single nod in response.
Excellent.
It might take significant plotting and time, but Vassili had a plan.
He would have his witch, and he would have her soon.
Chapter Five
Once Daniel recognized Gia was deep in paradoxical sleep he glided, an inch above the carpet, across the room to stand over her.
The rapid eye movements and agitated little breaths told him the girl might be sound asleep, but she was very far from sleeping peacefully.
He kept one eye on her as he counted the cash, two thousand dollars. A nice tidy little sum. And how had she come by it? Rifling through her purse, it didn’t bother him one iota that he was invading her privacy. After all she was lying asleep on his couch in his apartment.
He found the business card to a taxi company with a handwritten note of a cell phone number on the back.
Bringing the card to his nose he inhaled and his vampyre stirred. Caribbean food, the scent of it brought back long forgotten memories of another time, of swashbuckling pirates and rum. Emotions have a scent and that was something vampyres and animals understood, but not humans. He could smell anxiety and... not worry, no... but alarm and ever present fear.
He frowned.
Interesting.
Dressed in loose pyjama bottoms of thin white cotton, he moved to the open plan kitchen area, slid open floor to ceiling doors.
Without a whisper of sound two of his Centuri protection officers landed, bowed deep.
He gave one the card.
"Find Jeremiah Rutherford," he instructed. Even though his voice was soft, it held an ingrained authority. "I want to know where he picked her up and when."
The Vampyre Legal Chronicles - Daniel: Book: 3 Page 4