So, when the discreet clock on the office wall clicked over to 6:00 pm, Emma straightened her desk, shut down her computer, stood and pulled her purse out of her desk drawer.
Noreen looked up at her in surprise, but Emma simply said, “There are some things I need to take care of.” Then she slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and walked out of the office as casually as if she left this early every day. Once outside the building though, she picked up the pace, moving across the crowded parking lot as quickly as she could in the ridiculously high Jimmy Choos. Duncan had promised her she could help, and she wasn’t going to give him any excuse to go back on that promise.
Traffic was its usual snarled mess, but less than an hour later, Emma drove right up to the gate of Duncan’s house—he’d made it clear that it wasn’t an embassy—no parking down the block and sneaking past a dump truck. Not that it would have been possible. It was obvious there was new management in town. The gate was not only securely closed, but there were two burly and well-armed men—or maybe vampires—standing in front of it. When she pulled closer, she could see even more armed guards prowling around inside the grounds.
She pulled up to the closed gate and stopped, rolling down her window.
“Hi,” she said, handing him her driver’s license. “Ambas—er, that is, Duncan is expecting me.”
The guard—and oh, yes, he was a vampire. He made no attempt to conceal his fangs as he looked from her license to her face and back again. He didn’t say anything, but turned away from her long enough to hand her license to a second guard who had remained in the small gate hut. That one studied her license for himself, entered something into an unseen computer, then pulled out a cell phone and hit a speed dial number. He glanced up and saw her watching, then gave her his back while he spoke to whomever he’d called. Emma could hear his voice, but not make out the words. She was pretty sure it was English, but wouldn’t have sworn to it. And all the while the first vampire guard stood right next to her car, his arms resting on a big, black gun slung over his chest on a sling of some sort, while he watched her unblinking.
Emma wanted desperately to move, to tap her fingers or pound the steering wheel and give a good scream to release some stress. She always got twitchy when she was nervous or excited, and tonight it was a combination of both. But with the unfriendly vamp standing right outside, that probably wasn’t a good idea. So instead she focused on what she could see of the house through the iron bars, trying to spot all the security people who had sprouted up from seemingly nowhere in the few days since she’d last been here. She jumped when the gate suddenly began sliding open.
“They’re expecting you,” the first vampire said in a flat voice. He handed back her license. “Park in the area to the right.” He pointed to a small paved area about twenty yards from the front door. “Someone will meet you at the door.”
Emma took her license, proud that her fingers remained steady. Rather than sit under his scrutiny while she put it away, she dropped it into the center console and pulled slowly forward, feeling a sharp double bump underneath as her car rolled over the gate’s thick metal tracks. She took the right hand arm of the curved driveway and parked near the big house, sitting there a moment and looking around. Hers was the only sedan in the parking area, but there were quite a few trucks of various sizes. Most of the trucks were either piled high with construction material, or looked like they’d recently been emptied of the same. Their tail gates hung open, and ropes and bungee cords were lying in the truck beds like forlorn snakes. Obviously, there was some remodeling going on inside the house. She didn’t see any of Duncan’s SUVs, though, so she figured there was a garage around back, or maybe a separate parking area.
Emma breathed out a nervous laugh and decided she’d wasted enough time worrying about where other people were parked. She opened her car door and swung her legs out, which was made more awkward than usual by the stiletto heels. She had some more practical clothes with her and had actually intended to change before she left the office, but when the time came, she’d been too worried that Sharon or someone else would drag her back to her desk for one last question or phone call. So she still wore the somber dark gray suit she’d worn to the cemetery this morning, with its snug skirt and tailored jacket, and still wore the ridiculously high heels. But at least she looked good. Er, professional. It wasn’t as if she cared whether Duncan found her attractive or not. She merely wanted him to think of her as a professional, someone he could rely on to get the job done.
Oh, who was she kidding? She hoped she knocked his socks off. That kiss last night had only made her want another taste of the delectable Duncan. She appreciated his sensitivity in not wanting to take advantage of her vulnerability, but she’d spent the night wide awake, trying not to think about Lacey and thinking about Duncan instead. She knew it was part of the grieving process, the desire to lose herself in the physical as a way of forgetting the emotional. But whatever it was, she wanted more of him, and if his body had been telling her anything last night, it was that he wouldn’t object.
She hefted the purse with her laptop over her shoulder and grabbed the gym bag with her change of clothes from the backseat. Beeping her car locked, she headed for the fan-shaped brick stairs, but before she’d put her foot on the lowest step, someone opened the door.
Emma looked up, her heart spiking in anticipation. But it was only . . . Louis, that was his name. He stood in the open doorway, smiling pleasantly and without even a glimpse of fang.
“Good evening, Ms. Duquet,” he said politely, standing back so she could enter. “Lord Duncan is expecting you.”
Lord Duncan?
“Um, thank you,” she said, trying not to fidget. “Is there somewhere . . .” She held up her gym bag, silently asking if there was somewhere she could change. Apparently she should have been more explicit, because Louis took the bag from her and walked over to the room where she’d met Duncan the other night, the room with the books. Emma followed him, but stopped in the doorway to stare. The books were gone and so was the room. Well, not precisely, the room was still there, but it looked completely different. The walls were bare and painted a bland, soothing warm beige, and the furniture looked like something you’d find in a nicely appointed dentist’s office.
“What happened to the books?” she asked. “And the Tiffany lamps?”
Louis gave her an infectious grin. “My lord liked the room, so we moved it for him.”
Emma blinked. “The entire room?”
He nodded. “Close enough.” He dropped her gym bag on the floor of the newly refurbished waiting room and indicated the purse over her shoulder. “You can leave that here for now, too.”
“It’s got my laptop in it.”
He winked. “It’ll be perfectly safe here. Honest.”
Emma scowled as she felt embarrassment heat her cheeks. She let the purse slide down her arm and rested it carefully on top of the gym bag.
Louis nodded and gestured down the hall behind the stairs. “They’re in the gym. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Emma opened her mouth to protest—she was hardly dressed for the gym—but Louis took off so quickly that she found herself hurrying to keep up. She followed him down a dark hallway that passed right under the stairs. It intersected a brightly lit corridor that seemed to run the length of the house in either direction. Louis turned right and kept going, glancing once over his shoulder to make sure she was still with him.
Emma was struck by the change from her first night here, when it had been so quiet and empty. She’d only seen Duncan and Miguel that night, and it had been like whispering in a church. But now the house was filled with noise. For one thing, it sounded like someone was tearing down the walls upstairs, and she could hear shouts and thumping sounds emanating from below her feet, presumably in the basement. Clearly, the former library wasn’t the only room being renovated. She caught the startled glance of a big black guy who was working over a drafting table in one of the rooms she passed. And another man—or a vampire?—this one shorter than she was, and wiry, nearly bowled her over as he raced out of a doorway right in front of her and headed back the way they’d come. Emma was still catching her breath from that encounter, when a huge crashing noise echoed from the general direction of the front door.
She jumped at the sound and looked anxiously over her shoulder, but Louis merely grinned as he spun to face her and walked backwards a few steps. “Don’t worry, Ms. Duquet. It’s just a bit of remodeling. Come on, we’re almost there.”
“There” turned out to be a large, wide-open, high-ceilinged room, which she was certain had originally been a banquet room, not the gym it currently was. The vampires had stripped it bare and laid down some padding on the floor, but they hadn’t had time to paint. She could still see the discolorations on the walls where huge artwork of some sort had once hung. And then there was the giant medallion embellishment in the center of the high ceiling, which certainly had never been intended to witness sweaty vampires working out. Incongruously, there were still heavy, gold brocade drapes pulled over every window, with velvet swags and twisted gold rope tiebacks.
“Stand over here,” Louis said quietly, and Emma realized there was a fight going on out on the mats. Four other vampires stood against the wall on the sidelines. They studied her distrustfully until Louis did some sort of intricate sign language thing, and they all turned their attention back to the center of the room. Emma followed suit and blinked at what she found there. Two males, stripped down to nothing but loosely tied gi pants, their feet and chests bare, were engaged in a blazing martial arts battle that moved back and forth across the room so fast they were almost a blur. One had short dark hair, she could see that much, and the other . . . Emma caught her breath.
It was Duncan. And the other fighter was his lieutenant, Miguel. And to call what they were doing a fight didn’t do it justice. It was more of a dance, although no doubt it would have been deadly if they’d wanted it to be. The two of them were pure, lethal grace, as they snapped out kick after kick, seeming to defy gravity as they twisted in midair, then changed tactics to meet in a whirlwind of fists and grunts, each blocking as many hits as he took. Emma winced as the sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed off the bare walls, some of the hits so powerful she knew a human would have been down and screaming long ago. She stifled a gasp, hand over her mouth, when Miguel connected with a hard fist to Duncan’s jaw, his head twisting with the force of it. But it didn’t stop him. Duncan flowed with the hit, ducking low and spinning around and up into the air, one leg flying out like a battering ram, striking the side of Miguel’s neck. Miguel hunched under the blow and staggered briefly, then came up again as the two of them fought face-to-face once more, moving back and forth across the floor, neither of them appearing to be superior to the other.
