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Erin pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“The potential building sites. C’mon, let’s go for a ride.” She pouted and flipped her hair.
Blaine had the distinct impression he was being manipulated but didn’t see any harm in driving around the city with Erin.
He tapped his watch twice. “Jake, bring the car around.”
“Right away, Sir,” Jake’s voice responded.
Blaine considered his options as Jake went to bring the car around. His first instinct was to pawn Erin off to Maria, let her take the wild maenad under her wing for a few weeks of orientation. Maria would educate Erin on how things were done among the god-touched and integrate her into the established order. Then again, Erin used to work for Maria at her company, Pythia. Putting the two of them together again would be asking for trouble on multiple fronts.
Yet the more Blaine contemplated it, the more he doubted the wisdom of that course. The other council members were jealous of his power. They would surely try to turn Erin against him, spin their honeyed lies to warp her perspective. No, he couldn’t risk letting her out of his direct supervision, not when she had the potential to unseat him.
Better for him to take her under his own tutelage, keep the unpredictable maenad close so he could monitor her activities. With the right incentives, he could bend her boundless energy to serve his own ends. Perhaps in time, he could even seduce her, bind her to him, body and soul. The thought quickened his pulse. Yes, he would take a personal interest in her orientation to this new world. Erin was a force to be reckoned with, but Blaine was confident that with care and cunning, he could control and harness that force for his own benefit. The wildling would be clay in his hands soon enough.
CHAPTER25
ERIN
The sumptuous leather glided like silk against the bare skin of her calves and thighs as Erin crossed her legs in the back of the Bentley. Because, of course, Blaine had a Bentley. What else would the mayor use to trundle around town?
“You’re going to have to up your game, Blaine,” Erin said. As he’d made his sales pitch, Blaine’s winning smile and piercing blue gaze had sent shivers down her spine. His charm should be considered an illegal weapon, but she wasn’t about to let him palm off subpar properties on her. “Show me something downtown,” she demanded, and Blaine’s face showed a flash of irritation before he softened his features. “I don’t want to go all the way out to the suburbs or anything.”
Blaine turned to face her, absently pulling on his shirt cuff, straightening the fit of the shirt across his broad chest. “I know you said no to the open plots on the outskirts of town, but I can assure you, there’s virtually no available space left downtown. At least, unless you’d like to upgrade a retiring manufacturing plant?”
Erin’s nose wrinkled. “That’s an option?”
“Sure, there’s usually some remediation of the land that’s required, but I’m sure you understand these things always take time.”
He’d repeated the mantra of time enough times. Erin understood that if she moved at his and the council’s pace, it might be years before Dionysos’ temple was built.
Blaine’s trusty helper, Jake, had driven them around all night, the pace of his tour leisurely as they made a circuit of the city. They’d stopped at two locations so far, with Blaine making a show of talking about the potential benefits of each option. Did he genuinely want to help her, or was he just humoring her? It was almost as if Blaine took her request for club space seriously.
Almost.
As long as she waited a few years.
“Show me.” She licked her lips. “Show me what you’ve got, Blaine.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. An electric thrill shot through Erin as, despite the obvious rein he was trying to keep on these negotiations, he responded to her flirtation. After a lifetime of being snubbed as poor and unempowered, the heady rush of sudden influence was going to her head. Even his pouty lower lip beckoned to her to slide across the seat and nibble it. She told herself she should back down from the seductive interplay with Mayor Blaine, but she didn’t want to rein herself in. Images of the bacchanal replayed through her mind, a hunger to taste him flaring through her veins.
She knew the pre-god-touched Erin would have questioned her desire, would have advised caution when dealing with such an obviously powerful man who had the power to crush her dreams.
The Erin of today wanted a bite out of him, and she wasn’t playing.
“Jake,” Blaine said. “Can you swing us by Confluence Park?”
“Of course, sir,” Jake replied. He glanced at Erin through the rear-view mirror, his expression unreadable.
Erin wondered if Jake ever said no to his boss. Did anyone say no to Blaine?
Blaine lived in a universe she’d never visited, nor even glimpsed, from the VIP section of Porters or the snazzy boardroom of Pythia. She slid her hand across the real wood inlay on the interior door frame. Is this how all god-touched lived, with cushy positions in city government and fat paychecks to match? She’d always wondered what kind of job someone had to have in order to afford the lifestyles she only saw in shows.
One thing was evident to Erin—Blaine saw her as a situation to be managed. But by the way his heated gaze lingered on the curves of her legs, there was something more going on under the surface. Yet by the confident look on his face, he believed he had her well in hand. Did he think she wouldn’t guess at the layers of administration, red-tape, and bureaucracy he’d casually mentioned would have to be managed in order for Erin to have her temple to Dionysos?
With all his talk of waiting and time, Erin knew he’d delay her as long as he could. If she wanted to appease Dionysos, she had to take matters into her own hands.
