Emily hated this. She hated this and she hated Nova and she hated Kenneth and she hated anyone who had ever had money ever! She hated having to learn this useless garbage and she hated having to constantly watch what she was doing because she might put runs in her nylons, or her skirt might ride up, or her jacket may open up in the wrong way, or she might mess up her hair, or these stupid nails might break…She hated it ALL!

She was sitting at a desk in Kenneth's office. She looked like an office bimbo. She wanted to be wearing her jeans and shirts and sweaters. She never thought that wearing clothes should have to be work, and yet here she was reading about the history of blood borne pathogens. Ok, she had to admit that the reading wasn't so bad. In fact, she found it kind of interesting. Of course, whenever she thought about it, her mind would drift to action vampire movies that had tried to denote vampirism as just a blood born disease that could be cured with a syringe full of essence of garlic or some other such nonsense.

And yes, she had to admit that Nova had been right. And she hated that more than anything else. The woman had been so arrogant, so matter-of-fact, that she had wanted to strangle her. But these clothes did feel nice on her body. The way it softly brushed against her skin, her vampiric senses feeling every fiber of the well-made clothes. It felt good to wear them.

But that didn't mean she had to like it. She felt like her life was spinning out of control. Like Kenneth and Nova were conspiring against her, to mold her into something that she wasn't. She wasn't going to be their puppet. And she wasn't going to be Kenneth's office bimbo either. If he really thought that she would ever be his secretary, he was dead wrong. She was doing this for her farm, that was it.

She would never get used to these nails though. She'd done the whole 'goth' thing when she was younger. Wearing fake nails wasn't anything new. What was new was the French manicure that matched too well with the champagne color scheme of her outfit. She was used to deep, vibrant colors on her lips and nails. Nova had been adamant about having her appearance being expensive but not flashy, or something about not gaudy. She hadn't really been paying attention though.

It was a strange feeling. When Kenneth had visitors now, they seemed to actually acknowledge her. Before, in her jeans and sweater, she was openly frowned and sneered at. But after a few weeks with Nova, and her constantly going out to buy new clothes, new outfits, get her hair, and nails done, buying new shoes and all the rest of it, she was finding that people looked at her very differently. She could silently scream about how much she hated everything all she wanted, but she had to admit that being looked at as a person felt pretty good. It only threw into sharp relief that if she was who she had wanted to be, the people here, with money and power, wouldn't look at her at all. Appearances were everything to these people, not the person underneath. And that made her want to scream in frustration.

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Kenneth walked around his desk and shook the hands of one of his regional managers, Luscious? Luke? Something, she couldn't remember all their names. The older looking man never smiled but he didn't look angry either. As he walked past her desk, he nodded his head slightly in her direction before continuing to the elevator.

Emily was a bit shocked. She blinked as she watched the older gentleman leave the office. Did he know who she was? Was he trying to get in good with Kenneth? Or was he simply acknowledging her for her? She found herself a bit unbalanced.

"Emily? Is something wrong?"

Kenneth's voice brought her back to herself. She jerked her head towards him, but her body slowly turned. The practiced movement that Nova had made her perform over and over again was automatic. When she realized what she was doing she wanted to scream, but by then she was already facing Kenneth anyway.

"No, it's nothing," Emily replied evenly.

He glanced down at her book, nodding at the page number. "I see you're making good progress, what exactly are you reading about now?"

Emily looked up at him with a tired sarcastic expression. When Kenneth glared hard at her, she huffed in a loud exhale and scoffed but answered, "I'm currently reading about a Dutch microbiologist named Martinus Beijerinck, who was recreating an experiment to study what is now known as the tobacco mosaic virus. It was when he recreated that experiment when he first called the contagion, a virus. But he was convinced that it was a liquid based substance. I can only assume that later I'll find out who actually discredited that theory and gave us what we know today as the fact that viruses are organisms and not liquids."

Kenneth nodded, "very good. I have to say I'm fairly impressed with the progress that you've made over the last few weeks."

Emily glared at him. She knew what he was talking about and she didn't like it. Like her changing herself at the direction of him and Nova was something to be applauded.

The elevator dinged and the stainless steel doors silently opened and the darkly tanned form of Nova walked into the office. Emily knew that the woman had been given her own access codes to the Dukart tower. It made her sick to think the woman might be getting in deeper with Kenneth than she thought was possible for a human. She knew they had all started out as humans, but Kenneth struck her as a man that only sought out other vampires, because of their obvious superiority to humans.

Kenneth moved to Nova and hugged her warmly and they kissed. Emily rolled her eyes at the ridiculous display. The kiss wasn't anything overt or disgusting, it was just sickening to see Kenneth with Nova, she was only human, after all. She stopped herself. She looked back at the two as they held each other in their arms. Was it really Kenneth she was sickened by? Could it be that she actually found her stomach turning at the thought of Nova being with him?

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