of things to go through his mind, feelings assailing his body. Confusion was an understatement.
“How do you like the job so far?” Nick asked, pausing to allude to the fact that they didn’t know her name.
Her response was quick, her voice clear, almost melodic. “Kalina Harper. I really like it. I’ve never worked in a law firm before so it’s a learning experience,” she responded.
“Good. We’ll have to do lunch sometime,” Nick continued. “I make it a point to know all our employees. I can’t believe I didn’t know you were hired.”
“The checks are done,” Rome interrupted gruffly. Standing, he walked around the desk and stopped in front of her. The air crackled with the tension around them. She shifted from one foot to the next. Every nerve in his body pulsated, her scent filtering through his nostrils, dripping into his system like a powerful drug. But even that wasn’t enough to mask the tendrils of pain that ebbed in the distance, the memory of suffering and fear. And something else.
“You like working in accounting?” he asked.
Her gaze met his almost defiantly as she reached for the checks in his hand. “Yes. I do.”
Lie.
His kind could smell a lie or intended deceit just as easily as they could arousal. Then again, there was a large majority of employees who didn’t like their jobs whether they worked for him or someone else. That was nothing new. Still, it alarmed him.
“May I have the checks?” she asked.
He smiled. Slow, seductive, convincing, he thought. Extending the checks to her, he kept his eyes focused solely on hers. There was something about this woman that intrigued him, turned him on, made him want her. Completely.
And what Rome wanted, Rome received.
“Here you go.” Holding the papers with both hands, he made sure she had to touch him to retrieve them. The moment her hands were close he covered them, holding her still.
It was almost painful, this immediate and intense desire for her. But it was the way she looked at him that really caught his breath. In that moment her eyes were different, the amber color lightened, and he swore he saw flashes of yellow, remnants of knowledge.
Did she know who he was? What he was? Impossible.
“Nice meeting you,” he said, smoothly releasing his grip on her.
She took a step back but didn’t take her eyes off him. Her eyes seemed normal again, her composure slowly taking charge. “Same here” was her reply before she turned, smiled at Nick, then left the office.
“Well. Well. Well.” Nick clapped his hands together and licked his lips.
“Back to work,” Rome said, more than a little agitated now.
“Work? How can you think about work when that tasty little number just left?”
“How?” Rome asked when he was back behind his desk. He lifted a file into his hands. “My client is a cruel man who lies as easily as he smiles. And his soon-to-be-ex-wife isn’t much better as she sleeps with any of his willing business partners.”
Nick picked at a piece of imaginary lint on his dark suit. “Proving my point that marriage is an institution for the clinically insane.”
Rome almost smiled even though he knew Nick was dead serious. Nick always said he’d never get married, no matter how much he liked women and loved sex. Thing was, to Rome and Nick the institution of marriage was drastically different than it was for Rome’s clients. “They’re both stubborn and selfish and self-righteous. Common sense says to just split everything and part ways, but that would be too easy.”
“And nothing with women is easy,” Nick added. “Did I tell you about the one I was seeing a couple of weeks ago?”
“Which one was that? I lose count.” And he did. Nick loved women, and that was putting it mildly. And women loved him right back. As teenagers Rome would joke it was because of Nick’s pretty-boy good looks. Nick’s mother was from Panama, her family touring one of South America’s many rain forests when she met Nick’s African American father. So Nick has a golden complexion and wavy black hair. He paid more attention to his clothes and appearance than ten women, so he was always picture-perfect. And his bank account would make Donald Trump look like the designated homeless. Yet he didn’t flaunt his wealth, didn’t use it to gain what he wanted in life; he’d never had to.
They’d both been born in the Gungi rain forest in Brazil and relocated to the States with their parents at early ages. Rome and his parents to Florida and Nick, his parents, and his sister to Texas. The two of them were the same age, with only a two-month gap that made Rome the older. The decision to move to Washington, DC, had been made by their parents at the same time as well, when both boys were four years old.
What people usually didn’t see at first glance with Nick was that he was a vicious opponent when crossed— deadly, to be precise.
Rome could claim the same about himself, but he didn’t openly. Instead, his special breeding allowed him to be an astute attorney, winning cases because he had information that nobody else did. He used his other abilities to scent the lies, assess the damage, and strike quickly, efficiently. Nobody knew who or what he and Nick really were or what they were capable of. And they planned to keep it that way.
“Very funny. Speaking of which, when was the last time you had a date?”
“What’s the point?”
“The point would be to relieve some of that tension you carry around like luggage. Damn, man, you’re not that ugly.” He chuckled. “Get out and get some for a change.”
This was an old conversation between the two of them, and Rome could see exactly where Nick was coming from. They had great stamina. And their heightened senses made the sexual experience much more intense than that of humans. He enjoyed sex, made sure the women he decided to lie with enjoyed it also. Still, Rome didn’t partake as freely as Nick did. He couldn’t afford to.
“It’s not as important to me as it is to you.”
Nick simply nodded. “Okay, so you won’t mind if I go ask that sexy new employee out to dinner?”
Without a moment’s hesitation Rome said, “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.” Each word was enunciated and spoken in the deep low timbre that more resembled a cat’s growl than a human voice.
Nick threw back his head and laughed. “Welcome back to the world of women, my friend.”
“There’s nothing here,” Kalina whispered into her cell phone.
“What do you mean nothing?” the voice on the other end asked.
It was a little after five and almost everyone on her floor was gone for the day. Each day Agent Jack Ferrell, her immediate supervisor on this case, called for a status update. In the beginning she’d thought that was strange since the previous cases she’d worked hadn’t involved Ferrell at all, even though he’d been at the MPD for almost thirty years. He was probably just nervous, watching her closely so that if she botched the investigation he could save face before the DEA brought down their entire unit. Besides, the DEA was really focusing on shutting down South American cartels. And if she could find the right information, she’d be a part of that resounding success. She would have done something extremely important, gaining a reason to be proud of herself in the process. She would be a part of something that changed the world, a huge accomplishment in her otherwise dismal life. Unfortunately, there was no one else in her life that could be proud of her as well.
“I’ve gone over all the records in QuickBooks dating back two years. I see the deductions, but the account they’re wired to is the same one we’ve already had reports on. It’s in the name of Roman Reynolds personally, and the deductions are written off the firm account as bonuses.”
“So he’s hiding additional income from the IRS?” Jack inquired.
“No.” She sighed, pushing the buttons on her keyboard to shut down her computer. “It’s all being reported. I have to tell you, Jack, he looks clean.”
“But he’s not!” he yelled into the phone.
For a second Kalina pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. In all her years in law enforcement none of her superiors had ever used that tone with her; they’d never needed to. And she wasn’t so sure she liked it.
“Look, I think being here’s a bust,” she told him finally. She wasn’t quitting, she told herself, but the way
