Bound by Night(7)

“For her sake,” Riker said slowly, “I hope so.”

Chapter 3
Nicole martin should never have left Paris.
She hated the Seattle weather. Hated the family mansion.
Hated the vampires.
She would never have believed that the vampire situation could be so different here.
She tossed a Chinese-food container into the trash bin hard enough to send bits of rice fl ying and turned to the tele-screen on the obnoxiously decadent black and gold granite kitchen counter. Her towheaded half brother, Charles, stared at her from his desk at Daedalus Corporation’s headquarters.
“You okay?” He gestured in the direction of her garbage can. “You subjected that poor takeout to some serious abuse.”
“No, I’m not okay. I miss Paris.” There. She’d said it. Pretending to be happy about returning to her childhood home was offi cially a big lie. “I miss my research lab. I miss my friends.”
Sure, most of her friends had been of the casual kind, Europe’s wealthy and powerful who only wanted what she—and Daedalus—could do for them, but she’d genuinely liked some of her colleagues. Plus, surrounding herself with people at all times kept her busy and kept the memories of her childhood at bay.
“You’ll make new friends,” Chuck assured her.
“Really?” She snorted. “I think it’s more likely that after tomorrow, I’m going to be a pariah no one is going to want to look at, let alone invite to cocktail parties.”
“Don’t worry about the meeting.” Like Nicole, he’d inherited his green eyes from their father, and they softened as he met her gaze. “The partners will get to the truth about what happened at the Minot facility.”
A sting in her bottom lip was a sharp reminder that she was biting it. Bad habit, and one she’d been trying to break for years. A lady doesn’t fidget, her mom used to say. Later, in private, Nicole’s nanny, Terese, would tell her that Nicole was a child, and children could fidget all they wanted. The secret, she’d said, was to fidgetproductively.
 Nicole reached past her medication bottles for the dwindling stack of paper on the counter, one of many she kept around the house.
“They don’t want to get to the truth, Chuck. They want a scapegoat.” She folded one corner of a sheet of paper and smoothed a crease into it. “Three dozen vampires from the Minot lab are dead. Ultimately, I’m responsible for everything my company does, and I’m going to get shipped off to Siberia for this.”
If she was lucky, she’d get sent to the Siberia office.
The other alternative, criminal prosecution, was also a possibility, thanks to groups like the Vampire Humane Society and Humans for the Advancement of Vampiric
Entities, which had, in the last five years, forged huge inroads regarding the ethical treatment and disposal of domestic vampires.
“Don’t think like that. You have a defense worked out.” Chuck scribbled something on the notepad in front of him. “When you present your evidence, the board will have to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Uh-huh. Sure. The board had been looking for a way to get her out of the company for years. Her mother and father had been the brawn and brains behind the business they’d built from the ground up, but Nicole had merely inherited her position.
Even Chuck, whose illegitimacy hadn’t allowed him a guaranteed place in their father’s empire, had worked his way from the mailroom to chairman and then, finally, seven years ago, to CEO. The position had been temporary until Nicole was ready to take over, but she’d been happy to let him run the company, so he’d remained, and she’d settled into medical research.
Until two months ago, when she’d turned twenty-eight and legal clauses from her parents’ wills and trusts kicked in, requiring her to rule the kingdom or lose everything. She hadn’t wanted to drag her parents’ names through the mud, so she hadn’t fought the clauses and reluctantly moved back to Seattle to take over.
Understandably, there were now a lot of envious, bitter people sitting on the board of directors. At least Chuck had understood, and he’d returned to his prior chairman position with grace.
Nicole made a quick series of folds in the sheet of paper, and the shape of a bird began to take form. “I should have asked for more help when I took over as CEO. Daedalus is too big, and my suggestions to sell off everything but the medical and scientific divisions haven’t exactly been popular.”
Chuck gave her a no shit look. “That’s because you’re asking that we keep the least profitable branches of the company and get rid of what our father founded the company on.” His leather chair creaked as he shifted. “Acquiring, training, and selling vampire servants are the cornerstone of Daedalus. We make billions from supplying the public with vampires and all the accessories that go with them.” It took effort to not roll her eyes. “Oh, please. We make nearly as much from our scientific breakthroughs.