“You sound merciless…as though you will sentence a vampire to death without considering all of the circumstances.”
“Yes. In some cases there are no circumstance to consider. Murder is murder. Risking exposure is almost as bad, as it risks the potential of humans committing acts of genocide in their fear of what we are. We all know that humans are not likely to accept us. That they are more likely to fear us. Exposure and the risk of it is unacceptable.”
“Each case must be taken into account individually,” she insisted.
“And I will do that. I am not unreasonable. But I have a personal line and I will not allow myself or others to cross it.”
Simone didn’t know if that made him hardheaded or simply devoted to their species’ survival.
“The key to our survival in this age of dwindling privacy and increasing surveillance is in our anonymity. To risk that is to risk everything. It is even the one thing the sycophants agree with us on. That makes it even more important. If those lawless bastards know they must follow that one law, then it is our most important law and must be enforced at all instances.”
“I admire your strength of will and character. The way you see things in such black and white ways. It must be comforting.”
“I also respect the grey areas,” he told her. He stood up and crossed the distance between them, squatting down at her feet, a hand on her knee to steady himself and his green eyes now so near looking dead into her eyes. “But I can see how my clarity could be envied by you. As a politician you must walk a thin line between everyone and everything. You are constantly juggling and balancing, like a circus performer, constantly on display and an audience silently demanding you entertain them. You must please them. What’s worse is you must please the other performers as well. If you fail to do any of it, you will lose your place as star of the show.”
“I’ve never heard it described quite like that before,” she said, trying not to notice the electric sensation he had caused when he had put his hand on her knee. It was an innocent gesture really…perhaps a little presumptuous by crossing into her personal space without invitation, but still…innocent enough. It didn’t feel innocent. She felt hyper focused on the sensation, his warm smooth hand half on the hem of her skirt and half off and in direct contact with her skin. She wanted to get up and move away, she was so disconcerted, but that was ridiculous. The entire response was ridiculous. She should be focusing instead on what he was saying. And what he was saying was that he saw her. He understood. He saw her with a clarity that few people did. Leopold perhaps. Other princes, maybe, who felt equal weight on their shoulders. But none of them had to please both the people and other leaders. None of them had to feel covetous others breathing down their neck quite like she did.
“I don’t know why others jockey so hard for my job,” she said with a little sigh. “It isn’t the sunshine and roses they might think it is.”
“If they think it is then they are fools. Don’t let them bother you. Just remain focused on your goals and let the rest fall away.”
“I do exactly that…for the most part. Sometimes I admit—“ She broke off, realizing just how personal she was being with this total stranger. She flushed beneath her skin and realized it wasn't the first time she’d felt the sensation since he’d walked in the room. It was dangerous to let someone in so close and so fast. She knew very little about him. Except perhaps that he was completely disarming. There was something about him that made her want to relax and talk…even as he stirred her and made her uncomfortable.
It was exactly what she was looking for.
Oh, not the attraction. That was something she could ignore. However, the ability to trust someone, to open up to them…she could see herself doing that with him. She didn’t know why. She couldn’t explain it. But this was the connection she had been looking for in her applicants.
“When can you start?” she asked him, not wasting any time on prevaricating or thinking twice about the decision. She knew what she wanted when she wanted it. She knew her own mind. She didn’t need time to suss things out any more than she already had.
“Are you sure? You seemed uncomfortable just now.”
“I’m sure. And I am uncomfortable. Because you made me talk about things I don’t normally talk about with others. It tells me I can one day come to trust you…and that above all other things is important to me. It will take time of course, but the basic chemistry is there.”
“And my political views?”
“The rest of the committee will balance out your conservativeness and I believe you will be fair. Time will tell. Time will tell about everything. Nothing will be quick or automatic. But I’m willing to work on the transition. Of course, you do realize this is just temporary…until Danton wants to come back.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t know. It could be weeks…but it will more likely be months or perhaps even years. Are you willing to disrupt your life for so little security?”
“I am. I knew this was an up in the air sort of job before I even walked in the door. It suits me to be somewhere temporarily for the moment. I am in need of shaking my life up a little.”
“Are you not devoted to my cousin? Are you not his left-hand man? Your job with him may not be there when you want to go back.”
“I think my time with Leopold is done for now. We are very good friends, we will always mean a great deal to each other. But he sent me to you for a reason…because he cares about you more than he cares about himself. Something he wants you to know and remember. If that helps you then I am glad to be his sacrifice.”
“I have a feeling I am going to owe him a great deal for this,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, you are,” he said with and answering grin, “If I do say so myself.”
“When can you begin?”
“I need a week to arrange the movement of all of my belongings. I would prefer living on the floor just below you so I can get to you as quickly as I need to.”
“That can be arranged.”
Simone stood up, finally breaking off the disturbing connecting of his touch on her knee. He rose up to his full height.
“Whom can I call about living accommodations?” he asked.
“I will give you an employment sheet. On it will be everything you need to arrange movement into the building and into your new position. You will start Monday next week. I have a morning meeting with my senior staff every morning and a meeting with the committee right after. When you are not occupied with your committee duties I expect you to be available to me at a moment’s notice. Give me all of your contact information. I will send you innocuous texts…such as times to meet with me or when I need you, but I don’t have to tell you we are never to text about critical things. Anyone can find out what our texts to one another say in this day and age.”
“I’m not a moron,” he said with a sigh. “I know all of this.”
She stopped and looked at him, flushing warmly. “Of course you do. I’m sorry. You are already used to all of this after working for my cousin…and because it is law not to discuss vampire business via texts or refer to anything with the word vampire or e-vamp in electronic communiqués. You aren’t a moron, nor are you likely to break those laws. I suppose…I was just saying this out of rote. As a reaffirmation. I don’t discuss personal business in print. Not just vampire business. I guess that is what I’m trying to say. There is no law about discussing personal business…as long as we are circumspect as vampires, but I go beyond that. I don’t discuss or react personally where anyone might be able to read it and use the information against me. Perhaps that is taking vampire paranoia too far, but I am protecting myself from other vampires as well as human discovery.”
“I can appreciate that. Leo was the same way. Perhaps not as stringent. But he was very careful to be circumspect, as you called it.”
“I imagine he is. We are cut from the same paranoid cloth he and I.”
/> Marcus chuckled. “You have every right to be paranoid. People really are out to get you. To get your job. To take your life in the case of Draz. That would make me paranoid as well.”
“Draz…” She shuddered slightly before she could resist the reaction. There was something about the very name of that psycho sycophant that made her feel threatened.
“Don’t worry,” Marcus said, reaching out to cup her shoulder in his hand and squeeze her warmly. “Dealing with Draz will be at the top of my list once I have begun my time with you.”
“Draz is best left to the hunters,” she told him, once again feeling the warmth of his touch bleeding through her. The sensation started at the point where he was in contact with her through her blouse, then radiated outward, down her chest, up her neck, down her back. Eventually it radiated over her breast, her nipple contracting under the very stimulating sensation. It became difficult for her to concentrate, but the topic was too important for her to lose focus.
“And yet so far they have come up with nothing. I think it best we coordinate our efforts. That we focus all of our resources on finding him and yanking him out by the roots. Perhaps even dismantling his entire upper echelon in the process…so no one can step into his shoes. Like rotten teeth, all of them have to go if you want relief from the pain.”
She walked away from him, heading for her office, trying not to feel bereft at the loss of contact with him. My oh my this was a strangely powerful connection. She couldn’t recall the last time someone’s mere casual touch had thrilled her so much.
She entered her office and headed for her desk where she knew the introductory letter was with all its listed information…including her private number and the numbers of all of the senior staff. This was of course only meant for senior hires. Those in lesser positions received a very different letter of instruction and information. She found it and handed it to him.
“We can discuss Draz further once all of the senior staff assembles your first time on Monday. I will have Danton there to help guide you and transition you into taking up the reins of his position.”
“Thank you.” He paused. “I hope you are not expecting me to be a carbon copy of Danton. I am my own man.”
“I would expect nothing less,” she assured him. “But I will need time to adjust to your style just as you will need time to adjust to mine.”
“I look forward to it,” he said with a half smile crookedly sweeping over his mouth. “And yet I dread it. I just know we are going to clash on some things and I don’t like the idea of arguing with you all that much.”
“Easily solved. Don’t argue with me. Let me have my way in everything,” she said with sparkling humor in her eyes and smile.
“Impossible,” he said with a chuckle. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Leo its that you leader types never know what’s good for you.”
“And authoritarians like to lord it over everyone,” she lobbed back. “But in spite of that I feel we’ll work pretty well together.”
“I have the highest of hopes,” he said. He folded up he letter and tucked it into his jacket pocket. For the first time she noticed what he was wearing. She had spent so much time absorbed by the man that she hadn’t even noticed his mode of dress, which was surprising for her. She believed the way a person dressed told a lot about them. Especially the way someone dressed for an interview.
He was wearing jeans and a blazer. Very nice jeans, nothing torn, ripped, or overly faded. The blazer was of a fine velveteen material and had a sheen to it in the lighting of her apartment. Beneath that he wore a dress shirt left open and tieless at the throat.
The perfect cross between casual and dress. No doubt a direct reflection of his personality. He came across to her like that. Like the perfect cross between business and casual.
“I look forward to working with you,” she said to him, meaning it very much.
“Ditto,” he said. “For now, I’m going to get going. I have a flight to catch home.”
“You just flew in. Won’t you even stay a while?”
“No. Too much packing to do.”
She cocked her head. “So you came just for the interview, no intentions of stopping anywhere else?”
“None whatsoever.”
She took that in a moment.
“Did you expect to walk out of here with the job?” she asked.
He smiled a little. “Expect is perhaps the wrong word. Hoped is better. Maybe even intended.”
She laughed. “Well, you’re confident, I’ll give you that.”
“You wouldn’t want me otherwise. Good night, your grace.”
“Simone,” she insisted.
“Simone,” he echoed with a slight bow. Then he turned and left her there in her office.
She waited until she heard the front foyer door close, then she collapsed against her desk. Her butt rested on the top corner and her hand gripped at the edge.
This, she thought, was going to be quite an interesting relationship. She was very much in the mood for interesting. She hadn’t had interesting in a long while.
She reached for the intercom on her desk and paged Darcy.
Chapter Four
Marcus stood outside of her office door leaning one shoulder against the wall and toying with a paper clip in his left hand that he had picked up from the assistant’s desk as he had greeted her.
Darcy. Her name was Darcy, he reminded himself. He had been studying up on Simone in preparation for beginning his duties here, but he had a feeling it wasn't going to be nearly enough. She was going to take a lot more attention to detail. Not that he expected her to have a high maintenance personality, just that she worked in a high maintenance position.
He began to unbend the paper clip, twisting it around. He wasn't very good at waiting. He was a man of action. Sometimes he thought he’d make a better hunter than an authoritarian. Of course, they both tracked down lawbreakers. But hunters were usually reserved for the sycophants. It was all very exciting, the idea of hunting sycophants. Not that he was romanticizing it at all. He knew how dirty and dangerous it could be. And he’d killed his share of sycophants. They were hard fought battles. Some he’d been afraid he wouldn’t get out of.
Perhaps one day in the future he’d try on being a hunter for size. He never denied himself possibilities. However, he had worked hard to get where he was right then and he wasn't ready to give it up to start at the bottom of a new career. Besides, this was very much like trying on a new career. Oh, he was certain there were going to be similarities between this position and his position within Leopold’s organization…he had, after all, been Leo’s left-hand man and was used to the power and prestige and responsibility that came with such a position…however, now he was facing a whole new level of all of those things.
If only he could earn her trust.
He was off to a good start. She had hired him on the spot, without even taking time to think it over. He didn’t know if that made her impetuous or decisive. He would have to figure that out as he went along. He was apt to lean towards decisive. One didn’t get to be queen by being impetuous, and all he had heard and learned about her told him she was very methodical and thoughtful in the things that she did. It was what made her so successful.
He had been surprised to realize he had never met her before now. He often traveled with Leo, and Leo had crossed the pond on a few occasions in order to meet with her in person. However, it seemed that every time Leo had gone to New York, something had come up to keep Marcus home, requiring him to send someone else in his stead.
Also, he had only graduated to Leo’s left hand five years ago. Leo had only travelled across the pond twice in those five years, the last time the most recent, when he had signed her coup of a treaty. Simone had come to London only once in that time, and he had been in the field, in another country, tracking down a thief. He should have left it to another authoritarian, but this thief had caught his temper and he had felt the need to go after him himself.
He had caught him of course, but still, his responsibilities should have kept him where he had belonged.
The trouble was, sometimes he didn’t trust others to get the job done as well and as quickly as he could, a trait he hadn’t revealed to her during their interview the week previous. She would learn that about him in time. He supposed he should have warned her he wasn't the type to sit behind a desk all day. He had to be in the thick of things…and taking care of the queen was definitely a promise to be in the thick of things. He also would have committee duties. This he looked forward to. There were sub-committees in every city, but this was the big kahuna of committees. Here was where they made the largest of judgments and passed down the harshest of sentences and created the most necessary of laws. It was really a great chance to be instrumental in changing policy and creating a future for vampires all over the world.
Her magnificent treaty had had to go before the committee. Oh, how he would have loved to be a part of that! To be instrumental in such a monumental agreement. An agreement that was already reshaping the vampire world…even if it had only been a few weeks.
The intercom on Darcy’s desk buzzed and she turned a sunny smile onto him.
“She’s ready for you. Go on in.”
He put the paper clip in his pocket and turned the handle to the door. He took in a breath. Now it all began. The resignation from Leo’s service, the extraordinary task of moving across the pond in the matter of a week, none of it had been the start. This would be the start.
He opened the door and walked into Simone’s office.
As expected, it was huge. Quite expansive. The first thing you were hit with was the sheer level of sunshine pouring in from two banks of windows making up the corner office. The floor to ceiling glass was reminiscent of his new apartment, an enormous piece of real estate he was trying to get used to. He had had nice living quarters as Leo’s man, but it had been nothing compared to what he had been given here. He wondered if she made a habit of excess…or if this was all just to be expected at this level of importance in their world. He would assume it was the latter until she proved to him to be otherwise. She had not struck him as the spoiled sort.