Chapter 5: Her Legacy

Eric had never been so bored in his entire fucking life. It was a pitch presentation for glass. Do you know what's more interesting than glass? Chewing on it maybe. Although there was something to be said about the delivery; the young doctor spoke so rapidly and excitedly it was like watching a rabbit on cocaine. It was a whole twenty whole minutes of his existence that he surely would never ever get back. Luckily there was a distraction available for his viewing pleasure.

The woman sitting across the conference room table.

She wore all white, just like everything else in this place, but she could not stand out more. Sunkissed skin, beautiful dark brown hair, lips that he would love to feel caressing him in all the right places. Rebecca Bellefleur was completely unafraid. She was unafraid of touching him, unafraid of being alone with him, unafraid of giving the floor to her sister because she knew she was still running the show. Unafraid of looking him straight in the eye, unwavering.

It would make taking Bonne Nuit from her all the more sweet. Or perhaps, he would keep her. As the slide deck presentation went on and on, the idea planted itself in his head like a weed. This company still would need a COO, and he would just love having her work for him. Or rather, work under him. By the time Dr. Katherine Bellefleur asked 'any questions?' it was all he could think about.

Which was why he let Godric go down to the laboratory with the boring scientist without protest. Spending time alone with Richard Bellefleur's little girl would surely make up for the boring ass slides he just had to sit through.

The conference room's glass door slowly shut by itself as Godric and the young doctor headed to the elevators. His eyes met hers, across the table. Rebecca didn't even flinch.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet me at this hour. I am sure it is unusual for someone like you."

"I always meet my client's needs, Mr. Northman," She smiled. Stay still, my dead non-beating heart. "What project could we supply our state-of-the-art glass to?"

None. He wanted all of it. And then some.

"I must say…" He dodged the question. Eric wanted to savour the foreplay first. Take his time with her. Undress her slowly. "It's quite fascinating seeing technologies being developed by humans for the benefit of my kind. I would never have guessed I would see such a thing in my lifetime."

"Bonne Nuit was founded by my mother. She was truly a visionary," she said with a plain and utterly professional smile.

Eric knew the brilliant and renowned Dr. Abigail Bellefleur had committed suicide over ten years ago. Rebecca must have been a teenager then. "Well, we are all very thankful for her legacy."

Silence fell in the room. The lights were still dimmed from the presentation, allowing the colourful city lights to shine through the glass box they were in. The woman sitting across the table was nothing like he expected. He thought she would be a dumb and spoiled little girl, given this spot out of pure nepotism. The jury was still out on that front.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Northman?" She asked, delicately folding her hands over the table, but her tone had changed. She had a fire in her.

Oh, he imagined she could do a lot for him. It was getting increasingly difficult to push away his dirty thoughts. But he wasn't done playing yet. He had all the time in the world, no need to rush.

"Where did you go to school, Miss Bellefleur?"

"Stanford, then Wharton."

How curious. Kids of billionaires very seldom even bother to finish their first year of college, and yet she had completed two whole prestigious degrees. That told him she had a chip on her shoulder and felt she had something to prove. To whom?

"You are quite accomplished for someone your age."

"I am older than I look."

"That makes two of us," he smirked.

She gave him an utterly fake smile. Rebecca had it all: money, credentials, power, influence, youth and pride. He wasn't sure what gave it away, but Rebecca Bellefleur seemed to catch on to this meeting's purpose before he could bring it up. She was a seasoned professional.

"You strike me as a pragmatic man, Mr. Northman. How about we cut to the chase and you can tell me what it is that you really want?"

He really wanted to undress her. Slowly.

"I want you, Miss Bellefleur," she stiffened at the words. "As my COO."

She cocked a brow at the proposition. "Of New Blood?"

"No. Of Bonne Nuit," his mind slipped into all the creative ways they could have fun in this glass box.

A shadow crossed her face for a second. "You want to acquire us."

Eric pulled the papers from his briefcase and spread them on the table. She didn't even glance at the headlines. All she could look at was him.

"Bellefleur Tech would be lucky to make it through another full fiscal year."

"Hardly," her brows knitted together. "We acquired three other companies this year alone-"

"Well," he shook his head, smiling. "Buying companies and then price-hiking their best products is not really a sustainable business model, especially with pharmaceuticals. Medicaid will be knocking on your doors for a refund, then the short-sellers will take the rest. Bellefleur Tech is in trouble, and I don't think the Government is going to give you another bailout this time like it did 10 years ago."

Rebecca's lips pressed together into a fine line. Her beautiful brown eyes turned cold, finally acknowledging the papers in front of her. "How did you get these numbers? They're not public."

Like taking candy from a child. "No, but they are… Accessible. I'm just three months ahead of the pack if that."

"So what is your official offer, Mr. Northman?" She asked formally.

"900 million, two board seats at Bellefleur Tech, all of Bonne Nuit's patents and Calantica," those goddamn eye drops. The reason they were here at all. He had a theory that she used them judging from the way her eyes did not waver away from him. It somehow made this meeting more exciting. It had been over a decade since he'd met a human he couldn't compel.

Rebecca then had a burst of sarcastic laughter, astonished at the absurd offer. "That is a very generous offer, Mr. Northman, but if that is what you seek you are meeting with the wrong Bellefleur-"

"I disagree. I don't want your father, I want you."

She rose up from her seat, standing tall. That seemed to tick her off. She wore an evil smile on her face, the sexiest thing he had ever seen. "Then I am afraid this meeting is over -"

"Make it a billion then."

"And do what with it, Mr. Northman? Add it to my pile of billions?" She mocked him.

Eric got up from his seat, towering Rebecca over the table. He could catch a glimpse of her curves and his mouth watered. She was looking at him too, without blinking. You could cut the tension in the room with a butter knife. The sexual tension, that is.

"Tell me what you want then. Everyone's got a price, even you."

Her heels tip taped around the table, she prowled closer, stopping in front of him. He was absolutely salivating. She eyed him head to toe, taking in his Prada suit with a smirk.

"You can't afford me, Mr. Northman."

Oh little girl, but he can.

"You can just drop me off here, Terry, I can walk two damn blocks," Rebecca told him impatiently.

She was itching to get the fuck out of this car and drink the entire top shelf of Tara's. If traffic wasn't bad, getting ready in the car usually distracted her long enough to complete the trip. But all she had to do was take off her pencil skirt, as she was wearing a short white dress as a blouse. She switched into her cheap dancing shoes, a pair of bright yellow Valentino lace-up suede heels, and added some more makeup. But the goddamn tourists took over the streets, drunkenly crossing everywhere, bar hopping left to right, which made Terry drive 3 miles per hour.

"Absolutely not, the streets are too full."

"AH!" She scoffed, irritated. Lunging forward she hit the middle of the steering wheel, honking loudly at the streets. "Let's gooooo!"

"Get back and put your seatbelt on young lady!" He commanded. Terry only pulled out the young lady when he meant business. "You're drawing attention! What is my one rule?!"

She sat back, pouting but obeying her cousin. "Be inconspicuous."

"Damn right!" He said loudly, eyes wide and alert scanning the streets.

Rebecca decided to stay quiet. It wasn't his fault that the meeting had gone fucking awful. That was not like her usual sparring at all. From the get-go, he did not play his part in the script or even played the same game. And to make the matter worse her father had omitted a pretty big fucking detail of what tonight was supposed to be about. Richard wasn't interested in impressing the vampires to get their business. Rebecca was there to show the horse's teeth and get them to make an offer for Bonne Nuit. There was no fucking way her father didn't know their true intentions. He always knew everything, and he used her eagerness to please him against her. Rebecca got caught and completely blindsided, and she felt like a fucking idiot, played by her own father.

But worse of all, how could he? How could Dad have the audacity to sell Mom's company? Mom's legacy? Bonne Nuit was practically all she had left of her. But there was no fucking way Richard Senior would ever agree to give vampires two seats at Bellefleur Tech or hand over Calantica for that matter. And to stay on as COO and work for Eric fucking Northman?!

When hell fucking froze over.

Sympathizing with her frustration, Terry took a different route through a series of back alleys. He was going to drop her off by the backdoor where he usually parked. Worked for her. When Terry stopped the car, Rebecca almost kicked the car door open.

The fresh and thick night air enveloped her like a cloak. She only vaguely recognized the place, as she usually walked through here at the end of her nights while heavily intoxicated. The pavement was wet from rain, and steam rose from the ground, adding more humidity to the summer heat. She could hear the medley of live jazz echoing in the streets, mixed with the unmistakable base of Tap In by Saweetie. Oh yeah, she was at the back of Tara's alright.

"Miss Bellefleur!" The back security man exclaimed, caught off guard since this wasn't her usual entryway. But he seemed more agitated than usual. "So good to see you tonight-"

She nodded at him with a small smile and headed inside where the air was ten times hotter. She hung her blazer by the door, on her own hook. Rebecca was good friends with the owners, Lafayette and James, and she spent so much money in this place she practically lived here.

Passing three dancers barely covered in couture leatherware, she entered her second home. It was hot, sweaty and extremely loud, filled with people who held back no inhibitions. Here, you left society's expectations at the door. You could be whatever and whoever you wanted. Dead or alive, in here there were only friends and lovers. No enemies.

She crossed the club floor, ducked under the bar and gave James a passing slap on his ass, barely covered by low-hanging jeans.

"I keep telling you you're not allowed back here," James told her, but she paid no attention.

Holding onto the rails of the liquor shelf ladder, she stepped up, reaching for her poison of choice for the evening. "It's an emergency, James."

"Oh, we seem to be having few of those tonight."

Rebecca stretched herself to the right, hoping not to fall off the ladder. It wouldn't be the first time she embarrassed herself in here, nor would it be the last, but she just really needed hard liquor right now. Her fingers grabbed her guilty pleasure of comfort - Jack Daniels Tennessee Fire. She didn't even wait to get back down to the ground, she unsealed the top and flicked the cap into the sink. Throwing the bottom of the bottle up, she took a long, painfully hot swing of the spiced whiskey. Immediately the cinnamon fire took over her lungs, and heat rose up over her skin.

Hugging the bottle close to her body, she stepped down, looking at the handsome vampire filling a tray of tequila shots. He wore his usual gray tank top and army dog tag and his hair was shoulder-length, perfectly framing his handsome face. She looked at the tray filled with little glasses of clear liquid. Whoever had ordered that would be the company for the evening. She didn't like tequila that much, but she loved people who liked tequila.

"Where's Lafayette?"

"Hiding out back."

Hiding? Is Lafayette Reynolds hiding? He was larger than life, an icon to this city, the only other person in this forsaken place who was perhaps more confident than her. Who or what could he be possibly hiding from?

"From who? The IRS?" She shouted over the loud music.

Her body moved to it involuntarily, begging to get lost in the dancefloor. The DJ was playing Pump It by the Black Eyed Peas. It was an older song, but the motif of the club was 'all bangers all the time', no matter the decade.

"No, from you," he gave her a pointed look.

She frowned, confused. "Me?"

"And from him."

She followed his gaze upwards, above the crowded club floor and landed directly on her VIP booth, her second living room. There was a tall dark figure sprawled right in the middle seat, making him look like the rightful King on the throne. He gave her a subtle smug smile and a small wave. His blue eyes sparkled directly at her as if he were waiting for her arrival at his court. A wave of heat took over and got lodged in her throat, and she wasn't sure it was the alcohol.

Eric Northman was here and he had taken her booth.

"Motherfucker!"

Rebecca immediately stormed out through the back door of the bar, finding Lafayette hiding against the back of the sound panel, squeezing himself against the wall. He was shaking like a leaf, actually praying to his RuPaul votive candle.

"Lafayette, what the fuck!?" She yelled at him.

"Ah fuck!" He jumped, startled. His shimmery purple eyeshadow glimmered even in the dark. "Mo'fucking James snitched on my ass? Et tu James?!" His neck stretched out, peeking down the empty hallway, looking to scold his lover, who was very much working the bar alone.

But she had come back here to settle a very distressing situation. "You gave my booth away?!"

"Bitch don't yous start with me! Don't you know who dat is?"

"Yeah, I do actually, and it makes it even worse."

Eric Northman not only had taken her booth, but he was here. He was here, inside Tara's, the only place that was only hers.

"Bitch, tell yous what," Lafayette shook his head. "Go home with that bottle, take two Vicodin and suck on some of that ganja I gave yous for your birthday and by the time you wake up, Eric will be gone and everything in this motherfuckin' world will be right and queer again."

Lafayette never told Rebecca to go home. In fact, he always insisted that she stay way past the last call and share a joint with him out on the balcony upstairs. He was a believer that the best jazz happened at 3 AM in the club across the street and that weed helped hangovers. He was always right.

"Wait, you know that asshole?"

"He's not just any asshole, baby girl! That is Eric fucking Northman whose fucking ancient and stupid powerful and can kill all o' us! So yeah, when he shows up at my bar and asks for your booth he can motherfuckin' have it! He can have the whole fuckin' joint!"

"He came in looking for my booth? That's what he asked for?"

Oh, hell fucking no. Buying Bonne Nuit was business. But taking her booth at Tara's? That was fucking personal. He had crossed the line and she was going to put him back where he fucking came from.

"Bitch, you remember all the stories I told yous about Tara's scary-ass vampire Maker?"

She remembered Lafayette telling the most gory and scary vampire horror stories that happened in his hometown upstate. He was a successful entrepreneur now, but he had come from humble beginnings and lived many morally gray lives until he came here. The irony was that he cleaned up his shit when he arrived in New Orleans when usually the opposite happened. But she never quite believed all of his fantastical tales. They just seemed too absurd and honestly too fucked up to be entirely true.

"Yeah. What do you call her? Monster Barbie? Vamp mommy?"

"That's right. And Eric Northman's the one who made Tara's scary-ass Maker, okay? Yous stay the fuck away from him and let him have whatever he wants."

She remembered their meeting vividly. The way he looked at her from across the table. How the corner of his lips curled up when he said her name. She felt the alcohol do flips in her stomach. It was unclear whether it accepted tonight's sacrificial offerings or not.

"He wants me."

His eyeliner disappeared under his lids, his eyes opened so wide. "Well, it was nice knowing yas."

"Lafayette!" She slapped him in the arm, and he almost dropped his Rupaul candle. That would have been blasphemy.

Rebecca pressed her lips together, forcing her brain to work an exit strategy. Eric Northman wanted to acquire Bonne Nuit, and this was a clear message he was not going to back down. This was not only a hostile takeover, it was war. She shook her head, refusing to accept any of it.

"Uh oh, Rebecca Marie Bellefleur I know that look-"

"Send a bottle of champagne to my booth. I'll deal with this."

"Hooker, is you insane!?"

She spun on her heels. "No one takes my fucking booth, Lafayette!"

Her friend protested as loud as he could, his voice shouting all sorts of ominous warnings that just blended in with Lady Gaga's Just Dance blaring from the speakers. She ignored all of it. Eric Northman was threatening not only Bonne Nuit, but her only sacred place. She wasn't going to take this kind of provocation lightly, she was going to go up there and fucking fight him. Who the fuck does he think he is? Taking another long swig from her Jack Daniels, she walked up to the mezzanine. Her tipsy body knew the way home well.

She stopped dead in front of him, staring him down from the other side of the low center table. He looked at her with the dirtiest smile. The leather seat looked strangely small under his tall body. He had opened another button of his black shirt, the club lights highlighting the expensive suit he was wearing. Eric Northman looked… Like sex. It was infuriating.

But he had waged war, and she took no prisoners.

"You are in my seat," she stated bluntly.

"On the contrary. I've saved you a seat," Eric sank a bit deeper into her booth, widening his legs. His large hand patted his right thigh. "Right here."

A cold shiver ran up her spine. Rebecca was a pro at dealing with clients. She was also an expert at getting laid. If the two of them had met outside of work, she would have fucked this man in a heartbeat. He was practically 200 lbs of sex appeal. She would have gotten on her knees and done many vulgar, filthy and possibly even illegal things with him. But mixing both? That was strictly, unquestionably and undeniably forbidden. You can't sleep around as a woman within your professional circles - only men got to do that unpunished.

She froze in place, trying to calculate her next move. Her brain could only focus on his large hand over his inviting lap. The sudden heat she felt taking over her body had nothing to do with the cinnamon whiskey she was drinking.

"Have you reconsidered my offer?"

"Oh, I have," she looked him dead in the eye. "It went from no, to a fuck no."

He cocked an eyebrow, strangely delighted at her change in vocabulary. This wasn't business anymore. At Tara's she played a very different game, one Eric did not have the rulebook for.

"You and I would make a great team, Rebecca," he continued, that small smirk at the corner of his beautiful mouth. She wanted to slap that dirty grin right off his face. The jury was out on whether it was with her hand or her lips. "I promise you will not miss working for your father, but you can still call me Daddy if you want."

An involuntary laugh escaped her body. Holy fucking shit the audacity of this man. "You really think you can buy us when our stock price closed at 55 dollars on Friday?"

In her mind, she cursed herself for saying those words here. She didn't do work here - it was the whole point of loving this place. But her ferocity took over, just like when she screwed over her brother. There was no stopping her.

"You closed a deal with those boring dinosaurs at the Louvre, give it another two weeks after it goes public and you'll be below 50 again," he moved his elbow, resting it comfortably on top of the backrest he was so tall. "That's why I like humans so much, you have such a short-term memory."

She hated that he knew it. Eric knew far more than he should, but she also knew a thing or two.

"Oh, they are the dinosaurs, are they? If that's not the pot calling the kettle black." She shook her head. Eric did not seem phased by the insinuation she knew his age. A thousand years huh? "Let me explain how this works, Mr. Northman: I will never work for you, and I will never sell Bonne Nuit because I have my own plan, and you can't buy me out of it."

His smile had changed. "I see. You want the CEO seat?" He paused, grinning. "Aw, look at her, a modern woman, hear her roar," he mocked her. She didn't like how much it stung. "If Richard Bellefleur keeps going the way he's going he will be the CEO of nothing, and you and your sister will be hung out to dry."

Eric Northman was deeply exaggerating, and his scare tactics were wasted on her. Rebecca studied every inch of Bellefleur Tech and all of its 18 subsidiaries. She knew it like the back of her hand. Sure the numbers didn't all look great, and not all sectors of the company performed all that well in the past few quarters. And yeah, the optics of Dick's last failed acquisition didn't help. But they were far from the stage of selling off assets. And if they were, it sure as hell wasn't going to be Bonne Nuit on the chopping block first. If this dead fucker thought even for a second he would pull off a hostile takeover, or even worse, threaten her sister, he had another thing coming.

"Okay. Let's say I take your absurd offer to my father Monday morning. Do you know what he'll say?"

"Pass me the pen?" He actually looked as if he was enjoying this fucking torture.

A server approached, wearing nothing but a thong and a leather chest harness, leaving a bottle of champagne on the center table, as per her request. Thank God for Lafayette Reynolds. She bent over carefully reaching for the bottle, making sure Eric got the view with the most cleavage.

"No, he'll say 'is he out of his fucking mind? Our stock is 10 dollars higher than his and he wants board seats?'"

He smirked. "Cute, but we closed at 51 on Friday, not that far from you."

"And I'll be at 61 per share by the time I order my Starbucks Marshmallow Dream Bar for lunch on Monday, just watch."

Rebecca turned to a random bar patron from the next booth over and handed her phone, asking him over the booming music to take a video of her with her phone. He awkwardly obliged, and she shook the champagne bottle then opened it with a loud pop and sprayed the crowd below with the foamy liquid while laughing. Tara's, because it was a truly magical place, provided the perfect soundtrack for the moment, which was Destination Calabria. It couldn't have been more perfect if she tried.

The crowd cheered and screamed with joy below, enjoying the refreshing rain of chilled champagne. Miraculously, she didn't get any on her white dress. When she was done, Becca took her phone back, and quickly typed the caption:

Celebrating ;)

And posted it to her Instagram. There was something to be said for all her male investors and high-stakes shareholders who followed her socials for thirsty reasons, who would see it and think she closed a deal big enough to recklessly post on the internet. Twitter and Reddit would be exploding tomorrow with speculation, and her stock price would skyrocket for a day or two.

"The SEC will have a fucking field day with you," his voice was cold like a glacier, and somehow even sexier.

Was her little Instagram stunt technically an illegal pump-and-dump scheme? Yeah. Did she care? Absolutely not. She's done much worse for way less and gotten away with it. Do you really think any attorney general is going to waste his time prosecuting a 20-something's Instagram post? Especially one who owned an army of lawyers and whose father was one of the largest employers of Louisiana, and a major campaign supporter of the current sitting Governor?

"Aww… You've never been pumped and dumped before?" She dared, knowing she was taking the joke a little too far. But this was Tara's. The rules were different here.

In a blur, Eric was no longer in his seat (correction - her seat). And she was no longer standing by the center table. Her back was pressed against the iron guardrails of the mezzanine, his body was pinning her against the metal bars and his face was an inch close to hers. The air inside her lungs did not move. His pale blue eyes pierced straight through her with the intensity of a wrathful God. He saw nothing but her. It felt like Eric could see everything about her. All the parts she wanted to show him and all the parts that she didn't.

And he wanted all of it.

His body was made of cold marble, she could feel his hard muscles against her skin through his lavish suit. His jaw was shut tight, but she could tell his fangs had descended and their pointed ends were peeking out from his soft lips. A small, rageful growl came from his throat, making his whole being tense. His hands firmly squeezed the handrails by her waist, and she was both thankful and disappointed those hands didn't touch her.

Something inexplicably intense and dark took over her. She had gotten under his skin. It was a euphoric high, unlike any pill Lafayette had ever given her. A shadow suddenly flashed over his face, and his gaze was no longer locked on hers but lost somewhere in the crowd below. He frowned, retracting his sharp teeth.

"What is it?" She asked, a part of her was actually sad their game was over.

"He's fed."

"Who?"

Rebecca looked over her shoulder, no longer following the conversation. His whole disposition had changed, he no longer looked like he was going to fuck her on the spot. He stood still at her feet, looking entirely out of place. Following his eyes, she searched the crowd for answers. What she found turned all the heat in the body, in the room and perhaps all the heat in the south into ice.

Hell hath frozen over. Because Kate Bellefleur had just walked into Tara's with Godric.

AN:

this chapter causes such a blood rush to my head I can't quite explain it. It's a straight shot of dopamine every time I read it

I hope you like it!

xoxo

Spice