Christmas Alpha by Carole Mortimer Page B

supposed to do that, when I have an unconscious woman in my arms and a dead woman on the floor?” Finn glared at the other man.
      The same man who had tersely introduced himself as Dair Grayson, Lucien Wynter’s head of security, before just as briskly calling the police to report the death.  
      Finn frowned slightly as he looked at the other man’s intensely muscled body and hard, uncompromising face, his steely grey eyes flecked with green. “Are you and Lucien related?”
      “Maternal cousins.” Dair Grayson grinned. “I’m guessing it was the charm that gave it away, hm?”
      “Oh definitely the charm,” Finn drawled. “Why the hell didn’t Lucien let me know you were on your way? I nearly had a heart attack when I saw your face at the window just now!”
      “I have that effect on people,” Grayson drawled. “And maybe you should think about occasionally checking your cell phone? I think you’ll find the battery needs charging.”
      Finn looked at the other man blankly for several seconds until he remembered that ‘battery low’ had come up on the screen this morning when he was talking to Jack. And he had called Lucien twice since then.  
      He had forgotten all about recharging the battery as his attraction to Eva had intensified. Definitely a case of the blood in his head all going south!
      “Lucien thought it best we get here as soon as possible after you lost power,” Dair Grayson added softly. “Looks like we arrived just in time, too.”
      Finn looked down at Eva as he remembered that gut-clenching fear of seeing Moira pointing a gun at her. ‘Just in time’ about described it.
      “There’s something else you need to know.”
      Finn instantly tensed at the grimness of the other man’s tone.  
      Dair Grayson nodded. “Miss Summers over there shot and killed a man named Ian Jackson earlier today.”
      “Shit!” A shiver ran down Finn’s spine at the knowledge that Moira had killed her married lover. At the thought that Eva might easily have been Moira’s next victim.  
      He frowned as Eva began to stir in his arms. “It should take the police at least an hour or so to get here. I want you to get her out of here before they arrive, Grayson.”
      “It’s doable, if you’re sure?” Dair Grayson nodded abruptly.
      So far in their twelve-hour acquaintance, he had mistaken Eva for his nude photographic model, the two of them had made love, she had been held at gunpoint by his stalker ex-girlfriend, and now that ex-girlfriend lay dead on the carpet across the room, a bloom of deep red having darkened the front of her pink ski-suit and his t-shirt.  
      Admittedly Moira was dead by her own hand, the gun having gone off during the scuffle between the two of them. But Finn was very sure he didn’t want Eva caught up in the mess that was sure to follow, when the news and circumstances behind Moira’s death leaked out to the press. As they surely would.
      He nodded grimly. “Yes, let’s get Eva out of here—”
      “No.” Eva had opened her lids and now looked up at Finn. “I’m not going anywhere, Finn.” She winced as she sat up in his arms. “You were shot!” Her eyes widened at the blood that had soaked into his t-shirt.
      “Not my blood,” he bit out.  
      Eva glanced across to where Moira lay dead, before quickly looking away again, her face having gone even paler.
      He couldn’t claim to be unshaken by Moira’s death himself. He just hadn’t had time to think about it too deeply as yet. He had never been in love with her, but at one time he had thought he liked her. The her before he learned of her aged lover. The her before she turned into the stalker from hell.  
      His arms tightened about Eva as he felt her trembling increase. “It’s okay, Eva,” he murmured soothingly. “You’re going to be just fine—”
      “Well of course I’m going to be fine!” The green eyes Eva raised to glare at him were spitting