Chapter 12
FRANK N. STEIN
After a quick visit to the energy chamber below the mansion to set my power levels to rights and a hot shower, I’m feeling more refreshed and able to spar with my unwanted guest. It was easy enough to get her to join me for dinner by shouting at the end of the stairs until she showed herself lurking near the library doors.
I take in her attire, watching her while she gazes at the dining room and table full of food stuff brought earlier.
She’s in another set of sweatpants, this time in a soft peach color that makes her pale skin seem pinker and more flushed, and her red hair curls and bounces wetly across her shoulders.
“You look more refreshed after a bath, less—unkempt,” I murmur.
Her head whips to me and a flash of disdain crosses her gaze. “I know right, funny what being allowed a change of clothes and a shower will do for a girl.”
Inwardly I chortle at her little rejoinder, but wave a hand gesturing to her to sit before me.
I only raise a brow when she chooses the head of the table for herself, not waiting for me to pull out her chair.
She sits as ungracefully as she can manage, plopping into her seat and grabbing food with her bare hands to toss it in the direction of her plate.
I merely move out of the way when cream potatoes start to fly and choose the seat across from her at the end of the table.
“Want me to make you a plate?” she asks, her tone light, as if its commonplace to serve dinner in such a manner.
“I’ll manage, thanks,” I reply, not giving into her games and adjusting my cuffs so as to not ruin the fresh silk of my shirt.
“Yum, it looks so good,” she says in a sing-song voice before grabbing a handful of cake and setting it on an empty platter.
“I’ll inform the housekeeper of your approval,” I say, a sense of victory washing over me when she at least begins to look abashed for her transgressions at the table.
“I didn’t know there was anyone else here,” she says, glancing around at the vacant room as if she suspects something monstrous to pop out of the shadows.
“They left as soon as they set the table, probably while you were snooping. We are alone,” I reply.
She goes quiet for the first time since I’ve been in her presence. The silence spreads, only the quiet sounds of cutlery filling the room.
“Is the bedroom sufficient?” I ask, trying to cajole her into small talk.
“It’ll do, I suppose, a little too much cream for my taste,” she says, a smirk playing on her lips.
My hand tightens around the fork I have poised to slide a steak onto my waiting dish, as I recall telling her to take a room on the left hall, which is painted in blue tones. The right wing is gray. She disobeyed me.
“Where is Edgar?” she asks, pushing at the mashed potatoes on her plate with her fork, her face planted in the palm of her hand while her elbow is firmly on the table as I fill my own.
The candlelight throws a red halo around her already flame-colored locks, making her look like a demon sprite. It would make more sense had she been born a demoness, as ornery and defiant as she is.
“He’s safe.” I glance down at how she twirls her cutlery with the wrong hand and fight back a grin. “Are you trying to annoy me with your lack of etiquette, or did you really fail all those decorum classes your grandmother made you attend as a child?”
Her face screws up at that and she smiles. “Aww, I’m flattered. Did you read about me yourself, or did you have one of your stooges scrounge up random facts about my childhood to intimidate me with?” she says, her lip curling into a tight grin, but her icy tone confirms I struck a nerve.
“I so rarely do anything without purpose, and there would be no point in trying to intimidate you,” I reply.
“I’m merely making an observation, by all means if you want to eat like a toddler, I won’t naysay you.
” I take a bite of steak, letting the juices explode in my mouth as I watch her reaction, fascinated when her entire demeanor changes.
“I don’t see the point in wasting good manners on you when you seem to lack listening skills,” she fires back, straightening in her chair and folding her legs under her demurely. “But hear me now, this isn’t going to go that great for you if I don’t see my cat soon.”
She punctuates her demand by stabbing a fork in my direction, a sheen of hate in her gaze while she does.
“Your cat will be returned to you tomorrow morning. Breakfast is at 9 a.m., and you will join me here.”
She scoffs and plants an elbow onto the table hard. “No can do. I’ve barely slept in weeks, and I’m sleeping in tomorrow.”
“You’ll be here when breakfast is served.”
She arches a brow from across the long table and the silence lengthens, the gentle pop of the fire sounds behind her as she shakes her head at me, an almost sympathetic look on her expression. Her lips pout and my insides clench.
“Unless you plan to physically remove me from my bed, it’s not happening. I don’t do mornings. I do my best work at night good sir, and that’s final.” She declares, punctuating the statement by crossing her arms over her chest.
My gaze rests where she presses them fully over her waist. Such a tiny furious thing. I decide to toy with her and see how far before the little human breaks.
From what I know of her, she’s smart, too smart, and will obviously use whatever she can against me and thwart me every time she can if the last few days have taught me anything. It’s almost admirable, her tenacity. Her defiance, however, will need to be squashed.
“Hmm, that can be arranged,” I tell her, enjoying the thought of dragging her from bed to do my bidding. I can just imagine how furious that would make her.
So many emotions flit across her expression at my words, ranging from disbelieving to intrigued before the mask slides back into place and she recovers.
“Right. Forcing two grown men to hoist a woman from her bedroom is just another Tuesday for you, isn’t it?” she bites back.
Humans have been finding ways to profit over war for hundreds of years, and the attack on my company is exactly that—war. They’ve just been forced to forget that the supernatural exists and I aim to keep it that way, even if it comes to dragging this woman from her sleep at all hours.
“I doubt it’ll take two.”
An eyeroll from her and I inwardly seethe, my hand twitching to mark her backside for the slight.
I dig into my meal instead, ignoring her for the moment.
“So, vampires eat meat, who knew?” she says, “Do all of them suck as much as you? Or is that part just your winning personality?”
Again, the idea that anyone believes me a vampire is preposterous, but I’ll be damned if she learns more about our kind.
“Why should I care what you think of my personality?” I ask, needling her further.
She adjusts her position in her chair, tucking away her hair with a quick movement.
“You are only here to do a job, and once you have completed that job, you will be let go. I could care less what you think of me when at best you’re a lowly criminal, even by your own account,” I continue.
“I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“It’s hardly terrorism when you hacked me, Miss Crenshaw. I didn’t start this little game, you did, need I remind you.”
She quirks a brow at this seemingly unaffected, but her hand tightens on her napkin that I can see as she practically leans, slumped over the table.
“Tomato, tomato, when am I getting my things?” she asks, and it makes me wonder what she’s thinking.
Anyone else with their greedy hands in Talbot, with billions at their disposal, would have at least attempted to move funds, but instead she donates to an animal fund.
It makes no sense when humans, materialistic creatures to a one, are led by avarice while the stronger men exploit and prey on the weak.
Something the supernatural don’t stand for, which makes her a human oddity I want to examine.
“Your clothing and supplies will arrive tomorrow as well,” I mutter, viewing her in a new light.
Her behavior proves she’s a nuisance, but for all intents and purposes, she owes me. And I always get what I am owed. “And you can have them, once you get me results.”
Red suffuses her face as she glares, and I inwardly congratulate myself.
Moonflower is even now in the hands of incompetent bumbling idiots that are like slippery eels, and I will use every means necessary to get it back.
I just didn’t know I would have such pleasure while doing it.
Whether she likes it or not, she will be an asset to me once I rein her in, like breaking a horse to ride.
It will keep me busy while Mikael’s team locates the other shipments and may even distract me from how catastrophic this will be if it leaks to the supernatural.
“Are results all you care about?” she spits back. The sound echoes, reverberating around the room and she huffs in irritation, throwing herself back in her seat.
“In this instance yes, it is. You can toss your food, create tiny bouts of chaos everywhere you go like a child, which I assure you won’t work, or you can work with me.
Get me what I want, and then you go back home to your pathetic existence.
” I say it knowing it for the lie it is, she won’t breathe for much longer.
No human can know of our existence, and she already has too much knowledge of Vlad, but at least seems to have no desire to alert the authorities.
I watch and wait for the reaction I know that’s coming, some fit or tantrum to showcase off her temper, except she does neither of those things.
A sputtering sound escapes her, and her hands go to her middle as she begins to laugh. “Sorry, I’m just imagining the weird media storm if the public inexplicably found out that Frank Stein is more like Frankenstein, something out of a Mary Shelley nightmare living among us.”