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Frost Moons and Golden Apples_By Michelle Chambers
“I could claim you here, right now, as is my right as your Mate,” Nikolai said.
“I would hate you for it,” Alexandra spoke again.
His heat intensified through her body and she couldn’t suppress the small whimper escaping her lips. She wanted to give in to him, kiss him senseless and have him fuck her against the wall just to alleviate the heavy ache between her thighs that’d started from the moment she entered the ballroom.
Alexandra Trask is a wolf-shifter mated to Nikolai Rurikovich, Alpha of the CyrillicMoon Pack. However, a curse cast long ago by an angry Vanir witch alters Alexandra and with it her destiny. She has no choice but to reject, Nikolai, her True Mate on sight in favor of Kirill, a Vampire and Vanir-god. If left unchecked, her union to Kirill will reignite the First War between the Vanir-gods of Vanaheim and the Aesir-gods of Asgard.
Alexandra and Nikolai must reverse the Vanir curse and fall in love before the November Frost Moon. Unfortunately, with the curse blocking Alexandra’s and Nikolai’s emotions and transforming any feelings of attraction into antipathy and anger, falling in love in ten days is easier said than done.
TAKE A PEEK INSIDE
Chapter One
London
9:00 p.m. Friday Evening
Alex Trask sat behind the mahogany bureau gracing the middle of her high-rise office, her fingers absently tracing the parquetry top, her brow creased in a small frown.
The antique desk had been in the Geldov family possession for more than five generations. Yet, instead of bequeathing it to his daughter, Jane, or the cold-hearted bitch he’d called his wife—as he’d done with his many houses, cars, money, extensive art collection and other assets—Roland Geldov, president, chairman and CEO of Geldov Bank, had chosen to favor Alex with his most prized possession.
Her fingers ceased their idle movement over the smooth, polished wood and her frown deepened.
She’d asked for and expected nothing from the man who’d entered her life purely by default. Not the desk and certainly not the posthumous endorsement that had catapulted her from executive assistant to CEO of one of the world’s most prestigious family-owned private banks. Hell, even his decision to give her fifty-one percent of his voting shares had blind-sided his widow, Katherine, who’d venomously accused Alex of being a usurper and undeserving of his seat on the Board of Directors. Jane, Katherine had said, had been robbed of her birthright.
“As far as anyone knows,” Katherine had scathed, “Jane is Roland Geldov’s only child and heir. The entire business world is expecting his daughter to take her father’s place as CEO, not his lackey.”
Alex expelled a slow, steady breath and shrugged off the memory of an angry Katherine who’d cornered her in the solicitor’s office just three days earlier.
Jane hadn’t been present at the reading of her father’s will. After his death, her fiancé, and renowned investment banker, Vasili Yusupov, had whisked her away to his secluded home in the Urals. He’d wanted to shield her from the sudden attention of the international press and the barrage of questions that had unexpectedly cast aspersions on the bank’s credibility after a string of allegations questioning the extent of the bank’s involvement in the fall of the Greek and Irish economies had rocked its very foundation. That had all happened on Roland Geldov’s watch, but someone still had to answer for it.
In light of Jane’s high-profile absence, the rumor mill was also turning with full effect, fueling speculation about the possibility of the appointment of an external CEO and the breakup of the bank.
Alex swiveled her executive leather chair to gaze out the large office floor-to-ceiling windows at the final faint rays of orange sunlight peeking from behind the gathering dark clouds.
Roland’s solicitor had assured her she had nothing to fear from Katherine’s empty threats since Katherine Geldov had no legal grounds on which to contest her husband’s will. Besides, the solicitor insisted, the documents were ironclad. He’d drawn them up himself.
Alex sighed.
Roland’s solicitor had merely dismissed Katherine’s vehemence as a case of sour grapes. She had not. He’d advised her to issue an immediate press release and publicly accept Mr. Geldov’s nomination with both hands. But Alex could not. How could she inform the Board of Directors of Roland Geldov’s decision or make any type of public announcement without first speaking with Jane?
She needed to explain things and limit the rift, damage and hurt the news of her impending appointment would inevitably bring. But more important, she wanted Jane’s blessing. She wanted the blessing of the woman she’d been waiting twelve years to openly acknowledge as her sister.
She’d half expected Katherine to tell Jane the salacious truth: that Roland Geldov had spent one drunken night twenty-seven years ago in the arms of a prostitute with whom he’d fathered a child. The fact Katherine hadn’t taken this perverse step is what gave Alex real cause for concern. Katherine was nothing if not ruthless. She would never let such a perfect opportunity willfully slip away.
Alex crossed her legs at the knees and clasped her hands firmly together in her lap. “What are you up to, Katherine?” she murmured.
Her arrival in Roland Geldov’s world had occurred with little fanfare and the minimum of fuss. Her story was kept short and simple: she was the poor relation taken in by the distant uncle after the death of her mother. It’d all been quite Dickensian, although it hadn’t been a complete lie. But neither had it been the whole truth.
It’d been a compromise, a stipulation which Roland Geldov had insisted upon before agreeing to accept her into his home and into his life. The other being that she would never acknowledge him as her true father in any way, shape or form as long as he lived. After all, he’d said, Jane’s feelings had to be taken into consideration.
Alex sighed again and wondered, not for the first time, why Roland Geldov would even mention her in his will when he’d done everything in his power to keep her in the shadows while he’d been alive.
For twelve of her twenty-seven years, she’d been an inconvenience in his life, a mistake that’d been a constant reminder of an indiscretion which had threatened to unravel his family. He’d said as much each time he’d found reason to punish her. But, there had been another side to Roland Geldov, the side that had recognized and appreciated her academic abilities, and had pushed her harder than anyone ever had. The side that had accepted nothing less than straight A’s and who’d appointed her his executive assistant when she’d graduated summa cum laude from the London Business School. It’d been that man whose approval she’d continually craved even though she’d known deep in her heart she would never completely have it.
Alex simultaneously pushed back her high-back leather chair and those memories, and rose to her feet. Did he honestly think the gift of his bank could atone for twelve years of misery and hurt?
She grimaced.
Probably not. That would mean the bastard admitting he’d been selfish and wrong, which was something his arrogant ass would never do, alive or dead.
She took a calming breath and strode toward the broad towering windows framing the dusky skyline. She wasn’t in the forgiving mood right now anyway.
She leaned her forehead against the cool glass and gazed down ten stories to the shadowy figures below, scurrying across the sweep of manicured parkland, their collars turned up and their heads bowed against the rising wind. The forecast had warned of rain and gusts of up to fifty miles per hour that night.
She briefly closed her eyes.
Were they rushing home to loved ones who were genuinely happy to see them?
Alex bit back the pang of jealousy constricting her chest.
Twelve years ago she’d been broken, lost and alone. She’d needed her father’s comfort, his love…she’d needed him. In time, though, she’d learned to expect nothing more than the necessities Roland Geldov provided—the roof over her head and the food on the table, although she seldom ate with him and Kate when Jane was away at school and certainly never with guests.
She’d also learned to ignore the sharp pain of his rejection and quash any romantic notions she may have once harbored about love and family, although she could blame Paul for her complete loss of faith in the former.
She exhaled slowly, letting go of the tightness in her chest.
Until she’d met Paul, she’d thought something had been inherently wrong with her. She’d never had a line of boys waiting to talk to her, been admired or been called beautiful. That type of adoration was usually reserved for Jane. So, when Paul came into her life, she’d been ecstatic. The socially inept, shy girl finally had a boyfriend.
Alex caught her reflection in the darkened glass, her round, brown eyes glittering with unshed tears. He’d been her first everything and had come close to fulfilling her heart’s desires, but in the end, nothing had been real. She’d been a fool. All Paul had ever been interested in was her money.
She chuckled wryly and wiped away the single tear that had escaped down her cheek.
He’d been too charming, too handsome…too good to be true. She’d been too eager to believe his words and too blinded by love to see him for the charlatan he truly was. But she had no intention of ever making that mistake again. It’d been a painful lesson, and one she didn’t intend to make again.
“Alex, your driver is here.”
Her assistant’s welcomed intrusion quickly put the lid back on the Pandora’s Box threatening to overwhelm her. Alex plastered a smile on her face and pushed her body upright from the window. She glanced over her shoulder at Marianne.
“Thank you for staying and printing out the shareholders’ reports. You should get off home before the weather changes for the worse.”
Alex sensed her assistant’s hesitation and fully turned to face her. She frowned.
“Was there something else, Marianne?”
The red-headed woman stepped forward from where she stood in the office doorway and moved deeper through the airy, cream-colored décor to the middle of the room.
“So, when do we get to meet him?” she said.
“Meet who?” Alex questioned.
“You know, the new CEO. He’s not planning on downsizing, is he?”
He?
Alex shrugged her bare shoulders and gave a noncommittal smile. She didn’t have all the answers, but she would try to save as many jobs as she could.
She evaded the question. “You know as much as I can tell you for the moment.”
Marianne raised her hands in surrender. “I’m not worried for myself. It’s just nice to have a heads-up, that’s all. And seeing as you worked closely with Mr. Geldov for the last eight months, I thought, well…maybe you would know who his successor is… I mean, Jane is—”
“I would tell you more if I could, Marianne. Really, I would.”
That was a lie. She was now CEO of a company that belonged to a man who’d despised her when he’d been alive. That, in itself, conjured up too many difficult questions for Alex to understand, let alone anyone else.
Marianne nodded agreeably, but Alex didn’t miss the brief flicker of skepticism in her assistant’s eyes and the hint of anger that disturbed the normally passive energy field surrounding the older woman’s thoughts.
She sought to restore the balance.
“Roland Geldov was known to be a hard, calculating man,” Alex said. “But, nothing was more important to him than this company or his employees. He wouldn’t have handed the reins to just anyone, to someone who didn’t have the company’s interest at heart, right?”
Marianne seemed to ponder Alex’s words for a moment, then ceded to them with a small smile. “No. I guess not. It’s just… It’s been a few weeks since Mr. Geldov died and we’ve been told nothing. There hasn’t even been a press release and the reports in the papers don’t instill much confidence in the bank’s future.”
“I know, but everything will be resolved soon enough,” Alex firmly reassured. “You have nothing to worry about. I promise.”
Marianne sighed and her aura took on its normal blue hue again, pacified for now. “That’s what press conferences are for, right?”
Alex gave a consenting nod.
It was only fair and reasonable that the personnel be told face to face, but the press conference set after the weekend had been Katherine’s idea. It’d been presumptuous and premature.
“To put pay to these wild speculations and asinine rumors.” Katherine had snapped when Alex had demanded an explanation. “Jane will be the one who takes her father’s place as CEO. I can guarantee that.”
The first squalls of raindrops clattered loudly against the window, drawing Alex’s attention briefly to the storm brewing outside.
“I should go,” Marianne said.
Her assistant turned to leave, then faltered at the door. Alex again lifted a querying brow.
“By the way, you do look beautiful, Alex.”
Alex swallowed thickly and resisted the urge to fidget with her fingers. “Thank you, Marianne. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Alex. Enjoy your evening.”
Alex turned slowly toward the window as the red-haired woman exited her office. She cast a critical glance over her reflection in the darkened, rain-streaked glass and adjusted the olive-colored, knee-length, strapless chiffon dress across her breasts.
She’d always been insecure about her appearance, so Marianne’s earlier compliment that evening had been met with mild cynicism and a wry smile.
Katherine’s disparaging remarks about her looks during the most crucial phase of her teenage life had robbed Alex of any self-confidence, as had the constant praise of Jane’s beauty. But it was the disgust in her father’s voice after Jane had insisted on making Alex over for her twenty-first birthday that had shattered the final vestiges of Alex’s self-esteem.
Alex grimaced as the echo of her father’s voice boomed through her memory. “Get that gunk off your face! It makes you look like a cheap whore, just like your mother.”
For the first time in her life, with Jane’s help, she’d felt beautiful, but with those few damning words, Roland Geldov had stripped her of that notion and humiliated her in a room full of his friends.
Alex blinked back the swell of tears.
She could still hear their laughter accompanying her walk of shame from the festive dining room as her father calmly explained to those around him that he hadn’t had the heart to see her end up like her mother.
“Oh, she’s not yours then?” someone said.
“Christ, no!” he’d chortled derisively.
That little exchange had been followed by another chorus of raucous laughter.
The memory of that night, now so long ago, slowly faded before her eyes and Alex touched her fingers to her face. It’d been close to Christmas, so the party hadn’t even been in honor of her birthday, but since that day, she’d kept her makeup to the barest minimum—a soft touch of kohl to accentuate the shape of her eyes and a thin layer of lip-gloss—and no longer enjoyed birthday or Christmas celebrations.
Jane had comforted her that night and many nights later after her fiasco with Paul. Now, she was about to repay her sister’s kindnesses by laying claim to what should be hers by right. It could be seen as a betrayal of the worst kind, but in truth, it was not.
She’d been wrestling her conscience these last three days and had examined every possible scenario, but walking away from the opportunity she’d been given hadn’t been an option. Alex would never give Katherine that satisfaction. Besides, just because she didn’t trust Roland Geldov’s motives behind her appointment as CEO didn’t mean she didn’t deserve the position.
She’d worked her ass off at the bank every summer since she was fifteen, learning the business from the ground up. Jane had never shown the slightest interest in her father’s work. She was the socialite, the butterfly who’d fluttered around Europe from party to party without having to prove a thing. Not that Alex resented Jane. That was just the way it was. It was only in these last few days that Alex had come to realize Roland Geldov had been consciously grooming her to take over.
Alex gave her reflection a final once over, then stalked toward the sitting area of her office. She gathered her brown oversized tote bag and bright green pea coat before heading out the office door.
She only hoped she could make Jane understand.
****
“Would you like me to find an alternative route, Miss Trask? We could be here for some time yet.”
Although the pace had gradually picked up in the last twenty minutes, traffic was still moving at a snail’s pace across the Marylebone Flyover. But Alex wasn’t in a particular hurry to get to where she was going to do what she needed to do, so she answered the driver. “There’s no need, Charlie. And I thought we’d straightened this out the last time we talked,” she gently admonished. “Call me Alex.”
“Yes, Miss.”
She caught the younger man’s tentative smile in the rearview mirror and flashed a small smile of her own. She just hated the deference Charlie insisted on showing her since there was only a two-year age gap between them. She let her head fall back against the padded leather neck rest and pursed her lips.
Ironically, Paul was older than her by the same number of years…
The voice on the radio abruptly halted her walk through even more tangled, thornier memories of her past.
The Rainman has claimed his sixth victim in as many months…
It wasn’t so much the solemn tone that made Alex sit up and take notice. It was the nature of the report that’d had her on edge since the Rainman became headline news six months earlier.
The body of twenty-two-year-old Hazel English was found in the Spitalfields area of Sheffield yesterday. Miss English, a local prostitute and mother of a five-year-old son, had been missing since Wednesday. Police are again calling for witnesses…
Alex couldn’t suppress the shiver that passed through her body.
“Turn it off, please.”
“Excuse me, Miss?”
Her gaze met Charlie’s puzzled-filled one in the rearview mirror. “The radio, Charlie,” she said. “Please, turn it off.”
“Of course, Miss.”
Alex looked out the rain-mottled car backseat window.
Women were not safe while it rained. She’d somehow known that the moment the first body had been found. The police finally figured it out after victim number three, then had promptly elevated this madman’s street credibility by giving him an inevitable soubriquet.
She’d been seven years old when she first noticed her sensitivity to other people’s moods, and eight when she’d started to physically channel the gamut of their emotions as if they were her own. The ability to read people’s auras had scared her young self beyond words, but none more so than her gift of pinpointing old injuries or predicting the onset of an illness long before it was detected.
Her mother had played down Alex’s dubious talent and knew how to placate the numerous boyfriends who frequented their small apartment—since they were more often than not the main focus of Alex’s psychic ability. Her mother would quickly usher them into the bedroom and after a moment’s quiet, sounds of heavy breathing and what Alex recalled as high-pitched groans, grunts and strained moans would start behind the closed door and echo through the apartment walls. And the ‘weird kid’ would be forgotten.
“Until the next time,” Alex murmured against the tinted car glass.
That next time had been David Moore, Alex’s high school crush. She’d been convinced that she’d sensed his anger and felt his pain at his mother’s death. But David had been furious at the insinuation. He’d called her crazy and stupid and ugly. She’d thought he’d been in denial. She’d told him she understood. That she could help him through his loss. He’d told her to stay away from him, that he didn’t hang around with weirdoes and freaks.
The next day, David’s mother had waited for Alex after school, hurling all manner of abuse and insults at her and threatening to call the police if Alex continued to harass her son with her sick and twisted ideas.
The slow, pulsating sounds of her surroundings slipped into her consciousness and Alex focused on a single fat raindrop running down the car window. She exhaled softly.
David’s mother had been alive and well, and not the drug addict her senses had so keenly felt. She’d been confused. She’d never been wrong before.
But clarity came two days later when her own mother died from a drug overdose.
She hadn’t been able to read her own mother. She’d projected her own hurt and pain onto someone else, something she had never done before or since.
Alex pulled her brows into a deep frown.
Her strange empathic power had died with her mother’s death. Now, twelve years later, it’d resurfaced after the Rainman’s first kill, and more powerful than before. This killer had awakened something other than morbid curiosity deep inside her. The strength of their bond scared her, but it excited her, too, although there was something vaguely disturbing about that final thought.
She’d often tried to type into his psyche, but the Rainman would withdraw into the shadows of his mind whenever she breached it. Never completely, just enough to conceal his identity and evade her psychic reach. That was why she’d never gone to the police with this particular detail. How could she explain her ability to touch the mind of an active killer in Sheffield, some hundred and fifty miles away from London, or that he toyed with hers?
Alex sniffed the air, not really knowing why she did, but the act felt as natural to her as breathing.
The Rainman was a dangerous man, who was playing with her and testing her ability. A murderer who’d already killed six women and was even now on the prowl looking for his seventh victim. She didn’t know how long she could resist the lure of his scent.
Whoa! Where did that come from? His scent?
The dulled sound of a familiar, masculine voice slipped into her consciousness before she could further dwell on that strange thought and her senses focused, drawing her back to the touch and feel of leather upholstery and the rich sound of Beverley Knight coming from the car radio.
Her eyes fluttered open although she couldn’t recall closing them.
“We’ve arrived, Miss Trask.”
Alex mentally filed away her troubled thoughts and locked her gaze on Charlie’s concerned one. She smiled, and the pinched lines between his brows abated.
“Are you all right?” he said.
She nodded. “Just give me a minute, will you, Charlie? And it’s Alex, remember?”
Charlie chuckled softly before opening the driver’s door and climbing from the luxury sedan. He quickly rounded the vehicle and opened the back passenger door.
Alex promptly repaired her lip gloss and exchanged her soft sheepskin boots for the less comfortable brown, five-inch pumps in her oversized bag.
She glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror and took another calming breath. “Come on, Alex,” she murmured. “Pull yourself together. He’s one hundred and fifty miles away.”
She grabbed her cell phone, collected the small, gold-wrapped gift from her tote and stepped from the car into the cold November night. Charlie held a large black umbrella open over her head and she would have smiled in appreciation of his thoughtfulness had it not been for the startling image of the large, silver-colored wolf her mind suddenly conjured at the back of it.
***END OF SAMPLE***
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“I would hate you for it,” Alexandra spoke again.
His heat intensified through her body and she couldn’t suppress the small whimper escaping her lips. She wanted to give in to him, kiss him senseless and have him fuck her against the wall just to alleviate the heavy ache between her thighs that’d started from the moment she entered the ballroom.
Alexandra Trask is a wolf-shifter mated to Nikolai Rurikovich, Alpha of the CyrillicMoon Pack. However, a curse cast long ago by an angry Vanir witch alters Alexandra and with it her destiny. She has no choice but to reject, Nikolai, her True Mate on sight in favor of Kirill, a Vampire and Vanir-god. If left unchecked, her union to Kirill will reignite the First War between the Vanir-gods of Vanaheim and the Aesir-gods of Asgard.
Alexandra and Nikolai must reverse the Vanir curse and fall in love before the November Frost Moon. Unfortunately, with the curse blocking Alexandra’s and Nikolai’s emotions and transforming any feelings of attraction into antipathy and anger, falling in love in ten days is easier said than done.
TAKE A PEEK INSIDE
Chapter One
London
9:00 p.m. Friday Evening
Alex Trask sat behind the mahogany bureau gracing the middle of her high-rise office, her fingers absently tracing the parquetry top, her brow creased in a small frown.
The antique desk had been in the Geldov family possession for more than five generations. Yet, instead of bequeathing it to his daughter, Jane, or the cold-hearted bitch he’d called his wife—as he’d done with his many houses, cars, money, extensive art collection and other assets—Roland Geldov, president, chairman and CEO of Geldov Bank, had chosen to favor Alex with his most prized possession.
Her fingers ceased their idle movement over the smooth, polished wood and her frown deepened.
She’d asked for and expected nothing from the man who’d entered her life purely by default. Not the desk and certainly not the posthumous endorsement that had catapulted her from executive assistant to CEO of one of the world’s most prestigious family-owned private banks. Hell, even his decision to give her fifty-one percent of his voting shares had blind-sided his widow, Katherine, who’d venomously accused Alex of being a usurper and undeserving of his seat on the Board of Directors. Jane, Katherine had said, had been robbed of her birthright.
“As far as anyone knows,” Katherine had scathed, “Jane is Roland Geldov’s only child and heir. The entire business world is expecting his daughter to take her father’s place as CEO, not his lackey.”
Alex expelled a slow, steady breath and shrugged off the memory of an angry Katherine who’d cornered her in the solicitor’s office just three days earlier.
Jane hadn’t been present at the reading of her father’s will. After his death, her fiancé, and renowned investment banker, Vasili Yusupov, had whisked her away to his secluded home in the Urals. He’d wanted to shield her from the sudden attention of the international press and the barrage of questions that had unexpectedly cast aspersions on the bank’s credibility after a string of allegations questioning the extent of the bank’s involvement in the fall of the Greek and Irish economies had rocked its very foundation. That had all happened on Roland Geldov’s watch, but someone still had to answer for it.
In light of Jane’s high-profile absence, the rumor mill was also turning with full effect, fueling speculation about the possibility of the appointment of an external CEO and the breakup of the bank.
Alex swiveled her executive leather chair to gaze out the large office floor-to-ceiling windows at the final faint rays of orange sunlight peeking from behind the gathering dark clouds.
Roland’s solicitor had assured her she had nothing to fear from Katherine’s empty threats since Katherine Geldov had no legal grounds on which to contest her husband’s will. Besides, the solicitor insisted, the documents were ironclad. He’d drawn them up himself.
Alex sighed.
Roland’s solicitor had merely dismissed Katherine’s vehemence as a case of sour grapes. She had not. He’d advised her to issue an immediate press release and publicly accept Mr. Geldov’s nomination with both hands. But Alex could not. How could she inform the Board of Directors of Roland Geldov’s decision or make any type of public announcement without first speaking with Jane?
She needed to explain things and limit the rift, damage and hurt the news of her impending appointment would inevitably bring. But more important, she wanted Jane’s blessing. She wanted the blessing of the woman she’d been waiting twelve years to openly acknowledge as her sister.
She’d half expected Katherine to tell Jane the salacious truth: that Roland Geldov had spent one drunken night twenty-seven years ago in the arms of a prostitute with whom he’d fathered a child. The fact Katherine hadn’t taken this perverse step is what gave Alex real cause for concern. Katherine was nothing if not ruthless. She would never let such a perfect opportunity willfully slip away.
Alex crossed her legs at the knees and clasped her hands firmly together in her lap. “What are you up to, Katherine?” she murmured.
Her arrival in Roland Geldov’s world had occurred with little fanfare and the minimum of fuss. Her story was kept short and simple: she was the poor relation taken in by the distant uncle after the death of her mother. It’d all been quite Dickensian, although it hadn’t been a complete lie. But neither had it been the whole truth.
It’d been a compromise, a stipulation which Roland Geldov had insisted upon before agreeing to accept her into his home and into his life. The other being that she would never acknowledge him as her true father in any way, shape or form as long as he lived. After all, he’d said, Jane’s feelings had to be taken into consideration.
Alex sighed again and wondered, not for the first time, why Roland Geldov would even mention her in his will when he’d done everything in his power to keep her in the shadows while he’d been alive.
For twelve of her twenty-seven years, she’d been an inconvenience in his life, a mistake that’d been a constant reminder of an indiscretion which had threatened to unravel his family. He’d said as much each time he’d found reason to punish her. But, there had been another side to Roland Geldov, the side that had recognized and appreciated her academic abilities, and had pushed her harder than anyone ever had. The side that had accepted nothing less than straight A’s and who’d appointed her his executive assistant when she’d graduated summa cum laude from the London Business School. It’d been that man whose approval she’d continually craved even though she’d known deep in her heart she would never completely have it.
Alex simultaneously pushed back her high-back leather chair and those memories, and rose to her feet. Did he honestly think the gift of his bank could atone for twelve years of misery and hurt?
She grimaced.
Probably not. That would mean the bastard admitting he’d been selfish and wrong, which was something his arrogant ass would never do, alive or dead.
She took a calming breath and strode toward the broad towering windows framing the dusky skyline. She wasn’t in the forgiving mood right now anyway.
She leaned her forehead against the cool glass and gazed down ten stories to the shadowy figures below, scurrying across the sweep of manicured parkland, their collars turned up and their heads bowed against the rising wind. The forecast had warned of rain and gusts of up to fifty miles per hour that night.
She briefly closed her eyes.
Were they rushing home to loved ones who were genuinely happy to see them?
Alex bit back the pang of jealousy constricting her chest.
Twelve years ago she’d been broken, lost and alone. She’d needed her father’s comfort, his love…she’d needed him. In time, though, she’d learned to expect nothing more than the necessities Roland Geldov provided—the roof over her head and the food on the table, although she seldom ate with him and Kate when Jane was away at school and certainly never with guests.
She’d also learned to ignore the sharp pain of his rejection and quash any romantic notions she may have once harbored about love and family, although she could blame Paul for her complete loss of faith in the former.
She exhaled slowly, letting go of the tightness in her chest.
Until she’d met Paul, she’d thought something had been inherently wrong with her. She’d never had a line of boys waiting to talk to her, been admired or been called beautiful. That type of adoration was usually reserved for Jane. So, when Paul came into her life, she’d been ecstatic. The socially inept, shy girl finally had a boyfriend.
Alex caught her reflection in the darkened glass, her round, brown eyes glittering with unshed tears. He’d been her first everything and had come close to fulfilling her heart’s desires, but in the end, nothing had been real. She’d been a fool. All Paul had ever been interested in was her money.
She chuckled wryly and wiped away the single tear that had escaped down her cheek.
He’d been too charming, too handsome…too good to be true. She’d been too eager to believe his words and too blinded by love to see him for the charlatan he truly was. But she had no intention of ever making that mistake again. It’d been a painful lesson, and one she didn’t intend to make again.
“Alex, your driver is here.”
Her assistant’s welcomed intrusion quickly put the lid back on the Pandora’s Box threatening to overwhelm her. Alex plastered a smile on her face and pushed her body upright from the window. She glanced over her shoulder at Marianne.
“Thank you for staying and printing out the shareholders’ reports. You should get off home before the weather changes for the worse.”
Alex sensed her assistant’s hesitation and fully turned to face her. She frowned.
“Was there something else, Marianne?”
The red-headed woman stepped forward from where she stood in the office doorway and moved deeper through the airy, cream-colored décor to the middle of the room.
“So, when do we get to meet him?” she said.
“Meet who?” Alex questioned.
“You know, the new CEO. He’s not planning on downsizing, is he?”
He?
Alex shrugged her bare shoulders and gave a noncommittal smile. She didn’t have all the answers, but she would try to save as many jobs as she could.
She evaded the question. “You know as much as I can tell you for the moment.”
Marianne raised her hands in surrender. “I’m not worried for myself. It’s just nice to have a heads-up, that’s all. And seeing as you worked closely with Mr. Geldov for the last eight months, I thought, well…maybe you would know who his successor is… I mean, Jane is—”
“I would tell you more if I could, Marianne. Really, I would.”
That was a lie. She was now CEO of a company that belonged to a man who’d despised her when he’d been alive. That, in itself, conjured up too many difficult questions for Alex to understand, let alone anyone else.
Marianne nodded agreeably, but Alex didn’t miss the brief flicker of skepticism in her assistant’s eyes and the hint of anger that disturbed the normally passive energy field surrounding the older woman’s thoughts.
She sought to restore the balance.
“Roland Geldov was known to be a hard, calculating man,” Alex said. “But, nothing was more important to him than this company or his employees. He wouldn’t have handed the reins to just anyone, to someone who didn’t have the company’s interest at heart, right?”
Marianne seemed to ponder Alex’s words for a moment, then ceded to them with a small smile. “No. I guess not. It’s just… It’s been a few weeks since Mr. Geldov died and we’ve been told nothing. There hasn’t even been a press release and the reports in the papers don’t instill much confidence in the bank’s future.”
“I know, but everything will be resolved soon enough,” Alex firmly reassured. “You have nothing to worry about. I promise.”
Marianne sighed and her aura took on its normal blue hue again, pacified for now. “That’s what press conferences are for, right?”
Alex gave a consenting nod.
It was only fair and reasonable that the personnel be told face to face, but the press conference set after the weekend had been Katherine’s idea. It’d been presumptuous and premature.
“To put pay to these wild speculations and asinine rumors.” Katherine had snapped when Alex had demanded an explanation. “Jane will be the one who takes her father’s place as CEO. I can guarantee that.”
The first squalls of raindrops clattered loudly against the window, drawing Alex’s attention briefly to the storm brewing outside.
“I should go,” Marianne said.
Her assistant turned to leave, then faltered at the door. Alex again lifted a querying brow.
“By the way, you do look beautiful, Alex.”
Alex swallowed thickly and resisted the urge to fidget with her fingers. “Thank you, Marianne. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Alex. Enjoy your evening.”
Alex turned slowly toward the window as the red-haired woman exited her office. She cast a critical glance over her reflection in the darkened, rain-streaked glass and adjusted the olive-colored, knee-length, strapless chiffon dress across her breasts.
She’d always been insecure about her appearance, so Marianne’s earlier compliment that evening had been met with mild cynicism and a wry smile.
Katherine’s disparaging remarks about her looks during the most crucial phase of her teenage life had robbed Alex of any self-confidence, as had the constant praise of Jane’s beauty. But it was the disgust in her father’s voice after Jane had insisted on making Alex over for her twenty-first birthday that had shattered the final vestiges of Alex’s self-esteem.
Alex grimaced as the echo of her father’s voice boomed through her memory. “Get that gunk off your face! It makes you look like a cheap whore, just like your mother.”
For the first time in her life, with Jane’s help, she’d felt beautiful, but with those few damning words, Roland Geldov had stripped her of that notion and humiliated her in a room full of his friends.
Alex blinked back the swell of tears.
She could still hear their laughter accompanying her walk of shame from the festive dining room as her father calmly explained to those around him that he hadn’t had the heart to see her end up like her mother.
“Oh, she’s not yours then?” someone said.
“Christ, no!” he’d chortled derisively.
That little exchange had been followed by another chorus of raucous laughter.
The memory of that night, now so long ago, slowly faded before her eyes and Alex touched her fingers to her face. It’d been close to Christmas, so the party hadn’t even been in honor of her birthday, but since that day, she’d kept her makeup to the barest minimum—a soft touch of kohl to accentuate the shape of her eyes and a thin layer of lip-gloss—and no longer enjoyed birthday or Christmas celebrations.
Jane had comforted her that night and many nights later after her fiasco with Paul. Now, she was about to repay her sister’s kindnesses by laying claim to what should be hers by right. It could be seen as a betrayal of the worst kind, but in truth, it was not.
She’d been wrestling her conscience these last three days and had examined every possible scenario, but walking away from the opportunity she’d been given hadn’t been an option. Alex would never give Katherine that satisfaction. Besides, just because she didn’t trust Roland Geldov’s motives behind her appointment as CEO didn’t mean she didn’t deserve the position.
She’d worked her ass off at the bank every summer since she was fifteen, learning the business from the ground up. Jane had never shown the slightest interest in her father’s work. She was the socialite, the butterfly who’d fluttered around Europe from party to party without having to prove a thing. Not that Alex resented Jane. That was just the way it was. It was only in these last few days that Alex had come to realize Roland Geldov had been consciously grooming her to take over.
Alex gave her reflection a final once over, then stalked toward the sitting area of her office. She gathered her brown oversized tote bag and bright green pea coat before heading out the office door.
She only hoped she could make Jane understand.
****
“Would you like me to find an alternative route, Miss Trask? We could be here for some time yet.”
Although the pace had gradually picked up in the last twenty minutes, traffic was still moving at a snail’s pace across the Marylebone Flyover. But Alex wasn’t in a particular hurry to get to where she was going to do what she needed to do, so she answered the driver. “There’s no need, Charlie. And I thought we’d straightened this out the last time we talked,” she gently admonished. “Call me Alex.”
“Yes, Miss.”
She caught the younger man’s tentative smile in the rearview mirror and flashed a small smile of her own. She just hated the deference Charlie insisted on showing her since there was only a two-year age gap between them. She let her head fall back against the padded leather neck rest and pursed her lips.
Ironically, Paul was older than her by the same number of years…
The voice on the radio abruptly halted her walk through even more tangled, thornier memories of her past.
The Rainman has claimed his sixth victim in as many months…
It wasn’t so much the solemn tone that made Alex sit up and take notice. It was the nature of the report that’d had her on edge since the Rainman became headline news six months earlier.
The body of twenty-two-year-old Hazel English was found in the Spitalfields area of Sheffield yesterday. Miss English, a local prostitute and mother of a five-year-old son, had been missing since Wednesday. Police are again calling for witnesses…
Alex couldn’t suppress the shiver that passed through her body.
“Turn it off, please.”
“Excuse me, Miss?”
Her gaze met Charlie’s puzzled-filled one in the rearview mirror. “The radio, Charlie,” she said. “Please, turn it off.”
“Of course, Miss.”
Alex looked out the rain-mottled car backseat window.
Women were not safe while it rained. She’d somehow known that the moment the first body had been found. The police finally figured it out after victim number three, then had promptly elevated this madman’s street credibility by giving him an inevitable soubriquet.
She’d been seven years old when she first noticed her sensitivity to other people’s moods, and eight when she’d started to physically channel the gamut of their emotions as if they were her own. The ability to read people’s auras had scared her young self beyond words, but none more so than her gift of pinpointing old injuries or predicting the onset of an illness long before it was detected.
Her mother had played down Alex’s dubious talent and knew how to placate the numerous boyfriends who frequented their small apartment—since they were more often than not the main focus of Alex’s psychic ability. Her mother would quickly usher them into the bedroom and after a moment’s quiet, sounds of heavy breathing and what Alex recalled as high-pitched groans, grunts and strained moans would start behind the closed door and echo through the apartment walls. And the ‘weird kid’ would be forgotten.
“Until the next time,” Alex murmured against the tinted car glass.
That next time had been David Moore, Alex’s high school crush. She’d been convinced that she’d sensed his anger and felt his pain at his mother’s death. But David had been furious at the insinuation. He’d called her crazy and stupid and ugly. She’d thought he’d been in denial. She’d told him she understood. That she could help him through his loss. He’d told her to stay away from him, that he didn’t hang around with weirdoes and freaks.
The next day, David’s mother had waited for Alex after school, hurling all manner of abuse and insults at her and threatening to call the police if Alex continued to harass her son with her sick and twisted ideas.
The slow, pulsating sounds of her surroundings slipped into her consciousness and Alex focused on a single fat raindrop running down the car window. She exhaled softly.
David’s mother had been alive and well, and not the drug addict her senses had so keenly felt. She’d been confused. She’d never been wrong before.
But clarity came two days later when her own mother died from a drug overdose.
She hadn’t been able to read her own mother. She’d projected her own hurt and pain onto someone else, something she had never done before or since.
Alex pulled her brows into a deep frown.
Her strange empathic power had died with her mother’s death. Now, twelve years later, it’d resurfaced after the Rainman’s first kill, and more powerful than before. This killer had awakened something other than morbid curiosity deep inside her. The strength of their bond scared her, but it excited her, too, although there was something vaguely disturbing about that final thought.
She’d often tried to type into his psyche, but the Rainman would withdraw into the shadows of his mind whenever she breached it. Never completely, just enough to conceal his identity and evade her psychic reach. That was why she’d never gone to the police with this particular detail. How could she explain her ability to touch the mind of an active killer in Sheffield, some hundred and fifty miles away from London, or that he toyed with hers?
Alex sniffed the air, not really knowing why she did, but the act felt as natural to her as breathing.
The Rainman was a dangerous man, who was playing with her and testing her ability. A murderer who’d already killed six women and was even now on the prowl looking for his seventh victim. She didn’t know how long she could resist the lure of his scent.
Whoa! Where did that come from? His scent?
The dulled sound of a familiar, masculine voice slipped into her consciousness before she could further dwell on that strange thought and her senses focused, drawing her back to the touch and feel of leather upholstery and the rich sound of Beverley Knight coming from the car radio.
Her eyes fluttered open although she couldn’t recall closing them.
“We’ve arrived, Miss Trask.”
Alex mentally filed away her troubled thoughts and locked her gaze on Charlie’s concerned one. She smiled, and the pinched lines between his brows abated.
“Are you all right?” he said.
She nodded. “Just give me a minute, will you, Charlie? And it’s Alex, remember?”
Charlie chuckled softly before opening the driver’s door and climbing from the luxury sedan. He quickly rounded the vehicle and opened the back passenger door.
Alex promptly repaired her lip gloss and exchanged her soft sheepskin boots for the less comfortable brown, five-inch pumps in her oversized bag.
She glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror and took another calming breath. “Come on, Alex,” she murmured. “Pull yourself together. He’s one hundred and fifty miles away.”
She grabbed her cell phone, collected the small, gold-wrapped gift from her tote and stepped from the car into the cold November night. Charlie held a large black umbrella open over her head and she would have smiled in appreciation of his thoughtfulness had it not been for the startling image of the large, silver-colored wolf her mind suddenly conjured at the back of it.
***END OF SAMPLE***
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