Читать книгу Wolf In Waiting - Rebecca Flanders - Страница 8

Victoria

When Noel was gone, I pressed my hands to my cheeks and desperately tried to control the quick, hot beating of my heart, knowing that he could hear it and hoping that he would attribute it to anxiety, uncertainty, guilt, anything except what it was.

Noel Duprey. Noel with golden blond hair, quick green eyes, sharp, patrician features, wicked grin and irresistible sex appeal. Noel Duprey, the standard against which all others were measured, the strongest, the quickest, the bravest, the smartest and the most noble of all our kind. Noel Duprey, the future leader of all our people. Noel Duprey, on whom I had had a crush since I was ten years old.

Even as a boy there had been something special about him. He’d excelled at sports and scholastic competitions, running second only to Michael St. Clare in every important test in his level. Even then he’d had hangers-on and admirers, and the young girls had been shameless about him. But despite his exalted status, he was never too busy to play with the younger members of the clan, and he was one of the few boys who had never teased or tormented me. In fact, on more than one occasion, he had actually been nice to me.

That kind of nobility of character, I supposed, was one of the reasons he would someday lead us all.

I had been there for the battle of succession. The event was so spectacular, so unprecedented, that the entire St. Clare Corporation had shut down its offices all over the world for the day—the stock market had plummeted—and even underlings like me had been given the opportunity to see history in the making.

Michael St. Clare, Sebastian St. Clare’s son, had been a brilliant man with every indication that he would carry on the St. Clare tradition of inspired leadership—except for one thing. He did not want to be leader. He did not even, the rumormongers whispered, particularly like being a St. Clare. When he finally announced his intentions to turn his back on his legacy and, in fact, on his very nature, for the love of a human woman, many said it had been inevitable.

Of course someone had to challenge his right to succession, though how it came about that Noel was the one to do so I was not exactly sure. I only know that I watched the violent battle with my heart in my throat and when Noel, poised to strike the killing blow, had instead turned and helped his adversary to his feet, my eyes had flooded with tears of joy and breathless admiration. Four thousand years of civilization had triumphed over the nature of the beast and had taken the form of Noel Duprey. He was the man to take us into the twenty-first century, the embodiment of honor and reason, intelligence and fair play. May he live forever.

And now this magnificent creature, this most exalted one of all our kind, had come to me. And the truth was, he wasn’t all that magnificent up close.

Physically, of course, he was as striking as ever. But he was just as autocratic, just as long-nosed and arrogant as any of the St. Clares had ever been, and I had somehow expected more of him. Why, I couldn’t be sure, but I had.

This was hardly the first time I had been disappointed in anyone, however, and I did not spend a great deal of time fretting over it. The only thing I had to figure out now was why he had sought me out. Or perhaps more specifically, why Sebastian St. Clare himself had done so.

Unfortunately, I thought I already knew. A job offer from the Gauge Group and special attention from Castle St. Clare itself all in the same day? It could hardly be coincidence.

After all, even Cinderella only got one shot at the ball.

I had nothing from my desk to pack, and exactly fifteen minutes later I stepped out of the elevator that opened onto the executive suite. Immediately my ears picked up the gentle hiss of the white-noise machines, which were the only method of screening voices from the inner offices from sharp werewolf ears. I could not imagine what kind of business Noel Duprey could be conducting here that would require that kind of secrecy.

The woman at the receptionist’s desk was human, and I knew her. I had that much in common with Michael St. Clare—I found it very easy to make friends with humans, even though members of my own kind considered me standoffish and strange.

“Hi, Sara,” I said as I approached the desk. I lowered my voice a little, knowing that it wouldn’t matter how loudly I spoke with the white-noise machines running. “Any idea what’s going on?”

Sara shook her head, short brown curls bouncing, though her eyes were bright with excitement. “I think they swept the place for bugs, though.” And she giggled at the face I made. “The electronic kind, not the crawly kind. And Mr. Stillman was highly upset to be put out of his office, which is now your office by the way. Are you being promoted?”

I was impressed…and a little intimidated. Greg Stillman was head of an entire department.

I said, “Um, I don’t think so. More like temporarily reassigned.”

She gave another bouncy nod of her head, as though that confirmed what she’d suspected. “Well, Mr. Gorgeous in there has got everybody jumping around like their tails are on fire and from what I can gather, he’s not telling anyone what’s going on. Even Georgette doesn’t know.”

Georgette was the private secretary to Paul Esteban, Sr., vice president in charge of the entire division.

“Who is he, anyway?” Sara wanted to know.

“Mr. Gorgeous?” I couldn’t prevent a grin. I rather liked that nickname. “He’s the new CEO.”

“Of Clare de Lune?”

“Of the entire St. Clare Corporation.”

“Whoa.” Now Sara looked impressed. “I guess we’d better act sharp then.”

“I guess.”

“By the way, he wanted to—”

The door across the room swung open and Noel Duprey stood there, larger than life and twice as gorgeous, a ferocious frown on his face. “Ms. St. Clare,” he said. He had a powerful voice; it practically rang across the room. “If you can spare a moment?”

“See you as soon as you arrived,” Sara concluded quickly and, shrinking down a little in her chair, turned back to her computer screen.

Before the angry visage of the future leader of our people, I would have liked to shrink down, too. I was not human, though, and had no choice but to square my shoulders and precede Noel into his office.

His office was actually the executive conference room. It smelled richly of Earl Grey tea, walnut oil furniture polish and Noel. A faint trace of human sweat lingered in the air from the movers who had been engaged in transforming the space from conference room to office, as well as the aroma of old ash from the fireplace, and copy paper, and the subtle machine scent of a small computer…and Noel. Snow melting on wool. Highly polished leather. Silk. The color of sunshine which was his hair. Power, authority, refinement, maleness. The essence of Noel. It permeated every surface, tantalized every sense. I thought irrelevantly that if we could bottle that scent, we would rule the planet.

Pale blue damask draperies were swept back from the floor-to-ceiling windows, flooding the room with brilliant, snow-reflected sunlight. In one corner of the enormous room stood two small damask-upholstered chairs, in the other, a mahogany and brass grandfather clock. In the center of the wall was a glass china cabinet displaying a collection of Spode ceramic ware; flanking it were two Rothko paintings. The room was elegant, airy and, at present, so empty it echoed.

The thick rose carpeting bore the indentation marks of an enormous table and twelve chairs, though how they had been dismantled and moved so quickly I couldn’t begin to guess. Noel’s briefcase was open on the floor in front of the two small chairs; a cup of tea and his laptop computer rested on the marble hearth of the fireplace, which was dark and cold-looking. Apparently he had been too busy sending the staff into a frenzy to think of ordering office furniture, or even of lighting a fire.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I murmured, glancing around.

He ignored me, and walked across the room to the two chairs. “Come and sit down. I’ve called a meeting for two o’clock, and we have a lot to discuss before then. You might want to inform your human friends, by the way, that the white-noise screen only works one way. From inside this office I can hear everything that goes on outside.”

I had noticed the absence of the white noise the minute I entered the office, of course, but I hadn’t registered its significance until now. So, he had heard the comment about Mr. Gorgeous. I wondered whether he had been flattered or offended and decided, from the expression on his face, that it was the latter. I was disappointed. I had expected, for some reason, that my idol would have had more of a sense of humor.

I said, “You’re spying on them? Why?”

“That’s one of the things we have to discuss.”

He picked up his laptop from the hearth and sat down with it in one of the chairs, tapping on the keyboard. I followed him slowly, listening to the sounds from outside the room that were no longer screened from my sensitive ears.

“It’s not just humans,” I observed, “but werewolves, too. Why would you want to spy on your own team? Unless you enjoy hearing Stillman whine about how badly he’s being treated. It’s not as though I asked for his office, you know, and I really don’t need any more enemies here.”

Noel looked up in surprise. “You can hear him?”

“Can’t you?”

“But he’s in the cafeteria. That’s six floors away.”

I thought it best not to respond to that. I had always known that my hearing was above average, even for a werewolf, but thought it best not to advertise the fact. There were some advantages to being consistently under-estimated by one’s co-workers—and enemies—and I had not yet decided which one Noel was.

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said abruptly, “There is a traitor in our midst. Over the past four months, the formulas for five new Clare de Lune products have ended up in the hands of the competition. We believe the leak is coming from this office.”

My knees folded and I sank heavily to the chair, staring at him. “Tango and Cobalt,” I said softly. “I wondered why they were pulled at the last minute.”

Again he looked surprised, but his tone was brisk and matter-of-fact. “Just so. Sanibel beat us to the market by three weeks with both of them.”

My eyes grew wider, betraying my own astonishment—and horror. Sanibel! Jason Robesieur handled the Sanibel account. Jason, with whom I regularly lunched; Jason, who less than an hour ago had offered me a job…

I was beginning to understand why I had been singled out for attention from Castle St. Clare. And it was worse than I had imagined.

I braced myself for the accusations, but Noel went on, “Obviously this situation has to be handled as quickly and as quietly as possible. Recent events…” And he hesitated only slightly there. “…have made the matter of morale a top priority.”

I couldn’t help wondering which “recent events” he might be referring to. The battle for succession, Michael’s defection, the insanity in New Orleans? Perhaps all of them? One thing was certain, if it became common knowledge that the company was being threatened and that the threat came from inside our ranks…well, it was unthinkable. Chaos would erupt. Morale would grow too low to measure. It was bad enough that such a thing could have happened, but it must never, ever become public knowledge.

“It almost has to be a werewolf, doesn’t it?” I said, thinking out loud. “The humans are watched closely, and one of us would have been sure to overhear something before now. And no one but a werewolf would have access to formulas—ad campaigns, maybe, facts and figures and lower-level material, but formulas…” And I gave a slow, disbelieving shake of my head. “It has to be one of us.”

Noel looked both surprised and annoyed at my quick grasp of the situation. “That would seem to be the case, yes,” he said. “Although it never pays to eliminate the obvious. I should point out, by the way, that in my experience it’s not a good idea to associate too closely with one’s inferiors.”

At first I bristled, and then I understood. He had overheard my conversation with Sara, and he disapproved of our friendship.

“Then why are you associating with me?” I asked.

His expression, perfectly bland, showed not a hint of apology. “I thought I had made that clear.”

“Because you were ordered to?”

“Yes.”

My lips compressed tightly; I did not trust myself to speak. I barely trusted myself to think, but Noel must have read my thoughts anyway because he said, “I’ve studied your personnel file. I’m aware that you have had a singularly undistinguished career here at Clare de Lune, with no particular talent that qualifies you for this assignment. I’m also aware of your friendship with Jason Robesieur, and the fact that he is the account executive for Sanibel’s new products division. It might interest you to know that I’m aware he offered you a position with his company and yes, you are high on my list of suspects.”

He held me with his gaze for a moment, allowing that to sink in. Then he went on, “I don’t know why Sebastian appointed you to work with me, although I have my suspicions. Blood is thicker than water, after all, and I would be a fool to assume that, while I’m tracking down a spy, I’m not myself being spied upon. That, after all, is the essence of the espionage game.”

He paused then, ran his long, slim fingers through the silky fall of his hair and added, “Having said all of that, I came prepared to work with you and work with you I shall…until you give me reason to change my attitude.”

I could barely keep myself from gaping at him. I pressed the palms of my hands against my crossed knees and spoke very deliberately, “Let me make sure I understand. You don’t like me. You don’t trust me. You suspect me, at best, of being a St. Clare spy, at worst of being the very traitor I’m supposed to help you find. You don’t think I’m qualified for the job. And yet you are prepared to take me into your confidence regarding the most sensitive matter that the company has faced in decades?”

He regarded me steadily. “I didn’t say that. I said I would work with you.”

I swallowed back a hot retort. “Do you mind if I ask exactly what you expect me to do?”

He returned with no hesitation whatsoever, “Whatever I tell you to.”

My hands pressed down more tightly on my knees. “I see.”

With only the slightest evidence of capitulation in his voice, he added, “I expect you might be useful as a liaison, of sorts, between myself and this office. You know the people and the routine. I’m sure you’ll be able to serve some function as an adviser.”

He could hardly have chosen a less propitious person for that job, as he would know if he had taken the trouble to find out anything about me that was not listed in my personnel file. No one confided in me here—no one of any importance, anyway—and no one knew less, or cared less, about the people in this office than I did. However, I was not about to enlighten the great Noel Duprey, who knew so much and saw so much and who was obviously never wrong. Let him find out for himself.

He glanced at the gold watch on his wrist and said, “Now, if we could move on…?”

I leaned back in the chair. “By all means.”

Noel tapped a few more keys on his computer. “We’re in the first stages of developing a new fragrance. If all goes well, we expect to introduce it by Christmas. Here’s the timetable.”

He turned the computer screen around and I leaned forward a little to read it. I was sure I must have only imagined that his eyes dropped to the swell of my breast as I did so.

I murmured, “Moonsong.” I arched an eyebrow in surprise as I studied the timetable. “That’s pretty ambitious.”

“More than you know.” He swiveled the computer to face him again. “Moonsong is more than a perfume, it’s a revolution in perfumery. What alpha-hydroxy did for face creams, Moonsong will do for the perfume industry.”

I sat back, my expression patient and interested. In fact, a graphic was already forming in my head: Moonsong, A Revolution in Fragrance. No. Moonsong. A Revolution in Fantasy. And in the background, a moon in a blue-black sky spins slowly through its cycles. Not bad, I thought.

Noel went on, “Moonsong contains a unique ingredient that’s impossible to patent, which is why security on this project is so important…and why it will no doubt prove impossible for our traitor to resist.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding. “It’s a trap.”

Noel paused one revealing moment. “In all important respects,” he answered, “Moonsong is exactly what it appears to be—the most important new product to be introduced to the perfume industry in the twentieth century. My job—our job,” he corrected himself almost without hesitation, “is to track every phase of every step associated with its production for signs of an information leak. We begin with the meeting I’ve called—senior account execs and above only.”

Which was another way of saying no humans. That was one way to narrow the field.

“How are you going to explain me?” I asked pragmatically.

He looked at me blankly.

I gestured. “The fancy office, the secret meetings, the special attention…People are going to talk.”

He scowled, clearly irritated to have overlooked that detail. He turned to the computer and began tapping out numbers again. “Hell, I don’t care. Tell them you’re my consort.”

My cheeks grew warm. To his credit, he realized his mistake immediately and looked up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though somewhat stiffly. I supposed he wasn’t accustomed to apologizing for much. “That was tactless.”

It had never occurred to me to wonder whether or not he knew of my status as an anthromorph; it was hardly a secret, and he had access to all of my records, medical and personal, for as far back as he wished to go. Besides, I had been told, though whether it was true or not I couldn’t say, that the scent of anthromorphs is different from that of regular werewolves. Still, knowing that he knew and knowing that I knew he knew were two entirely different matters, and I found it embarrassing to have the subject out in the open.

Apparently he did, too, because he said brusquely, “We’ll tell them you’re my personal secretary. Excuse me, administrative assistant.”

My eyes widened. “But that’s a demotion.”

“Exactly.” He gave a satisfied nod of his head. “No one will question that. After all, you’re not exactly blazing a trail in your present position, are you?”

I inhaled slowly through flared nostrils, but released the breath silently. I supposed, given his opinion of me, I was lucky to have a job at all.

“That’s all for now,” he said. “Bring a pad and pencil to the meeting.”

I rose. “I don’t take shorthand,” I told him coolly.

He looked surprised. “I didn’t expect you would. We have voice recorders for that. However, you might as well look as though you have a function.”

I decided then and there he was probably the most obnoxious man who had ever lived. I moved toward the door.

“By the way,” he said without looking up, “I did order office furniture. It should be here within the hour.”

I turned, a small supercilious smile on my lips. “Then where,” I inquired politely, “will we have the meeting? This used to be our conference room, after all.”

I stayed just long enough to see that he hadn’t thought of that, and then left him to find a solution—alone.