Nyanther shook his head. “You and Nick…and Riley. I confess I still don’t understand how it could even happen. You used to change her diapers, Damian.”
He grinned, not showing the slightest discomfort. “It’s a long story and you’ll understand it better once you’ve met her.”
“I’ve seen the photos. She looks exactly like her mother, except around the eyes. You always were half in love with Tally.”
Damian’s smile didn’t shift. This was why Nyanther preferred dealing with people in the hunting world. There was very little they bothered to hide from each other because three-quarters of their real life was hidden from the world at large. Plain speaking was a relief to them.
“Photos don’t explain it,” Damian said. “Just wait. You’ll see.”
“Then, if it’s no bother, I’ll stay and meet your wonderful Riley,” he said.
“There’s just a small hitch, though,” Damian added.
“I can wear earplugs, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Nyanther said, with a grin, although he was amazed someone like Damian would be self-conscious about sex.
Damian’s smile broadened. “Not even close, Ny.”
Chapter Two
Sabrina had spoken truthfully about running late. She had a three p.m. committee meeting on policy administration she was chairing and at this time of day it would take thirty minutes to get back to Wall Street from here. Her day didn’t end there. She had a routine medical follow-up at four-thirty for the appendicitis she had suffered through last year, a dinner meeting with some clients and a casual, let’s-have-coffee meeting at Pinocchio’s at nine, with a potential network contact. That was all before she could get back to her desk tonight and finish up some of the paperwork sitting in her in-tray.
Cory Morse, the overweight and red-faced Chief Financial Officer and her boss, might praise her daily on her management of the three major projects on her desk, but she also knew he would quickly off-load her from his personal team if she back-slid. It took major effort to stay abreast of the other two managers on his team, who were both male and much older than her, with extensive personal networks of their own to call on.
All the time she had been going through college, she had never properly understood how much business management was about relationships. She had spent all her time studying finance and economics. Sometimes she suspected a few years of charm school and a good social intelligence textbook would have given her better skills to navigate the shark-infested minefield of corporate politics.
However, she was gaining ground, day by day. She was the youngest senior manager at Wentworth Kumatsu and Cory Morse had spoken once about preparing her for a vice president position in a few years. Just thinking about it made her pulse quicken. Once she made VP, then she could truly say the last ten years of sweat and study and living on beans and toast would have been worth it.
She hurried through her shower and picked out a suit and shirt that could convert to a business evening outfit with some costume jewelry and a change of shoes. As she did almost weekly, she sighed over the gender differences. Men could go from breakfast to bed wearing the same suit and be perfectly attired for any occasion. Only women had to adjust their clothing and appearance according to the time of day and location, yet never giving any man any reason to think of her in a sexual way, while also appearing attractive.
She was too rushed to worry about the hypocrisy today.
She had showered and dressed and was redoing her makeup when she heard footsteps on the iron staircase. She went out to the living room where the stairs wound up to the next floor.
It was Damian and Nyanther…and Nyanther was carrying a backpack.
Her heart sank.
“Can he use your spare room, Sabrina?” Damian asked. “Miguel and his kids will be here by the weekend and we promised our rooms to them.”
Nyanther’s expression as he climbed down to the floor and hefted his backpack more comfortably on his shoulders was utterly neutral.
“Of course he can,” Sabrina said stiffly. Damian would never say it and he didn’t need to—her apartment was actually his and Nick’s. She lived rent-free beneath their apartment because of their relationship. Nick and Damian and Riley had adopted Chloe, although they never failed to acknowledge Sabrina was Chloe’s birth mother. The apartment had been part of the deal.
So Sabrina could not possibly refuse to let Nyanther use one of the two spare bedrooms. It would be churlish at the very least, although she really wanted to tell him to get a damn hotel room. Unlike Miguel, he could probably afford a room at the Four Seasons and it would keep him out of her apartment.
“You know the way,” she said and stepped aside. “Take your pick. I have to get going.” She went back to her bedroom to finish with her makeup. At least there was a bathroom attached to her room. She wouldn’t have to share a bathroom with him.
She picked up her briefcase bag and her coat and turned to leave.
Nyanther was standing at the open door to her bedroom, a shoulder against the doorframe and his arms crossed.
Sabrina gasped. “What do you want?” she demanded, her heart racing.
“I think we got off to a rough start.” His voice was back to deep and rumbling once more. “As I’m staying on this floor with you, I thought I should try to amend that.”
“It’s not like you’re going to be sleeping here,” she pointed out. “You just need somewhere to park your clothes and shower and change. We don’t have to be best roommates. I am running very late.” She moved toward the door, hoping he would naturally step out of the way as she got closer.
His arms dropped and he did straighten up. He just didn’t move from blocking the doorway.
She stopped, frustrated. “You need to let me leave.”
“You’re a woman of contradictions, aren’t you?” He was staring at her with a slight frown as if he really was puzzled.
“As I’m beneath your level of caring, I don’t have to answer. Will you move?”
He did move. He stepped in front of her. Very close.
Too close.
She tried to move back. He caught her arm. “Shh…” he said, almost absently. He was staring at her face. Then he did something unexpected, something she would have said he was incapable of doing, given what she knew of him so far.
He brought his hand up to her face and very gently, so softly she almost couldn’t feel it, he ran his fingertip over her cheekbone, just under her left eye. “How did you get it?”
She hadn’t covered it up properly with the makeup. Damn. She had been too hurried. She was still hurried. Time was ticking on.
Because of her acute awareness of passing time, Sabrina dispensed with all her usual sidestepping and social considerations. “When I was eleven, my foster father tried to rape me. I hit him over the head with a bottle. He punched me in the face. I had eight stitches. They said it was my fault, that I had been provocative.”
He tilted his head, studying her. “Does the corner office help balance it out?” he asked curiously.
Her breath shuddered as she drew it in. “It helps,” she said softly.
“I would have killed him. My tribe would have applauded me for it.”
Her heart squeezed again. I wish you had, too. And for an instant, deep satisfaction touched her at the idea of the monster she had been forced to call “Paul” lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes open and still. Then horror rose in her at the animal reaction. “I don’t have a tribe,” she said stiffly. “I’m an orphan.”
“You like the idea of me killing him, don’t you? Blood vengeance is one of the most primal human instincts. The tribes understood it. Now, it’s considered vulgar.”
“Your whole profession is an ode to ancient history,” Sabrina reminded him.
“You can tell yourself that, if it lets you sleep. Without us, your world would be far less civilized.”
Sabrina wanted to refute him, except that in the last year or so, since she had
found out she was pregnant and had stepped half-way into Riley’s strange world, she had seen and heard things that would have given her nightmares. The only reason she could sleep at night was knowing that Riley and Nick were out there most nights, getting rid of the freaky shadows.
“Do you resent that no one gets to know who you are?” she asked him. “That you have to creep around pretending to be human and no one thanks you for the job you do?” It was a blunt question, but he wasn’t being delicate, either.
“It is what it is,” he said.
“Bullshit. You don’t accept any of it. You hate it.” She didn’t know where her certainty came from. Perhaps her people skills had improved since she’d started her job. There was a cynical edge to Nyanther that underlined his words and behavior and his expressions and spoke of tightly held emotions.
He was frowning again. Even being called on the lie didn’t seem to move him. “It is true that in my time, the clans knew what we were.” He sounded like he was speaking to himself. Remembering. “We were accepted into the tribe because of what we did. This new world is so very different.”
“This is your time as much as that one was,” Sabrina said. “You’re alive and living in it.”
“Am I?” And there it was, the cynical edge she had suspected was there, out in the open. His tone was dry.
“Hey,” she said softly, alarmed at the bitterness and sadness in his face. “Damian and Nick love their lives. Just because you haven’t found your place yet….”
He was looking at her steadily, in a way that made her words fade. “Love conquers all?” he said. This time it wasn’t cynicism coloring his voice. There was a dangerous note in the soft words.
For the first time Sabrina realized he was still holding her arm. His fingers shifted, drifting over her bare skin beneath the sleeveless shirt.
It was like his barely there touch woke her up—not her mind, but her body. Between one heartbeat and the next she became abruptly aware of every inch of it and also how closely he was standing to her and exactly how tall he was. Even with her high heels, she still had to look up to meet his gaze.
She drew in a breath that was heated and burned on the way down to her lungs.
All she could think of was the urge to sway forward and press herself against him. It was driving reasonable, logical thought from her mind. She fought to not follow her instinct.
He was watching her, his gaze roaming over her face as if he was reading every thought as easily as print. His eyes, she could see now, were the softest gray, making them look colorless, except for a black border around them. They were mesmerizing and almost unearthly.
“Ah….” he breathed, as if he had discovered something. Perhaps he had.
She shivered.
He raised his hand, sliding it under her hair. He curled his fingers around the back of her neck. He didn’t touch her in any other way, yet her body tightened and her breath increased.
Was he going to kiss her?
Every nerve in her body fizzed at the possibility.
He had smooth, rounded lips. They looked soft. They parted just a little. “If I kiss you, it will be for the wrong reasons,” he breathed and she could hear his voice rumbling in his chest. They were so close they were almost touching. “Know that before you let this proceed.”
Sabrina tried to claw her thoughts together. “You’d have sex with a stranger who doesn’t like you?” she asked.
“That is everyone in this world.”
It was the weariness, the fathomless sadness in his words that allowed her to step away from him. She was shaking with arousal, her body pulsing with it, although sanity was returning. “You don’t let people in.”
“No one has ever asked to be let in.” He took a pace back himself and straightened up.
The tension, the magnetic force that had been beating between them was still there, only muted by more cerebral concerns. Sabrina frowned. “People don’t ask to be let in. You have to open the door and invite them.” She hefted her briefcase. “I am now late for my own committee meeting. I really must go.”
He stepped aside this time and waved toward the door.
“Don’t mess with my stuff!” she said over her shoulder as she hurried for the door, trying to get her legs to work properly.
* * * * *
Three hours later, Sabrina was back to trembling. This time it wasn’t the allure of sex driving her reaction…or perhaps, indirectly, it was. Procreation, rather than fun.
She stared at the report on the desk in front of her, trying to make sense of the words, even though Dr. Phillips had been more than clear about the meaning. “There has to be a mistake somewhere,” she said at last and pushed the report back to him. “I just had appendicitis and had my appendix out. It’s a simple operation.”
“Not in your case. You ignored the fever and the pain for three days, Sabrina,” Dr. Phillips said. His black face was patient and kind. He had already said this more than once in the year since she had got out of Emergency. He cut an odd figure with his Chucks and his suspenders. However, he was very, very good at his job.
“I had a meeting,” Sabrina murmured. “More than one.”
“I’m surprised you could even stay sitting in your boardroom chair,” Dr. Phillips replied dryly, tugging at the suspenders. “Although, you’re a very strong-willed woman, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised at all. Nevertheless, leaving the symptoms go unchecked let the fever build. You don’t remember being brought into Emergency?”
She shook her head. “Just waking up after the operation.”
“Which was complicated by a burst appendix and a raging infection, all of which have left their mark. Literally, in your case. The scaring to your fallopian tubes is extensive.”
She swallowed. “There’s no possibility I’ll ever have children?” she asked.
“You already have one. A daughter.”
“She…Chloe was adopted by my sister,” Sabrina said stiffly.
“You’re a modern career woman,” Dr. Phillips said kindly. “Were children a part of your plans?”
“Yes! Of course they were!” It had all been laid out in her mind years ago, when Riley had first started talking about making more of their lives than the basic wage jobs they were qualified for.
Riley had taught Sabrina to dream. First, college, then the great job, then more distantly in the future, the home in the suburbs and two children. There was even a dog jumping around the minivan and barking, in her imagination. Old streets, tree-lined. Neighbors. “Children are family,” she said slowly. For the first time it really, properly registered. The children in her imagination, the rosy cheeked cherubim smiling up at her….they would never exist.
Pain speared her chest.
Sabrina staggered to her feet and grabbed her briefcase off the chair next to her. “I…I have to go.”
“Perhaps we should talk about counseling, Sabrina,” Dr. Phillips said.
“Another time,” Sabrina said. Her face felt wooden and her lips uncooperative. “I have a…” She almost laughed. “I have a dinner meeting with the company’s biggest client.”
“Make another appointment,” Dr. Phillips called after her. “We can talk about it.”
Sabrina held back her response. Dr. Phillips was a nice man. Only people like Nyanther deserved unadorned truth.
What was the point of talking? It was a done deal. No children, no life. What was she even hurrying back to work for?
Chapter Three
El Agustina wasn’t a trendy restaurant, although it had its share of loyal customers. Sabrina’s boss, Cory, was one of them, which probably explained his expanding middle. She had seen him eat a whole bowl of chile con queso by himself and go on to eat a main course afterward.
When Sabrina arrived at the restaurant, Cory was already at the table, wringing his hands. There was a glass of water in front of him and nothing else. “Is something wrong?” she asked him, unfastening her jacket. The thick faux pearl necklace
and the high heels were her contribution to evening wear. She had debated whether to extend herself even that much, but habit had taken over. Her brain was spinning after Dr. Phillip’s news.
Cory mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief. “We’re going to be talking to Graham Summerfield,” he said in a melodramatic whisper. “Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get Summerfield Investments to even take a phone call?”
“And now their CEO is having dinner with you. Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” She caught the waiter’s attention.
Cory shook his head. “Maybe they’re just wasting my time, for amusement.”
“You’re a damn good finance manager, Cory,” she said firmly. She looked up at the waiter, a skinny Hispanic man with runaway acne. “Two shots of Jóven, please.”
He spoke quickly in Spanish and Sabrina just looked at him. “Excuse me?” she said flatly.
The waiter gave a little shrug. “We have lemons. No limes.”
“Actually, I didn’t ask for either,” she said stiffly.
As he hurried away, Cory looked at her. “Hard day?” he asked.
“It’s up there in the top ten,” she admitted and flipped open the menu.
“Here he is,” Cory said, his voice tight with tension. Then he gasped. “Oh my God!”
“What?” Sabrina looked over at the hostess’s desk. There were two men there, both in suits, both blond, both tall. One was middle-aged and she recognized him from photos and media footage. He was Graham Summerfield, CEO of Summerfield Investments. Most annual surveys of Wall Street placed him close to the top in terms of money, power and influence, even though Summerfield Investments was a family corporation.
The man in the blue suit who was with him was slightly taller and thicker across the shoulders. Sabrina had seen more than her share of over-priced designer suits. From across the room she could tell his was tailored and from the way the jacket hung around his waist and hips, she guessed it was probably European or British-made. The guy shopped on Saville Row, then. Full speed ahead and damn the expense.
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