Blood Price (The Blankenships Book 5) by Evelyn Glass Read Free Book Online Page B

bright white coat and black pants. She looked like she was full of smiles that she was currently choking back. A little apart from them was a man straight out of Jeeves and Wooster, down to the shiny bald pate and the disdainful expression, wearing a suit. Zoey found herself thanking the powers that might or might not be that the man wasn’t wearing tails. She was fairly sure that if he were wearing tails, she would have sat down on the floor and cackled, appropriateness be damned.
     
    The tall woman was Eleanor. She was on staff with AEGIS UK, from what Zoey heard, and she was prepared to serve as personal assistant for Mr. Blankenship while he was in town. The way she said “in town,” as if everywhere in the world other than London was a godless heathen place, caused Zoey to bite the inside of her cheek again. Though, of course, maybe that was true from their perspective. The smaller woman was Mira, and when Eleanor introduced her, she produced exactly the kind of infectious grin that Zoey had hoped to see. She was to be Mr. Blankenship’s chef while Mr. Blankenship was in town. The man in the suit was Watkins, according to Eleanor. Alex held out his hand to the man to shake, and Watkins looked at it, gave it an odd, strained look, then shook. Zoey got the incredibly strong sense that Watkins didn’t like the Americans showing up in the middle of the evening and being American. She was just jet-lagged enough to find it all incredibly hilarious, but together enough to choke back the hysterical laughter that wanted more than anything else to escape.
     
    Eleanor ran through a dozen details that Zoey found herself zoning out on. She needed to pee, and she was completely overwhelmed by the flat. Besides, if Alex was the Lord returning from abroad, she was the poor mistress that the staff would probably ignore as much as possible.
     
    Alex’s penthouse had seemed…normal, other than how damn big it was. It wasn’t particularly full of opulent furniture or fancy artwork or other ostentatious displays of wealth. It was all luxurious, but it wasn’t distancing.
     
    This place, on the other hand. It felt like she’d stepped into a magazine, and she wanted to check behind herself, and make sure she wasn’t leaving a trail of mud that someone would have to deal with later. The furniture was all clean lines and cold, neutral colors, with windows that were so spotless, she wondered if a kid would ever dare to run a fingertip over them, or press their nose against the window to see when their parents were coming home. No, strike that. No kid would dare touch the satiny wood finish of the floors in this place.
     
    Between the staff and the decor, Zoey was completely convinced that she didn’t belong here. It was a disconcerting feeling, to say the least. She wished she could chase it away.
     
    Alex was staring at her. “Sorry, what?” Great way to make an impression, Zoey. Now you get to debate whether they think you’re vapid or inconsiderate. Excellent.
     
    But at least Alex was smiling. She could live with whatever else if Alex was smiling. “If you’re ready to eat, Mira has everything laid out for us in the dining room.”
     
    “Sure,” Zoey said, and gave Mira the biggest, friendliest smile she could muster. The small woman smiled back, and Zoey breathed a slight sigh of relief. At least if she was going to have an ally in the house, it would be the cook. That was a promising sign.
     
    Alex took her hand and lead her through the apartment as if he’d been there before. Maybe he had; she certainly didn’t know. Or maybe AEGIS had apartments in every major city, and he’d overseen the design of all of them. That was probably ridiculous, but so was the fact that the wooden table he was leading her towards actually appeared to be inlaid with abalone. The food, laid out on the table, smelled completely amazing, but she was surprised to see that instead of paper take-out containers, all the food had been