That Killer Smile

by Juliet Lyons

  My eyes bulge as I absorb the preposterous scene of him sitting with my pet in his lap. He looks like an infuriatingly hot James Bond villain.

  “Evening, Catherine,” he says with a nod of his head.

  I glare into his intense blue eyes, fists clenching. “What the actual fuck are you doing in my apartment?”

  He cocks a brow before rising from the chair, taking Wentworth with him. The latter stays snuggled under his arm, as docile as a newborn lamb.

  Pointing at Wentworth, I hiss, “Did you glamour my cat?”

  A cloud of confusion passes across his handsome features. “Why on God’s earth would I glamour a cat?”

  Without missing a beat, I snap, “That’s what you do to get people to like you.”

  He feigns an injured look before setting Wentworth down on the carpet. Then he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a tiny object. It twinkles beneath the light. “You dropped this earring in my office. It must have fallen out when you kissed me.”

  I snort in derision. “Ha! Yeah, I kissed you. Good one. And you came all the way here, broke in to my apartment just to return it to me?”

  “I’ll get the lock fixed,” he says, placing the earring on the coffee table. “And I didn’t break in as such. One of your neighbors let me up.”

  I shake my head. “Let me guess, an Italian lady in a robe?”

  He smiles and I try not to notice how it softens the hard lines of his strong features, how his cool-blue eyes are suffused with warmth.

  “There’s a chance she believes lover boy next door is bisexual.”

  “What the hell did you tell her?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. The mention of Peter comes as a shock. Being in the same room as Ronin McDermott, I’ve already forgotten he exists.

  “Nothing she didn’t secretly long to hear. So who is this guy anyway? Should I be jealous?”

  My stomach flips, my mind skipping back to that moment in his office when I left him with a hard-on in the presence of Playboy bunnies. “Jealous?” I try to inject venom into my voice, but my heart isn’t in it. “Tell me, did you enjoy yourself with those girls the other afternoon?”

  His brows knit. He looks genuinely flummoxed. “What girls?”

  I toss my bag onto the sofa. “Meant that much to you, did they?”

  He stays frozen to the spot, brows drawn. “Do you really think I care about other girls?”

  His voice is low, as cracked as splintered glass. Suddenly, it seems as if all the oxygen has been sucked from the room. As I meet his burning gaze, it’s like the last couple of days—work, my date with Peter—never happened. I’m back in his office right before his lips landed on mine.

  Except this time neither of us budges.

  “You’re a sickness,” he says at last in that same fractured tone. “Don’t you see? A sickness in my veins.”

  My brain sifts through responses at a hundred miles per hour, but my vocal chords remain frozen in my throat. I watch him like he’s a tiger, waiting for him to strike.

  But he doesn’t pounce. He sighs instead, his jaw tightly clenched. “I’ve never wanted to upset you, Catherine. I’m sorry for what I did that night—biting you and giving you my venom. I shouldn’t have lost control like that.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” I snap.

  “I’ll be honest,” he continues. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start the speed-dating nights to get your attention. But I had no intention of ruining your business. In a way, it’s a compliment.”

  My jaw drops in disbelief. “A compliment? Are you completely unhinged? Do you really have your head shoved so far up your ass that you don’t get why I can’t stand you?”

  He shakes his head, holding out his hands, palms up. There’s desperation in his voice I’ve never heard from him before. “I’ve never once tried to play the ancient card with you. I never will, no matter how badly you piss me off.”

  I stare at him, half believing he doesn’t have a clue, half-angry this is just another of his manipulative games.

  “This isn’t about details. It’s about the bigger picture. One you’ve never bothered to try and get your arrogant head around. Who am I, Ronin?” The happiness the evening brought is leaking out of me faster than air from a burst balloon. To my horror, a sob escapes my throat. “What am I?”

  “Is this one of those bizarre feminist questions?”

  “For fuck’s sake, what am I? Answer me.”

  His eyes flash in anger, but he doesn’t flinch. “A woman. A vampire. A neurotic shrew half the time.”

  “A vampire,” I repeat, ignoring the last bit.

  He looks utterly and completely blank.

  “You have no idea. Do you?”

  When he doesn’t answer, I open the busted door as wide as it will go and wave an arm toward it. “Goodbye, Ronin.”

  If he wasn’t such a misogynistic playboy, I might experience a pang of guilt as I watch him skulk past me, defeated.

  Outside he pauses, spinning around to face me. “I rang you,” he says. “Every day for a month after we slept together.”

  “I know,” I whisper, staring at my Dolce & Gabbana boots. “I changed my telephone number on day three.”

  He emits a short, hollow laugh, and when I look up, the hallway is completely empty. I hear the slam of a door as he exits the building onto the street.

  I close the door and cross to the sofa, sinking down into the cushions with my head in my hands. Wentworth immediately jumps up beside me, sniffing at my hair, but I shove him away. “Get lost, traitor. Fancy going hell for leather at Peter and then letting a demon cradle you like a baby.”

  My eye falls on the diamond earring on the coffee table and I reach across to pick it up, staring into its sparkly depths as if it might provide all of life’s answers. I can’t help but remember the sadness lurking in Ronin’s eyes as he begged for an explanation.

  I’ve always assumed ancients are all-knowing, all-seeing, but is it possible he doesn’t know my history?

  On impulse, I dive on my purse and snatch my phone. After a quick visit to Google, I call the number of Ronin’s club in Soho and wait, my whole body tensing as the dial tone rings out. Just as I hoped, it switches to voicemail.

  “This is a message for Ronin McDermott. Could you tell him Cat Adair rang?” I pause, hating myself for being so weak. “Tell him I’m one of Anastasia’s.” I hang up.

  If he doesn’t understand me now, he never will.

  Chapter 7

  Cat

  Though I rarely need sleep, I wake up Saturday morning to bright sunlight streaming through the blinds, the digital clock by my bedside announcing it’s already past eleven.

  I grimace, rolling onto my back. Last night was plagued by disturbing dreams—Ronin sobbing on a hillside, tears of blood streaking down his pale cheeks as Peter stood over him with a knife. I remember another where I was chasing Wentworth through the dark alleys of Victorian London, only to find him at the salon on Beechwood Street, snarling, with his fur standing on end. Like most of my dreams, it culminated in screaming for Jonjo.

  Which is why I usually prefer to stay awake.

  I swing my legs over the side of the bed and pad into the living room, my gaze instantly drawn to the diamond earring on the coffee table. That part, at least, was not a dream. Shaking my head, I pluck my phone from the kitchen counter and tap the screen, wondering if Ronin got my voice message.

  That my hatred burns less intensely this morning horrifies me. I try to focus on all the awful things he’s said to me over the years—on those half-naked women in his club. But as determined as I am to conjure up my former loathing, I keep seeing his hurt, blue eyes, how lost he looked as he slunk past me into the hall.

  Just then I notice a folded piece of paper shoved under the door. I pick it up and stare at the letter headi
ng in confusion—Jack-in-the-Locks. It’s a paid invoice for an emergency lock repair. The lock, I notice, is mended, a shiny, new replacement fixed onto the wood. I was so out of it I didn’t even hear them arrive.

  I sigh, dropping the sheet of paper into the empty fruit bowl. “Don’t you fucking dare feel sorry for that twit,” I mutter darkly.

  I’m running through a list of reasons to despise Ronin when there is a sharp rat-a-tat-tat at the door. I dive on it, forgetting I’m still in my nightclothes—an oversize T-shirt with a pink cartoon skunk on it.

  Instead of burning, blue eyes, I’m met with a pair of gentle, gray ones. I swallow my bitter disappointment like a mouthful of lemons.

  “Hi, Peter.”

  His eyes widen as they land on my nightshirt. He takes a step backward, running fingers through his messy, brown hair. “Cat. I’m so sorry to wake you. I thought you would be up by now. Not that you should be up by now. It’s perfectly acceptable to sleep in on a Saturday.” His eyes briefly focus on my shirt again, lashes fluttering. “I was going to see if you wanted to get some breakfast.”

  He breaks my gaze completely and stares at his feet—all because I’m wearing a skunk T-shirt. God help him if he ever sees me naked.

  “I’d like that,” I say. “Just give me twenty minutes. I’ll meet you in the coffee place on the corner?”

  He smiles, a blush climbing his cheeks. Some women go googly-eyed for washboard abs or big guns, but for me it’s shyness. Every time. Suddenly, I’m not at all disappointed he knocked.

  “Okay. Great. Catch you there.” He holds a hand up awkwardly before disappearing down the hallway.

  Half an hour later—twenty minutes, it transpires, is not enough time to throw together a couldn’t give a shit outfit—I’m waltzing down the street to Starbucks with my heart in my mouth. Peter is sitting by the window when I arrive, two to-go cardboard cups in front of him. I push open the door and step inside.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  “I got you a cappuccino.”

  I hate cappuccino. “Thank you.”

  “I have a confession,” he says, picking at the lid of his cup with a thumbnail. “I don’t usually visit these chain coffee bars.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think capitalism is destroying the world.” I must make a face because he laughs. “Don’t you agree?”

  I frown. “When you’ve lived through Hitler, everything else is small potatoes.”

  He chuckles. “Let me take you to this little place I know near the common. They do a mean full English.”

  “That would be excellent.” I accidentally on purpose leave the drink on the table as we step out into the sunshine.

  Weaving through the other pedestrians on the bustling street, I notice Peter darting glances at me, sunlight glinting off the glass of his wire-framed specs.

  “What is it?” I ask, staring up at him. “Do you I have something on my face?”

  He shakes his head, pushing his glasses farther up his nose. “Nothing. It’s just…” He trails into silence.

  “Say it,” I demand.

  “Sunlight really doesn’t bother you, does it?”

  My heart sinks. We’re back to Vampire 101.

  Humanity’s morbid fascination with our lives is something my clients regularly complain about. Not having dated since we came out, however, it’s something I’ve rarely experienced.

  “Sunlight just weakens us slightly,” I explain, trying not to sound bored. “On a bright day like today, I’m not much stronger or faster than anyone else.”

  “But at night, you are?”

  “Yes. We can arm-wrestle later if you like, and I’ll prove it to you.”

  He grins. “You’re on.”

  There’s a gap in conversation as we cross the main road. As soon as we fall into step beside each other, he asks, “The blood thing. I know you don’t need it, but do you crave it?”

  “Not a bit. It’s rather like alcohol. Sometimes a drink is nice but mostly I prefer tea. Others, however…” I trail off ominously.

  “Others what?”

  “Are the blood version of an alcoholic. But they rarely go around snatching victims off the street,” I say, seeing the color drain from his face. “Like drug addicts, there are means of feeding their addiction without resorting to crime.”

  Like Ronin’s club, for one.

  I’ve been so sidetracked by our chatter I haven’t realized we’ve reached Beechwood Street. Out of sheer habit, I stop dead in my tracks by the beauty salon, staring at the shallow step at the front of the shop.

  “Do you go there?”

  I look up into Peter’s kind face and blink, the past and present colliding, throwing me off balance. “No. I lived here once.” My voice is raw, as if I’m suddenly suffering with a sore throat. “I was born here.”

  Peter is silent until I wrench myself away and we continue strolling along the street.

  “But you don’t miss your family?” he asks as we dodge around a pair of mothers laden with buggies and toddlers. “At least, last night you said as much.”

  I take a deep breath, my nostrils flaring. “It isn’t them I miss.”

  Peter’s stare is penetrating, but I don’t meet his gaze.

  Slowly, the shops on the opposite side of the street thin out, and the clipped, damp grass of the common appears, surrounded by black railings. A shiver zips up my spine, a knee-jerk reaction to seeing iron bars.

  “This is the place,” Peter says, stopping outside a small café with fairy lights strung across the window. He strides up to the door and holds it open for me.

  The café is small and cozy and clearly not trying to impress anyone. We take seats next to a window half-covered by a red-gingham curtain. I appreciate the no-thrills warmth instantly.

  A busty, middle-aged woman with her hair scraped back in a bun approaches us with her pad. “What would you like, loves?”

  “We’ll have the full English and two coffees,” Peter asserts.

  Busty lady stares at me. “Is that all right with you?”

  I nod, liking how she checked. “But with a glass of water, if that’s okay?”

  She tears off the page, wedging it beneath the salt. “Of course.”

  Once she’s ambled off, Peter says, “I want to hear about it.”

  I feign ignorance. “Hear about what?”

  “About the person you miss. The reason why you stood outside that beauty place as if the ghost of Christmas past had risen from the pavement before you.”

  I titter nervously, unrolling my knife and fork from its paper napkin.

  So this is happening.

  “I’m not really used to talking about it.” I pause. “About him.”

  Peter shrugs out of his coat, hanging it from the back of the chair. My eyes fall on the ripped lines of his upper body visible beneath his thin, navy sweater. He isn’t as muscular as Ronin, but he clearly works out.

  “In my experience, which I know is considerably less than yours, it’s always better to talk about this stuff.” He gestures around him at the near-empty café. “What better place to start than here?”

  I think of Eric, the man who fled after discovering the truth about me. Before his infamous disappearing act, he once said there’s a part of me no man will ever reach, that I keep something hidden inside me, a locked box without a key. The funny thing is, I don’t think it had anything to do with my being a vampire. Even with Peter, I feel it. I wonder if it’s Jonjo in that box. That I’m afraid if I share him with anyone, he’ll somehow lose his magic—a magic I cling to like a shipwreck survivor to a plank of wood.

  Maybe it’s time to let go.

  Our waitress makes a brief return, plonking a glass of water down in front of me. I take a giant gulp and when she drifts away, I say, “His name was Jo
njo. He was my greatest friend.”

  Even now, nearly two centuries later, I can vividly remember the day we met. Though perhaps met isn’t the right expression for a dirty, blue-eyed urchin sauntering up to an eight-year-old me sitting on my front step and kicking a book—the only book I owned back then—from my hands.

  “I can get you a good price for that down at old Smithkin’s shop,” he said, catching it in one hand. His fingernails, I noticed, were chewed to stumps.

  “Bugger off.”

  A friendship was born.

  “We lived on the same street,” I say, rolling the glass of water between my palms. “He was as poor as I was, perhaps even poorer, but he was always cheerful. You know how people say ‘the good die young’?”

  Peter nods, resting his chin on his hand like a child settling down for story time.

  “I often wonder if people are good because they know deep down they’re heading for their maker sooner than the rest of us,” I say. “If they’re good by default.”

  Peter straightens in his seat. “He died young, then? Jonjo?”

  “Nineteen,” I say, a lump rising in my throat. “We were going to be married.”

  I never fathomed at what point Jonjo and I made the transition from playmates to lovers. It was a slow burn, a steady weaving of lives until we never wanted to be apart. On my fifteenth birthday, he bought me a secondhand copy of Oliver Twist. I’d belted him over the head with it.

  “Don’t go thieving for me, Jonjo.”

  “I didn’t. I saved for it.”

  “You’ve six starving brothers and sisters!”

  He gave me one of his wide, twinkly smiles. “But I only have one you.”

  I belted him again, and afterward, he stepped in close and kissed me. I had never been kissed before and the only affection I’d known was the birdlike embraces of my younger siblings. It felt like heaven to have a person put their arms around me. For the first time, I felt whole.

  “I only bought it so I could do that,” he said when we pulled apart.

  By this point, my face was aflame. I smiled.

  Jonjo swung his arms wide, running backward into the filthy street where he narrowly missed being knocked over by the rag-and-bone man with his cart. “Someday, Catherine Adair, I’m going to buy you a whole sack full of books, a ruddy shop load, and then you can teach me to read ’n’ all.”