“Gavin,” said a low, sophisticated voice. He looked up, feeling raw and exposed. It was Eva.
“Eva,” he said, clearing his throat, his body betraying him more and more.
“You and Ms. Murphy seemed to be making your acquaintance in the elevator,” she said evenly, but the hair on his arms and neck began a slow creep upward. Eva was part of the bloodline, from one of the four shifter families. They were distant relatives, third or fourth cousins. He’d known her his entire life.
“We were discussing...” He fumbled. “Um, the Patriots game. The team’s loss. She likes football,” he lied. He hoped it was true, though. The last woman he’d slept with more than once had hated football. That relationship ended when the preseason games began at Gillette Stadium.
She interrupted him, one of the few people bold enough to do so. “It was clear what you were doing.” Eva bent down primly, her knees poking out from under her skirt, body limber and flexible. “And while I have no objection to the men at this club taking what’s freely offered, I prefer that it’s done in private.”
“It’s not what you think.”
She smiled and laughed through her nose, eyes calculated and combing over him. “You sound like an errant schoolboy, Gavin.” She widened her eyes with amusement. “It suits you. How cute.”
Agony ripped through him. Not because she was wrong.
But because she was right.
“She’s... different.”
Eva’s eyes flashed, predatory. “So I have heard. The One? A human. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I thought Stantons didn’t choose humans. Isn’t that one of Asher’s rules for his herd of unruly little siblings?”
Gavin could handle being corrected.
He would not tolerate being mocked.
“You know the legends, Eva. You’re old enough to have invented them. I’m not doing this for folly. You know how this works. Until I mate with the One, I can’t control... whatever this is.”
“Until you mate? Is that how the legend goes? I’m so old and feeble my memory isn’t what it used to be,” she said dryly. The jab at his earlier comment made him sigh.
“Touché.”
“I’ve heard every excuse, from presidents to Super Bowl stars, and I’ll say this one last time: keep it in your pants, and keep it in private. The club’s reputation needs to remain pristine.”
“I would never act in a way that would jeopardize the club.” His voice was flat and cold, a sharp contrast to the fire and heat that roiled inside his body.
Eva stood slowly and looked down at him.
“Gavin, my dear,” she said with a faint smile. “You just did.”
After watching her glide away with that timeless grace that was typical of the women from that branch of the family, he counted to ten slowly under his breath and then got out from behind the table.
He needed to be alone. His business clients didn’t matter; one of his people would make sure it went smoothly. Because of his unusual genetic makeup, he used figureheads as much as possible with the media and casual business contacts. Even Brazilian plastic surgery couldn’t explain how he’d looked thirty since the turn of the millennium. But he was always there, always directly controlling what was said and what went on.
Just not today.
Nothing to do with the Beat or the One or any of that mystical bullshit. He’d almost gotten a poor woman fired before she’d even started her first shift.
And he’d impelled Eva to reprimand him as if he were a child. Or worse—as if he were Derry.
Two white-haired men he’d promised to talk to waved at him from the bar, but he pretended not to see them. Instinct drove him to head underground, into the cold, dark quiet. The Novo Club downstairs would be perfect, but he didn’t want to risk seeing one of his mocking, critical, insufferable siblings or any one of a dozen cousins. They’d smell Lilah on him. And his need.
That wouldn’t do. He’d end up killing his own kin. In the mood he was in, he might kill all of them.
So he strode across the club, using every scrap of his willpower not to chase Lilah down and carry her out with him over his shoulder, through the back entrance to the service elevator. He got inside, inhaling the scent of her that remained, and took it down into the second oldest, deepest corner of the original building.
The wine cellar.
His decision was already calming him. No longer unsteady with inappropriate lust, he felt his brain clear and his pulse steady. When the doors opened into the cold, brick-lined hallway, he marched into the darkness with his equilibrium renewed.
This was who he was: calm, logical, in control.
He’d stay here until all danger of being otherwise had passed.
Chapter 6
Lilah’s head would not stop throbbing.
The work itself was a breeze, and Carl was fabulous to work with. By the end of their first hour working together, they were a well-oiled machine. He picked up on her pace and she knew how to keep him organized. As the lounge filled with a crowd estimated at three hundred people, Lilah was busy.
And her shoes stayed comfortable.
Her stomach ached with anxiety at Carl’s warning. What if someone had seen her kissing Gavin? She couldn’t afford to lose her job over a grope and a tongue dance in the elevator.
You know that’s not all it is, she berated herself silently.
That’s all it is to him, some other voice replied.
Speaking of him, Gavin Stanton had disappeared. This was his party, according to Eva and Carl. Party-boy had made out with her in the elevator and made himself scarce. Typical. Turns out billionaire Brits were just like the average American man.
She served a vodka and soda with a lime to a woman she recognized as a local weather forecaster for Channel 5. Without acknowledging Lilah’s existence, the woman animatedly continued her conversation with a man who looked suspiciously like the governor of Massachusetts.
Slipping away, she headed toward Bloody Mary. Carl had pointed to a variety of people in the crowd and given them nicknames based on their favorite drinks. Cosmo was the head coach for one of the New York NFL teams. White Cosmo was his wife. Sex on the Beach was a reality television celebrity known for her recent nude cover shot for Vanity Fair.
Wallbanger was a guy who looked at her as if he was dreaming about banging her. Webb, his real name was. Wallbanger Webb. Although he insisted on a weird version of the drink: instead of orange juice, he demanded Tang. Ugh.
She swung back to the bar, moving slowly as taught by Eva. (“We never rush. Ever, Lilah. The hallmark of the Platinum Club is that it is a haven for the busiest of the busy. Important people don’t need to be surrounded by people in a frantic hurry.”) Carl caught her eye.
“Lilah! We’re out of our wine selection. I need you to go to the wine cellar and get three bottles of red.” He recited a bunch of French words that made her head fill with gibberish.
“Wait! Slow down,” she said as calmly as possible. “You’re speaking in Klingon.”
He flashed her a devilish grin and grabbed a pen out of his pocket, then a cocktail coaster. A few scribbles later, and he handed her a list.
“Take that downstairs. The red wine is more popular than usual, and our wine runner got caught in traffic. He’ll be here any minute, but in the meantime, you’re it.”