Vampires Are Forever (Argeneau #8)

Thomas also knew he could depend on her to step up to the plate and do what was necessary in difficult situations. Exhausted as she'd been last night, she'd accompanied him into the Red Light District to help...without either irritation or complaint. She simply did what had to be done.

Yes, she was a special woman. The fates had been kind and wise in choosing her for his lifemate. Now he just had to convince her of it.

"I've been thinking, if-"

Thomas focused his gaze on Inez, but she'd stopped speaking and sat back. Glancing to the side, he saw that the waitress was there with their orders and sat back himself for her to set them down. Once the woman was gone, he raised an eyebrow at Inez and prompted, "You were thinking?"

"Well, you said Bastien had checked Marguerite's credit card. Did he check this Tiny person's credit card as well?"

"Yes," Thomas said, his mood suddenly solemn as he was reminded of his missing aunt. "There is no activity on his cards either."

Inez nodded. "So, has he checked the cards of the guy she's working for?"

Thomas peered at her blankly. "What?"

"Well, either you or Bastien told me that the last place you knew Marguerite had been was the Dorchester Hotel? That she was there to meet with this Notte fellow who hired them to find his mother."

"Yes," Thomas said slowly. "She told Bastien they were hoping to get more information out of him, something useful to help them with their search."

"Well..." Inez shrugged. "Maybe the reason neither Tiny nor Marguerite have used their own credit cards is because this Notte guy has joined them in the search and is footing the bill."

"Jesus," Thomas breathed, staring at her. It was such a simple suggestion, but neither he nor Bastien, nor presumably anyone else in the family had come up with it.

"What's wrong?" Inez asked with a concerned frown. "You're staring at me funny."

"I'm staring at you thinking you're brilliant," he explained on a laugh and shook his head. "I can't believe you came up with that. Actually yes, I can. What I really can't believe is that not one member of our family came up with that. Christ, we're supposed to have nano brains."

Inez grinned and teased, "Would that be very tiny, little miniscule brains?"

"It would seem so," Thomas said wryly, reaching for his phone.

Inez shook her head. "That's not true, and you know it. You're all just too close to the situation and too worried. You'd have come up with it on your own eventually."

"Thankfully we'll never know if that's true because you came up with it," he said, pushing the speed dial button for Bastien and raising the phone to his ear.

Inez began to eat as he talked to his cousin and told him what she'd come up with and Thomas found himself watching. His eyes followed every movement as she lifted the food to her mouth and slipped it in and he marveled at how dainty and sexy she was about it. As tidy as a cat, he thought and smiled to himself, then forced his attention back to Bastien's words. The man was both excited by the suggestion, and full of self-disgust that he hadn't thought it up himself and saved them this wasted time.

Thomas told him not to beat himself up, pointing out what Inez had said; that they were too close to the situation and their worry had clouded their thoughts somewhat.

"Does he have a way to trace Notte's credit card?" Inez asked as he slipped his phone into his pocket.

Thomas nodded. "We have friends everywhere. And if we don't, we can send someone in to make new friends."

"You mean control them," she said dryly.

Thomas nodded in acknowledgment, but they had both stopped smiling. He was thinking about the fact that she'd been controlled and had her memory wiped, and knew she was too.

"If Marguerite isn't even here in Amsterdam, why control me and erase my memory?" Inez asked suddenly.

Thomas frowned as he tried to reason it out. "Herb said the location turned up the same the second time he checked it while you were on the way to the park. He said you should have found Aunt Marguerite there."

"But it wasn't your aunt," Inez said quietly, picking up on his train of thought and then added, "It was that mugger who had the phone in the park. He couldn't have controlled me or wiped my memory."

"No," Thomas agreed.

"So who did and why?" she asked. They were both silent for a minute, and then Inez said, "You don't suppose someone was trying to keep me from discovering that the mugger had the phone, and not Marguerite."

Thomas was so startled by the suggestion, that he dropped his fork. "Someone here in Amsterdam?"

Inez nodded.

He frowned at the idea and then said slowly, "But that would suggest that-I mean it was all just bad luck that the phone was here. Happenstance. The mortal mugged Marguerite and we followed the phone here."

"And so long as we're chasing the phone here in Amsterdam, we were on the wrong track," she pointed out.

"Yes," Thomas agreed, his own frown returning. "But if that's why you were controlled and your memory wiped..."

"Then someone doesn't want us to find your aunt," Inez finished quietly.

Chapter Eleven

"Here we are." The bellhop pushed the door open and held it with one extended arm for Inez and Thomas to precede him.

Despite the sudden nerves claiming her, Inez smiled at the man and led the way inside. She set her purse on the end table beside the sofa and moved restlessly to the row of windows, tugging the curtain open, and then peered blindly out over the twinkling lights of London at night. Her attention, however, was on the sounds behind her as the bellhop wheeled her suitcase with Thomas's knapsack on top into the room. She heard Thomas thank the man and guessed by the bellhop's cheerful response that he'd probably tipped him well for escorting them up, and then she heard the door close.

Inez didn't turn around, but stood stiffly where she was, feeling like a virgin on her wedding night. They were back at the Dorchester.

Thomas and Inez had been relaxing in Schiphol airport, waiting to board their flight out of Amsterdam, when Bastien had called with the news that he'd not only traced Notte's credit cards, but had called Christian Notte's apartment, and when he'd received an answering machine, had then tried the Notte Construction offices. It was the business where the immortal worked in Italy, fortunately, a family-run organization despite it being a multinational company. His aunt Vita had answered the phone and Bastien had learned from her that Christian was in England as was his father, though she wasn't sure exactly where the two men were. She also had no idea when they planned to return and hadn't sounded pleased about it.

Bastien had then arranged to have both men's credit cards tracked in England. He'd found a charge for two suites at the Claridge's hotel here in London the night after Marguerite had checked out of the Dorchester. He'd also found a charge for five train tickets to York, where several charges had subsequently been made, the last of them occurring just the day before.

Bastien had immediately called the hotel, hoping to verify that Marguerite had been one of the guests in the suites, but all he'd learned was that Mr. Notte had requested three of the bedrooms in the suites have twin beds.

Deciding she had to have been there, he'd then tried to arrange train tickets for Thomas and Inez to York, but their flight from Amsterdam arrived too late for them to catch a train. He'd apparently checked into flights, but that wasn't possible either, so he'd booked them into the Dorchester Hotel for the night, reserving them a two-bedroom suite. They were to take a train to the walled city early the next evening.

Thomas had passed on all of this information in solemn tones, but then his eyes had flared silver as he pointed out that it meant they had a free night to themselves.

Inez had been a nervous wreck ever since; contemplating what was to come with an anxiety that had grown with each passing moment as they waited to be called to board their flight, on the flight, and during the taxi ride to the hotel.

Now the time was nigh, Inez thought with more than a touch of panic. Really, the anticipation was horrible. She hadn't been sitting on the flight remembering what his kisses had been like and imagining what the rest would be like; Inez had spent the entire flight wishing she'd known this was coming a couple months ago so she could have chosen not to skip so many trips to the gym in favor of work. She also would have bypassed some of the muffins she'd had for breakfast, and...

The ands were endless; a manicure, pedicure, facial, body wax, body wrap...Anything that might make her look better while naked ran through her head as something she should have and would have done.

Once Inez had finished shredding any confidence she'd previously had in her body, she'd turned to her sexual technique, or lack there of. She was no virgin, but she really had neglected her social life in order to concentrate on her career, and while that had got her promoted to vice president, it had basically left her social life, or more specifically her love life, in the toilet. It had been a long time since she'd even dated anyone, let alone slept with them...A very long time. It wouldn't have hurt to pick up a book that could give her a quick refresher course.

Inez knew it was a ridiculous idea even as she had it. It wasn't like she'd forgotten what went where and so on, but perhaps there were new skills or techniques she'd never heard of. A secret spot, for instance that you could press on to make the man blind so he wouldn't notice your imperfect body.

She was grimacing at the likelihood of there being such a spot when something brushed her shoulders. Startled, Inez squealed, jumped, and whirled around, eyes wide as she saw Thomas standing there, hands raised, obviously to place them on her shoulders, eyebrows practically disappearing into his hairline at her reaction to his gentle touch.

They both stood still for a moment, and then Thomas cleared his throat and said, "Are you all right? I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm fine," Inez said at once, wincing as her voice came out a high-pitched squeak that would have done Minnie Mouse proud.

"Hmm." Thomas eyed her thoughtfully, and then said, "Well, I was going to suggest we order room service. Are you hungry?"

"Yes," she gasped, grabbing at the suggestion. Anything to delay what was coming.

"Right," he said slowly, still appearing thoughtful. "Well, why don't you look at the menu and see what you want?"

Nodding, Inez moved swiftly across the room to grab up the menu. Thomas took her place at the window, peering silently out as she made her selection. It wasn't quick. Her decision was, but then she spent a good, long time perusing everything on the room service menu at least three times in an effort to delay things. By the time Inez closed the menu, she figured she'd gained herself a good ten minutes with her dallying. And then she felt a hand on her shoulder. Inez jumped nervously, but managed not to squeal like an idiot this time.

Thomas was good enough to ignore her reaction. His voice was light as he asked, "Decided?"

Forcing a smile, Inez turned to face him, managing to take a step back as she did, and nodded. She held the book out between them and asked, "Do you need the menu?"

Thomas didn't say anything, but she could have sworn his lips twitched with amusement as he took the book.

"Thank you," he murmured and then glanced at her and suggested, "You seem a little tense. Why don't you pick your room and take a nice relaxing bath. I'll wait to place our orders so you can have a nice long soak."

"Oh, yes. That's a good idea," Inez breathed with relief at the offer. It was yet another delay as well as a chance to shave her legs again and do various other little tasks that might boost her confidence. She could have kissed the man. Instead, she caught the handle of the rolling suitcase they'd bought in Amsterdam and promptly headed out of the room.

"Inez."

She froze in the door and glanced back warily. "Yes?"

"You have to tell me what you want so I can order it," he pointed out gently.

"Oh." She gave a nervous laugh, babbled what she wanted in a rush and hurried out of the room before he could stop her again.

Inez rushed into the first room she came to, hefted her suitcase onto the luggage rack, unzipped it, and began pulling out items willy-nilly in search of what she would need for her bath. The room looked like a tornado had hit it by the time she was done, but Inez didn't care. She was stressed and didn't think she'd ever been this stressed before in her life.

She shook her head at herself as she hurried into the bathroom and dropped everything on the counter. She'd handled mergers, hostile takeover attempts, and various other business emergencies with easy aplomb, Inez thought with self-disgust as she squeezed bubble bath into the tub and turned on the taps. And it wasn't like this was her first time. She'd had sex before and never been this distressed by it all, not even her very first time. But then it hadn't ever really mattered before. She hadn't cared for anyone else like she cared for Thomas.

"What?" Inez gasped the word as she met her reflection's gaze in the mirror. But even as she asked the question, she knew it was true.

Inez had dated lots of men while at university, and then when she'd first started to work, but they'd all seemed terribly immature or even boring to her so that she'd begun to avoid dates and the whole social scene. Work had been more interesting. In effect, she'd had a love affair with her career for the last decade and hadn't met a man who could compete.

Until now.

Thomas could definitely compete. And while she'd at first thought the most attractive part of being his lifemate was the complete lack of effort needed on her part, leaving her free to continue her affair with work, her feelings were changing on the matter. Work had never made her feel the exhilaration and excitement that Thomas could with a look or a light touch, let alone the passion she experienced with his kisses. Work had never made her laugh and feel as lighthearted as she had today as they'd toured Amsterdam. And work had never made her feel beautiful and sexy as Thomas had made her feel at the Kattenkabinet when he'd said all those lovely things to her.