THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

He gestured toward her suite of rooms. “We got you some clothes, if you’d like to ditch that shirt. Not that there’s anything wrong with you in that shirt, you understand.”
    She laughed, buoyed by his easy, uncomplicated masculine appreciation. “Thanks. I’ll go check them out.” It occurred to her to tell him about his new pay hike, but thought better of it, seeing as he was in the middle of something. She waved him back to his phone conversation and headed for her rooms.
    Ten minutes later, she’d examined everything in the four bags piled on her bed.
    Two pairs of flat-front trousers, size 10, one pair chocolate brown, the other navy, just like the ones she’d left in St. Cloud. Two Eddie Bauer wrinkle-resistant, two-pleat khaki pants. One pair of designer jeans she knew must have cost the earth because, in a fit of self-indulgence, she’d paid $80 for an identical pair at a 75% off sale. A waffle-knit top, a long-sleeved v-neck tee, a ribbed v-neck sweater. Two Oxford shirts, one long sleeved and one short. A couple of tanks. The pants were precisely the same issue as the ones she’d abandoned, and the tops were close enough.
    The final bag contained underwear. 36C underwire bras that fit, along with matching thongs and boy shorts and hip-hugging briefs. Underwear that mirrored almost exactly the intimates she’d left behind, though the stuff back home had seen better days.
    Definitely not Delano’s work. The very versatile Eli must have phoned back to the house in St. Cloud to get the particulars of her wardrobe, then paid a shopper to reproduce it as closely as possible. No wonder he was so invaluable to Delano.
    Ainsley tossed the underwear into a drawer, gathered the clothes off the bed and hung them in the closet. Then she stretched out on the bed.
    Lord, she was tired. Bone-deep weary, the way she used to get after stringing together too many consecutive 12s at the hospital. Except she didn’t have long shifts to blame for her exhaustion this time. Just one nasty, psyche-rattling shock after another. But at least she knew the score, now.
    Or did she?
    Delano didn’t seem like he was hiding anything more from her. Of course, she hadn’t thought he’d been hiding anything significant before, and look how wrong she’d been.
    She sat up on the bed, drawing her knees up and hugging them to her chest. How was it possible that she could read him so easily one moment — God, it was freaky … like she could hear his very thoughts — only to discover he’d effortlessly concealed something as humongous and critical as, “Oh, by the way, I’m a vampire.”
    Unless he projected the things he wanted her to know, or things he flat out just didn’t care if she knew, but shielded the rest?
    She lifted her chin off her knees. Dear God, she was starting to think about this stuff as though she really had some kind of weird telepathic connection with Delano Bowen! How bizarre was that?
    “Argh!” She flopped back against the pillows again.
    Her eyes, still slightly puffy from crying, wanted to close, so she let them. God, but it would be good to just crash. If only she could shut her mind down like a computer. Clear the cache. Ctl-Alt-Del. Re-friggin’-boot. That’s what she needed to do. If she could just sleep, she could forget about vampires for a while. And Delano’s murderous nemesis Janecek. And her possible infection with the vampirism virus. And the way Delano’s hot, black gaze had burned straight back into hers, touching her soul.
    Her lids sprang open. That was no way to think. Nobody touched her soul, not without her permission. And she was extremely picky.
    She let her lids drift closed again. It felt so good to close her burning eyes. But aaaaaaahhhhh, she couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not yet. If Delano was planning to have a clinic up and running by tomorrow night, she’d better stick to the night rhythms, and sleep by day.
    Besides which, if he were hiding something more from her, she’d have to match his hours so she could keep an eye on him. Groaning, she rolled off the bed and headed for the shower.
     
    Delano stayed out until almost 4:30.
    By 2:30, he’d already recruited more candidates than he needed. After all, these were familiar stomping grounds. He knew where to find the usual suspects. But he just wasn’t ready to go back that soon. So he inserted himself into the current of humanity moving from bar to bar to after-hours club.
    From Ste-Catherine Street, he moved