by Vivi Anna
He put a hand to his chest when Elise neared.
She regarded him curiously. “Are you all right, Gabriel?”
“Yes,” he managed to say. “I have heartburn. It must’ve been something I ate.”
Her lips twitched a little, as if to stifle a laugh. “You look very nice in that suit.”
He straightened his shoulders and met her gaze. “And you look, ah, beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She lowered her gaze demurely.
It wasn’t often that Elise allowed another to take charge. She was usually the aggressor, the alpha in most situations. Just another reason their relationship had failed—her inability to allow him to be the alpha, to be her protector.
Lily cleared her throat. “Um, I’ll get you two drinks. I’ll be right back.”
When she was gone, Elise slid in next to him and placed her hand on his arm. She leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Stroll with me around the room. I have to do my duty at this thing and greet people.”
Not wanting her to touch him, but not knowing a way to disengage her hand without looking like an ass, Gabriel nodded and started to walk. He could feel the heat of her body even through the heavy fabric of his suit.
“Why are we here?” he asked quietly.
“It’s a charity ball for children. To raise money for the new hospital that will be able to treat all children, both human and Otherworlder.”
“I got that part,” he said. “But wouldn’t it be better, safer, if you weren’t making public appearances? At least until we solve this case.”
“I won’t let anyone make me a prisoner of fear,” she said, then smiled at a passing man. “Good to see you, Günter.”
The man, Günter, kissed Elise’s cheeks. “You get more beautiful every time we meet.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, turning on the charm. “I expect a huge donation from you, my friend.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you.”
He kissed her cheeks again, bowed his head, then was off.
“That was the German Otherworlder ambassador. He’s one of the richest men in Europe.”
Gabriel and she continued their way through the party. He watched as she smiled and charmed everyone in the room. Kissing cheeks, shaking hands, air kissing women who seemed to have sticks up their butts. Gabriel was getting annoyed and exhausted just watching it all take place in front of him.
He thanked her for forgoing his introductions. Instinctively, she must’ve known that he really didn’t want to shake hands with anyone at the party. That he preferred to hang in the background and let her play her part. This was one time he didn’t mind being her accessory.
After they had made one complete circuit, Lily caught up with them and delivered flutes of champagne. Gabriel held his with polite interest but he didn’t drink.
“Don’t you get tired of it?” he asked Elise, once Lily had fluttered off again to do whatever she needed to do.
She lifted one eyebrow in answer, and then took a sip of the champagne. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Being the tough guy. The guy in charge.”
He smirked. “Nope.”
She laughed and he found that he was actually enjoying himself. It had been a long time since he’d been out with a beautiful woman. A woman who made him feel both comfortable and uneasy at the same time. That was what being with Elise had always been like. Keeping balance on a high wire.
Gabriel took that moment to set his drink down on the nearby bar and roll his shoulders. Usually tense, he was finding that sensation starting to diminish. Maybe it was her laugh that gave him a sense of comfort, familiarity, a reason to let down his guard.
A band set up on a stage in the corner started to play and an area in the middle of the room was instantly cleared for dancers. Elise looked at him and grabbed his arm again.
“Dance with me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We used to dance together. Don’t you remember?”
Yeah, he remembered. They’d been teenagers, hormones raging like wildfire and he spent most of the dance pulling her close and running his hands over her well-formed rear end.
“I remember, but I don’t think anyone here wants to watch me fondle your backside.”
She laughed again, and then dragged him through the crowd and onto the dance floor. People moved out of their way the second they saw them coming. It was surreal to have everyone in the room watching them. Gabriel suddenly felt very nervous. As if he was under investigation, under inspection. As if every person in the room was taking his measure to see if he was up to Ms. Elise Leroy’s standards.
He could’ve saved them the trouble of trying to figure that out. He didn’t measure up in the least. Elise had always been too good for him. Her parents never had a problem letting him know that when he’d been courting her all those years ago.
He set his hand on her waist and held her hand out to the side, trying hard not to pull her close. He wanted to. Desperately. But he fought it by biting down on the inside of his cheek.
They whirled around the floor. Surprisingly, Gabriel didn’t step on her feet even once. At one point, he thought he was doing a pretty good job of faking it. That it looked like he knew what he was doing. Until the music slowed a little and Elise pressed in close to his body, running her one hand up to his neck to play with the ends of his hair.
He could hear her heart thumping and the blood rushing through her veins. The scent of her skin and her hair wafted to his nose and he inhaled them both with relish. He’d always loved her smell. He could distinguish it from thousands of others thanks to his lycan olfactory cells.
“I’ve missed this,” Elise muttered, as if only to herself, but he knew it was for his ears.
“What?” His heart thumped harder.
“Connecting with someone. You know, just being me with someone. Someone I don’t have to pretend for.”
“Yeah, I can imagine how fake all of this is.”
She shook her head. “You make it sound distasteful—the work I do, the life I lead.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He sighed, realizing he could never really say what he truly meant with her. His words always ended up in a jumbled mess. “Just that you have a certain persona you have to portray. And not just in your movies.”
They twirled around the floor again, in silence. A comfortable one, he noticed. It felt nice to have her in his arms again. He found he could quite easily fall sway to her again and that deep down inside, he wanted to with all his heart.
“Why haven’t you come see me? Why have you stayed away for so long? It’s not like you haven’t known where I’ve been. You’re a detective. You could’ve easily found me.”
Gabriel stumbled a little and almost stepped on her right foot. He looked down at his feet and issued a clumsy apology. “I need some air.”
Without waiting for her reply, he left the dance floor and headed for the veranda. He went through the open glass doors to lean on the railing. He took in a few deep breaths then flinched. Elise had moved in to stand beside him. He should’ve known she’d follow him. Maybe that had been his intention to begin with.
She leaned on the railing and looked off toward the city skyscape. “I’ve missed you. I didn’t realize just how much until I saw you again.”
“Why didn’t you come see me? It wouldn’t have been that hard to find me.” It was a juvenile thing to say, but something about the situation had catapulted him back fifteen years to when he was a dumb, foolish teenager head over in heels in love with a girl he had no business loving.
She didn’t answer him, probably thinking he was being an ass. He knew he was acting like one.
Damn, he wanted to touch her, run his fingers over her delicate jawline, trace the full rise of her incredible mouth. But he didn’t. He squeezed his hands tighter around the railing.
She turned to him. “Have you missed me?”
; He sighed. “What do you want me to say?” He turned to her then. “That I think about you almost every day. That I have all your films on DVD and I watch them at least once a month. That I can’t run in Chamberlain Park anymore, because it hurts to remember our runs together there. Is that what you want to know?”
She covered his hand with hers. “I didn’t know.”
Disgusted with himself for revealing his emotions, Gabriel tugged his hand away from hers. “It doesn’t matter. Water under the bridge. After we’ve solved your case, you can move on again with your life and leave me in the past where I belong.” Distancing himself from the railing and from Elise, he glanced at his watch. “I’m going to walk you to your car now.” He offered her his arm.
She opened her mouth, perhaps to argue or respond to his rushed confession, but instead she nodded and took his offered arm.
As they exited the party, Elise kissing people and shaking hands along the way, Gabriel tried to get a hold of himself. He hadn’t meant to spew all that to her. He had just meant to say yes, he’d missed her, as well. But anger and resentment and loss had suddenly constricted tightly within him, and he needed to rid himself of it. Probably not the best way to go, but he couldn’t take it back. He’d just try to forget he’d said anything at all.
He held the door for her and they left the hotel to find her car. She pointed to the side of the street where she said her driver had been told to wait. But as they approached the long black sedan, Gabriel sensed something was wrong.
First of all, her driver was nowhere to be found.
And second, something had been scratched into the black paint of the car. One word. Bitch.
Elise’s letter writer had just crossed the line from annoying obsession to threatening stalker.
Chapter 7
Within minutes, the paparazzi were snapping pictures of Elise in front of the vandalized car. She didn’t even have time to fully comprehend the situation before Gabriel had wrapped her in his arms and escorted her to his official vehicle. He opened the back door for her, helped her inside and then shut it again.
He stood just outside her door, keeping the press back, as he flipped open his cell phone and made a call. She imagined he was phoning his people. Investigators to come and find out how her car had come to be vandalized, right in front of the most prestigious hotel in Nouveau Monde. And where the hell was her driver? Wasn’t that what she paid him for? To protect her vehicle? To be there when she needed him to be?
Digging into her purse, Elise came away with her own phone, flipped it open and dialed her driver’s number. She got his voice mail. She left a very direct, very simple text message. You’re fired.
He’d probably slipped away thinking he could talk with the other drivers for a while, likely smoke a cigarette or have a drink, before he had to be back at the car for her arrival. She hadn’t wanted to use a different driver this evening, but her usual man had been unavailable. She was so angry she could’ve crushed her cell phone in her bare hand.
Anger was good. Anger she could deal with. It was the other emotion threatening to take over that she didn’t want to deal with. Fear. It had a way of paralyzing a person and Elise refused to bow down to it.
Her door opened again, and Gabriel stuck his head in. “I’m going to have someone drive you home while I wait for my team.”
She grabbed his hand. “Can you take me?”
“I have to wait for my team.”
“That’s fine. I can wait.”
He gestured to the flashing cameras. “What about them?”
“I’m sure a man like you can do something about that.”
He smiled at her, and she felt a little of her anxiety and fear lift. Gabriel had always made her feel safe and secure just by looking at her in a certain way.
“Done. Hang tight.” He shut the door.
Sighing, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the seat. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She’d just wanted to come to the event, dance a little, drink a little, shake hands and raise money for her favorite charity. But now she had to deal with someone vandalizing her car. And it wasn’t just any vandal, she knew. This was a personal attack on her. This was by someone who harbored strong feelings about her.
A knock on the window startled her enough to open her eyes. Diego was staring in at her. She rolled down the window.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I heard what happened.”
“No, what are you doing here?” She gestured to the hotel. “I didn’t think you were one for charities.”
“I’m not usually, but I thought it would be good press.”
She sighed wearily. “Of course you did.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, I was just making sure you were all right.”
“Since when did you care?”
“I’ve always cared, Elise.” A hundred cameras flashed as Diego delivered his line loudly and with gusto.
If they hadn’t been surrounded by the press, Elise would’ve gotten out of the vehicle and told him exactly where he could shove his devoted attitude.
Instead she plastered on a saccharine smile and said, “I do appreciate your concern, Diego, but you can rest assured I am one-hundred-percent fine.”
He glanced over at his young big-breasted date for the evening. She was primping and pouting for the cameras. “Well, that eases my mind. Have a great rest of the evening, Elise. I’ll see you tomorrow on the set.”
She rolled up the window so she didn’t have to hear him play the good, decent guy to the paparazzi. Anyone with half a brain knew that was all an act. What was Diego doing here anyway? He didn’t usually attend charity events, especially not her charity events. Unless he was using the extra press about her letter to get in more pictures and articles. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least. Diego was a media whore. He thrived on the attention.
If she could go back three years ago, she would’ve heeded her agent’s warnings about him and never have gotten involved with the vampire. Those four months had been the biggest mistake of her life.
She was about to shut her eyes and lean her head back again, when the front driver’s side door opened and Gabriel jumped in.
“Ready to go?” He glanced at her in the backseat.
“Very.”
The drive to her home was quick and quiet, which suited her fine. She was too tired and mentally worn-out to make polite conversation. She didn’t know what to say anyway. Talking about the weather seemed trite and inconsequential compared to this evening’s events.
When Gabriel pulled up to the locked gate, he made sure she could reach the intercom from the backseat. She rolled down the window and punched in her pass code on the alarm keypad. The black box beeped and the tall iron gates slowly spread open. Gabriel drove the car through and parked in front of the main door. He got out of the vehicle, came around to the side and opened her door for her. He reached in with his hand.