Chapter 12

Sleep clawed at Lynda’s eyes, and she rubbed a hand down her face. She had uploaded Andrei's data into her matchmaking system. After tweaking her questionnaire to the biological records she had on file, both systems were entwining.

“How is it you have this information on human women?” Mihnea handed her a glass of wine.

“Two reasons.” She took a sip of the alcohol. “First, people lie. I can't have some woman say she's a werewolf just to discover she has a fondness for wolves. Second, some clients do or don't want kids as part of the matchmaking service. So, the blood samples I collected from each client that are stored along with their DNA in my database helped with both issues.”

He nodded. “Smart.”

The hourglass icon on her computer kept spinning. Waiting was making her anxious. Would her system and Andrei's mesh or would it crash hers despite the precautions she'd taken in reviewing Andrei's flash drive ahead of time?

Leaning over her shoulder, Mihnea tapped the screen. “Looks like this will take a while. Come,” he held out his hand to her, “let's get you back into bed.”

Did he mean to finish what he had started in the hallway when they first got to the safe house? At that idea, a blush spread from her chest to her face.

He laughed deep and the sound rumbled in his chest. She wanted to hear him laugh like that more. “For sleep...for now. You can barely keep your eyes open, and I caught you asleep earlier.”

When she opened her mouth to protest, he laid a finger over her lips.

“No protests. You need sleep as I need to feed.” He took her hand and led her to the first door on the right. “And as much as I'd love to have sex and blood from you, you're not fully recovered from helping Andrei.”

She glanced behind her. “Speaking of him, where is your brother?”

“Both he and Pierre are hunting for the vamps that attacked him. Father is with them.”

Inside his bedroom, a massive four-poster mahogany bed took up the entire room except for a narrow walkway to a bathroom and a closet. Cerulean bedcovers were folded down as if welcoming her to bed.

The walls were white and plain, but the yellow curtains around the medieval-style bed had been tied back.

“Sleep. I won't leave until the others return.”

She rubbed her sore neck. As long as none of them left her alone with Dracula, then she might be able to sleep. “Thanks.”

Crawling into bed, her eyes closed, and she fell asleep as soon as Mihnea tucked the covers around her.

Hours later, she woke up from a dream where Vlad shoved her onto a pike and paraded her through the city. Her stomach ached like she really had been impaled. Mihnea lay beside her, quiet and still.

“What time is it?” She climbed out of the bed and pushed aside the bed curtains. The room was so dark with no windows she couldn't tell if it was day or night. Though with Mihnea asleep, that meant that it was daytime.

She opened the bedroom door and stepped out, closing it behind her. On the side table beside the couch was a covered tray. A note in front read:

Lynda, help yourself to the food. I made it last night while you were sleeping and thought you might be hungry.

Love, Pierre She lifted the silver dome and took out a huge chocolate Danish. The buttery sweet taste made her moan. Settling in front of her laptop, she checked the data merge. Ninety-three percent complete. Once it was finished, it would give her results. Her stomach churned, and she set aside the pastry. In a few hours, there would be matches for Andrei, Pierre, and Mihnea and she'd be out of their lives as the three princes would try to repopulate their vampire clan with day-walkers.

The time on her laptop showed two in the afternoon. She answered emails from clients then put her out-of-office notification on. Taking a vacation to the Bahamas to relax and recover while she tried to get her life back on track and bury these feelings for these three vamps that threatened to sweep her away seemed like a good idea. Her feelings meant nothing. Soon they'd forget her and move on to one of the other women who would match them and have the greatest chance of reproducing.

She wiped a tear away. This was why she had refused to fall in love and had detailed compatibility reports. Why fall in love with someone when it was doomed from the beginning?

Her laptop beeped at her.

Results of compatibility.

Emotional: 5,620

Physical: 80,239

Intellectual: 148,612

That was all good even though it made her chest ache.

Now she needed to break the results down further merging the original parameters with the biological makeup to the potential candidates with the best chance of success for reproduction.

She entered the code.

Ready to execute Her hand hovered over the enter key. Once Dracula and his sons knew this information, they'd leave her. Vlad could jump off a cliff as far as she was concerned, but how would she cope with Pierre, Mihnea and Andrei walking away and forgetting her?

But if she messed up the results or wiped them out in order to stay the center of three vamps’ attention then how would she face herself?

She rose and paced between the couch and the laptop. Everything inside her wanted things to remain how they were. As outrageous as it sounded, she wanted to make love with each of them. Her, a woman who hadn't dated in years because of her career and feared to fall in love with the wrong person, was now addicted to three vampires.

Boy, Lynda when you go off the deep end, you really take a flying leap.

Her computer flashed the message again that her database was ready. Maybe this was better. Finding out the truth she'd pushed aside to pursue her passion. A lesson that she should never have let her guard down. Never have opened her heart even a fraction until everything lined up like she told countless clients. Beauty, lust, and newness faded which was why so many relationships ended in disaster. Levels of compatibility mattered. Science and data, not feelings and emotions were the keys to longer-lasting bonds.

Her gaze drifted to the three bedrooms, and she pressed a hand to her chest. What kind of person was she if she couldn't practice what she preached when life got tough?

She plopped down in front of the laptop and hit the enter key. Nausea rolled through her. Taking several deep breaths to calm down, she watched the hourglass turn.

At least this report shouldn't take as long as the first one, but that didn't make her calm down any more.

She forced herself to have another bite of her pastry despite her stomach clenching.

Her cell phone buzzed, and she choked. “Hello?”

“Thank God you're alright,” her friend Julie said, “you missed brunch with Jasmine and her entourage.”

The woman who gave millions to Lynda’s competition, yet still invited her to asinine fundraisers. She tempted Lynda with money then gave her pennies while the big corporations got thousands of dollars.

But with Andrei’s promise, Lynda wouldn’t have to bow to Jasmine’s whims any longer. She’d have enough money to open more locations and pay off her debts and never have to listen to Jasmine whine about how no one could find her a match that lasted longer than six months.

Lynda held back a laugh. Maybe because the perfect man didn’t exist who could tolerate a self-inflated bimbo who got bored easily?

“Sorry about that.” Lynda stretched. “I have a new client—clients, and I’ve postponed all my appointments until later.” Until she could get over losing three guys who were devoted to her while she could help them. How fast would they turn away once they got the list of potential females they could try to break the curse with and have dozens of children from? She swallowed down the bile that burned her throat.

“Oh, must be big spenders. Anyone, I know?”

She wasn’t ready to share Andrei, Pierre, or Mihnea with anyone yet. Hell, she couldn’t even get over the thought that she’d probably never see them again without tears scorching the back of her eyes and her throat closing up.

“No, just clients that wish to remain anonymous.” Her laptop dinged, and she had to get off the phone and review the data, even if the thought of it made her nauseous. “Hey, let me call you back later, I’ve got a ton of paperwork to finish.”

She hated lying, but Julie would be able to tell something was off if she kept talking.

“Sure. I’ll touch base with you on Sunday?”

“Right.” Lynda forced a smile hoping her voice would sound light over the phone. “We’ll catch up then.”

She clicked the phone off and sat down in front of the computer. Her hands clapped over her cheeks as she leaned forward to read the outcomes.

Compatibility using biological data only Andrei: 1 match Mihnea: 1 match Pierre: 1 match Well, at least it wasn’t dozens of women. Lynda shook her head as her nausea gave way to dizziness and she wanted to throw her laptop across the room. It didn’t matter if it was a hundred women or a thousand or a million, the idea that these three vampires would potentially love a woman that wasn’t her and make love to them set her grinding her teeth.

But she had to know. She couldn’t turn over the information without knowing who the three lucky women were.

She pressed the enter key.

Andrei: Lynda Garcia Mihnea: Lynda Garcia Pierre: Lynda Garcia “What?” she leaped up from the couch her heart soared, but her mind threw questions at her. How could she be a match for all three of them? There were hundreds of women with her name, maybe thousands. So why had the computer picked this one for all three men? Was it a coincidence that three different women had the same name for all of them? It had to be a mistake. One that might cost her her life if Dracula discovered the error before she could figure out what went wrong.