I stopped my frantic wiping.
"You've got a meeting with the Rossi client tonight. Drinks at 9 at The Graveyard. I assume you know the basics?"
I recited by rote: "Don't use perfume. Don't wear anything low cut or brightly colored. Don't stare."
Jim nodded. "Good. And don't order any food. It's considered rude."
"I know. I won't screw this up," I promised.
"Well, try not to cut yourself."
I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Boss."
***
If there's anything the vamps hate more than sunlight, it's tardiness. As such, I arrived at The Graveyard promptly at 9:00 pm. Despite it's Gothic name, The Graveyard was anything but. True enough, it was a favorite haunt of nonhumans and the bartender on Wednesday nights was reputedly a zombie, but beyond that, The Graveyard was really quite modern. Even so, I found the sleekly elegant nightclub intimidating, a sentiment reinforced by the hulking (human) monster of a bouncer who triple-checked my ID and aggressively searched my person for silver before granting me entry.
I immediately felt underdressed in my conservative black sheath dress and opaque black tights. The club was filled with the beautiful, the rich and the famous. Although not all club-goers possessed all three, I noted, as I spotted Matilda Mathison across the room. Matilda was the painfully ugly but fabulously wealthy heiress to Mathison Corp., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Mathison Corp was currently developing oral contraception geared specifically towards the werewolf community - weres' super fast metabolisms rendered the regular Pill completely ineffective. If the drug was a success, the multi-millionairess would likely become a billionairess.
For me, however, the fur-friendly pill was a bit of a PR nightmare. In fact, it had been the catalyst for my little mishap earlier this week. The drug was sponsored in part by the Rossi family, so I'd been pulled in to help with a Were-Vamp roundtable on CNN. A number of weres saw the drug as a slippery slope on the road to forced sterilization and accused Mathison Corp. and the Rossis of "barely disguised racism." During the interview prep, I may have insinuated that ALL intelligent women of age, regardless of their species, should be on birth control. Sometimes I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
Pulling my gaze from Matilda, I scanned the room for my client, not entirely
"You've got a meeting with the Rossi client tonight. Drinks at 9 at The Graveyard. I assume you know the basics?"
I recited by rote: "Don't use perfume. Don't wear anything low cut or brightly colored. Don't stare."
Jim nodded. "Good. And don't order any food. It's considered rude."
"I know. I won't screw this up," I promised.
"Well, try not to cut yourself."
I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Boss."
***
If there's anything the vamps hate more than sunlight, it's tardiness. As such, I arrived at The Graveyard promptly at 9:00 pm. Despite it's Gothic name, The Graveyard was anything but. True enough, it was a favorite haunt of nonhumans and the bartender on Wednesday nights was reputedly a zombie, but beyond that, The Graveyard was really quite modern. Even so, I found the sleekly elegant nightclub intimidating, a sentiment reinforced by the hulking (human) monster of a bouncer who triple-checked my ID and aggressively searched my person for silver before granting me entry.
I immediately felt underdressed in my conservative black sheath dress and opaque black tights. The club was filled with the beautiful, the rich and the famous. Although not all club-goers possessed all three, I noted, as I spotted Matilda Mathison across the room. Matilda was the painfully ugly but fabulously wealthy heiress to Mathison Corp., one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Mathison Corp was currently developing oral contraception geared specifically towards the werewolf community - weres' super fast metabolisms rendered the regular Pill completely ineffective. If the drug was a success, the multi-millionairess would likely become a billionairess.
For me, however, the fur-friendly pill was a bit of a PR nightmare. In fact, it had been the catalyst for my little mishap earlier this week. The drug was sponsored in part by the Rossi family, so I'd been pulled in to help with a Were-Vamp roundtable on CNN. A number of weres saw the drug as a slippery slope on the road to forced sterilization and accused Mathison Corp. and the Rossis of "barely disguised racism." During the interview prep, I may have insinuated that ALL intelligent women of age, regardless of their species, should be on birth control. Sometimes I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
Pulling my gaze from Matilda, I scanned the room for my client, not entirely
