Page 84 of Bad Luck Vampire

Sophie blinked in amazement. George owned the damned insurance agency. It seemed hypocritical to consider his employees, the ones who kept him in money, the scum of the earth.

“I knew he’d proposed,” he bragged. “I saw the ring down your top when I stopped in your office one day to ask you about the monthly reports. You were seated at your desk, showing me the reports on your computer, and I was standing next to you. I glanced down and there it was, a diamond ring, hanging on a chain and nestling between your beautiful breasts.”

Sophie nearly gagged at the idea of his ogling her “beautiful” breasts, but remained silent.

“I was actually relieved. It meant you two would have to come clean soon. You could hardly marry him without letting your family know. I thought once you came clean, I could point out to you that he had made you lie and sneak around. Make you see that a good man wouldn’t have made you do that. Convince you to break it off with him.” His mouth twisted. “But the little bastard handed in his notice, and I realized he was cleverer than I’d expected. I knew the plan must be to just pretend to start dating once he was employed elsewhere, and then eventually pretend he’d just given you the ring. I could hardly tell you then that I’d known all along. That I’d been watching the two of you on the cameras,” he pointed out, and shook his head. “No. He had to be taken care of. But Derek wasn’t some broke ass university kid who had to hoof it everywhere. He had a car.”

He paused, his gaze glazing over slightly as if he was drifting somewhere else as he said, “That night on my way home there was an accident holding up traffic. When I finally got to it, it was between a car and a pickup with one of those snowplow blades on the front.” He shook his head with admiration. “The truck was mostly fine. The blade took the worst of the impact, while the car was shredded.” He smiled at the memory.

“That gave me an idea, and I stopped at a couple of used car places until I found one with a good, heavy-duty pickup that actually already had a snowplow blade attached. I thought I’d have to buy that separately and wait to have it attached, but no, it was there waiting for me. I knew then it was meant to be, and I bought it on the spot. Well, the company did,” he said with a wink. “It was for clearing the parking lot after unexpected snows.”

When Sophie didn’t respond, he went on, “Fortunately, Derek had that little foreign car. From Korea, I think. It wasn’t really a sturdy car. It folded up like an accordion between the telephone pole and my truck. The snow blade wasn’t even bent from the impact. Too bad I wasn’t driving it the night I hit Alasdair.”

Twenty-Eight

“You’re the one who ran him down in front of my apartment the other night,” Sophie accused.

“Well, the poison hadn’t worked, so I had to use a more direct method,” he said, and then muttered, “Not that running him down did much good either.”

“Poison?” Sophie asked with disbelief. No one had mentioned Alasdair being poisoned.

“It was me looking through the break room window Friday night. I saw where he was sitting and which drink was his and when the two of you rushed to the front of the building so that he could go search the parking lot for the person you’d seen, I slipped into my office through my private door, hurried to the break room, grabbed the rat poison from under the sink, and poured some in his glass,” he said with a shrug, and then scowled. “But he must not have drank it.”

Alasdair had drank it. Sophie had seen him down it quickly as they’d cleaned up before heading to her place. But where it probably would have had anyone who wasn’t an immortal writhing in agony and dying on the break room floor, it hadn’t seemed to affect him at all. Those nanos were really pretty amazing, she thought, but then focused on George again as he shifted impatiently across from her.

Mouth tightening, she asked, “Why kill Alasdair? He wasn’t an insurance salesmen, or distracting me from classes, or whatever. We haven’t even dated long. A lunch and a dinner, and—”

“And crawling all over him, first in your office and then in the break room,” George interrupted with disgust. Crossing the distance between them, he caught her by the arms to give her a shake. “You would have fucked him right there in your office if Megan hadn’t interrupted when she did. Don’t deny it, I saw you on the cameras.”

Sophie blinked. She’d known for the last six months that there were cameras in the reception area and on the entrances and exits, but she hadn’t known there were any in the offices or the break room.

“Thank God I jumped in the car and headed down there then. Because while Megan’s interruption stopped the two of you and you moved to the break room, you weren’t there long before you were ripping your top open and wrapping your gorgeous legs around his hips like a stripper on the pole. By the time I got there and looked in the window, he had his mouth and hands all over you.”

Sophie leaned away from him as much as his hold on her would allow, and stared up at him warily. He was breathing heavily, almost panting, but it wasn’t purely from anger. She could see excitement on his face, as if the memory turned him on, and wasn’t surprised when he said, “You’re mine. You should be doing that with me, Jasmine, not some overgrown ape you only met days ago.”

His calling her by her mother’s name again made her jerk in surprise, but he didn’t even notice and continued, growling, “So, yes, I tried to poison him, and when that didn’t work, I gave him the same treatment as young John. Mowed him down like ninepins. I thought I’d surely killed the bastard then, and I came around yesterday with flowers to comfort you, but I’d barely found a parking spot when what do I see? The great ape coming out of your apartment to talk to a tow truck driver,” he said with disbelief. “It didn’t even look like he'd got a scratch from the night before. If I’d had a gun I would have shot the bastard on the spot. But I didn’t have a gun.”

Thank God for that, Sophie thought.

“However, I knew it would take a few minutes to get his SUV up on the tow truck’s bed,” he told her. “So I drove quickly home to switch my car for the pickup, and when I got back, they were just pulling away. I followed for a while to see where they were heading, then I passed them, sped up to get a bit ahead, and pulled down one street, drove up the next, and waited. Then I T-boned the bastard just like Derek.”

The satisfaction in both his voice and his expression told her he’d enjoyed that, but then it faded to be replaced with irritation as he added, “I took care of Alasdair, but the tow truck was a sturdier build than Derek’s car. My truck took a lot of damage. I was barely able to drive away from the accident. It’s still parked on a side street a couple of blocks from the accident site,” he added, obviously pissed. “It’s probably done. But it was worth it. For you, Jasmine. I did it all for you, my love.”

“I’m not Jasmine,” she snapped, yanking her arms out of his hold. Stepping back toward the entry to the dining room, she added, “I’m not my mother, and I’m not your love.”

Continuing to back toward the door, she took a page out of her mother’s book and, using as much of her words all those years ago as she could, added, “I’m in a relationship. You’re married to Deb, and I love her like a second mother. What were you expecting here? I’m not going to break my promise to Alasdair, George. I love him. I don’t love you.”

Sophie wasn’t terribly surprised when he charged her. But she was surprised when she was suddenly snatched from behind and dragged into the dark dining room. It happened so fast, it nearly made her head spin, and then she stood completely still, her back to Alasdair’s chest, his arms around her waist. She knew it was him. Her body was responding, despite the situation, but she tried to tamp down that reaction as George charged out into the dark room and stumbled to a halt.

“Where are you? Why the hell is it so dark in here?”

She heard him move cautiously toward the windows, and then the blinds began to open, allowing light to pour in and stretch partway across her living room area. In his blind groping he’d found the controls to the living room blinds rather than the dining room window.

Sophie bit her lip and glanced around for the rest of the men and thought she saw movement in the shadows on the far side of the living room, then her gaze slid back to George when he said, “Sophie? Is that you?”

Realizing he was squinting in her direction, she urged Alasdair to release her and took several steps forward until the light just reached her.

George started forward at once, but stopped abruptly after just a step when Alasdair moved forward behind her. She felt his chest brush her back, and then his hands slid around to clasp her waist, ready to move her if necessary.

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