Authors: Jessica Miles
They could leave London and live somewhere else, Canada or Scandinavia maybe… somewhere remote and beautiful.
She could manage the money for them…
He was tired of being so high profile. It wasn’t as great as he thought it would be. Being in the public eye just created complication and problems…
Chapter 26
Harry sat at his desk looking at her empty seat. It had been a whole long week without her. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t text or called him… she knew he didn’t have her new number… He’d sent her a few emails on the first and second day but she never replied…
He was quite distraught at her thoughtlessness and couldn’t even think straight most of the time. It all seemed so strange, so wrong… She seemed to have cut him out – just like that. That DeVere was a complete and utter bastard wrecking his chances with her so soon into their relationship… His mind was playing wicked games with him, conjuring up images of the two of them having lots of expensive fun together, their heads close together, kissing, touching and worse…
He’d been given two of her accounts to manage. They all had a few each, until she came back. Whenever that might be… if at all…
He hadn’t been sitting around moping the whole time though. He had found out where DeVere lived. It hadn’t taken much time to do it… he simply paid a private investigator £100 and the information was supplied the next day. He was going over there this evening to see her, to find out where he stood.
If it was over between them, which he found difficult to believe, he wanted her to say it to his face so he could get on and deal with it. The not knowing was an acute pain inside him.
At 4pm he left the office for Kensington.
Chapter 27
Rose had seen Marcus in the morning when she went up for something to eat and they had spoken some more… it was a little strained between them but that was to be expected. In the cold light of day she now felt an almost complete acceptance of him.
The blood sucking part was not his fault… he needed it to live, just as she needed her food. She wasn’t going to give in to his vampirism straight away but felt she could cope with it much more easily now that it had all been explained to her.
Last night she had found out how he had been turned 86 years ago by a wealthy woman landowner whilst he worked on her country estate. It was she who left him her estate and fortune in her will when she died from a fatal wound caused by a riding accident five years later. He had lived there for some years before finally selling the estate and travelling around the world, investing his money and finally setting up his own successful international companies. He told her how he had a group of a few dozen vampire friends living in London… but many more around the world…. There was a network of them, many in high places in society. He was keen to point out that they did not pose much of a threat to the human race and were content to keep themselves a permanent secret.
He’d spent some time explaining everything to her in a lot of detail. Her concept of a vampire had been altered somewhat. The fact was far less violent and cruel than the fiction. She knew he could go out in the light safely but that constant strong sunlight hurt his eyes and burnt his skin rather quickly. That was why he lived in England, as it had a comfortable temperature for him to use as a permanent base. He was a little stronger and faster than a human, due to the improved cellular structure in his body, but not notably so. He had heightened senses which he could tune into if he needed too.
He was a perfectly altered and adapted human being and although he could die in the same accidental ways that she could, he was immune from illness and old age. If she were to become a vampire, she would need to drink quite a lot of his blood… it couldn’t happen by accident, turning someone was usually a premeditated and mutually consensual act. Not that she had any intention of becoming one, she was quite sure about that. She wanted a human life, with Harry…
Marcus the vampire didn’t frighten or worry her in the least, he was just so normal in most ways… so human… but she did find the idea of living off blood a little disgusting and weird and if she thought too hard about it she still couldn’t quite believe any of it at all…
Strangely, it was the immortality which she found most difficulty with. How could someone possibly live forever?
She had gone off to work in her room that day almost calm enough to continue normally, unless she thought about the vampirism too much and then her mind suddenly didn’t want to focus…
Marcus had to go out for a few hours in the late afternoon. She tried to amuse herself swimming, reading and watching some TV but she was restless. She had a sudden craving for a chocolate bar, which was her common reaction to any kind of stress, so she decided to have a quick walk down the road to the shops, about ten minutes away, to take a break and feed her chocolate stress habit.
Chapter 28
Harrison arrived at 4.45pm at the address he had been given. It was an impressively large building of course. How could he compete with money like this. He suddenly felt very insecure about her. Marcus could offer her the whole world, literally… He stood outside for a moment thinking about what to do now he was actually here, when his prayers were answered. The door next to the underground parking area opened and she came out and walked up the incline towards the main gates where he was standing. Her face registered surprise and then she smiled widely and rushed towards the side door, putting in her keycard and rushing through, hugging him tightly, tears forming in her eyes. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, nothing too sensual… not outside Marcus’s front door… he wasn’t stupid…
“Harry, where have you been…? I was so worried about you. Why didn’t you answer me, all my emails… my texts?” Her eyes searched his….
“Rose, I haven’t received anything from you. Nothing in a whole week. I had no way to contact you except this way. I only found out this address yesterday evening.” He hugged her some more, breathing in the gorgeous perfume that was all hers.
“But you switched your phone off Harry… I tried to call lots of times.”
“Never once did I do that Rose. I get the distinct impression your new friend might be up to something… diverting our calls somehow. He gave you a new phone didn’t he? I bet it’s been rigged up. And the computer in your room too… We need to get you another phone, one that we can keep between ourselves. Our private line. Shall we go and do that now?”
“Okay, I’ll see you down the end of this road in the small garden area in five minutes. You go first, I’ll take the long way round.”
They met in the garden at the end of the road and stood together in a secluded and private spot where they indulged themselves with a very long and loving passionate kiss. They didn’t care about contracts or exclusivity, they just needed each other so much.
A short while later they walked to the nearby shopping centre where Harry bought Rose her secret phone.
“I’ve missed you so Harry. I was beginning to think you dumped me!”
“Funny that… I felt the same way.”
“Let’s go somewhere private for a while. I need a lot more of you” She needed him far more than she could ever tell him.
They made their way to a small hotel around the corner and checked in… it wasn’t anything like their first hotel suite but they didn’t care or even notice. As they closed the door behind them the world ceased to exist as they clung to each other like two starved souls feeding each other with love.
Rose felt so loved and wanted in his arms, she couldn’t imagine ever being apart from him again. She was going to meet with him whenever she could, in secret like this… she loved him so very much.
“Rose, I have something to ask you later on… it’s important… but first I desperately need you to love me, you have a whole weeks worth to make up for… D’you think you have it in you?”
Chapter 29
It was 9 in the evening when Rose finally made her way back to Marcus’s place. She slipped in quietly and made her way to her room, hiding her phone under the bed. She got in the shower and cleaned the evening’s lovemaking evidence from herself thoroughly… she needed to tell Harry she wasn’t on the pill anymore, he needed to bring things in future. It had kinda slipped her mind. She put on her robe and came out of the bathroom to find Marcus standing in her open doorway.
“Where have you been all this time Rose, Benet said you left here at 5?” His face was dark and angry as he walked up to her.
“Just out… you said I could go out whenever I want, so I did”
“Where and with whom?”
“Walking around shopping with a friend I bumped into if you must know.”
“What did you buy?”
“I didn’t buy anything.”
“That was a long time to shop for nothing”
“We were talking mostly”
“Exactly what did you and Harrison Taylor
talk
about for 4 whole hours Rose”
“You followed me?”
“No, but I’m real good at guessing.” Despite her attempts to wash him away she still reeked of him. He wished his senses weren’t quite so acute at times.
“We talked about lots of things actually. One of the main subjects was your blocking of our phone calls, texts and emails, got anything to say about that Marcus?”
“I can’t deny I did that. I didn’t want him coming between us.”
“I’m sorry Marcus, Harry is already between us. I did try to tell you that. You can’t wipe out someone’s love with an exclusivity contract. He’ll wait for me, for a year if he has to.”
“But Rose, you do feel something for me, don’t you?”
“I do. I have very strong feelings for you. But I won’t ever feel the same way as I do about Harry. He is my soul mate. We are going to get married. He asked me today.”
Marcus felt a despair like no other. This woman, his woman, had slipped from his grasp and didn’t want him. This was nothing to do with his vampirism, which had been his main concern, she just loved someone else. He couldn’t speak to her or even look at her any more. He turned and made his way upstairs to his room. His heart was so heavy with love for her. What could he do? Nothing… He couldn’t make her love him more than Harry, he knew that… He would have to let her go. But he would do it later, in his own way. He wanted her to remember him forever.
Chapter 30
Marcus took a long suck at her neck. Jemma was writhing in ecstasy beneath him… his supply women couldn’t get enough of it, of him… the bite and sucking often made them come without any other stimulation from him… Before she came into his life his feeding sessions excited and satisfied him. He usually enjoyed the taste and visual sensations provided by his gorgeous suppliers.
He sucked the blood down quickly. It was tasteless.
He wanted Rose’s blood and she didn’t want to give it. But he would take it, one last time at least.
Chapter 31
Rose didn’t see Marcus for another two days. She continued to work as normal and contacted Harry many times on her new secret phone. It was a love phone… full of ‘I love yous’ and ‘love you mores’… She used her other phone to call her parents, friends and brother. She hadn’t told them about her relocation, it was difficult to explain it without inviting unwelcome probing questions…
On the evening of the second day Marcus appeared in the living room where she was sitting with a cup of coffee playing a game on her phone.
“Rose… can I ask you something important?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Harry before? Didn’t you see how I felt about you, I couldn’t have made it clearer?”
“I had no idea it was going to go this far, moving me in here like this… I have known Harry for three years and we only just got together properly… it was in the air for a while though, before I met you. The only time I could have said anything about it to you was when you arrived to sign the contract and I had just been threatened by my boss not to rock the boat.”
“But our first night out together, you should have said you had started seeing him… all that flirting and kissing in my bedroom, why did you do it…? It needn’t have happened. That’s when I fell for you and I tell you now Rose, it’s gone way beyond that since.”
“Please don’t Marc… I know… You just do things to me…” she started to get upset over her dreadful part in it all
“I do things to you? Why is that? If you love Harry so much you are marrying him, you can’t love me too, can you?”
“Well if I’m honest about it, yes.”
“Oh really… but you said he is your soul mate… you love only him surely…?”
“He is my soul mate, but I don’t love only him. I do have strong feelings for you and I know exactly what they are…”
“Does what I am have any bearing on your feelings… one way or the other?”
“No, that is nothing to do with it. I accept that is what you are. My problem is that I love two people at the same time. I have to be honest and say I love Harry much more. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling a lot for you too… It’s going to be hard in here for the next few months for all of us, now that we all know the score, isn’t it?”
“Hardest for me I feel Rose. You have a future with Harry. My plans for us have just disappeared into nothing…. I can’t keep you here… not now that I know all this. How can I? I’m not an evil monster…” He felt so angry with her for all this, for lying to him… leading him on all this time.
“Marc please don’t…” she started to cry silently, tears were streaming down her face.
“You can leave tomorrow, but tonight Rose you are all mine. Come here now and show me a little of that love you have for me…”
As he held his arms out to her his heart was hardening fast. He felt deceived and used, it wasn’t something he experienced very often and he didn’t know quite how to handle it. All that time they had spent together, getting to know one another, it was all in vain, a sham. She had no intention of being with him and never had. A rage started to gather momentum within him. He could offer her untold riches and immortality but she didn’t want any of that.
She moved into his arms in a mixture of love, relief and sadness. Her time with him was coming to an end. She was going to show him everything she felt for him tonight and much more.