Page 11 of A Love So Deadly
If…
No. I’m getting this job.
“Here.”
The drink’s amber, probably Scotch or something. Isn’t that what rich, powerful men drink? But he doesn’t pour one for himself, which makes me eye him suspiciously. However, I shake my head and smile. “No thanks. Drinking on the job or job interview isn’t a good idea.”
“And if I said it was? If I said you getting considered for the job meant you had to drink it. Would you?”
“Do I look stupid?” I stop, getting myself under control. I switch tones for something more along the lines of soft humor. “Like someone who’d take the equivalent of candy from strangers.”
“It’s called manners,” he says, “an offering in my house to you to break down stranger to known.”
“Drink my wine, eat my bread, and I have your soul.” The words are out before I can stop them.
Light flares in those dark eyes, turning them intensely midnight blue. “Like a witch to a fairytale princess?”
Startled by his leaning into my words, the big bad laying the trap for the innocent, I blurt, “More like the monster.”
There’s the slightest hint of a smile.
He lets the silence between us thicken and grow in potency.
This isn’t empty space. It’s alive and I need to stop the unknown storm that brews in that space.
“The drink might be poisoned. Is that what you do, Mr. Vale?” I smile to show I’m in on the joke. But if there’s one, I don’t understand it. Everything’s hyper elevated and everything soaked in sensation. Even the colors in the room are more vibrant.
“Or maybe you have terrible powers and this is your lair?” I ask, pushing the note of teasing into my voice.
I expect him to laugh, but he doesn’t. It’s cool and dry in here, a marked difference to the rainy night outside. It’s that time of year in Tenebris, warmish, rainy, and my hair’s wild with it.
Wild with the cracking energy and awareness that thrives beneath the surface of his office.
Somehow, I resist the urge to smooth fingers over the curls. Yeah, I’m the definition of a stupid, naïve fairytale princess. Innocent beauty to his glorious and sleek inner beast. Just hand me the girly dress, a tiara and a rescue me now sign. Christ.
But there are no fairy tale princesses, and the only monsters are human and not magical. Princes? They’re not riding about looking for maidens to rescue.
Sometimes the offer of a drink is just a drink.
And yet I can’t shake the feeling of I shouldn’t drink it. At all.
“My lair?” The dark velvet silk of his voice winds around me.
“Yes.”
“And I lure in delicate females and kill them with drinks?”
“You said it, not me.”
I wait for him to put the glass down or urge me to drink it. Or even offer to join me.
He doesn’t.
“It might be true,” he says. “But removing the body is always a pain.”
“You’re the head of VMR Media. I’m sure you have your ways.” I match my tone to his.
“We do. But it’s a pain, as I said.” He pauses, again his gaze moves over me like he’s hungry, like he’s measuring how much head start he should give me before chasing me down becomes interesting.
