Romani Armada (11 page)

Deonne did cry out as she came, but there was a taint to her pleasure she couldn’t put a complete shape to. It sat uneasily in the back of her mind, bothering her.

Chapter Eight

Stockholm, Sweden, 2264 A.D.:
It took a while for Deonne to come around and even when she was awake it took her a moment to recognize the quiet electronic signal coming from the phone on the nightstand next to her borrowed bed. She turned on the light and examined the phone’s controls, then hit the button that looked like it might be the answer button. It was glowing green, a universal “go” signal.

The signal stopped and was replaced by the soft background noise of sound being carried by air signals. “Hello?” she tried.

“Ms. Rinaldi, it’s Kieren. I have a visitor in the foyer, who wants to speak to you.”

“Me?” She sat up straighter and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She saw that the other side of the bed was empty and mentally shrugged. Once she was asleep Justin rarely stayed with her, although he often returned to the bed before she woke. “Everyone who knows I’m in Stockholm just spoke to me at the agency this afternoon.”

“You were seen on a global netcast,” Kieren reminded her. “Your father left for Sweden as soon as he saw you, he says.”

Your father.
Deonne clutched the edges of the bed, her gut churning hot and her breath shortening in a way that made her feel sick. She fought to control the reaction. “My father is here? That’s who you have in the lobby?”

“He says he is your father,” Kieren replied cautiously. “He has genetic markers…he looks like you. If you would turn on your screen you could identify him.”

No, thank you.
She held back her first instinctive response. He’d come out from Switzerland on the first available semi-ballistic? There would be another in an hour or so. He could go right back.

Instead, she picked out the icon for the viewscreen on the pad and pressed it. A two inch by three inch color image of Kieren appeared on the pad. He gave her a small smile and the image shifted. A man moved into view. Silver hair that was once quite blond like hers, blue eyes that were also fading like his hair, but still sharp with intelligence. The face had fine lines, but the jaw was still defined. Christopher Wren Rinaldi may have failed to raise the necessary funds for DNA rejuvenation, but he saw no need to stint himself on every orthodox therapy available that would help him keep his youth and vitality.

Deonne sighed. “Hello, Father. You’d better come up.”

* * * * *

Deonne got dressed and put her hair up in a simple knot in the few minutes it took for Kieren to escort her father to the door of the apartment.

In those few minutes she also figured out that Justin wasn’t in the apartment. It was empty and silent. He had left while she was sleeping. Kieren would know where he was because that was his job. She made a mental note to ask him in a moment when her father would not overhear.

The door chimed as she was staring at her reflection, considering whether she should bother with makeup or not. The door alarm decided her. It was nearly four in the morning. She had honored her father enough by getting dressed. At this hour he was expecting far too much if he really thought she should have a full application of beauty products as well.

She applied instant lip color, sealed it and called it done. Then she went to answer the door.

Kieren had sent the door’s security code to her personal reader, so she didn’t have to ask him through the door for the code. She tapped out the sequence and heard the tumblers drop heavily. It was a reassuring sound.

Kieren nodded as she opened the door. “Sorry to wake you, Ms. Rinaldi. He was insistent.”

“That’s alright. I’m getting used to vampires being up at any hour. Where is he?”

Kieren stepped back. “A second identification, if you don’t mind?” He looked to his left. “If you’ll step toward the door, sir?”

“I assure you, I’m quite harmless.” Her father’s rich, educated tenor filled the hallway. Then Christopher Rinaldi himself stepped into view and turned to face her. “Good evening, Deonne. Please tell this man I’m who I say I am so we can get this silly nonsense over with?”

Deonne’s gut tightened. It was just like her father to insist he be treated differently from everyone else. He’d always sought for recognition, preferably adulation. Being handled like a stranger and a mild threat, too, would offend his finely tuned instincts regarding rank and privilege.

So she raised a brow. “You barged in here at the crack of dawn. What did you expect? A champagne cocktail welcome?”

“In Sweden? Do they even have a decent champagne here?” He looked at Kieren. “May I enter? I would like to kiss my daughter hello and warm up the welcome I’ve received so far.”

“Father,” Deonne snapped. “Kieren is doing his job and you’re not making it any easier with snide comments like that.”

Christopher smiled dryly at Kieren. “My apologies. It has been a long night so far.”

Kieran’s blue eyes were expressionless, but his square jaw was very stiff as he gave a short nod. He looked at Deonne. “Should I wait here,” he asked, “or the foyer?”

Deonne kept her own expression just as neutral as Kieran’s, but she wanted to hug him. He had read enough into her short conversation with her father, that he was offering to hover in the corridor and escort her father off the premises in short order…if she wanted him to.

“I should be fine, thank you, Kieren,” she told him. “Please make yourself comfortable for whatever is left of the night.”

Kieran’s hand dropped down to his hip, where the high powered all-way communications bud was clipped. “You know how to reach me if you need me.”

“Thank you, yes. Good night, Kieren.”

“Night, ma’am.” He gave a deeper nod to her. “I’ll wait until the door is locked once more.” He stood back to let her father in.

Christopher stepped into the apartment and Deonne shut the door and locked it. Then she took a deep breath and turned to face him.

He was examining the apartment, wandering around the main room and studying the furniture and fixtures, much as she had done a few hours before. But she had not picked things up and put them back with a little moue of disapproval, nor had she worn the slightly disparaging air.

“The Scandinavian thing is somewhat passé as a form of décor, isn’t it?” he asked, turning to face her.

“Not in Scandinavia.” She crossed her arms. “You didn’t hop a semi-ballistic just to critique my accommodations, father.”

He gave a last look out the windows and swiveled to face her, one hand on his hip under the heavy overcoat he wore. There would still be snow coverage in the Alps, of course. “You haven’t communicated with the family in over three years, Deonne. You very nearly disappeared except for rumors here and there of your doings. After years of silence, you find it odd that I would want to visit my daughter when I finally get a solid lead on her location?”

“Yes, I do,” she shot back. “Today isn’t the first time I’ve been on the nets. You could have dropped everything and dashed to see me at any time over the last three years. Why now, all of a sudden?”

“You’ve been mysteriously absent from the nets for a while.” He lifted a brow at her reaction. “Ah, you thought I hadn’t been paying attention. For nearly six months you all but vanished after appearing regularly on all the hottest links.”

Deonne drew in a long, slow inhalation. “And what has that got to do with anything? My career is my business. You went to great lengths to make sure I understood I was to stand on my own two feet. Well, I’m standing on them just fine, no thanks to you.”

“I encouraged your independence,” he told her. “That isn’t the same thing as severing all ties to the family.”

“
What
family? There’s only you and you haven’t exactly screamed about my silence until now.” She gave him a stiff smile. “Or are you really going to try to convince me that Petronella misses me?”

His third wife was younger than Deonne and a cliché in looks, self-centeredness and intelligence. Deonne couldn’t stand the vapid, childlike woman and had no idea how Petronella felt about her. She frankly didn’t care.

Christopher frowned. “Petronella is my wife. You will speak about her with the respect she is due.”

“Because she married you?” Deonne laughed. “Why
are
you here? Don’t lie this time, father, or I
will
call Kieren back and have you tossed out of the building and be damned to your dignity or that fine coat you’re wearing.”

He smoothed a hand down the coat, telling her he was proud of the garment. He was as much of a clotheshorse as she was. Of course—she was like him. She had grown up hearing how much she looked like her father and how much like him she was. When she was a teenager, she had been ready to commit murder in order to prove exactly how much she
wasn’t
like him.

The years since and a lot of distance had confirmed that she had inherited her father’s drives and genes. That was unavoidable. But there were certain personality traits she had worked for years to subvert and suppress, if not change altogether.

Her father looked at her now with a gentle expression. “Dee, please. I’ve come a long way. Can you drop the shield for a while?”

Deonne hesitated. That warm expression of his. She recalled that from long ago, when they had sat in his study, watching the nets and discussing her week, over hot chocolate on a Sunday morning. A throb of homesickness for days gone by swept through her.

The tumblers on the front door of the apartment turning and unlocking sounded unnaturally loud in the silence spinning between them. Deonne turned to face the door, almost surprised by the sound, which seemed to break the little spell. Worse, she saw annoyance flicker across her father’s face, which told her how close she been to letting herself be sold by his false warmth and sentimentality.

Again.

Justin strolled in like it was the middle of the day, not close to dawn. He showed no surprise to see Christopher in the main room, or Deonne up and dressed. He walked straight over to Deonne and kissed her temple. “I’m sorry I stayed out so late. Miss me?” He looked into her eyes and smiled one of his warmest smiles. Unlike her father’s, Justin’s smile was real and the warmth genuine.

Deonne scrambled to understand what Justin was doing. He had never,
never
openly greeted her this way in front of anyone before. Now, with her father in the room—

Kieren
. Kieren had warned Justin. Justin was offering her…what? Protection? Moral support? Both, she decided.

She smiled back at him, genuinely touched, then looked at her father.

Christopher Rinaldi was scowling.

Justin nodded at him. “Under the circumstances, it would be stupid to pretend I don’t know who you are. Kieren is the very best at what he does and he wouldn’t let a stranger into this room if I wasn’t here. So I know who you are. That puts you at the disadvantage.” He stepped away from Deonne and looked at her. “I’ll leave it up to you if and how you introduce me.”

“Of course she’s going to tell me who you are,” Christopher said. “Considering the way you just greeted her, I think I deserve a name at the very least.”

Justin gave him a small smile. “Given the reason you’re here, you should consider yourself lucky if Deonne gives you that much.”

Deonne had spent years watching her father deal with business associates and clients, studying his face and the different expressions he used to soothe, to manipulate. She had unconsciously found herself using many of them when she had first started out in professional communications, until she had learned to recognize what it was she had been doing and use the techniques deliberately.

So now she watched her father hide the surprise that raced across his face and adjust his expression to show a swiftly growing anger instead. “How dare you…!” he spluttered and let the sentence dangle.

There was enough fury and implied threat than any normal man would have leapt to fill the unfinished sentence.

But Justin wasn’t a normal man. He simply stood and waited her father out.

Christopher looked at Deonne. “Who is this…
man
…you’re cavorting with?” he demanded.

It had been her intention, initially, to introduce Justin simply by his name and perhaps explain his status as a vampire later, when she better understood the strange currents Justin had brought swirling into the room. The disdain in her father’s voice changed her mind. She kept her tone neutral. “A friend,” she said simply.

Christopher’s faded blue eyes locked with hers. “I see,” he said, his voice as level as hers. She recognized that tone. He was mentally rolling up his sleeves and prepared to fight this out.

He looked at Justin. “I would like time alone with my daughter. I have travelled a great distance to be with her.”

Deonne snorted. “You hopped on the next available semi-ballistic. It didn’t even dent your pocket change. Why do people make sitting in a chair sound like such a hardship? Distance is just distance. It’s not like you were deprived of food or water. You probably sucked back schnapps while you were in free fall.”

Christopher didn’t shift his gaze from Justin. “Nevertheless, I did travel here specifically to seek Deonne out and speak to her. Alone.”

Justin touched her arm. “Deonne?”

She knew what he was asking. “I would rather you stay, please,” she told him.

Justin looked at Christopher and shrugged. “I don’t know you. I know Deonne better than anyone on this hemisphere of the world right now. I will do what she asks over and above anything you might request of me.”

Christopher’s jaw flexed and his gaze grew icy. “Are you, or are you not a vampire?” he demanded.

Gloves off completely,
Deonne realized. He wasn’t holding back.

“Does it matter?” Justin asked curiously.

“Of course it bloody matters,” Christopher snarled back. “My daughter has one of the brightest futures any human on this planet could ask for–”