Mia's Return Read Free Page A

doing the mental math.
    “Mia,” he began and stopped, mentally
cursing. He’d just confirmed he was who she thought he was. Until
that moment there had remained the possibility of pretending she’d
made an embarrassing mistake. It would have killed him to do it and
it would have hurt her, but it would have been a way out. That
chance was gone now.
    He closed his eyes. What a fucking
disaster. He opened them again and took a last look at her.
Beautiful Mia. She was starting to realize there was something
dreadfully wrong. Horror was creeping into her expression. He
needed to leave before she began to look at him like the monster he
was.
    He turned and walked away, moving fast.
As soon as he reached the corridor between the elevator banks, he
ducked between them and moved faster. She would never catch him
once he reached the service stairs door, for he knew the basement
area well. Plus, once he was out of sight of humans he could use
vampire speed. He would make sure she didn’t catch him.
    He had to.
* * * * *
    When Shamira realized she had lost him
in the crowd, she turned and leaned against the cool marble wall
and caught her breath, feeling her feet throb in her Jimmy Choos.
They had been the perfect shoes for the interview but right now
she’d give them away for a pair of Reebok sneakers.
    Alexander. Her mind whispered
the name, even as she tried to distract herself with thoughts of
shoes, interviews and fashion. Usually, fashion and shopping were
more than adequate distractions on their own. Hell, she’d flown up
from D.C. for a two-day shopping trip instead of flying straight
back to San Diego after the interview. What had she been
thinking? Two days shopping on Fifth Avenue? She’d grown moist and
perky just thinking about it. She was shallow and superficial—
    “Stop it, Mia, why are you doing this?”
she whispered, rolling her head back against the marble, her eyes
stinging. Truth was, she didn’t want to think about him, but she
could still feel his warmth where she’d rested her hand against his
chest. Alexander le Croix. The man she’d obsessed about since she
was sixteen. The man who had bent her over her kitchen counter at
eighteen, pushed a hand between her legs and whispered in her
ear.
    Her heart hurried along just at the
memory of it and the memory was a decade old.
    Alexander had been mixed up with the
people her brothers had hung with. Her brothers had been edging
into gang business but Alexander wasn’t part of the gangs, oh no.
He was higher up, at the business end of affairs, moving with the
silent men who listened a lot and spoke less, except to say yes or
no. They dealt with amounts of money in a single transaction that
would have made most folk in San Diego go white and tremble in
shock if they learned of it. These were the sort of men who used
the gangs as tools—commodities to move around the chessboard to
complete their business.
    Like all of them, Alexander spoke
seldom but watched and listened, his blue eyes moving around the
room and measuring people, anticipating them. The first time she
has seen him was when Juan had brought him to the trailer to pick
up something Juan had hidden beneath his bunk in an anonymous bag.
Shamira had learned long before not to ask questions.
    She had been doing homework at the
kitchen table and tried to go back to it but her heart squeezed to
a stuttering stop as the man with the blue eyes and dark red hair
stared at her while he stood at the front door of the
double-wide.
    “Why don’t you shut the door and keep
the cool air inside?” she suggested, trying to sound calm.
    He shut it and lifted a brow in a
silent question.
    “Thanks,” she said stiffly and went
back to work…or tried to. She couldn’t settle to it but refused to
look back up, because she was almost certain the man was looking at
her, still. When Juan came back to the front door where he stood,
she allowed herself to look up and was glad to see the man was
looking at Juan. She