placed the ad. I’d like to speak with him directly to get more information.”
“I’m his secretary and I’m the one doing the screening,” the woman replied, curtly.
“Screening?”
“Yes…if you are serious, I just have a few questions for you.”
“I’m serious.”
“Are you a shifter?”
Trina wondered why that would matter. The ad didn’t say anything about her needing to have shifter blood. “No.”
“Bachelor is a shifter. Do you have any problems with that?”
Trina swallowed. The ad hadn’t said anything about the man being of shifter blood either. She had friends and did business dealings with shifters and she’d even had a few shifters on her team when she worked as the lead marketing executive at the New York firm. But…she’d never dated one. Her only problem was whether she could relate. For six weeks…
“I don’t have any problems with that,” she replied.
“Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Pets?”
“No.”
“How old are you?”
Everyone she’d never met personally took her seriously until they found out what her real age was. For some crazy reason, some measured abilities, smarts, and business-savvy expertise with age. She supposed they were right half of the time, but her accomplishments to date had always proved them wrong. She thought maybe she should fib about her age, but then decided against it.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Ever been married?”
This was a tricky question. She’d almost been married. It took a tragedy to reveal her fiancé’s true side.
“No.”
This bachelor’s secretary seemed to have dozens of questions, but she needed cash fast and her other chance had almost led her to be murdered by a crazed gunman. The memories from that dreadful night just five days ago still haunted her. It would take more than a few days to get over it. Never in a hundred years would she have anticipated a gun being held to her back and her life threatened. On the other hand, she’d never thought her desperation to help a parent would lead her out of her comfort zone and into a nightclub.
A nightclub owned by a shifter…just like the one who’d saved her from a death sentence.
Chapter Five
At any point, Trina could have backed out of this meeting, requested the private driver to turn around, and take her back home. Instead she sat in the back seat of the fancy Rolls Royce as the driver took her farther into the other side of the town. They had already passed over the set of train tracks that marked the end of the city and the beginning of the countryside. Farther beyond the countryside sat the mountains and dark valleys. Only the most adventurous of residents in the surrounding area ventured out into the mountains. Other than that, the rugged landscape and intricate paths of the valley was like a maze to tourists and, from what she heard, the sunset at mountain’s peak was a view that even expert climbers had died to see. Except for the occasional visit to the market with her parents as a child, she’d pretty much kept to the city.
She glanced out of the tinted window at the fields of sunflowers. When Trina was just a young girl, her parent’s would plan picnics—family time was what Mom had called it. Those times had been all about devoting time to each other, telling stories, enjoying food, and capturing moments. Tiffany Daniels was a pro at capturing those memories through her love of photography. Her late mother had been talented in many other ways, but the photos she took in the years prior to the car accident displayed only one of her many skills. Venturing to the countryside again brought back vivid memories from Trina’s carefree youth.
The car veered right down a paved, wooded path. Much like the rest of this town the neighborhood was secluded between thickets of leafy cedar trees with murky gray moss overhanging the branches. Brick mailboxes lined the narrow road, spaced hundreds of yards apart. Back in her little homely subdivision, she