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Dark Nights: Mistress of the Underground / The Vampire Affair
Livia Reasoner
Lisa Childs
Secrets…Agreeing to run popular nightclub Club Underground is a bigger challenge than Paige ever dreamed, as she discovers that no one in her life is who they seem – not her customers, her handsome doctor ex-husband Ben… not even herself. But when evil is unleashed, rekindling her passion with Ben may be the only way to save herself.… and Legends…The world knew Michael Brandt as a playboy tycoon. The underworld knew him as a fierce vampire hunter, targeting the most dangerous powers in a clandestine do-or-die operation… until tabloid reporter Jessie Morgan uncovered his secret, sparking an attraction that might prove deadly… or worse.
Dark Nights
Mistress of the Underground
Lisa Childs
The Vampire Affair
Livia Reasoner
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#ub7e0d66d-1658-5b91-89a6-464e6326cd49)
Title Page (#u5885ac9d-f5ae-5f93-ae75-ed8ac5c7271a)
Mistress of the Underground
About the Author (#u94d3ba17-fd95-5555-8d38-d23a2499aaac)
Dedication (#u3c1f9bac-7d24-52d2-9cd7-07c8f8182a8f)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
The Vampire Affair
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Mistress of the Underground (#u1f91378c-28b8-5d2d-9133-7333f451bf4f)
LISA CHILDS has been writing since she could first form sentences. At eleven she won her first writing award and was interviewed by the local newspaper. That story’s plot revolved around a kidnapping, probably something she wished on any of her six siblings. A Halloween birthday predestined a life of writing paranormal and intrigue.
Readers can write to Lisa at PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA or visit her at her website www.lisachilds.com.
To Tara Gavin, my amazing editor, who always understands how important my characters are to me. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to tell Paige and Ben’s story!
Chapter 1 (#u1f91378c-28b8-5d2d-9133-7333f451bf4f)
You don’t belong here….
The skin tingled on the nape of Paige Culver’s neck, and she shivered. To assure herself she was alone, she glanced around her small, windowless office. Light penetrated the green glass shade of the lamp on her desk but didn’t dissipate the shadows clinging to the worn-brick walls.
You don’t belong here….
That voice wasn’t real; it had to be only in her head. Her own voice verbalizing the doubts that had tormented her since she’d bought Club Underground. She was a lawyer. What the hell did she know about running a lounge?
Actually, she wasn’t a lawyer anymore—at least not one with a firm where she could practice. So she’d bought the club, which occupied the basement of a traditional brick office building in downtown Zantrax, the city which had replaced Detroit as the urban metropolis of Michigan. The building was the only thing traditional about Club Underground.
Music throbbed through the sound system, tempting Paige to leave the office and join the action. She pushed paperwork aside and stood up, swaying slightly on her stilettos as nerves assailed her again.
Opening night. Actually, reopening night, under new management, but yet she’d hidden herself back here, away from the club patrons. Would everyone else think, as she did, that she did not belong here?
“To hell with them,” she murmured with the flash of pride and stubbornness that sometimes irritated the people she cared about. And to hell with what she thought, too. “There’s no turning back now….”
With a slightly trembling hand, she smoothed down her flyaway strands of blond hair. Then she smoothed her hands over her hips, settling the red silk against her body.
Would he be out there? Waiting to congratulate her? Or to question her sanity? She didn’t care which, as long as he was near—close enough to touch.
Anxious now, she hurried from the office, barely remembering to turn the lock before pulling the door closed behind her. In the hall, the music played louder, the bass lower and sexier. She glanced toward the door that separated the hall from the lounge. Then she glanced back the other way. To the door in the brick wall at the end of the hall. The door that led nowhere—according to the club manager. Then why was it locked?
You don’t belong here….
The voice had to be inside her head; how else could she have heard it over the volume of the music? She shivered again, but from cold, not fear, and considered unlocking the office to retrieve her sweater. But it would ruin the effect of the dress with its thin straps and low neckline.
She didn’t regret her decision, at least regarding the sweater, as she stepped into the lounge. It would have been out of place, would have made her look more out of place than she already felt among the bodies gyrating on the dance floor. She didn’t have the tiny waist or sharp curves of the women; her curves were rounder, fuller. And she was so much older, not just in years but in experience, than those laughing, flirting girls.
They were twenty-one, at least, or they wouldn’t have been allowed inside the club. But no lines creased or dark shadows touched their clear skin. Self-conscious, Paige lifted a hand to her cheek. From her sleepless nights, she had dark circles and lines of stress. Not just because of her impetuous purchase…
But because of him…
She glanced around the bar in the lowest level of the turn-of-the-century building. Like her office, the outer walls were exposed brick, and the interior ones were dark paneled and as highly polished as the hardwood floors. The lights were dim, candles on the intimate tables and booths, strobes flashing sexily across the dance floor. She recognized no one among the crowd. Had none of her friends shown up to wish her well? Of course, she hadn’t given them much notice about the club. She hadn’t told anyone about what had been going on in her life. Not even he knew everything.
He knew nothing—actually, not a thing about this woman…but that she was gorgeous. The muscles tightened in Ben’s gut as he studied her moving around the club, as bright and fluid as a flame. He tracked her through the crowd. In her red dress, with her golden hair, she stood out among the others with their dark clothes and their darker agendas. She didn’t belong…for so many reasons.
“Hey—”
He ignored the voices calling out and the hands reaching for him and slipped through the crowd, following her. She glanced back, as if aware of his presence. From the first moment they’d met, they had always had an uncanny awareness of each other.
But she didn’t stop walking. The sway of her hips, as she maneuvered through the crowd of club patrons, seduced him. He wanted to talk to her.
Who the hell was he kidding? He just wanted her.
Finally, he caught her—near the bar. She leaned over it, shouting out an order to the bartender. And he leaned against her, his hands sliding over the soft curve of her hips. Silk brushed across his palms, and his skin tingled from the heat of her flesh. He wanted the silk gone—the crowd gone. He wanted only her and him—and skin on skin.
Despite the heat of the crowded club, and his touch, Paige shivered. Her heart kicked against her ribs with excitement…and anticipation. “I’ll be out of your way in just a minute,” she murmured over her shoulder.
“Out of my way?” his deep voice rasped in her ear.
His warm breath raised goose bumps along her nape, and she nodded. “So you can get your free drink.”
“Free drink?”
“Opening night special,” she explained. “First drink is on the house.”
“What if I don’t want a drink?”
She tilted her head so that her gaze met his. His eyes, big and dark and fringed with thick lashes, studied her intently. His hair was dark, too, but for the strands of gray sprinkled throughout; it was also cut short, but not so short that she couldn’t run her fingers through its softness.
“Is there something else you—” she swiped the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip “—want?”
His fingers flexed against her hips, digging gently into her flesh. “I want the special.”
“I haven’t told you the special,” she reminded him with a teasing smile.
“I know what’s special,” he said, his gaze intent on her face.
Sadness tugged at her, pulling down the corners of her lips. If only she could believe him…but she knew better. If only she knew him better…
But they were strangers.
She whirled away from the bar and shoved past him. He caught her wrist, but she tugged free and slipped through the crowd. Voices murmured complaints as she bumped into hard bodies in her haste to escape him—and them—and that voice inside her head that pursued her all the way back to the office.
You don’t belong here….
Paige’s fingers trembled, and her keys jangled, as she pulled them from her small spangled clutch. She glanced to the end of the hall and that strange locked door.
Was the voice not inside her head? Was it coming from behind that door? The door that supposedly led nowhere? Now her legs trembled slightly as she passed the office and continued down the hall—toward that riveted steel door. When she neared it, still several feet away, cold air rushed around or through the steel and over her skin. She gasped and shuddered.
