“Yes,” Bastien said finally. “Yes, he has the same allergy. It runs in the family. You’d best arrange for my car to take you around.”
“Okay.”
“Now I’d best let you get to your breakfast before it gets cold. Would you put Thomas on the phone? I’ve just recalled something I forgot to mention to him.”
“Of course. Just a minute.” Lowering the phone, Inez moved to the door, unlocked it, and slid out into the hall. She hurried through the dining room and found Thomas in the sitting room, seated on one of the two love seats facing each other in front of the fireplace. He was apparently writing something down in a binder.
“Bastien wants to speak to you,” she said quietly, as she approached holding out the phone.
“Oh, thanks,” Thomas muttered, not looking at all pleased at the interruption. He set the binder on the coffee table between the love seats, and accepted the phone. “Now, go have your bath before it gets cold.”
Nodding, Inez turned away, but not before glancing curiously at the binder to see that he hadn’t been writing at all, at least not words. The binder held pages with musical tables on them, scored with musical notes scratched in bold black. He’d been writing music.
Inez pondered that and listened absently as Thomas greeted his cousin in impatient, irritated tones as she crossed back to the door. She had nearly passed into the dining room when Thomas suddenly yelped, “What?”
Inez turned back with concern, but Thomas glanced her way with wide eyes, and seeing her still there, pulled the phone from his ear and slammed it to his chest.
“It’s all right. He just surprised me. Go on, have your bath.”
Inez hesitated. His tone hadn’t sounded surprised so much as shocked, perhaps even horrified, but he was waving her away, obviously wanting privacy for his call, so she turned away to return to the bathroom.
It was none of her business, Inez told herself as she crossed the dining room. Besides, her bath would get cold if she didn’t hurry. Bastien had said to take the bath and enjoy it and he was the boss, she told herself a smile slowly spreading her lips. Breakfast in the bath…how decadent was that?
She was about to find out.
Two
“You have got to be kidding me,” Thomas said into the phone the moment he heard the bathroom door close. “You arranged for someone who doesn’t know about our people to help me find Aunt Marguerite? What were you thinking?”
“I—”
“Besides, I thought all the senior executives in Argeneau Enterprises and Argent knew about our kind,” Thomas interrupted with a frown. “Isn’t Inez a vice president or something? She should know.”
“Yes she should,” Bastien agreed quickly. “We bring anyone promoted to an executive position to Canada or New York under the pretext of a tour of the head offices. We then reveal the truth to them and read their minds repeatedly over the next week to see how they accept it. If they are able to accept the information and keep the secret, all is well and they are promoted. If not…”
Thomas grimaced, actually able to visualize his cousin shrugging. “If not…” meant the person’s memory would be wiped and they didn’t get the promotion. In fact, they’d most likely find themselves working for a different company shortly after that, hired away by a headhunter who suddenly noticed how brilliant the individual was…with a little help from an immortal. It was hard to work with someone who was horrified by what you are.
“Right,” Thomas said dryly. “So how did Inez get promoted without the indoctrination?”
“Where did you meet her, Thomas?” Bastien asked quietly.
“In New York,” Thomas answered.
Bastien rarely spent much time in the New York office, keeping Canada as his main base to work from, but the whole family had been there for Lucern and Kate’s wedding. It was where Bastien had met and briefly lost his lifemate, Terri.
“The afternoon Inez arrived, I knew she’d be tired from the flight,” Bastien informed him quietly. “So we just had the meeting to introduce her to everyone—the meeting you walked in on—and then I sent her to her hotel. I intended to indoctrinate her the next day, but Terri arrived from England and…I got distracted by her turning and everything and…” He blew his breath along the phone line. “I ended up just telling Inez she was promoted and sending her back. I called Wyatt in England and told him to just keep her away from any information that was too revealing and I’d fly over and indoctrinate her at the first chance, but then there was the trouble in California with Vincent’s saboteur, then Morgan cropped up to cause his own difficulties, and now Mother is missing and I’m trying to arrange the wedding, but now it’s a double wedding with Lucian and Leigh, and Donny is driving me absolutely mad, and—”