“Are you saying that you’re attracted to Ms. Shaw because you thought she was Julianna or because you simply are?”

Dominic never backed down from how he felt. Once he made a decision he stuck to it. If he wanted something he got it. If he needed to tell someone pertinent information he did that too. He wasn’t about to change now. Direct worked best to those he was close to.

“I’m attracted to her yes. As to your other question, while I did think she was Julianna yesterday, my attraction has nothing to do with the fact that I thought she was my bruid; and no I have not had ‘intimacies’ with Julianna Greenwich. She holds no favor over me.” At all.

His mother gasped. “But she’s to be your bruid!”

“Not of my choice.” Even someone such as him had to bend sometimes, bend to the need of others and in this case, he needed a certain blue-blood socialite to help earn him the nomination for president. He would become the next president and representative for the vampires, but no one in the history of the council has ever become president without a blood bonded mate. Someone blue-blooded, rich, quiet, and who knew how to keep her place. Julianna Greenwich fit that bill to a T.

None of this would have happened if his father hadn’t caught the rare vampire disease, arromunia. Dom had moved on. He was ready to move into his father’s steps and take over.

If Dom hadn’t separated from Helena then none of this would be a problem. He was expected to have a bruid—a vampire mate to represent the women for the council. He could not run unmated and expect to win.

After Felicity left the estate last night, he’d called his brother Grayson to look into her. Grayson owned a security company that specialized in protecting vampires and weres. Some people always had targets on their back and no one, not even the immortal could always escape a murder attempt. Grayson and his team did excellent work but something his brother excelled at was gathering intel.

He looked into Felicity Shaw after she left last night and learned all about her. Her mother lived off an inheritance left to her by a dead husband. She took that money and squandered it badly—spending most of it on her very young and new “mate” who came from an even poorer background. According to Grayson, it looked like Felicity and her mother did not speak, and her father, a nameless figure, had never been in her life.

It looked like Mrs. Shaw was robbing the cradle and had left her daughter behind to fend for herself some years ago. The report also showed that Felicity had been searching for a job for over a year. She lived in a lower-income neighborhood with a beat-up car that still wasn’t paid off and had outstanding bills and debts.

The amount of debt she carried along with her previous paying jobs, according to what she’d told them during the interview didn’t add up. She would have to be a big spender to garner that kind of debt. Maybe even bigger than Helena. Just the thought brought a sour taste to his tongue. He didn’t want the passionate Felicity Shaw to have anything to do with his ex-bruid.

“It may not be of your choice, Dominic but you must. The weres are pushing for the presidency which will give them majority control. Alpha were Zeke wishes to have control over everything. He wants to bring forth a law that will force men to seek their mates and claim them even from other packs. You know how dangerous that will be. He says their population is dying out. Rafe were Chief of the North, wishes to have were supremacy over the council. You know he’ll vote and push and maybe even lead us to war to get the vampires off the council so that Zeke can rule. Zeke isn’t the right man for this position, Dominic.”

“Mother, I know this,” he said.

“Then you know what’s at stake if you don’t get elected.” Her voice softened as she came towards him. She let her guard down and he saw the burning pain of his father’s death still lingering in her eyes. It had only been a few months since they’d lit his dead body and let the flames take him. “Your father was a great man. It’ll be hard for any to take over in his place, but if anyone can do it, you can, my son.”

“Mother, I’ll win the presidency. Don’t worry about it.”

She nodded, blinking fast as tears filled her eyes, and then she gave him a tight smile. “Of course you and Lady Julianna will only help to prove to the people that you are traditional just as your father was. She will make a fine bruid.”

Dominic looked away. He doubted that. He didn’t like being quick to judge but Julianna didn’t seem like the type to care about women’s issues and that would be her responsibility as his queen.

A knot settled in his chest like a lead ball.

It felt wrong even thinking about mating with Julianna. It had nothing to do with the fact that they’d barely spoken when they met last night. Last night when he’d handed his family’s ring to her. The same ring that he’d forcibly removed from Helena’s finger not but a few months earlier. Did Julianna say anything? No, she just tipped her lips into a gracious smile then left for her rooms.

He’d hoped that maybe once he met Julianna that same fire he’d felt for Felicity Shaw would be there. He’d thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d been so long without a bedmate that his lust-filled mind had overtaken him.

But then he and Julianna sat and talked quite genially over a glass of blood and he’d never been more bored. She was not passionate. She did not fire his blood. She didn’t even capture his interest. He’d rather read an encyclopedia on insects than talk to her. It had been that bad. Of course, it didn’t help that all he’d wanted to do was go after Felicity. He had been unable to stop replaying their short time together.

Julianna did nothing for him.

He certainly did not have fantasies of pulling her expensive dress up, touching her wetness, then filling her over and again with his cock.

Nope. Not at all.

Even the thought of doing such a thing with the doll-like Julianna made his skin shrivel like a prune.

But he had to do it. His mother was right. He needed a bruid before he ran for office and there wasn’t much time for that. He needed one famous enough that everyone already knew her and would accept her graciously. Julianna would fit the part perfectly. Even her father was ready with his constituents to back his political campaign. All he had to do was mate with Julianna.

He’d been thinking it through since last night and could only come up with one decision. He must take Felicity as his mistress.

A slow smile curled over his lips.

“What’s that look?” his mother asked warily.

He flicked his gaze to hers and smiled for real. “It’s nothing. Just making plans. Let’s get back to our guests now, shall we?”

He turned for the door but his mother grabbed his arm and tugged. He turned back to her, one questioning brow raised.

“Son, you will mate with Julianna, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

Another unwanted mate to be saddled with. He’d done it before for five hundred years. He could do it again. Anything for his people. Anything to keep the weres, especially Zeke, from taking over. That would put three weres against two vampires on the council. He couldn’t have that. Not when his father had taken that seat for more than four hundred and fifty years.

“What about Ms. Shaw?” she asked. “I don’t have to give her the job. I can make this all go away. You know it’s for the best.”

Dominic regarded at the door, envisioning Felicity sitting on the sofa wearing that dress made to drive a man wild and looking nervous, sweet, and sexy all at the same time.

“She’ll be mine,” he said with finality. “Let her keep the job. It’ll matter not.”

“But—”

“That’s enough!” He said it with quiet menace and his mother nodded, her eyes falling to the floor.