Page 70 of Blood Mosaic

She opened it and looked up. “You.”

“May I come in?”

“What a nice captor.” She opened the door wider. “Of course. How polite of you to ask.”

“I’m not your captor.” He sat in the chair in front of her desk and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “But if that’s a fantasy of yours?—”

“Absolutely not.” She waved a hand in his general direction. “You may have flirted with me before all this happened, and I might have even entertained it then, but now?” She shook her head.

“You need a job more than you need a man?”

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “I need to find all this money, return it to you, and try to forget all this ever happened.”

“I also like most of those goals, but I do want to point out that I am not a man.” Oleg spread his arms. “So your reasoning doesn’t hold up.”

“You are a man in every way that counts.”

Oleg lowered his voice. “Very glad you’ve noticed.”

Tatyana’s cheeks burned. “Of course you think a vampire would be less trouble than a man.”

She had looked sick when he’d dropped her at the hotel the night before. Now she was spitting fire and he loved it.

“I told you I like your teeth. Do you really think you can find my money?”

“No.” Her eyes went wide and innocent. “You should probably just let me go back to Sevastopol and forget all this ever happened. Would you like to wipe my memory? Please. According to Elene, you’ve done it before.”

Damn that woman for telling his secrets. He reached back and pushed the door closed, giving them even more privacy.

Tatyana’s eyes went to the closed door, and her shoulders grew stiff.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Remember?”

“I know enough now?—”

“Really? After two whole nights you know enough?”

She pressed her lips together.

“Here is whatIknow after barely a week of knowing you exist, Tatyana Vorona.” Oleg dropped his voice to barely over a whisper. “I know that Zara manipulated your mind. Far more than you realize, I think. I know that your brain is quite clever and it was fighting against my amnis?—”

“The glamour?”

“Call it whatever you want, but amnis is more accurate.”

“That’s a Latin word. Latin was the imperial language of the Byzantine Empire.”

Oleg smiled. “Are you trying to discover my age now? I already told you.”

She sat back and wiped the inquisitive expression from her face, putting another stiff mask in its place.

Hehadtold her, and it surprised him a little bit. He usually didn’t do that, but she was quick and he’d let it slip.

“Your mind is strong,” Oleg continued. “It was fighting against my influence. That’s why you passed out twice when we were together.”

She frowned. “That’s why that happened? I don’t remember?—”

“Of course you don’t.”

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