Thomas ignored the ringing phone in his hand and stared at the wooden door Inez had just slammed in his face. It was as blank and featureless as the wall he"d run up against in her mind. He"d tried to slip into her thoughts to erase them once he"d fed enough from her, but much to his amazement, he couldn"t.
He"d redoubled his efforts, but had come up against a solid wall in her mind. The graffiti on it read "b.u.g.g.e.r off! No Entry here." He couldn"t read Inez Urso.
The phone stopped ringing, only to start up again a moment later and Thomas glanced down at it with a sigh. Spotting the caller ID stating it was Bastien, he flipped it open and lifted it to his ear.
"Thomas?" Bastien asked. "Yeah."
"Did you feed from Inez?"
"Yeah."
"Good, good. Are you on the way to the airport?"
"No."
There was a moment of silence. "Why?"
"We have a problem," he muttered.
"What kind of problem?" Bastien sounded wary.
"I can"t wipe her mind."
"What?" Bastien asked with disbelief.
A crash sounded in the bathroom as something was knocked to the floor. It made Thomas back away so Inez wouldn"t overhear his conversation. "I can"t get into her thoughts to wipe the memory of the bite from her mind."
There was another pause and then Bastien clucked and snapped, "Dammit, Thomas! Inez is one of my best employees."
He pulled the phone away from his ear to peer at it with disbelief, and then slapped it back to his head. "What the h.e.l.l has that got to do with anything?"
"Well, if you had to find your lifemate, couldn"t it have been someone else"s employee. I"m going to lose her now. She"ll want to be with you and come to Canada and-" Thomas heard the sound of material rustling and knew Bastien had pressed the phone to his chest while he spoke to someone else. Etienne, he supposed, and guessed he was explaining things to the other man.
The whole family would know by sunset, Thomas realized and rolled his eyes.
"Never mind," the older immortal said apologetically. "I"m just tired and cranky. Congratulations."
"Congratulations?" Thomas echoed with disbelief.
"Yes, congratulations, Thomas. You"ve just met your lifemate."
"I"ve just bit my lifemate," Thomas snapped. "And she"s now locked in the bathroom, probably fashioning a cross and a stake out of the soap bars and anything else she can find in there."
"Oh c.r.a.p."
"Yes, oh c.r.a.p." Thomas snarled. "Bite her you said. Feed off of Inez so we don"t have to worry about you being tempted on the plane. Brilliant, Bastien."
"Well, h.e.l.l, Thomas, how was I supposed to know she would turn out to be your lifemate? Couldn"t you have tried to read her before you bit her?"
"Why the h.e.l.l would I do that?" Thomas snapped. "I had no idea she was my lifemate."
"Okay, okay," Bastien said quickly. "Let me think."
Thomas rolled his eyes, but remained silent.
"She"s locked in the bathroom?" Bastien asked finally.
"Yes."
"Have you tried to talk to her?"
"What would you like me to say Bastien? Oh, I"m sorry, Inez. I didn"t mean to bite you, my fangs slipped."
"You could try rea.s.suring her. Maybe explain about what we are."
"1 think she"s realized what we are," Thomas pointed out dryly. "And judging by the fact that she"s locked in the bathroom, she isn"t happy with the realization."
"Give her the phone, maybe I can explain."
"What part of locked in the bathroom aren"t you getting?" Thomas asked with exasperation. "I can"t give her the phone."
"Okay... Just a minute," He covered the phone again and conferred with Etienne.
Thomas shook his head and paced the small s.p.a.ce of the little hallway between rooms.
"Thomas?"
"Yeah?" he turned his attention back to the phone.
"You"re going to have to try talking to her."
"What do you suggest I say, Bastien?" Thomas asked wearily.
"Ask her if she"s all right."
Shaking his head, Thomas lowered the phone and moved to the door, pressing his ear to it before speaking. All he heard was breathing, a fast, shallow panting. The woman was either on the verge of having an anxiety attack or she was jogging on the spot in there.
"Inez?" he called through the door, trying for a soothing tone. Judging by the scurrying sound of her shuffling away from the door, it didn"t have the desired effect. Grimacing, he asked, "Are you all right?"
A spate of Portuguese sounded through the door.
Frowning, Thomas lifted the phone to his ear. "Did you get that? What the h.e.l.l did she just say?"
"I don"t know, I couldn"t hear," Bastien admitted unhappily. "Put the phone to the door and ask her to repeat it."
Muttering under his breath, Thomas moved the phone to the door, cleared his throat, and said, "Er... Inez, do you think you could repeat that? I don"t speak Portuguese and Bastien couldn"t hear you.""You bit me!!"
Thomas waited to see if there was more, but when silence followed, he lifted the phone back to his ear "h.e.l.lo?"
"That wasn"t Portuguese," Bastien said at once.
"Well, h.e.l.l, Bastien, I know that. It was Portuguese the first time."
An exasperated sound came down the line and then Thomas heard Etienne say something in the background.
"What did he say?" Thomas asked with a frown.
"He said apologize and just keep apologizing. It"s the only way to handle a woman," Bastien told him, and then added, "It works with Terri."
"Apologize," Thomas muttered, taking the phone away and moving it back to the door in case Inez responded in Portuguese again.
"Inez? I"m sorry I bit you," he said with sincere regret, and then inspiration made him add, "Bastien made me do it."
"What?" Inez screeched, and the word was echoed by Bastien on the phone.
"Well, you did," Thomas pointed out, placing the phone back to his ear. "You told me to bite her. I didn"t want to do it but you were going on and on about flying while hungry. I never would have bit her otherwise. You made me."
Thomas heard Bastien curse on the phone, but he was already moving the phone back to the door. Inez had started ranting again in Portuguese. It ended with English again, this time it was, "I work for the devil!"
"Yes, well, you should try being his cousin," Thomas muttered. Inez must have heard him. She was suddenly terribly quiet. Bastien wasn"t, however, Thomas could hear him squawking away over the phone, his voice not dissimilar to the squeaky voice of a mouse in a cartoon at that distance. Sighing, he placed the phone back to his ear.
"What did she say in Portuguese?" he asked, cutting off Bastien.
"She said you"re a soulless vampire, a blood-sucking fiend, and she has a cross and knows how to use it," Bastien translated dryly.
"Look, I"m going to hand you over to Etienne and use my cell to call the office there in London and have someone sent over to wipe her memory."
"No! Don"t do that!" Thomas said sharply. He didn"t know why, but the idea of another immortal messing with Inez"s brain made him cringe. Taking a breath, he said, "Look, just give me a minute. I can fix this. There"s no need to wipe her memory."
He didn"t give Bastien the chance to argue the point, but lowered the phone and stepped closer to the door. "Look, Inez, I"m sorry I bit you. I really am, and I really didn"t want to. Like I said, Bastien insisted on it. I shouldn"t have given in, but... It didn"t hurt, did it?"
Inez scowled, her suspicious gaze fixed on the bathroom door. In truth, the bite hadn"t hurt. It had even been pleasurable... at least until she"d seen his fangs and realized what he"d done. That thought made her frown. He"d had a reflection. Vampires weren"t supposed to have one. Maybe he was just a freak and the fangs were glued on. That made more sense than that he might be a vampire. A freak was better than a vampire, wasn"t it? She pondered the matter, but really wasn"t sure which would be worse.
"What are you?" she asked suddenly. "Some sort of gothfreak vampire wannabe?"
"No, I-" His voice died briefly and then she heard him muttering, "No, Bastien. I don"t want you to have her memory wiped. Just give me a minute here."Inez frowned in the silence that followed, wondering what he meant by having her memory wiped. While she wasn"t sure what it was, it didn"t sound like something she wanted either.
"No," Thomas repeated on the other side of the door. "She"s my d.a.m.ned lifemate, Bastien, and you aren"t having her wiped."
Inez"s eyebrows rose. She was his d.a.m.ned lifemate? What did that mean? Was she literally d.a.m.ned now that he"d bit her?
Frowning, she turned to peer in the mirror at the marks on her neck. Was she a vampire now too? She didn"t feel soulless and dead. And she did still have a reflection. What- "Another five minutes isn"t going to make much difference," Thomas snapped on the other side of the door. "You"re the one who said she was the best d.a.m.ned employee you"ve ever had. She"s smart and sensible. I can make her see sense. Instead of calling Wyatt and ordering him to come here and wipe her, call the d.a.m.ned airport and book a seat for her on the plane to Amsterdam."
Inez frowned at the mention of Wyatt. He was the president of UK development for Argent, the British division of Argeneau Enterprises. He was her boss.
She had always liked the man, but now recalled that he too had an allergy to sunlight. In fact, most of the upper echelon of executives did, she realized.
Dear G.o.d, she worked in a nest of vampires! How could she have worked with them all so long and not realized?
She was realizing now, of course, and noticing other oddities; like the fact that few of the upper echelon of the company ate food or drank alcohol or even tea or coffee. They were all friendly, and nice, intelligent people, but didn"t do the usual social things like going out for drinks together after landing a big contract, or attending the Christmas parties and other celebrations the underlings at the company held. In fact, only the day workers attended such functions, she realized with dismay.
"Yes, we can still make the flight to Amsterdam," Thomas insisted on the other side of the door. "Just let me talk to the woman without you interrupting me."
Inez couldn"t hear Bastien"s response, but supposed he must have agreed when Thomas cleared his throat and said close to the door, "Look, Inez, I got a hold of someone who was able to track Aunt Marguerite"s cell phone. It turns out she isn"t here at all.
She"s in Amsterdam, so I have to fly over there. In fact, I"m booked on a flight for six-fifty and I have to leave soon to catch it."
"Okay. You go ahead," she suggested and heard him sigh on the other side of the door.
"I can"t until we fix this."
"There"s nothing to fix. I"m fine," Inez lied glibly. "You go on and fly to Amsterdam."
"I can"t. I want to explain everything to you so that you won"t be afraid or freaked out anymore," he said quietly.
"I"m not freaked out," she lied again.
"Right," he said dryly.
"Okay, maybe I"m a little freaked out, but I"ll be fine," Inez a.s.sured him and then held her breath, praying he"d just go away and leave her alone. She"d slip out and call the police... No, she couldn"t do that, they"d think she was mad. Maybe she should go to her church. Surely the church knew about the evil living in the bosom of London?
"Inez, I can"t just go away."
She closed her eyes at his unhappy words, and then opened them again and suggested, "Okay, so explain."
"I can"t do that either. Not right this minute anyway, it would take too long and we have to catch that flight to Amsterdam." "We?" she echoed with alarm.
"Yes. Won"t you please come out of there and fly to Amsterdam with me so that I can explain matters to you? I promise not to bite you again."
Inez didn"t say anything, but she was shaking her head with certainty. There was no way she was going anywhere with the man.
He"d bit her, for cripes sake. Asking her to accompany him was like asking her to get in the back of a van with a rabid dog. How stupid did he think she was?
"Inez? You were here all day and were perfectly safe. If I"d wanted to harm you, I could have done so first thing this morning when we were alone in the suite, but I didn"t, did I? Instead I drew you a bath and ordered you a breakfast, and-"
"And then you bit me," Inez snapped, interrupting him before his words could remind her of the kinder feelings she"d had for him earlier in the day. And she had most definitely had kinder feelings all day for the man. She had luxuriated in her bubble bath, thinking what a wonderful, thoughtful, sweet man Thomas Argeneau was. She"d eaten her breakfast, every bite giving her fonder and fonder thoughts of the man. And the tea? The first sip of the golden nectar had nearly convinced her Thomas was a G.o.d among men.
After her bath, Inez had gone out, looked down at his sleeping face and noticed just how handsome and sweet he looked in sleep.
She"d wanted to touch his soft, dark hair and brush it away from his chiseled features softened in sleep. She hadn"t, but she also hadn"t had the heart to wake him, and had set up shop in the suite"s bedroom to avoid disturbing him as she made the calls, first arranging for the car to be brought into the city from the warehouse, then calling hotel after hotel, and then car rental agency after car rental agency, stopping only to walk out and moon over the pretty man asleep on the sofa and ponder how wonderful it would be to have a handsome, thoughtful man such as he in her life.
Every time she"d been placed on hold as she made her calls, Inez had found herself sitting there, fantasizing about what it would be like to have a man like him to come home to at the end of a long hard workday. She"d imagined him greeting her at the door with a kiss, the smells of scrumptious cooking drifting to her as he kissed her h.e.l.lo, his hands moving over her body, stripping away her clothes and then caressing every inch of skin revealed...
Oh, yes, Inez had woven a lovely little fantasy in her mind and had been happy when he"d woken up and come to join her... right up until he bit her.