Into the Spotlight Read Online Free Page A

question. But he’d been raised in a time when chivalry meant something. One did not turn away a lady in need. Even if the last thing he wanted was to be her attorney.
    “I can’t talk now.” Jeannie’s lips barely moved, the whisper of sound teasing even his sharp hearing. Her head remained erect with the barest of flickers toward her escort. The quiet man remained some small distance away, unobtrusive in his presence. His watchful stillness was enough for Malcolm to almost forget his presence. “Maybe you could come back tomorrow night?”
    Malcolm tossed back the last swallow of tonic and blood. The pedestrian ferric flavor heightened in Jeannie’s presence. “Tomorrow night?”
    Her chin dropped in the barest of nods, and he wrestled with the desire to demand what she wanted right now. He was here to see to Frederick, not indulge in his fantasies.
    No matter how exquisite the fantasy appeared. Still, he inclined his head slowly. “Tomorrow evening, if it pleases the lady.”
    The dancer drained her drink and set the empty glass down. Her lips shimmered with moisture. He wondered what it would be like to caress the gleam from her fabulous lower lip. She stood and he rose immediately.
    “It would please me. Thank you for the drink, Mr. Reynolds.”
    “Call me Malcolm.”
    She smiled, not a flirt, but almost shy and completely at odds with the delicate sensuality hovering around her. “Good night, Malcolm.”
    He resisted the urge to take her hand and offered her a bow as she retreated, ascending the stairs to exit along the same path she entered. His gaze followed her until she vanished from his sight and only then did he sit down. His tongue pressed thoughtfully against the back of his teeth.
    I need your help.
    If she asked again. He would say yes.
     
     
    “Frederick.” He waited most of the night for the meeting, unsurprised when it neared dawn before an escort showed him through the private hallways behind the glitz and glamour of the casino and its lounges to a holding area as gray and dismal as a stormy sea.
    “Malcolm, I didn’t think you were going to show up.” Despite the faintly nasal quality of the words, Frederick wasn’t whining. Instead he exhaled the statement on a rush of relief. The younger vampire was long, lean and ropier in his build where Malcolm was broader shouldered and thicker across the chest.
    He didn’t rise to give the younger vampire a hug, choosing to lean back in the chair, arms folded. His mouth turned down with disapproval, he appreciated Frederick’s healthy appearance from his well-manicured hands to the neat ponytail tied at the nape of his neck to the clean dress shirt and pants. The clothing didn’t fit well, but the pressed appearance suggested that despite his sentence, his cousin hadn’t been abused. That would be a relief for Aunt Ruth.
    “Sit down, Frederick.” He nodded to the chair on the other side of the table. They were alone, but that didn’t mean they weren’t monitored. The institutionalized layout of the room with a single metal table and two chairs hardly suggested comfort, just practicality.
    The chair squeaked across the floor as Frederick dragged it out and spun it around to straddle it. He behaved more like a twenty-first century teenager than a century-old vampire.
    And whose fault is that? Admittedly, Malcolm enjoyed the boy more when he’d been an actual “boy”. He’d taken to looking after him, but a century of cleaning up his messes wore thin against Malcolm’s patience.
    “Tell me what happened.” He knew, of course. He’d spoken to the prince of New York after Aunt Ruth’s frantic phone call. Still, it never hurt to check the facts.
    “You’re getting me out of here, right? We just have to fill out some papers, handle some formalities?” The younger vampire’s gaze skittered back and forth across the room, barely lingering against Malcolm’s more than a few seconds before flitting away again.
    Dammit, Frederick. What