Undeniable by Doreen Orsini

man held an icepack to his nose.
    Diana emphatically shook her head. “I did not do that one.”
    “Di, his blood is on your forehead,” Terry said, giggling.
She reached over and grabbed a napkin from the bar. After dunking a corner in
her cosmopolitan, she rubbed Diana’s forehead. “See?”
    Diana stared at the slight red smudge. Her head spun as she
tried to remember the man. After a few moments, her gaze shifted back to the
shadowed corner.
    “Di?”
    “Shh.” She squeezed her eyes shut and delved into her mind.
“Think dammit. Think.”
    Bit by bit the events in the alcove unfurled. Heat rushed to
her cheeks as she recalled how she’d rubbed herself against the shadow like a
cat, how she’d clutched onto it when it had tried to release her, how she’d
then followed some internal order to go to the bar and flag down the bartender
with the twenty the shadow had pressed into her hand.
    Catching the bartender’s eye, she asked in a voice that
sounded more like a little girl’s than her own, “Give me a double of Jack
Daniels, please.”
    When the bartender slid the glass across the bar, she downed
it in one gulp, then slammed the glass down. The slow burn of the liquor
sliding down her throat calmed the hysteria that demanded she run screaming out
of the bar.
    “Another.”
    “Another?” Terry grabbed Diana’s thigh and spun her around
until their knees bumped. “What’s up, Di?”
    Diana opened her mouth to explain, but what could she say?
Even Terry would think she lost it. She retrieved two tens from her purse and
tossed them onto the bar.
    “Di, you already have a twenty in your hand. Are you all
right?”
    “This isn’t mine.” Diana gulped down half of her second
drink, then clutched the tumbler to her chest and hopped off the barstool. “You
hooked up with a hypnotist here the other night, didn’t you?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say we hooked—”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    Pushing her way through the crowd, Diana stopped before the
shadowed corner and flung the twenty down. When the twenty disappeared before
it hit the floor, she gasped, then whispered through lips that barely moved.
“Look, thanks for your help, but go play your hypnosis games on someone else,
pal. You hear me? Leave. Me. Alone.”
    Spinning on her heels, she tried to appear unruffled as she
walked on rubbery legs to the dance floor and worked her way deep into the
security of the writhing crowd. Surrounded by people, far from the eerie shadow,
her memory of the events in the alcove seemed ridiculous. No hypnotist was that
good. One too many drinks, a bump on the head and she sees tall, dark,
invisible men. Her gaze wandered back to the corner.
    “One too many drinks,” she snapped, startling the man
dancing beside her.
    * * * * *
    That morning, before he drifted off to sleep, Sebastian
wondered if the qualities he found so intriguing in Diana could also be proof
of her guilt.
    Over the past few nights, he’d witnessed how the town dealt
with Frank Nostrum. Some heaped their pity upon Diana’s rigid shoulders while
others flung their ridicule at her receding back. And Diana? From what he
heard, she knew her father believed he was a vampire hunter, knew the
townspeople believed he was crazy.
    But did Diana believe in vampires? Did she know her father
destroyed them? Had destroyed Marek?
    Sebastian slid his arm under his head and pondered Diana’s
innocence.
    Could she be the ultimate weapon Frank Nostrum used to
ensnare his victims and lure them to their death? She drew men to her like
moths to a flame and had the strength and power to take them down before they
knew what was coming. The possibility that he might be her next willing victim
haunted him, but did not cool the blistering lust surging through his veins,
did not stop him from seeking her out the moment the sun set.
    The remainder of the week passed too swiftly as far as
Sebastian was concerned. Diana usually ended each night with a trip to