by Alyssa Day
He was almost positive that gentlemen didn’t carry their business partners off to some private corner of the world, strip them bare, and taste and touch every inch of their bodies.
No matter how much they wanted to do exactly that.
He took long, slow breaths all the way down in the elevator, smiling and nodding in response to Amy’s chatter that he barely heard. Because he was a gentleman. He’d given his word.
The problem with long, slow breaths, however, is that they gave a man plenty of opportunities to smell the sweet aroma of a freshly showered woman and have painfully arousing visions of what she’d looked like in that shower.
Naked.
Wet.
Glistening.
“Taxi?”
Startled, William looked around and realized they were standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
“Taxi, sir?” the efficient hotel employee asked again.
Amy’s fingers tightened on William’s arm. “Do we need a taxi?”
“No. I have a better plan,” he told them both. “We’re going to take a carriage.”
Amy’s eyes widened. “Really? You remember this isn’t the 18th century, right?”
“Humor me. There he is, right on time.” He held up a hand, and Mickey pulled up with his carriage.
By the time they got to Paolo’s, Amy’s face was glowing with excitement again. She’d peppered Mickey with questions all throughout the carriage ride, and the old driver had loved every minute of it. He’d regaled her with tales of the city’s history, and stories of his eighty years of life as a native New Yorker. Mickey was one of the few humans whom William had ever trusted with the truth, long before the supernatural creatures of the world came out into the light and admitted that they existed outside the pages of fairy tales.
Not that the Fae, themselves, had admitted anything, but vampires, shifters, and even Atlanteans had been slowly and awkwardly trying to fit themselves into the mainstream human world. It hadn’t gone easily or all that well, but some progress had been made. But long before that, he and Mickey had been friends. It had started when six-year-old Mickey had tried to pick the pocket of a wealthy man in a dark alley, hoping for a coin or two to help feed his family. A flash of fangs scared off most children, but Mickey had been different. Bold and trying desperately not to be afraid, because his sister and mother were starving, he’d stood up to William.
William had taken the family into his New York home as servants, made sure they were well cared for, and then mostly forgotten about them. The women were gone now. Only Mickey still lived; puttering around the garden of William’s rarely inhabited mansion and caring for a series of horses meant to pull the carriage that almost never got used.
Tonight, though, for Amy, William had wanted to travel in old-world elegance.
“Thank you, my friend.”
Mickey grinned, but his eyes were sad. “This will be the last time, Mr. Pemberley. I’m thinking of retiring. I’m getting kind of tired. But it sure is nice to see you finally find a lady friend, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“It’s just business--"
“Thank you so much, Mickey,” Amy said. “This has been one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I’ll never forget it.”
She stood up in the carriage and leaned forward to hug the old man, and William’s heart—the heart he hadn’t realized he still had—ached in his chest.
“You go home and get some rest, Mickey. I’ll get us back to the hotel.”
“Will do, sir. And if you want the house opened up, just let us know.”
“I will. I’ll come to see you soon, and we’ll have a game of chess, all right?”
“Sounds good, sir.”
William lifted Amy down from the carriage, letting his hands linger on her waist a moment too long, wishing he had the right to hold her in his arms.
Hating the man who would.
Wondering when he’d gone over the edge of sanity. He’d only known her for a day. What was happening to him?
“I might die of hunger right here on the sidewalk if we don’t eat soon,” she said, tapping her foot and yanking him out of his delusional fantasies.
“After you.” He opened the door and the delicious scent of tomatoes, garlic, and fresh-baked bread wafted out, pulling them into the candle-lit interior, where he would be strictly about business while he explained a wizard’s curse to a beautiful witch.
Who said life wasn’t interesting?
Amy was just the tiniest bit worried that she might be drooling. The restaurant was incredible—intimate and beautifully decorated with soft colors and murals of scenes of what she guessed must be the Italian countryside. The wine was amazing, and the appetizers that the server was placing on their table gave off the scent of garlic-infused heaven.
Which…led to a question she didn’t know how to ask. She glanced up at him, and he sighed.
“Yes, I eat food. No, I don’t have to if I don’t want to. No, I’m not going to order a goblet filled with blood, or anything else you might find on your infamous Black Swept Moor.”
She grinned, in spite of the slight worry that he’d read her mind. “Cannibalistic ghosts don’t eat pasta, either, so we could be gothic together, if you really want to, but I have to tell you I’d really rather dig into this shrimp scampi.”
He raised his glass and tipped it to her in a salute. “Please. Eat as much as you want. I’ve spent too much time being hungry to ever wish it on anyone else.”
She blissed out while eating a few bites of the scampi, some of the calamari, half a loaf of bread dipped in the purest olive oil she’d ever tasted, and a healthy helping of Caprese salad.
“You know that we still have entrees coming,” he said mildly, but she could read his amusement in the tilt of his head.
“I know. But I’ve always had a healthy appetite. Something about doing magic sends my metabolism into hyper drive, and today was crazy,” she said, taking a sip of the excellent wine and studying him in the candlelight.
Candlelight--like every other kind of light she’d seen him in--loved William. His thick bronze hair gleamed with hints of pure gold, and his skin glowed against the crisp white shirt and dark jacket. She was suddenly very glad for the small pouch filled with an assortment of makeup the concierge had tucked into the garment bag. She was just vain enough to want to be beautiful for this man, ‘business only’ or not.
“Tell me about it,” she said impulsively. “About being hungry. As a vampire?”
He went still, and only his fingers tightening on the stem of the wine glass betrayed the depth of his reaction to the question. “I didn’t mean to--"
“I know. If you don’t want to talk about it, please don’t. I’m sorry to be nosy. Family trait,” she said, embarrassed.
“No, it’s fine. I think I won’t mind talking about it with you.”
The server came and swept away the appetizer dishes, and another came with their entrees, and William started to speak only after Amy began eating.
“There were seven of us, seven children. I wonder sometimes how my mother survived all those births in a tiny town with no medicine, no doctors, not even a midwife, except for one old woman who spent most of her time drunk.”
Amy felt a wave of sympathy for that long-dead woman, giving birth to so many with no help. “Where were you born?”
“In the French countryside, in a village too small to have a name,” he said, frowning a little. “I tried to find it again once, a few decades ago, but I couldn’t. Perhaps the forest ate it. Or it’s a parking lot now.”
For some reason, that struck her as unbearably sad, and he read it on her face.
“Don’t pity me, Amaryllis Minerva,” he said mockingly. “It was more than three hundred years ago, after all. And life there was, at least, far better than what came after, even though we went hungry more nights than not.”
“What happened?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, because she wasn�
�t at all sure she wanted to know. Some secrets were meant to stay buried in the hidden graves of the past, not resurrected as weapons to wound the present.
“My father sold me to a vampire when I was seven years old.” He abruptly tossed back the rest of his wine and poured himself another glass.
“Oh, William. I’m so sorry,” she said, knowing the words were meaningless. Brushing away the tears that had welled up at the thought of a trusting tow-headed child being cast aside like yesterday’s garbage.
“It was worse for my brothers. They were twins, and they were only six, and they didn’t survive the first week with Anton. He killed them to break me, only I was too stubborn and too stupid to know that I was broken.”
“But why…why did he buy you just to…No. Never mind. Let’s talk about something else,” Amy said, desperate to change the subject. “Do you want to hear the story about the time basilisks overran my family’s garden and turned my cousin’s husband’s partner into a statue? It’s a very funny story. There was--"
“I lived with him for twenty years, as his slave, before he decided to Turn me,” William said, staring into the distance at a sight only he could see. “Three nights later, I killed him. Don’t feel sorry for me, Amy. I became just as bad as the monster who enslaved me. I killed him, and I was glad.”
“I wish I’d been there to do it for you,” she said, fierce with the need to save the child he’d been from the monster he believed he’d become. Even while she wondered how and when she’d started to care.
He glanced at her, startled out of the waking nightmare of his memory, and slowly a smile spread across his face. “I believe you. You’re much tougher than you look, aren’t you?”
“You bet your boots I am,” she said, tossing her head, happy that he’d come back from the dark, dark place he’d gone. “I’m the toughest witch you’ll ever meet.”
William nodded. “Perhaps you are. Maybe there is some small amount of hope that you can help me find a way to break this curse, but he was a very powerful wizard.”
“Was a very powerful wizard?”
He tore a piece of bread into shreds with his long, strong fingers, and Amy tried not to wonder what those fingers would feel like stroking her body, but she was suddenly finding it hard to suppress the memory of those kisses.
Those incredible kisses.
Damn wine.
“Yes,” he said, and for a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about. She forced herself to quit thinking about his fingers or his kisses or his hard, lean body…
Stop it.
The wizard. Right.
“He’s dead,” William said flatly.
She blew out a breath. “That’s a problem. We might need Granny for this one, and she’s also a problem.”
“Granny?”
Amy poured herself another, very full, glass of wine and then pointed to the empty bottle. “For Granny? We’re going to need another one of these.”
7
William had no idea why he was telling Amy the miserable details of his horrific childhood. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.
He sneezed.
He was—
He sneezed again.
Amy began humming, and he finally caught on.
“What are you doing? I’m going to start to itch any second,” he warned her.
“It was just a little feel-good spell,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t bear to see the pain in your eyes.”
He sat back in his chair, dumbfounded. She didn’t want to see him in pain. She’d tried to protect him at the park. Who was this woman, who cared more about him after a single day than anyone else had in three hundred years?
And why did it matter to him so much?
“Tell me about your childhood. Tell me about Granny.” He took a bite of his steak, but it tasted like sawdust in his mouth. He didn’t want to sink his teeth into his dinner, excellent though it might be.
He wanted to sink his teeth into Amy.
The realization knocked him sideways. Amy—being a witch with a strong sense of independence—would not appreciate the idea at all.
But he was absolutely sure that her blood would taste like sunlight.
She raised one silken dark eyebrow, clearly wondering what was going on in his head, but when he didn’t share, she shrugged.
“Okay, my childhood. It was pretty standard child in the suburbs, I guess. Well, except for the magic. I was never the most powerful witch in the family, but I have a major Gift for finding, and a minor talent for freezing, as you’ve seen, so I managed to play my fair share of pranks.” She grinned at a memory, and he could suddenly see her as a girl, playing with her cousins, learning about her magic.
“I was an only child, but it didn’t matter, because there were so many cousins that I was never alone unless I wanted to be, and usually not even then. The Cardinal witches are not the type to allow anyone to live in solitude,” she said, laughing.
“And then?”
“Then I grew up. I’ve always wanted to travel, but we have more magic than money, so we all have to work to earn our keep. I have nearly ten thousand dollars saved up, and when I get to twenty thousand, I’ve promised myself a six-month trip around the world, or as far as I can get until the money runs out.” Her face glowed with the anticipation of her trip, and suddenly he was fiercely jealous of anything that could make her so happy, because he wanted to put that smile on her face.
He wanted to make her happy, he realized. It was as simple as that. He wanted to make another person happy, after centuries of icy indifference. She’d cracked open the shell around his emotions, and he wasn’t sure he liked the feeling. It was almost like…vulnerability.
Which was never something a vampire wanted to feel.
“So now I’m learning to be a P.I. because finding things makes the work easier, but most of the jobs are ones I never wanted to do, like spying on people who are lying about being injured or cheating on their spouses, and it’s enough to destroy your faith in humanity.” She drummed her slender fingers on the table, frowning, and he couldn’t resist leaning forward and catching her hand in his.
Tangling his fingers with hers.
Listening to the beat of her heart as it sped up.
“Then don’t do it,” he murmured, staring into her beautiful dark eyes. “Come travel with me.”
Her lips parted in surprise, and she started to say something, but then she must have reconsidered.
“I can’t just take off and travel with you. I barely know you, and I don’t have enough money to pay half of the cost for the kind of hotels you like to stay in,” she said gently, and maybe—he hoped—regretfully.
“But you have a million dollars now,” he said, triumphant. “You can travel as much as you like.”
Amy shook her head and blew out a long, slow breath. “No, sadly, I don’t. I know you now, and I like you. So I have to help you solve this curse problem just because you’re my friend. No charge.” She untangled her fingers from his and pulled her hand away, and he felt an almost physical pang of loss.
“No charge,” she repeated, a wry smile on her face. “Damn. That hurts a little. But we should go see Aunt Sue and Granny now, before they call in the National Guard to find me, anyway. While we’re there, we can figure out what to do about this curse.”
“No dessert?”
She glanced longingly at the dessert cart and started to shake her head, but then sat back in her chair. “Well. One little piece of cake wouldn’t hurt.”
“Chocolate?”
“Is there any other kind?”
8
Amy warned William that the protective spells on her family’s homes and garden were too strong for him to portal them right in, so he landed them on the sidewalk a block down from her carriage house. Which reminded her…
“How is it that you could walk into my house without being invited, earlier?”
He winced. “I’m sorry. Your apartment�
��the carriage house—the magic in it recognized me, somehow. It let me in. I don’t really understand why, but I took complete advantage of it, for which I apologize.”
He was back to being formal and reserved with her, and she discovered that she didn’t like it. “It’s okay. I mean, it wasn’t okay at the time, and you’re lucky Rose didn’t blast you, but I’m fine with it now. Just maybe knock in the future?”
William nodded and looked around with interest. “It’s so peaceful here. So quiet.”
She took his hand before she could argue herself out of it and started walking toward Aunt Sue’s house. “Yes, Garden City, Ohio, is quite a culture shock after New York, I bet. In fact, that sad little attempt at a mugging last night is the craziest thing that has ever happened to me here in the past five years. Well, other than the basilisks.”
He tightened his hold on her hand, as if he wanted to be sure she didn’t let go, and a little bit of warmth zinged through her. He didn’t really believe the ‘just business’ any more than she did, but now she just had to hope any budding feelings he might have for her could survive her crazy family.
It had been the ultimate test for any prospective boyfriend when they were all teens: Meet the family and still come back for more.
Most of them didn’t. Wusses.
All the lights were blazing in Sue’s house. Amy stopped for a moment to gear up for battle. “This is going to be unpleasant for a little while, but just stick close to me. I won’t let them hurt you,” she promised.
William shot her a look filled with amusement, but then he started to sneeze. And scratch. And turn so blotchy that she could see the rash pop up on his face even in the pale glow of the streetlights.
“Don’t scratch. You’ll just make it worse.”
He nodded and stopped, although she could tell he was rapidly becoming miserably uncomfortable. “There’s a lot of magic being cast in that house,” he said hoarsely.
“Oh, boy. Here we go.” Squeezing his hand for luck or reassurance—she wasn’t sure which—Amy walked into her aunt’s house.