Blood, Body and Mind by Kathi S. Barton Page B

her a precise, direct question. He would have to resort to his damned notes again.
    “ I was wondering if you’d be my date this Friday night at the Alliance Dinner at six-thirty? It’s here at the mansion.” He wondered if he sounded rushed and didn’t think so.
    “ No.”
    Nope, not going well at all. She was not supposed to flat out refuse. Notes, he had to keep with his notes. He felt like he was in high school kid on his first date and that he had had his big sister write out what to say.
    “ Let me explain this better for you. The Alliance Dinner is for every vampire in my realm to come here and pledge their fidelity to me. All are required to attend, including the Carlovettis. In addition to them would be the person or people who made the attempt on our lives a few weeks ago. I want you to be there to help keep an eye on everyone dear to us both. So let me ask you again, I was wondering if you’d be my date this Friday night at the Alliance Dinner at six–thirty?”
    For a long, tense moment, she did not make a sound. There was such a delay in her response, in fact, that he had thought she had hung up. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
    Aaron felt like hell now. She could make him madder than all hell one minute, and then make him feel like the worse kind of heel the next. Damn it, he thought as he stretched out his shoulders.
    “ Yes, you do, Sara. You can say no. You’re actually quite good at it. You certainly say if often enough to me. Anyway, just say no and that will be the end of it. Is that what you want?”
    “ Thank you, Mr. MacManus, but I don’t really. You and I both know that. Is there anything else, sir?”
    “ No, I’ll work out the details on what I need from you, and then I’ll call you sometime in the morning.”
    “ Yes, sir,” she said shortly.
    “ Oh and Sara, it will be important that you call me by my first name if we are going to be seen as a couple. It’s Aaron, not Mr. MacManus.”
    “ Yes, sir.” Her temper was rising. He could tell by the venom she put into her answer now. He grinned. How he hoped she would put as much passion into making love as she did her answers to him.
    Long after he hung up, he thought about what he had done to her. He realized he really had made it so that she had no choice in the matter; he knew that when he had worded it the way he had. But damn it, he wanted to see her, needed to see her. If this was what it was like to have a mate, then to hell with it, he thought. It was not worth the damn problems she always seemed to cause. Then he smiled. He was going to get to see her again soon.
    ~~~
    Now, she thought, I need to get a dress. Not just any dress either, a classy one. She knew that this was a formal affair because she had heard April telling her husband about the dress she had picked out. The alterations alone cost more than Sara made in a week. How she was going to afford a dress to this thing was beyond her.
    Sara wasn’t used to asking for help, so it did not occur to her to ask for it now. In the end, she found herself at the mall looking for a suitable, affordable dress at every boutique and store there. She was not having any luck. She was sitting in her van at the mall, eating a chicken sandwich, when she spied Duncan coming out with his arms loaded.
    She reached out and found out that he was there to pick up the tuxes for him, Colin, and Mr. MacManus. They had been altered by a specialty shop inside one of the shops that she had just been in. She jumped from her vehicle and followed him. Certainly a person who knew about tuxes knew where one could buy a stupid dress for this thing, wouldn’t they?
    “ Mr. Duncan?” He turned quickly at her greeting, startling her.
    “ Goodness, Miss Sara, I did not see you coming. How are you, dear? Fine, I hope.” His smile was just what she needed to bolster her feelings.
    “ Fine, I’m fine. I was wondering if you had a minute or two you could spare me, please? It’s about