Was she trying to kill him wearing a dress like that? That had been his first thought when he saw her. Hell, she looked good enough to eat. At first sight his cock had sprung up like a boy seeing his first pair of tits. She did it on purpose. No doubt about that. She wanted to taunt him for slighting her last night.
Well, he had plans to take care of that. To take care of them both in the process.
For some reason he found himself enjoying this immensely. Anticipation and excitement filled his veins like hot, thick blood. Both were feelings he hadn’t felt in ages. Helena had turned from burning hot to lukewarm. Then as time passed lukewarm faded to frigid. One hundred years into their blood bond and he had a mate who couldn’t stand his touch, but would easily take his money to lavish herself with jewelry and fine clothes.
Oddly, thinking about her now didn’t fill him with the kind of anger it had before. He almost smiled. Soon Helena would be nothing to him. Not even a distant bad memory. She deserved far worse from him.
His mother turned to him. “What is she to you?”
Dominic crossed his arms. He adored his mother but being around someone for your whole life when that life lasted a very long time grew tiresome. His mother was the perfect political icon, which meant she knew when to be polite and smile and when to push straight to the point. Now she chose the latter.
“Yesterday I thought she was Julianna Greenwich and my soon to be bruid. Then I learn she’s the damn planner. How the hell was I to know? They both have long blond hair, and the only picture I had of her was fuzzy and old.”
“Why were you wrapped around each other yesterday? I will not hire her if this is going to be a problem, Dominic. Have you shared such intimacies with Lady Julianna or is this only a problem you have for Ms. Shaw?
“No,” he said. Just the thought of touching the immaculately beautiful Julianna made his fangs retreat. He had no curiosity in finding out what made Julianna tick. Just the thought of having a conversation with her made his head ache. Her life consisted of parties, clothes, and riches. So much like Helena.
Felicity Shaw was not like that. There was more to her. He saw that in the way her eyes spit fire at him last night and then today. No one dared to get angry with him aside from his closest friends and family. She didn’t fear him though.
“Are you saying that you’re attracted to Ms. Shaw because you thought she was Julianna or because you simply are?”
Dominic never backed down from how he felt. Once he made a decision he stuck to it. If he wanted something he got it. If he needed to tell someone pertinent information he did that too. He wasn’t about to change now. Direct worked best to those he was close to.
“I’m attracted to her yes. As to your other question, while I did think she was Julianna yesterday, my attraction has nothing to do with the fact that I thought she was my bruid; and no I have not had ‘intimacies’ with Julianna Greenwich. She holds no favor over me.” At all.
His mother gasped. “But she’s to be your bruid!”
“Not of my choice.” Even someone such as him had to bend sometimes, bend to the need of others and in this case, he needed a certain blue-blood socialite to help earn him the nomination for president. He would become the next president and representative for the vampires, but no one in the history of the council has ever become president without a blood bonded mate. Someone blue-blooded, rich, quiet, and who knew how to keep her place. Julianna Greenwich fit that bill to a T.
None of this would have happened if his father hadn’t caught the rare vampire disease, arromunia. Dom had moved on. He was ready to move into his father’s steps and take over.
If Dom hadn’t separated from Helena then none of this would be a problem. He was expected to have a bruid—a vampire mate to represent the women for the council. He could not run unmated and expect to win.
After Felicity left the estate last night, he’d called his brother Grayson to look into her. Grayson owned a security company that specialized in protecting vampires and weres. Some people always had targets on their back and no one, not even the immortal could always escape a murder attempt. Grayson and his team did excellent work but something his brother excelled at was gathering intel.
He looked into Felicity Shaw after she left last night and learned all about her. Her mother lived off an inheritance left to her by a dead husband. She took that money and squandered it badly—spending most of it on her very young and new “mate” who came from an even poorer background. According to Grayson, it looked like Felicity and her mother did not speak, and her father, a nameless figure, had never been in her life.
It looked like Mrs. Shaw was robbing the cradle and had left her daughter behind to fend for herself some years ago. The report also showed that Felicity had been searching for a job for over a year. She lived in a lower-income neighborhood with a beat-up car that still wasn’t paid off and had outstanding bills and debts.
The amount of debt she carried along with her previous paying jobs, according to what she’d told them during the interview didn’t add up. She would have to be a big spender to garner that kind of debt. Maybe even bigger than Helena. Just the thought brought a sour taste to his tongue. He didn’t want the passionate Felicity Shaw to have anything to do with his ex-bruid.
“It may not be of your choice, Dominic but you must. The weres are pushing for the presidency which will give them majority control. Alpha were Zeke wishes to have control over everything. He wants to bring forth a law that will force men to seek their mates and claim them even from other packs. You know how dangerous that will be. He says their population is dying out. Rafe were Chief of the North, wishes to have were supremacy over the council. You know he’ll vote and push and maybe even lead us to war to get the vampires off the council so that Zeke can rule. Zeke isn’t the right man for this position, Dominic.”
“Mother, I know this,” he said.
“Then you know what’s at stake if you don’t get elected.” Her voice softened as she came towards him. She let her guard down and he saw the burning pain of his father’s death still lingering in her eyes. It had only been a few months since they’d lit his dead body and let the flames take him. “Your father was a great man. It’ll be hard for any to take over in his place, but if anyone can do it, you can, my son.”
“Mother, I’ll win the presidency. Don’t worry about it.”
She nodded, blinking fast as tears filled her eyes, and then she gave him a tight smile. “Of course you and Lady Julianna will only help to prove to the people that you are traditional just as your father was. She will make a fine bruid.”
Dominic looked away. He doubted that. He didn’t like being quick to judge but Julianna didn’t seem like the type to care about women’s issues and that would be her responsibility as his queen.
A knot settled in his chest like a lead ball.
It felt wrong even thinking about mating with Julianna. It had nothing to do with the fact that they’d barely spoken when they met last night. Last night when he’d handed his family’s ring to her. The same ring that he’d forcibly removed from Helena’s finger not but a few months earlier. Did Julianna say anything? No, she just tipped her lips into a gracious smile then left for her rooms.