Min's Vampire (37 page)

Tara leaned down closer to Lucy and
the friendly smile evaporated. “And unlike you, I take care of my
man’s needs.” Her eyes sparkled and the curl came back to her
lips—she was enjoying herself.

Tara’s voice pitched into a dangerous
whisper. “And I’ve been taking care of his needs since the night
your daddy got arrested.”

Lucy stared hard into Tara’s eyes, and
the heat in her face moved suddenly to inside her head. She sat up
and glared into Tara’s big, pretty eyes.

“
Well then, he’s all yours,”
she moved forward until their faces were almost touching. “But did
he tell you what I had him doing when the FBI crashed the
party?”

Tara’s eyes opened wide and her mouth
turned into a grim line. “What do you mean?” She stood up straight
again and glowered down at her.

“
Just... if Jeff really is
yours, then he’ll tell you what we were doing that night.” She
smiled even though her head throbbed and her arm screamed for
mercy. “And if he really is
all
yours
, then he’ll let you do it to him,
too.”

Tara huffed and folded her
arms over her surgically enhanced chest. “Why would I want to play
one of your tired old games? I already said I’m satisfying
all
his needs.”

Lucy leaned back, exhausted
but feeling the old satisfaction she’d get from manipulating
other’s lives. “Well, every need but... that
one
.”

Raw anger drew a hard blank stare on
Tara’s face. It made Lucy feel just a tiny bit better.
Impoverished, working at McDonald’s, covered in special sauce, she
could still knock someone down a peg or two. But then Tara’s smile
came back, and it wasn’t fake. She was suddenly very
happy.

“
Too bad your convict father
left you so high and dry you have to work in a grease pit like
this.” She flipped her golden locks as she turned to walk over to
where Jeff stood mute, and still red-faced embarrassed. “You
used
to be so pretty.” She
stopped and slowly peered over her shoulder at Lucy, her smile
brilliant. “Have a nice life, you dumpster-diving
freak!”

~*~

Gabriel hadn’t slept much all week. He
had entirely too much on his plate, and far too many concerns
whirled around in his mind. Ever since Delia concocted her plan,
things had gone all wrong. The instant she unveiled her scheme to
him, to hire some woman to play the part of his secret fiancée, his
mother declared that she knew he was hiding something—and she
correctly guessed that it was a girl.

Thus, procuring a false fiancée became
not just an insane idea, but seemingly their only
option.

But Gabriel didn’t have the contacts
or the expertise in such covert, dishonest, and probably illegal
enterprises. That was why he’d hesitantly enlisted the aid of his
most trusted advisor and friend, his Uncle Dante.

Though Dante was his father’s brother,
he had always taken Gabriel’s side in matters, even encouraging his
brother to relinquish the CEO position at Enoch Industries to
Gabriel in the last year. When Dante had inadvertently found out
about Delia, he’d raged at Gabriel for such poor judgment, and for
endangering everyone he held dear, including Delia.

He was also a lawyer, Gabriel’s
lawyer, not to mention the head of Enoch Industries legal division,
so covert wrangling and deception were nothing new to
him.

Yet above all else, Dante was his
uncle, and his closest ally.

That said… he was currently having a
hard time overlooking his uncle’s abrupt loss of his senses. He
hadn’t expected Dante to go out trolling for potential
brides-to-be, but he had never imagined he would recruit someone of
such low character as a subcontractor.

“
Francis?” Gabriel groused,
his gaze burning a hole through his uncle. “Of all the
scum-of-the-earth degenerates you could have reached out to, you
picked him?”

They were in Dante’s office at Enoch
industries. The walls were painted a warm brown that was almost a
peach. The furnishings were antique art deco, with clean lines
carved out of rich woods. And though not cluttered, the entire room
was used—photos of family and friends, Dante’s law degree, Chamber
of Commerce awards, a few pieces of avant-garde art, even a pewter
wolf sitting on its haunches, muzzle raised as if baying at the
moon.

Dante raised one eyebrow in mock
surprise. “He is loyal to me.”

“
Loyal! Are you joking? My
entire life I have heard about him cheating on his wife, cheating
on his taxes, and every other possible dubious act. I just can’t
believe he isn’t in prison yet.”

“
You confuse loyalty to
one’s spouse with loyalty brought on by fear.”

It was Gabriel’s turn to raise an
eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

Unflappable and smooth as usual, Dante
smiled and spread his hands out. “Just that committing dalliances
in your marriage has little to do with how reliable you are to
those you fear.”

“
Fear… Francis fears you?”
Gabriel was astonished. Certainly his uncle was of the most
dangerous breeds of attorneys—a real shark—but how that mental
prowess translated to being able to intimidate a bottom feeder like
Francis was unclear.

“
Believe me,” Dante mussed,
“between what I know about him, and how I have… punished him in the
past, he will do anything I tell him to.”

A chill ran up Gabriel’s spine as he
stared into Dante’s eyes. Obviously there was still much he didn’t
know about his uncle. And from the cool satisfaction in his voice
as he came right out and said he’d “punished” Francis, he wasn’t
anxious to find out what he was missing. The image of his uncle
wielding a whip or a switchblade made the hair on the back of his
neck stand up.

Gabriel cleared his throat and finally
looked away from his uncle. “I just hope he can find a viable
candidate. She will have to be cultured as well as
beautiful.”

“
And she’ll have to be a
good actress.”

Gabriel laughed bitterly. “Because
pretending to be my fiancée will be such an unpleasant
experience.”

“
That too,” Dante replied,
apparently not getting the sarcasm in his nephew’s voice. Or maybe
he actually believed playing the part of Gabriel’s fiancée would be
an arduous task. “But mostly to fool the rest of the family...
specifically your mother and father.”

The two men locked gazes for a moment,
and then grumbled: “Especially her.”

Chapter 3

LUCY DIDN’T remember when she got up
out of the booth and left McDonald’s, or walked through the parking
lot and out to the highway. She only noticed her hands were
clutched to the metal guardrail when she heard her grandmother’s
worry-stricken voice.

“
Lucy! What are you doing
out here?”

Lucy turned toward the road. Her
grandmother had pulled over on the shoulder of the highway, and was
already climbing out of her car, her worn terry cloth robe and
flannel gown billowing in the wind. The mere sight of her made
tears fill Lucy’s eyes and run hot and reckless down her face. The
sobs she’d been holding back burst from her lips as her grandmother
pulled her from the guardrail and into her arms.

“
It’s alright, Lucybean...
you’re alright… I’m here.”

Lucy buried her face in her
grandmother’s soft shoulder and felt all the strength drain from
her arms and legs.

I’m going to die... I’m
going to die...

With her heart breaking yet again,
feeling the weight of the world pressed down on her chest, she
wished that she would just die.

But she didn’t.

As her grandmother stroked her back
and slowly maneuvered Lucy over to and then into the passenger seat
of the ancient white Oldsmobile, the weight on her chest lessened,
as did the pain that radiated through her entire body.

For an instant she glanced back to
where she’d stood by the guardrail. The dark figure was there
again, its shadowy form flickered as it drifted toward the car. But
just then Gram gunned the Oldsmobile’s engine, leaving the dark
apparition in the dust.

By the time her grandmother drove them
home she’d forgotten about the phantom, forgotten about her injured
body and her crushed pride. She literally felt nothing at all. Her
tears had dried up, her head and arm no longer hurt, and her
breathing was slow and steady.

Too slow.

And it wasn’t just the pain that was
gone, Lucy was numb, even in her head, she thought of absolutely
nothing.

The only thing she felt was relief
when she saw Gram’s white clapboard house appear through the car
window. Though rundown and shabby outside—the white paint was
peeling and the roof sagged some in the middle—Lucy only felt truly
safe once she was inside. As if the house itself repelled the
horrors and pain that followed Lucy everywhere she went.

Her grandmother’s kitchen made her
feel warm. It smelled sweet and inviting. On the scarred kitchen
table sat a round, simply decorated double layer white cake with
pink roses and fancy filigree adorning the edges.

Lucy felt her mouth fall open. It was
beautiful, and smelled so good.

“
Did you make this?” Lucy
said, her voice wavering. She couldn’t believe that anyone had made
a cake... not one this beautiful. All her birthday cakes had been
store bought, with heavy cream icing, themed with whatever her
current obsession was that year, or had her picture airbrushed over
the top.

But this cake was handmade, just for
her. Her name swirled across the top in fancy letters, and happy
birthday in smaller script below. A party candle shaped like the
number eighteen stood alone from the top of the cake.

“
Don’t be too impressed,”
Her grandmother said, striking a match and touching it to the
candle’s wick. “I used to decorate cakes for a living... oh, about
a hundred years ago.”

Lucy couldn’t help smiling. Her
grandmother never tried to hide her age—she wore it proudly, like a
badge for all to see.

“
It’s gorgeous.” Lucy closed
her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose. The aroma was
intoxicating. “No cake has ever smelled this good.”

“
Well then, make a wish and
blow out the candle,” Gram said. “Then we can have us a
piece.”

Lucy was suddenly torn from the
wondrous scent of the cake, her attention splintered off in a
million directions. There were too many things to wish for. Too
many things she wished had never happened. One—the night of her
father’s arrest—burned somewhere deep in the back of her mind. She
would not look back there, or call it forward to her anymore. That
memory hurt too much. Like how remembering who she used to be hurt
too much.

No, wishing for the
impossible is stupid.
She took a breath,
and it crackled in her lungs. She closed her eyes.
If I just had one thing that was mine... something
to remind me of who I used to be...

She blew, one short puff of air, and
the candle went out, a small wisp of smoke rising from the tiny
ember before it burned out.

“
Happy birthday, Lucybean!”
her grandmother said, swooping down and kissing her cheek, hugging
her around the back of her shoulders. Lucy leaned into her
grandmother’s warmth. After a soothing moment, her grandmother
stood and strode across the kitchen and opened a cabinet, pulling
out two small plates. “Time for cake.”

Lucy watched as her grandmother cut
the cake, not a tremor or tremble in her skilled hands, slicing off
two perfect looking pieces. The two women sat there, smiling at
each other for a moment before digging into the cake. The taste was
better than the smell, if that was even possible. The icing had
buttery lemon zest to it, delicate yet refreshing as ice cream on
Lucy’s tongue. The cake burst with oranges and white chocolate...
and something else... the something else had some kick to
it.

“
What’s in the cake?” Lucy
smiled as she licked her fork clean.

Her grandmother got this look on her
face—false innocence and shock. “Whatever do you mean?”

“
I mean this cake is
spiked.” Lucy raised her eyebrow at her grandmother, and then took
another big bite of the cake.

Her grandmother primly blotted her
lips with her napkin and grinned wickedly.

“
You are eighteen, after
all...” She pursed her lips and then smiled wide, her face
practically glowing. “And I’ve had a bottle of Grand Marnier in the
cabinet since... ” Her brow furrowed in contemplation. “Well, let’s
just say, a while.”

Lucy couldn’t believe her grandmother
was suddenly modest about her age. There must be something else to
it, something a little lurid, or scandalous, or both.

Lucy chewed the delicious, if potent,
cake and smiled to herself. Finally, something nice was happening
on her birthday.

“
I almost forgot,” her
grandmother chimed. “Your gifts!”

A fleeting moment of dread passed
through her body. Remembering the dream she’d had... well, the
nightmare she’d had, when she was knocked out at McDonald’s. The
not so dead, dead puppy dream.