Read Online Department 57: Rubies of Fire by Lynne Connolly - Free Book Online

stress of overworked personnel. Doors ranged along the side opposite the large windows, and at the end of the long room were more doors. The tingling increased as she approached the center door of a set of three, and Diane opened it to let them both through.
    An ordinary boardroom met her gaze, a long table down the center, chairs arranged around it, bottled water and glasses in the middle. And a familiar scent coming fresh to her nostrils, a sense of coming home.
    She knew why before she saw him. Andreas, waiting by the door, dressed in silk and wool—dark red shirt and black pants, immaculately cut—looking confident, privileged, and happy. None of the assets that showed when he worked at the DIB. Only then did she realize the extent of his acting skills. This Andreas appeared perfectly comfortable in his skin, powerful and assured. She had no doubt this was the real man. He smiled and held out his hand, and when she placed her own in it, led her forward. “This is Roz Templeton, Cristos.”
    “You’re involved with her.” The voice sounded crisp and dispassionate. It belonged to a middle-aged man of around six feet in height, with clear gray-blue eyes, dressed in a breathtakingly beautiful suit of charcoal gray. Everything about him appeared understated, from the well-cut, short silver hair to his polished black shoes. “You weren’t expected to do that.”
    Andreas shrugged, the silk shirt molding to his shoulder muscles. “I don’t always do what what’s expected. You know that. I wanted to be here to introduce you,” he said, turning to her, his voice softening. “Just after you left this morning I realized it was important to me to be here, so I called the DIB, claiming a dentist appointment.”
    Despite her state of nervousness, Roz smiled, warmed by his concern.
    “An unnecessary risk.” Cristos’s voice held an edge of admonition. “You know she’s safe here.”
    “Yes,” Andreas said, not taking his attention away from her. “But she doesn’t know that.”
    He must have felt her nervousness that morning, even though she’d tried hard not to project it. An emotion she was used to, this fear of unknown places, but she’d never allowed it to stop her from doing what she wanted to do, what was right for her. She’d emigrated across the Atlantic Ocean alone, begun a new life determinedly independent of her British family, and she was proud of herself for overcoming her natural reticence. Every well-brought-up Victorian miss had some of it, but it was hardly suitable for the twenty-first century.
    She smiled, accepting the inevitable. “I’m fine.”
    “Since you’re here, have you a little time to spare, Andreas?” Cristos broke in. “I’m briefing the team this morning, and you may as well sit in on it. There’s some new information.”
    “Yes, I can do that. I’ll go in to the DIB after lunch.”
    She grinned, remembering his excuse. “Some extensive dental work?”
    He grinned back and allowed his perfectly shaped, perfectly white teeth to show. His fangs were retracted into their tooth-buds and not available until the nighttime. “Something like that. But Andreas the goldbrick wouldn’t hurry back to the office, would he?”
    “A dentist appointment would make him take the morning off,” she agreed.
    Cristos cleared his throat, and Roz blushed. Staring at the man who’d spent the last two nights with her wasn’t the best way to start a new job. Fuck.
    She looked away hurriedly, ignoring Andreas’s low chuckle.
    The door opened to admit a couple, but unlike Roz and Andreas, their body language gave no indication of any personal entanglements. The girl was much too young, Roz would guess about sixteen or so, and the man she knew.
    Fabrice Germain, the virgin Sorcerer.
    In the nightclub, she hadn’t been close enough to see his eyes properly. Now she was. When he lifted his head, still smiling, and met her gaze, the sheer power in the startling blue irises knocked her back on