by Lynsay Sands
“He’s fine,” Tiny assured her, then stood and walked over to begin opening and closing cupboard doors. He added, “The saboteur hasn’t struck out at him personally in any of the previous attacks.”
“The saboteur was targeting his business then. Vincent has taken those targets away by closing his plays. He and his home are the only targets left to the saboteur,” Jackie pointed out. “Besides, I’m not worried about him, I’m just…concerned.” She frowned at the admission, then asked with irritation, “What are you looking for?”
“I’m checking to see what ingredients we have. There’s a recipe I want to try.”
Jackie rolled her eyes and began to tap her nails on the table, then realized what she was doing and folded her hand closed to end the telling action. After a moment, she stood abruptly. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s just after ten,” Tiny pointed out with surprise. Jackie never went to bed before eleven o’clock at night.
“It’s just after ten here,” she agreed. “But in New York—where we got up this morning—it’s just after one.”
“Oh, right.” He nodded and turned back to close the cupboard door. “Well, I’m not tired yet, I’m going to bake some muffins for breakfast. It should only take an hour, then I’ll probably go to bed too.”
Jackie paused at the door and glanced back to find him donning the pink “I’m the cook!” apron Vincent had insisted on purchasing that day. The sight of him in the ridiculous thing made her irritation deepen.
“You don’t have to cook, Tiny. It’s your cover, not your job.”
“I know,” he responded calmly. “I like to cook. It relaxes me.”
“Right,” Jackie murmured and knew it was true. Tiny had taken a gourmet cooking course years ago and she’d often caught him leafing through women’s magazines over the years, looking at recipes. She suspected Tiny was a very small woman in a large man’s body, which was probably why they got along so well. Her father had always claimed she was a big, tough guy in a little woman’s body.
“What a pair,” Jackie muttered under her breath as she walked down the hall, then winced at how loud her voice sounded in the silent house. The security men had finished with the ground floor and left a little less than an hour ago. Allen Richmond had promised to have them back first thing in the morning to start work on the second floor. Jackie had been pleased with his assurance at the time, but now realized that might not be too convenient. Marguerite and Vincent were vampires. They slept during the day and wouldn’t be up “first thing” for the men to work in their rooms.
Frowning over the problem, she walked upstairs and glanced along the hall, silently counting rooms, the master bedroom, her room, Marguerite’s room, Tiny’s room, and two more guest rooms presently unused. With her and Tiny up, she supposed that would give the men four rooms to work on until Marguerite and Vincent got up. She’d have to warn them to work quietly so they didn’t wake up Vincent and his aunt.
It was the professional thing to do, but part of her resented the need for it. Jackie was never quite comfortable working with vampires. Bastien teased her that she had a bad attitude when it came to his kind, and he wasn’t wrong. Fortunately, Bastien Argeneau knew the source of her attitude and was understanding enough to overlook it. Jackie wondered now if Vincent would be as understanding. She suspected he would. He seemed intelligent, nice, good-humored…he also seem to get along great with Tiny, whose judgment she’d always trusted. He was also drop-dead gorgeous with a nice smile and sexy silver-blue eyes.
He’s a vampire, Jackie reminded herself. It was something she couldn’t forget…mustn’t forget. She feared the moment that happened, she might be foolish enough to start to like the guy in more than a professional manner, and she so wasn’t going there again. Jackie had learned her lesson young and learned it well with Cassius.
Her teeth set at the very thought of the vampire she’d been involved with at nineteen. An image of him rose in her mind: six feet, four inches tall, with shoulder-length gold hair. The man had been as beautiful as a Greek god.
Jackie instinctively started to push him from her mind, then stopped herself and let the memories play. Not so much as a punishment, but in the hopes reliving the memory would save her from doing something foolish now, eleven years later. Jackie suspected it would be a good thing to reflect on the lesson she’d learned, especially in lieu of the fact that she was living in the home of a vampire that she found very attractive.
“There! You’ve admitted it,” Jackie said on a small sigh as she entered her room and closed the door. “You find Vincent Argeneau attractive.”
It was a scary admission for Jackie and immediately made her feel vulnerable. She hadn’t felt anything but mild disdain and anger toward a vampire since Cassius.
Jackie had been a good student and a dutiful daughter until the summer she met Cassius. She’d been a naïve and foolish child…but had thought herself a woman. She’d met the vampire when he came to her home to see her father about a case he was working for him. He’d been a pale, blond god in her eyes, Adonis as he’d surely been meant to look.
Awestruck by his beauty when he’d come calling, Jackie had worshipped him with her eyes as she’d stammered out that her father wasn’t yet home. She could still recall the amused smile that had curved his lips at the time. Jackie hadn’t understood it then, but did now. The man had been silently laughing at her shy adoration.
Jackie had hardly been able to believe her luck when he’d asked if he might wait for her father. Blushing and smiling and chattering away, she’d seated him in the living room, then excused herself to make tea, too nervous and overset to recall that vampires didn’t drink tea. Something she’d known since she was eighteen and had started to work in her father’s company.
Ted Morrissey had been excited and eager when he’d got the first call from Bastien Argeneau with a job he wanted looked after. His company had been small then and the referral from another client to the head of such a large multinational company had been like winning the lottery. However, it was soon after that her father had stopped talking about his cases, at least ones involving the Argeneaus or anyone connected to them. Jackie hadn’t understood why until her first day of work for her father when he’d taken her into his office, sat her down, and said what he was about to tell her could never be revealed to anyone…Vampires did exist.
Young and eager to believe in the unbelievable, she’d gotten over the shock quickly, and then had spent the first couple weeks of her apprenticeship going through every file her father had on each of the immortals. By the time she was nineteen and faced with the handsome Cassius, she’d considered herself something of an expert on the immortals.
Oh, the arrogance of youth, Jackie thought sadly. She’d been fussing over the tea tray in the kitchen when Cassius had joined her there. He’d told her she shouldn’t trouble herself, then had pressed a hand gently to her cheek and stared into her eyes. Jackie’s breath had caught in the back of her throat at the action, her mouth suddenly dry. She could still recall the trembling that had started in her body, leaving her shaky and weak so she’d had to lean back against the kitchen counter to stay on her feet.
When he’d kissed her, her mind had filled with passions she’d never dreamed of; a wave of want and need that had seemed to consume her. Jackie had been lost.
Cassius had broken the kiss when they heard the front door open. By the time her father found them in the kitchen, Jackie was nervously finishing with the tea tray, and Cassius was seated at the table, but Ted Morrisey had eyed them both with a concern that told her he suspected something had been going on. He didn’t say anything, however, not right then. He told Jackie to forget about the tea and ushered Cassius into his office.
Jackie had sagged against the counter once alone, her hand pressed to her heart. It had felt like it would beat its way right out of her chest. She was sure she’d met the man of her dreams and had been horrified when he left and her father came to her and
said she was to stay away from Cassius. It was for her own good.
Jackie’s obedience had ended there. When Cassius called to invite her out, she lied and snuck about to see him, resenting her father for not understanding young love. Somehow, the lies and sneaking just made it all that bit more exciting, if it were possible.
Cassius had taken her to fine restaurants and plays. Jackie had felt terribly sophisticated on his arm, and while she’d at first been nervous and anxious when he’d started to make love to her in the limo on the way home, that had soon given way to mindless passion. By the time she’d gotten out of that limo, Jackie was sure she was in love.
Cassius had appeared equally enamored of her. Seeming unable to keep his hands off her, he’d started things in the most inappropriate places; kissing her and running his hands up under her skirt in restaurants with only the table to hide what he was doing, pulling her into alleys and making love to her against the wall of the building with only the cover night offered, and finally making love to her in his private box at the theatre where anyone might look over and see. Jackie was always reticent when he first initiated these encounters, but soon found herself overwhelmed by passion and eager to do whatever pleased him. He was like a drug and she a junkie who couldn’t get enough.
Her father soon learned she was seeing Cassius behind his back. How could he not? While she was lying and sneaking out, their dates were always in public and someone eventually mentioned it to him. Jackie came home from what would be their last date to be confronted by her father. They had a terrible row, ending with Jackie yelling that she hated him and would see Cassius if she wanted and there was nothing he could do about it. She’d then run out and taken a taxi straight to Cassius’s apartment. She’d buzzed his apartment and the door was immediately released for her, but when she’d reached the apartment she’d found it full of strangers. Cassius was having a party, anyone could have buzzed her in, he probably didn’t even know she was there.
Forcing a smile, she’d greeted everyone as if she’d known about the party and been invited as she wound her way through the crowded rooms, looking for Cassius. His office was the last place Jackie looked, and it too had appeared empty at first. Confused and desperate to find him, she was backing out when a laugh made her pause and glance back. It was only then Jackie noticed that the door leading onto the balcony was cracked open. Realizing he must be there, she’d crossed the room to the door, then paused when she saw he wasn’t alone. Jackie hadn’t recognized the two men with him, but the shine of their eyes in the night told her they were immortals like Cassius.
Jackie had reached for the door to slide it further open to let him know she was there, but one of the men had said something that made her pause.
“You seem to be seeing a lot of that little Jackie.”
“Hmm. I was,” Cassius had allowed, then shrugged. “But I’m growing bored. She’s too unsophisticated. Her adoration was amusing at first, but is becoming annoying.” He smiled faintly. “I do like making her do things she doesn’t want to do though. Her mind is as malleable as clay and so easily controlled. I barely have to exert myself to get into her thoughts and convince her that yes, she really does want me to screw her in my theatre box where anyone might see.”
“You surprise me, Cassius,” one of the men had commented. “From what you were telling me you had grown tired of sex and—”
“This isn’t about sex,” he’d said impatiently. “Although it’s a lot more interesting when you know you’re making her do things that are against her morals.” He’d shrugged. “But I’m growing bored with the game and am thinking to end it soon. I just need to decide how I want to end it. Something magnificent. Perhaps bursting in on one of Ted Morrissey’s business meetings and screwing her on the boardroom table in front of important clients. Imagine his humiliation as she squeals like a bitch in heat.”
“Jesus, Cassius, I knew you didn’t like Ted, but this is just—”
“He doesn’t show me the proper respect,” Cassius snapped, displaying an anger Jackie had never witnessed from him. “He acts as though he’s as good as us and he isn’t. None of them are. They’re all simple-minded children that we feed from and can control as we wish and he needs to understand that.”
Numb with shock, and suddenly terribly, terribly frightened of being discovered there, Jackie had eased away from the door and hurried out of the room. She’d glanced anxiously over her shoulder every half second as she’d made her escape, knowing that if Cassius saw her before she got out, there would be trouble. He’d read her mind and know she’d heard everything…He wouldn’t have let Jackie leave, knowing what she knew. He would have taken control of her mind, as he’d apparently been doing, and kept her with him until he’d made her do something that would publicly humiliate herself and her father.
Jackie’s fear had eased once she was in a taxi on the way home, but it hadn’t gone completely. Cassius had been controlling her and would do so again if given the chance. It had seemed to her to be in her best interests to be sure he couldn’t. A much humbler Jackie had approached her father on returning home. She’d told him everything, and as she’d hoped, he’d known what to do. He’d called Bastien Argeneau at once and the vampire had come to their home to talk over the matter.
Jackie had been terribly embarrassed at the time, but looking back, Bastien had been extremely kind. He’d assured her that all of his kind did not look down on mortals as Cassius did, and that she hadn’t been foolish or stupid, that Cassius had used his abilities to control her behavior and she shouldn’t now feel embarrassed at anything she may have done. Then he’d assured her she needn’t fear Cassius getting the chance to control her again. They would send her away for a while to keep her safe while he dealt with the matter.
Jackie had found herself on a plane to Europe the next morning. She’d gone to University at Oxford for a year before returning to take a job at her father’s company again. She’d never asked what had been done about Cassius. From what Jackie had pieced together over the years, she knew he’d suddenly found it desirous to move out of New York. She also knew he’d been warned off of ever bothering her and her father again.
Jackie dropped onto her bed with a sigh. The memory of those few short weeks in her life no longer caused the pain it once had. She’d been crushed at the time, heart sore and humiliated as she tried to sort out what—if any—of her feelings and passions had been her own and which had been planted by Cassius. She was pretty sure her initial attraction to him had been real. Even now she could acknowledge that Cassius was a handsome man. But his words had made her doubt everything else she’d experienced. Had any of the overwhelming passion been hers? Or had he placed it in her mind, controlling her with it?
To this day, Jackie didn’t know the answer to that question. All she knew was that vampires were a dangerous lot, able to subvert a mortal’s will. And she’d spent years struggling to strengthen her mind against their abilities to read her thoughts, knowing the entire time that in the end, if they really wanted to, they would easily break down her defenses and not only read but control her mind. That knowledge made her instinctively fear them. Which, in turn, made her angry.
Bastien Argeneau was the only vampire Jackie had even come close to trusting since then. But then, he’d always treated her with gentle respect, and he was even now engaged to a mortal. Jackie really believed that he didn’t look down on her people. She was less sure about the rest of his kind, however, so stayed on the defensive with them all. It just seemed the safest way to deal with things.
And, Jackie decided, she would continue to handle it thusly. She had to keep her defenses up, especially now that she was living in the same home as Vincent. She was not going to risk another humiliation like the one Cassius had visited on her. Jackie had to harden her heart against Vincent. It was a simple matter of self-preservation.
Four
Vincent rolled over, opened his eyes and peered at the bedside clock, a frown drawing his ey
ebrows together as he saw the digital reading. Eleven forty-eight. Dear God, it wasn’t even noon. He usually slept until six or later to avoid as much sunlight as possible.
Eleven forty-nine. Vincent glowered at the changing digital reading. Something had obviously woken him. His sleepy mind was just trying to sort out what that might be when the sound of voices came muffled through his bedroom door. Frowning, he turned to peer toward it. It was two men’s voices, growing louder as the speakers drew nearer. He tensed as they reached his door, then they apparently continued on down the hall because the voices began to fade again.
“What the hell?” Tossing his blankets and sheets aside, Vincent slid his feet out of bed and got up. He didn’t bother dressing, but moved to the door and pulled it open to peer out, eyes widening at the sight of all the men moving in and out of the half dozen open doors off the hallway.
Leaving his room, Vincent started forward, glancing through each open door he passed. There was only one door on the upper floor that was still closed, the door to the room where his aunt Marguerite slept. Wondering how she could possibly sleep through all this racket, Vincent took the stairs, his thoughts scattering as he reached the main floor and found it flooded with light. Every window in the house was covered with a heavy protective curtain that kept the light out and made it safe for him to move around when necessary during the day. Presently, every one of those curtains appeared to have been pulled open to allow sunlight to spill across the hardwood floors.
Growling, Vincent headed for the kitchen, expecting to find Tiny there, but the man was conspicuous in his absence. Turning away from the empty kitchen, he started back up the hall, glancing in each room he passed, searching for Jackie and an explanation for the small army of men who had taken over his home. Vincent found both Jackie and Tiny in his office.