Take Me (8 page)

Two, Dominic stood up.

Three, Julianna’s lips tightened in a pained expression.

Four, Lady Blackmoore sighed like an exhausted woman.

Felicity would remember this moment always and exactly in that sequence, because this was the moment her entire life changed. Well, later she might argue that it actually changed the moment Ian called her to interview at Blackmoore estate. Whatever, apples and oranges and all that.

Lucas’ laughter died out. “Well isn’t this all interesting. We have a
planner looking to design your bonding ceremony, a
bruid
to be, a bonded male to be, and mother in the middle. I say we hire her.” He pretended to look over her portfolio pictures on the table but no way could he really be judging her work when he looked at them all for barely a second.

“No,” Dominic said.

Lady Blackmoore picked up several of the pictures and eyed them with a strong eye. She had been to many parties in her life. Her eye would be the real judge.

“She does do some fine work,” she muttered.

Felicity could feel the divide. Dominic versus the rest of them. The only one who had yet to say what they thought was Juliana. Felicity narrowed in for the kill.

“Lady Greenwich what would your colors be for the bonding ceremony?”

A light pink tinged her cheeks. “I suppose...I suppose I’d like ivory and gray.”

Elegant, strong, but beautiful colors. Also not very traditional which would make it stand out more. A color scheme and design plan started to form in Felicity’s mind like a spider slowly building a web.

Felicity leaned Julianna, a smile on her face. “Lady Greenwich, I promise you will have the most beautiful ceremony ever. People will be talking about it for years to come. You will be the envy of everyone. Grey and ivory will paint the room and paint you into a beautiful masterpiece, one that will take breaths away. I will work with you personally. I’ll be at your beck and call. Everything will be made out into the finest of details. It will be your perfect day. I promise I can do this for you.”

The room grew quiet. Then Julianna smiled. The look transformed her face from beautiful to absolutely stunning.

Knowing that one day Julianna would be the one touching Dominic’s naked body, feeling the heat of his gaze on her skin filled Felicity’s mouth with a sour taste.

The thought sent a surge of unpleasantness through her. For a moment all she wanted to do was stand up and leave. Leave the beautiful woman with her soon to be mate. They’d make incredibly beautiful children together.

Something hardened in her. This was the opportunity of a lifetime and she wouldn’t throw it away out of jealousy. No matter how badly she wished she was in Julianna’s place.

“Yes, I want her,” said Julianna.

Lucas grinned. “I second that.”

Felicity kept her back straight as she glanced between Dominic and Lady Blackmoore. Her fate rested in their hands.

Dominic crossed his arms across his chest and scowled at them all.

Well, she had his answer.

Lady Blackmoore was a different matter, and she was smart. She hadn’t missed the awkward exchange between Dominic and her. However, she also kept looking over her designs with a keen eye. Like she was actually considering it.

Felicity waited on bated breath.

“No.” That came from Dominic and didn’t surprise her.

However, Lady Blackmoore stood with her lips pressing into a firm line.

“I agree she’d make a fine planner for the occasion.” Felicity folded her hands together and squeezed to keep from bursting from the seat of her pants like she wanted to. “However, I have a few concerns.” Instantly Felicity’s shoulders sagged.

“Well I have more than a few concerns,” snapped Dominic. “I don’t want her working for us.”

Lucas looked at him with feigned shock. “And why not? You saw her work. It’s good stuff.”

Yeah, why not,
Felicity wanted to say, but instead frowned.

“I don’t want her working for us because—” he stopped himself short and once again tension filled the room like a suffocating blanket.

Felicity yearned to crack a window and let some fresh air in.

“Perhaps you should let it be your
bruid’s
decision,” Lucas said. His eyes danced with mischief.

Felicity wanted to high five him. Thanks to him she might just get this job.

“Dominic, if you’ll come with me we can discuss these concerns together. In the meantime, Ms. Shaw you have the job.” Lady Blackmoore held her hand out and Felicity shook it, unable to hide her smile.

“Thank you so much.”

Dominic and his mother headed for the door, but at the last minute he turned around. “This isn’t over.”

It was a promise.

* * * * *

Dominic followed his mother into the library. He knew where this was going but that didn’t mean he liked it.

Only one thought possessed his mind—Felicity Shaw.

Even her name sounded good to him. It had an upbeat, feminine quality to it that pleased the ears. Something about Felicity Shaw intrigued him. After she left last night he found he wanted to know more about her. Hell, he wanted to know
everything
about her and not from some intel report but from her own mouth. Why he wanted any of this he had no clue, but like a hound catching the scent of prey, he had her scent locked inside him. And he wouldn’t stop until he caught her.

Was she trying to kill him wearing a dress like that? That had been his first thought when he saw her. Hell, she looked good enough to eat. At first sight his cock had sprung up like a boy seeing his first pair of tits. She did it on purpose. No doubt about that. She wanted to taunt him for slighting her last night.

Well, he had plans to take care of that. To take care of them both in the process.

For some reason he found himself enjoying this immensely. Anticipation and excitement filled his veins like hot, thick blood. Both were feelings he hadn’t felt in ages. Helena had turned from burning hot to lukewarm. Then as time passed lukewarm faded to frigid. One hundred years into their blood bond and he had a mate who couldn’t stand his touch, but would easily take his money to lavish herself with jewelry and fine clothes.

Oddly, thinking about her now didn’t fill him with the kind of anger it had before. He almost smiled. Soon Helena would be nothing to him. Not even a distant bad memory. She deserved far worse from him.

His mother turned to him. “What is she to you?”

Dominic crossed his arms. He adored his mother but being around someone for your whole life when that life lasted a
very
long time grew tiresome. His mother was the perfect political icon, which meant she knew when to be polite and smile and when to push straight to the point. Now she chose the latter.

“Yesterday I thought she was Julianna Greenwich and my soon to be
bruid
. Then I learn she’s the damn planner. How the hell was I to know? They both have long blond hair, and the only picture I had of her was fuzzy and old.”

“Why were you wrapped around each other yesterday? I will not hire her if this is going to be a problem, Dominic. Have you shared such intimacies with Lady Julianna or is this only a problem you have for Ms. Shaw?

“No,” he said. Just the thought of touching the immaculately beautiful Julianna made his fangs retreat. He had no curiosity in finding out what made Julianna tick. Just the thought of having a conversation with her made his head ache. Her life consisted of parties, clothes, and riches. So much like Helena.

Felicity Shaw was not like that. There was more to her. He saw that in the way her eyes spit fire at him last night and then today.
No one
dared to get angry with him aside from his closest friends and family. She didn’t fear him though.

“Are you saying that you’re attracted to Ms. Shaw because you thought she was Julianna or because you simply are?”

Dominic never backed down from how he felt. Once he made a decision he stuck to it. If he wanted something he got it. If he needed to tell someone pertinent information he did that too. He wasn’t about to change now. Direct worked best to those he was close to.

“I’m attracted to her yes. As to your other question, while I did think she was Julianna yesterday, my attraction has nothing to do with the fact that I thought she was my
bruid;
and no I have not had ‘intimacies’ with Julianna Greenwich. She holds no favor over me.” At all.

His mother gasped. “But she’s to be your
bruid!
”

“Not of my choice.” Even someone such as him had to bend sometimes, bend to the need of others and in this case, he needed a certain blue-blood socialite to help earn him the nomination for president. He would become the next president and representative for the vampires, but no one in the history of the council has ever become president without a blood bonded mate. Someone blue-blooded, rich, quiet, and who knew how to keep her place. Julianna Greenwich fit that bill to a T.

None of this would have happened if his father hadn’t caught the rare vampire disease, arromunia. Dom had moved on. He was ready to move into his father’s steps and take over.

If Dom hadn’t separated from Helena then none of this would be a problem. He was expected to have a
bruid
—a vampire mate to represent the women for the council. He could not run unmated and expect to win.

After Felicity left the estate last night, he’d called his brother Grayson to look into her. Grayson owned a security company that specialized in protecting vampires and
weres
. Some people always had targets on their back and no one, not even the immortal could always escape a murder attempt. Grayson and his team did excellent work but something his brother excelled at was gathering intel.

He looked into Felicity Shaw after she left last night and learned all about her. Her mother lived off an inheritance left to her by a dead husband. She took that money and squandered it badly—spending most of it on her very young and new “mate” who came from an even poorer background. According to Grayson, it looked like Felicity and her mother did not speak, and her father, a nameless figure, had never been in her life.

It looked like Mrs. Shaw was robbing the cradle and had left her daughter behind to fend for herself some years ago. The report also showed that Felicity had been searching for a job for over a year. She lived in a lower-income neighborhood with a beat-up car that still wasn’t paid off and had outstanding bills and debts.

The amount of debt she carried along with her previous paying jobs, according to what she’d told them during the interview didn’t add up. She would have to be a big spender to garner that kind of debt. Maybe even bigger than Helena. Just the thought brought a sour taste to his tongue. He didn’t want the passionate Felicity Shaw to have anything to do with his
ex-bruid
.

“It may not be of your choice, Dominic but you must. The
weres
are pushing for the presidency which will give them majority control. Alpha
were
Zeke wishes to have control over everything. He wants to bring forth a law that will force men to seek their mates and claim them even from other packs. You know how dangerous that will be. He says their population is dying out. Rafe
were
Chief of the North, wishes to have
were
supremacy over the council. You know he’ll vote and push and maybe even lead us to war to get the vampires off the council so that Zeke can rule. Zeke isn’t the right man for this position, Dominic.”

“Mother, I know this,” he said.

“Then you know what’s at stake if you don’t get elected.” Her voice softened as she came towards him. She let her guard down and he saw the burning pain of his father’s death still lingering in her eyes. It had only been a few months since they’d lit his dead body and let the flames take him. “Your father was a great man. It’ll be hard for any to take over in his place, but if anyone can do it, you can, my son.”

“Mother, I’ll win the presidency. Don’t worry about it.”

She nodded, blinking fast as tears filled her eyes, and then she gave him a tight smile. “Of course you and Lady Julianna will only help to prove to the people that you are traditional just as your father was. She will make a fine
bruid
.”

Dominic looked away. He doubted that. He didn’t like being quick to judge but Julianna didn’t seem like the type to care about women’s issues and that would be her responsibility as his queen.

A knot settled in his chest like a lead ball.

It felt wrong even thinking about mating with Julianna. It had nothing to do with the fact that they’d barely spoken when they met last night. Last night when he’d handed his family’s ring to her. The same ring that he’d forcibly removed from Helena’s finger not but a few months earlier. Did Julianna say anything? No, she just tipped her lips into a gracious smile then left for her rooms.

He’d hoped that maybe once he met Julianna that same fire he’d felt for Felicity Shaw would be there. He’d thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d been so long without a bedmate that his lust-filled mind had overtaken him.

But then he and Julianna sat and talked quite genially over a glass of blood and he’d never been more bored. She was not passionate. She did not fire his blood. She didn’t even capture his interest. He’d rather read an encyclopedia on insects than talk to her. It had been that bad. Of course, it didn’t help that all he’d wanted to do was go after Felicity. He had been unable to stop replaying their short time together.

Julianna did nothing for him.

He certainly did not have fantasies of pulling her expensive dress up, touching her wetness, then filling her over and again with his cock.

Nope. Not at all.

Even the thought of doing such a thing with the doll-like Julianna made his skin shrivel like a prune.

But he had to do it. His mother was right. He needed a
bruid
before he ran for office and there wasn’t much time for that. He needed one famous enough that everyone already knew her and would accept her graciously. Julianna would fit the part perfectly. Even her father was ready with his constituents to back his political campaign. All he had to do was mate with Julianna.