Midnight Serenade (Moonhaven World Romance #1)

Chapter One- Mia.2

What?

That was a bizarre request. Take it to my neighbors? And, what, like an obedient puppy I was just supposed to go bother my neighbors because some random weirdo asked me to? Just no. Then again... The request might be odd, but it sparked my curiosity. Why did he think that asking other people about the ad would prove something to me? And what point was he trying to prove?

I growled into my coffee, not sure what I wanted to do. I definitely didn’t want to disturb my neighbors over something so trivial, but I was also very curious now about what Mr. Draven Leto was hinting at.

As I read over his words again, a smile slowly bloomed on my face. I decided I would play his game, if only to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that I didn’t appreciate being the butt of what had to be a joke.

I gulped the rest of my coffee down and slipped the My Spirit Animal is a Tiger mug into the sink, ran some water into it, yanked on some shorts and ran a brush through my hair. I slid into my slip-on tennies, scooped the paper up, grabbed my keys so I wouldn’t accidentally get locked out, and knocked on the neighbor’s door to the right of mine.

A harried mom with smooth, dark hair pulled back into a quick twist and dark skin answered the door. Her shirt looked like it had been gummed to death, there was spit-up on her shoulder, and she had dark shadows under her bloodshot eyes.

Yikes. Maybe I should offer to babysit her son more often.

I squirmed a little in embarrassment. “Hi, Leona.”

I smiled half-heartedly. “Really sorry to bother you, but I’m clearing up a bit of a bet.”

I placed a blue, nail-wrapped fingertip against the Vampire’s Assistant ad. “You can see this ad here, right?”

Leona looked at where my finger was pointing, looked back at me, and looked back at my fingertip.

“Mia.”

Her voice was steady and measured.

“Yes?”

“Can you hear Daniel?”

I could indeed hear her baby Daniel screaming in the other room now that her door was open. I cringed again. Bad timing.

“Yes?”

“Then you can understand that I don’t have time for any funny business, right?”

My face fell. My thoughts went a little blank. So... that was a no?

“You really can’t see it?”

She glared at me. “There’s nothing there, Mia!”

Slam.

Well, okay then. I wasn’t really sure what had just happened. Sleep deprived moms were serious heroes, but perhaps Leona wasn’t the best person to ask at the moment?

I did know that I definitely needed to offer to watch Daniel more often.

Leona clearly needed a break.

Not to be deterred, I systematically hit up every available person on my floor.

Zero people could see the ad.

I slumped into my apartment and dumped the ad and myself onto my ratty, tan couch. I was so confused. There was a possibility that a few needed to put their glasses on, or were preoccupied like Leona. Some could have been lying to me. But the likelihood of all of them saying they couldn’t see the ad when it was very clearly there was infinitesimal.

I was staring at it. It was in a big, bold type, with a rounded font. It looked to be in sixteen-point type, even. Plenty big for those that might be optically challenged. I was flabbergasted, embarrassed that I had just gone around to all my neighbors who probably thought I was a little crazy now, and irritated that Draven Leto had been right. And still so very confused.

As I took another shower to tame my crazy hair and found some presentable clothes to go looking for a job in, I pondered the puzzle. Draven Leto had hinted heavily that not many people would be able to see the ad. I could see it, but no one else on my floor could. It begged the question…if I could see it, did that somehow make me different? If so, in what way was I different? Would others outside of my building be able to see it?

And the scary thought, if I could see it, and others couldn’t, did that make the crazy ad the slightest bit legit? Vampires belonged in fiction, clearly. At least I hoped so. But what about the other people in the world that I’d never been able to get a strong sense of? Could they be different in the same way that I seemed to be different?

My thoughts ran round and round. Should I email him back? Or would it be better—safer—to just let it go.

The irony of my personality was that I was, by nature, a curious person. I’d learned, because of what I dealt with around others, to stymie that curiosity, but only to a point. I still wanted to love people. Heck, I’d love some friends I didn’t feel ick around. And this, this had me wanting to reach out to the irritating Draven Leto for some answers. For curiosity’s sake, sure, but also because I sort of feared that Draven Leto was other. And that what he’d meant was that I was other too.

It should logically make me want to run. I had a very finely tuned run-o-meter. But, strangely, it didn’t. I felt drawn into something greater than myself, and insanely curious about what that something might be.

There was something nagging at me, too. Like I’d heard the name Draven Leto before somewhere. As I applied makeup, pulled my hair in a half-up twist, and found some shoes I could walk in but were interview ready, I puzzled over the dilemma.

It was when I was reaching out to grab my coat that it hit me. Sometime back, there had been something in the news about a luxury hotel owned by him in Florence, Italy that had burned to the ground. No lives had been lost, if I remembered correctly. This, at least, legitimatized his claim that he was both a businessman and that he had a company that needed secretarial work. Neither of those meant that he wasn’t crazy or dangerous, but I needed a job, didn’t I?

I hung my coat back on the coat stand, sighed at what a woman would do for a job and for curiosity’s sake, then plopped back onto the couch as I reached again for my laptop.

Attn: [email protected]

Re: Your Ad

Mr. Leto,

I am unsure why I’m again corresponding with you, except maybe to put this to rest in my mind. I checked with my entire floor. No one could see the ad. Not a single person.

I have no idea what to say to that.

The ad is there. I’m looking at it right now, in fact.

Can you please explain what the heck is going on?

You can reach me at (212) 617-8974

Mia

I sent it and sighed into the couch. My stomach grumbled, and I placed a palm over the ache and tried to figure out my next steps for my day. I needed more groceries, but I didn’t have any money. I had some mac and cheese in the cupboard. It wasn’t great with just water and no butter, but it would work. I think I also had a jar of pasta sauce and some leftover linguini noodles. I could scrounge around for change and buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, and that would have to work for this week. I was just getting up to make the mac and cheese when my phone buzzed. I flipped it over to look at the name. Draven Leto.

I gasped and sat up. Even though I’d given him my number—I considered it networking—I hadn’t expected him to call me!

I felt a sense of anticipation and excitement as I hit the green button.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Durran, so good to hear from you. Can I assume you gave me your number because you’re curious about why you can see the ad and those around you can’t?”

His voice was wicked-deep and sensuously amused.

“You can. Also, I’m looking for a secretarial job, and you seem to be looking for a secretary.”

Although, what kind of secretary he was looking for, I still wasn’t entirely sure of. Personal assistant to a vampire was just crazy talk.

His laughter was potent and heady, filling me with a combustible, effervescent feeling. I tapped a finger on my sensible cotton pants I used for job searching and tried to come up with a sane, polite way of asking my question.

“To answer your question, Ms. Durran, only a small percentage of people would have been able to see the ad.”

“But why?”

I stood at the window, my breath and the chilled window colliding and creating steamy fog. It was early spring, but Manhattan was still locked in icy weather.

I heard a shuffling of papers, and the skritch of an expensive pen-nub on paper. “I’d like the opportunity to explain in person, and I’d like to interview you for the job. Can I send a courier with a plane ticket?”

A beat of silence. My first thought was, Yay, a job! My second was astonishment that he was still playing the game of looking for an assistant. And that he apparently was a vampire. Uh-huh.

“You mean the job for a vampire’s assistant?”

I said, disbelief heavy in my wry tone.

His smile was almost audible. The skritch of the pen stopped. “I can prove it over the phone if you’d like.”

I almost laughed aloud. He’d like to prove it. Over the phone. That he was a vampire.

Well, game on!

“Of course, Mr. Leto. By all means, please prove that you’re a vampire.”

I just knew that his smile had become wolfish. How…did I know that?

I shook my head to clear it.

“Where are you standing in your apartment, Mia?”

I frowned. “At my window.”

“All right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Laughter again. Deep and sensuous. “So polite.”

Then his voice changed. The laughter was gone, and in its place was a thick, powerful presence that sent warm chills down my spine. Warm chills are different, I thought inanely. “Mia, go to your refrigerator door and open it.”

My spine snapped straight, my hands clenched the phone, and my feet marched to my fridge. And I knew it would sound crazy to others, but I wasn’t at all afraid. Even over the phone, I felt such a powerful surge of peace that it almost broke whatever hold Mr. Leto had over me. The peace, in fact, was so strong that tears pricked my eyes. I felt content for the first time in a long time. It was such an alien feeling that I had to blink away more tears. I reached the fridge and yanked on the handle. The light blinked on, somewhat stutteringly, and the cold air hit me with a soothing puff of breeze. “What’s in your fridge, Mia?”

I fought the response that sprang to my lips, embarrassment making me cringe. I didn’t want to tell a potential employer, and an obviously well-off man, that here was one water bottle in my fridge and nothing else. Not even an open box of baking soda.

His tone turned soft, but still had that zing of command. “Mia, what’s in your fridge?”

“Nothing,”

I sighed. “A water bottle.”

He was quiet for a moment. “No food?”

His tone had changed into one of concern, and I felt validated in my assessment of that tiny part of him, at least. Mr. Leto seemed to have a bit of a caretaker’s personality.

I shook my head and then rolled my eyes. He can’t see you, Mia! “No food in the fridge, but I have some in the cupboards,”

I said truthfully, but with the obvious intent that he wouldn’t feel sorry for me. Heck, I just might need to go grocery shopping, for all he knew!

As if on command, my stomach snarled loudly. I put a hand over it to soothe it, but Draven apparently had the ears of a fox.

“Was that your stomach?”

His voice sounded half amused and half appalled. What, he’d never been hungry before?

My cheeks burned. “Yes.”

He was quiet for another moment, and then that voice of command poured out of my phone speaker again. “Mia, go sit on the couch.”

My legs, without me giving them permission, walked themselves over to the couch, and deposited me there.

I still wasn’t afraid, but my mind was churning over the fact that he could do this. He was controlling my body somehow. My mind helpfully-not-helpfully spat out one word: Vampire. I growled in frustration. Leave it up to me to find the supernatural in a world with almost eight billion people in it.

He laughed. “Did you just growl at me? Are you sure you’re not part shifter?”

I heard a faint tapping on his end. Keys being pressed into a keyboard. After a minute, the tapping stopped.

Time went by, but my butt was still firmly planted on the couch, and my spine was still annoyingly at attention. I couldn’t move. And trust me, I tried to break his control. I still had all my own thoughts. I just couldn’t break the hold he had over my gross motor functions. I could still do small things on my own power, blink, purse my lips, clench my hands, so I figured his control was only lightly being applied to me.

“What I’m using on you is not generally used on another being,”

he said, his voice soothing. “It’s not illegal, however, and I thought it would make my point nicely.”

I didn’t need the soothing voice. I still wasn’t afraid.

“That you’re a vampire?”

Funny, my question this time didn’t sound at all ironic. I think my subconscious was pretty sure this person was legit. I was fighting the thought, because if this was true, then a whole lot of other things might be true. And if those things were true, then what the heck was I if I could see them? That thought was both terrifying and exhilarating.

“I’m not afraid. You don’t need to pacify me.”

The pen tapping sound came again from his end of the phone.

“Interesting.”

Interesting? Well, okay, my reaction might be atypical, but that was only because I was getting such a powerful surge of peace from this guy…err, vampire, that I couldn’t help but believe that he was a genuinely good person. I trusted my instincts.

Before I could say anything in response, my doorbell rang, and the feeling of being taken over left. I sighed in relief. It was so nice to have my body back under my control. It hadn’t been a painful experience, but I didn’t think I’d ever take the control I had over my own body for granted again, either.

I ignored Mr. Leto’s humming and got up to answer the door. Through the peephole I could see the delivery boy from Michelana’s Italian Restaurant with a huge bag in his hands. Puzzled, I opened the door to tell him he had the wrong apartment, and to see if I could direct him to the right one, but he smiled politely before I could get any words out. “Delivery for Mia Durran?”

“I…”

“Just sign here, Miss.”

He shoved an electronic signature thing in my hand, and I scribbled my name while hastily trying to explain that I hadn’t ordered anything.

“Someone has already paid for it, Miss. Including the tip.”

And with that, he was off, and I was left standing dumbly in my doorway with the aroma of garlic breadsticks and meaty lasagna tickling my nose.

“I… What the heck just happened?”

Draven’s chuckle sounded from my loosely dangling phone. I put the phone back to my ear. “You sounded hungry. Your phone’s area code is for Manhattan. I just looked up the best Italian restaurant and took the chance that you’d ordered takeout through them before. Fortunately, they are a rare gem of a business and keep their customer’s addresses on file so they don’t have to bother customers by asking for them each time they order food there.”

Well, I ate there anytime I could scrounge together some money, so his story seemed at least plausible.

“Thank you.”

I was both humbled by his kindness and embarrassed at the need for it. I hated being embarrassed, and I hated feeling exposed. I was also reeling over the fact that supernaturals existed. It was very cool, but also very sobering.

I set everything down on my kitchen table, put my hot hands up to my cool face, and covered my eyes. It was soothing; very, very soothing. I breathed in deeply, and out deeply, and repeated it several times before I picked my phone up again and said with a voice that wasn’t on the verge of a major freak out, “I’ll take those tickets, Mr. Leto. But to be completely transparent, I don’t have my degree yet. I’m graduating next week. I was just starting the process of polishing my resume with the new information and looking for a secretarial job.”

“I understand. I can send the tickets for a flight in two weeks?”

“You’d hold the job until then?”

I was flabbergasted. Why would he hold the job that long?

“Ms. Durran, I think you are operating under the mistaken belief that you are not a rare find.”

He said this as though I knew what he was talking about. My eyebrows scrunched down as I tried to figure out what he meant.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to disagree with you; I’m just trying to figure out what you’re talking about. It says you’re based in Oregon. There should be plenty of people looking for an assistant job there.”

He was quiet for a few minutes, and, though I didn’t know how, I could feel his surprise over the phone.

“You don’t know what you are, do you?”

he asked gently.

I clutched the phone tighter. And because I was uncomfortable, I resorted to being a smart aleck. “An Earthling?”

I said facetiously.

His genuine laughter made those effervescent bubbles pop in my chest again. I rubbed my chest and smiled at the broken tension. He laughed for quite a while, and I just sat there, grinning like a fool, listening to the sound, and rubbing the part of my chest where the effervescence kept fizzing. This was so new to me. Not just making someone laugh, but the easy way we were talking to one another. The innocent camaraderie.

“Yes, an Earthling.”

His tone turned gentle. “But Mia, you’re also a supernatural. You couldn’t have seen the ad otherwise. And I have a strong feeling I know what kind of supernatural you are. If I’m right, with your education, you will be a perfect fit for the position. So, yes, I’ll hold the job for you.”

I felt elated! A potential new job! And I’d always wanted to move out of the city. I hated the smog and congestion. I could figure out the tiny details—like what I would do for food for the next two weeks, and where I would stay when the apartment manager locked me out of my apartment in a week—later.

As though he could hear my thoughts, Draven asked, “Mia, are you okay where you are for two weeks? I can send a travel bonus that would get you by until you come for your interview. It would also allow you to rent a storage unit and move the things you want to keep in there until you’re ready for them again.”

“You can’t read minds, can you?”

I hadn’t felt fear about the taking over my body thing, but the idea that he might be able to hear my thoughts made me cringe.

He laughed. “No, Miss Durran. I assure you, I cannot hear your thoughts. It was a passing feeling, nothing more.”

A passing feeling my foot. The part about him not being able to hear thoughts rang true, at least.

I couldn’t believe I was about to have this conversation with a potential employer. “I had a last payment for my tuition that was overdue. It made me short on my rent. My building manager has already been by and has given me a week’s deadline.”

I tried to state all of this as concisely and succinctly as I could. I had no desire to give him exhaustive details about the deplorable state of my personal finances.

“I’ll book a hotel for you under a company card,”

he said, tapping on his computer again.

My protest died on my lips. He was being kind, yes, but he was also being practical. If it was true that I was a rare find, and that he was eager for me to interview for the position, then it would also be true that he would want me to make it to the interview in one piece.

I received a text with the hotel booking information. “You’re clear to arrive as early as today,” he said.

I felt a weight leave my shoulders. Sometimes, the sweetest words to an ex-homeless person were, “You have a place to stay.”

Once you’ve been homeless, you always had an eternal fear that you’d end up back on the streets.

“Thank you,”

I said, my throat tight.

“You’re welcome, Miss Durran. I look forward to your interview.”

He clicked off, and I sat at my table with my head in my hands.

My mind was reeling at everything that had just happened, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty: in two weeks I was going to Oregon to meet a possible vampire for a job interview.

I laughed and shook my head.

Life was so weird sometimes.