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As soon as the elevator opened on Dominion, Natalia took a deep breath. She loved being home.
“Good morning,” the new receptionist named Millie called to her from behind enormous glasses and clothes that were far too baggy for her figure because Gen Z was launching a targeted assault on good fashion.
In the reception area, a frosted glass door led to the central hub of Natalia’s professional world. Early in the day, the bullpen was sparsely populated, but her presence quickly caught the attention of the seven assistant agents working there. As they looked up from their desks, with the scenic backdrop of Biscayne Bay behind them, a reverent hush fell over the room.
In her corner office, all glass so she could see everything, even when people didn’t think she was watching, Natalia paused to look out the plate-glass that brought the dark bay into her sacred space. Centering herself only took a few moments.
By the time Zoe Plaza-Jones arrived for their meeting, she was ready. Zoe was a woman in her late forties who’d defied the odds by parlaying her career as a child actor into award-winning work as an adult. When she got fewer opportunities to play the hot bisexual disaster next door, she smashed expectations again by going behind the camera. Now that directing wasn’t challenging enough, she wanted to produce. As Natalia’s first and most famous client, it was her job to get Zoe what she wanted.
And what she wanted was the film rights to the book she slid over the glass conference table toward Natalia. It was all she’d been talking about for months.
“She won’t even answer my calls now,” Zoe complained. “I heard nothing back after that letter you told me to send.” She flung her hands up and tipped back in the white leather chair. It was obvious that she’d considered throwing her feet on the table, but a single lingering look from Natalia made her sit up straight. Zoe had never fully shed the child-like petulance she’d acquired after becoming a teenage millionaire.
Natalia’s attention darted from Zoe to the book with a cover that was drab and hideous and not improved by being upside down. A plain red jacket with a black square for a Times New Roman title was the most uninspired thing she’d ever seen — and she’d seen the return of scrunchies and mom jeans.
“If she’s not interested in negotiating, why did she send you a copy of the book?” Natalia asked mostly to herself while reaching for the small hardback.
Power, Procreation, and Patriarchy: A Critical Analysis of the Vampire Myth and the Daughters of Lilith by Dr. Samantha Reyes. A title as riveting as the cover.
“The only time she took my call, she insisted she didn’t send it to me,” Zoe continued ranting, bordering on supersonic. “But come on. I’ve been in this game too long to fall for that shit. Who else would mail a copy to my manager with no return address?” Zoe drummed on the desk with her fingers before regaining control of her right mind. “She wants to play hardball,” she guessed.
Natalia flipped the book over. Dr. Samantha Reyes couldn’t even be bothered to include an author photo. That didn’t speak of someone desperate to take big swings.
“This is going to be a seminal work, Natalia. I can feel it in my freaking bone marrow.” She jumped to her feet, pacing the back of the room enough to make Natalia motion sick.
Flipping through the pages Zoe had tagged and highlighted and scribbled on, Natalia failed to see what Zoe saw in the clinical tone and walls of text. Did academia frown on short sentences and paragraph breaks?
“Get me a clean copy,” Natalia said after dropping the beat-up hardback on the table. “I’ll get you the film rights.”
CHAPTER 2
Three days later, Natalia wore her most unassuming charcoal sheath dress — and slightly less unassuming lime green pumps — and slipped into a packed lecture hall at the University of Miami. Memories of having been in similar spaces when she was a UM undergrad attempted to return, but Natalia batted them away.
The auditorium space large enough to fit two hundred was filling steadily, something Natalia hadn’t expected. Did this many people care about some fringe legend? Until Zoe called, she’d never heard of it. From her research, it didn’t seem like any other academics were even interested in her mythical creatures.
In the row in front of her, a group of young people sat down noisily. From their discussion of Dr. Reyes and extra-credit, it was obvious that they were her students.
It was also obvious that only one of them was focused on the task when she opened her laptop and prepared to take notes. The girl next to her couldn’t be bothered to look up from her phone where she was shopping for shoes.
Natalia’s gaze sharpened. The girl absorbed in her phone exuded a carefree attitude, typical of someone not burdened with financial responsibilities. Natalia couldn’t help but think that the real world would soon catch up with her, much like it did with those trust fund babies in her college days. They, too, had sat nonchalantly in lecture halls, only to fade into obscurity after graduation.
When a presence appeared on the stage, Natalia returned to her purpose. She had very little choice in the matter. The woman striding toward the lectern had the easy way of someone used to commanding a room. Short platinum hair was tossed to the side while the rest was buzzed to the darker roots. Her cream-colored suit had been tailored to flatter her tall, lithe form while maintaining an alluring masculine cut.
Dr. Reyes reached the microphone, shifted her large, brown glasses, and smiled broad and bright. “I’m only giving extra credit to my students. What are the rest of you doing here?”
A packed hall laughed at Dr. Reyes’ dad humor. Even the ones not there for credit.
Jaw strong and angular, dark eyes keen even behind the glasses, Dr. Reyes scanned the room. “You casually throw out that you fell in love with a vampire when you were twelve and everyone comes out to see, huh?”
More laughter while Dr. Reyes slipped one hand into her trouser pocket and paused.
“You might be surprised to learn that I wasn’t misquoted.” She reached for a glass of water hidden in her podium. “Although they did leave out some details. As my students already know, the first words I learned in English were Gate 14,” she said without a trace of an accent.
Natalia leaned forward, curious about what that meant.
“My family was one of the hundreds of thousands who threw themselves to the sea on anything that could float — and many things that didn’t — when Castro lifted travel restrictions one fine day in 1980. After surviving a sinking ship and then fighting our way onto a rusty fishing boat, we arrived in Miami on my seventh birthday. Now I know what you’re thinking: Thank you for sharing your childhood trauma, Sam, but what the hell does that have to do with a lost vampire myth?”
The room warmed, hundreds of people seeming to give Dr. Reyes the permission to take as long as she wanted to make a point. Even the shopper had put her phone down and was listening to the velvety voice of the woman on stage. The woman with the kind of voice that would make the phonebook sound riveting.
