by SK Ryder
Sitting folded into the sofa’s far corner, Cassidy took it all in with interest, respecting his wish and never asking the one thing she surely most wanted to know—why did he no longer live that life? By the end of the night, had she asked anyway, Dominic thought he might have told her. He almost believed she would nod and understand.
But only almost.
For a few more moments, he held onto that dream. Then it evaporated around him together with the elusive humanity he cultivated for her. He inhaled, tasting the damp night air drifting through the open windows, and exhaled on a soft growl.
Outside a chuckle rose. “Foolish child. You cannot outrun your destiny.”
“Or you, it seems,” Dominic said, feeling weary. Why hadn’t he put this one down already? Outside, he found Serge blending into the shadows in an Adirondack chair.
“You need me.”
Dominic leaned against the porch rail and crossed his arms. “What I need is for you to tell me what happened the night you fed from her,” he said so low only another blood-drinker would hear him—not a human sleeping by the open window above them.
“I saw the light in her soul.” Serge beamed as if proclaiming a miracle.
“And you did what? Exactly?”
“I drank, of course. I had to know her mind, know her light. It was . . .”
“What compulsion did you put on her?”
Serge looked mildly offended at having his proclamation cut short. “To not see me. Nobody ever sees me.” Wistful sigh.
“And the man she was with?”
“The man?”
“Her man.” Blank stare. “He was there that night. You compelled him also?”
“Oh, no. No, he is not her man.”
Dominic fought for patience. “Regardless, he was there. Did you drink from him?”
Serge gasped, then shook his head, muttering, but stopped when Dominic growled a warning. “So impatient, blood-child.” He straightened a little and looked away. “He was . . . repulsive.”
“Repulsive,” Dominic repeated. If an accurate description—and he couldn’t think how—that might explain Cassidy’s sudden reluctance for her fiancé’s company. If Serge reached this conclusion while feeding and deep in her mind, he might well have accidentally compelled her to feel likewise. “Repulsive how?”
The old blood-drinker had that far-away look again, his voice soft. “He has a light, too. But he is not her man.”
“You are useless,” Dominic spat on a snarl of sheer frustration. It was all he could do not to slam the door behind him. The beast slithered in his heart, tormented by memories and hunger. Only one thing would appease it. Pulling on his leathers and boots wasn’t even a conscious decision.
He steeled himself for an argument on the way out, but Serge didn’t even hesitate before leaping onto the back of his bike, eager to ride. “You need me with you,” he declared, chuckling. “Yes, you do.”
Chapter 12
Lost in Translation
That night in her dreams she knew where to look for him—or thought she did anyway. He wasn’t there. The hole she dug held only rock and ice.
“Are you hungry?” he asked from where he sat, cross-legged, on a boulder. His bare skin merged with the blinding brilliance of the snow to make his body blend into the background. His hair flew in the wind, shiny and dark. She had mistaken it for a raven in flight. His eyes were untouched by the smile on his lips.
Cassidy huffed and staggered out of the snow grave, her yellow nightshirt fluttering around her. “How long have you been sitting there watching me dig this freaking hole?”
“I have been here all along. You haven’t looked in the right place.”
Exhausted she sat next to him, bare toes curling into the snow as though it were sand. “This is too warm.”
“It is a dream.”
“I know. But it’s too warm. Have you ever even seen snow?”
“Once. I didn’t like it.”
A new shape appeared before them, heavily bundled. “Roommate, is it? Nice, Cass. Real nice.”
“Why are you here, Jackson?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking him that? Doesn’t he own any clothes?”
“It’s a dream.”
Dominic inclined his head to whisper in her ear. “He doesn’t know that.”
“But you and I know that. Why are we here? What am I looking for?”
“Me.”
“Well, I found you. Now what?”
He stretched his face toward the sun, his features all but invisible in the light, as though drawn on the wind itself. “That is up to you, ma petite.”
“I need to get some sleep. I’m leaving now.”
With a soft whump, she fell back in the snow and stared at the sky, at him looking back down at her, his face now obscured in shadow. Then she could see through him. Seconds later he was gone.
“You drive me crazy, Dominic.”
The wind laughed in French.
“Damn you, Dominic. You and your ludicrous ideas.” Cassidy pinched the bridge of her nose and gave her burning eyeballs a minute to rest. This was going to take all night. Though it had sounded like a brilliant notion last night, now she was tempted to blame that on the wine as well, right along with her mortifying attempts at seducing a gay man.
They had talked until one in the morning. In terms as poetic as they were sensual, he told her much about his charmed life on the island paradise of St. Barth. Yearning edged his words, and she longed to know the tragedies he wouldn’t share. But the less she said, the more he told her, the more relaxed he became, traveling back to carefree times she was loath to disturb with questions about a much less carefree present.
When the conversation shifted back to her life and work, Dominic had some definite opinions and ideas about how she could stop living down to people’s expectations. Which was why she still sat at her desk, long after everyone else cleared out, wanting only to bang her head against her cubicle wall. On Dominic’s suggestion, she took Jim Lawley’s most recent piece and rewrote it in her own voice and with her own spin on the details. Even Dave McKinney could see how much better it was. Not that he said so. No, instead he tried to reason with her.
“Why are you so desperate to pick a fight with Jim? You’re young. You’ve got bigger things waiting for you than the Gazette, Chandler.”
She bristled at the casual reference to the expected temporary nature of her employment. “Mr. McKinney. This is my first real job in a career I have wanted since I was eight. Regardless of how I ended up here, the fact remains that I am here. I want to stay here, and I want to contribute to the best of my abilities.” Leaning forward, she tried another angle. “Wouldn’t that be in the Gazette’s best interest? Unless, of course, you really feel that my work isn’t up to your standards, in which case I’d appreciate any help you can give me to improve. As my editor.”
He gave her a long-suffering, somewhat doubtful look. She met it with a mixture of challenge and appeal while trying to believe that the worst thing he could do was send her back to writing more obits. He didn’t. He shredded the evidence of her crime and handed her a business card for Garcilla Health Systems, a Miami-based company about to announce a massive expansion, including a center in Orchard Beach. Dave wanted a full write up on them as well as anticipated economic and community impacts on the area. By tomorrow.
“I’m on it,” she promised, intending to work all night if necessary. Which she did, though not for the reasons she expected. The name on the card, Rosa Garcia Lopez, PR rep for Garcilla, didn’t speak English other than to say that she didn’t, and Cassidy spoke even less Spanish. Apparently Miami really was American in name only.
After tracking down all the English-speaking sources she could, she groped her way through various Span
ish web sites and picked a semblance of coherence out of the auto-translated results. Slow progress, but she kept at it. Failing was not an option.
She ignored her phone’s chirping, knowing it was only Jackson with more pester-texts after she had let his earlier call go to voice mail. But when it rang, her concentration shattered. She had half a mind to ignore the unfamiliar number, but as tired and cranky as she was, the possibility of getting to hang up on a telemarketer was more temptation than she could resist.
“Yes?”
“Where are you?”
She blinked, stunned. “Dominic? Where did you get this number?”
“From your phone.”
“Great. Remember that discussion we had about privacy?”
“You left it on the kitchen counter last night.”
“Okay,” she said, letting that sink in. Privacy meant nothing to him. Sort of like clothes. “So you’re calling to see where I am? Don’t tell me you miss me.”
“Would you like me to make dinner again tonight?”
She glanced at the wall clock. “Crap. I had no idea how late it is.”
“Where are you?” he said again, making her hesitate. Did he seriously feel entitled to keep tabs on her now?
“Well, not that it’s any of your business, but I’m in the office working on my new assignment. Which is due tomorrow. And which I got because of your crazy idea. How’s that for an explanation?”
There was a pause as he must have considered the grinding quality of her tone—and chose to ignore it. “Congratulations. I knew you could do it.”
“I’m not so sure.” She sighed. “Would you believe the people I have to talk to don’t speak English? And the majority of what’s been written about them is in Spanish.”
“And . . . you do not speak Spanish?”
“About as well as I speak French.”
He made a pitiful little noise. “Oh, you are in trouble.” The way he pronounced ‘trouble’ with a sonorous, nasal quality and a round, rolling R, made her insides quiver.
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Come home and eat. I have an idea.”
She had serious doubts about his ideas at this point. Still, she was hungry and nothing more could be accomplished here tonight. She e-mailed the research and article-in-progress to her private address and headed out.
Fish was on the menu again. Dominic showed her a freezer full of the stuff. Brain food, he said. Afterward, with her stomach pleasantly full, but her head still clear of wine, they sat together on the sofa, bare feet propped on cushions on the glass tabletop, laptops balanced on their thighs. She typed while Dominic read through her sources and gave her the highlights. He was fluent in Spanish, the result of attending school in Miami.
“Be careful, Dominic. If you keep this up, I may forget about not being your cup of tea and all.”
“You should never forget that, chère.”
“Fine, fine. But I owe you a hug. Is that okay?”
“I don’t know. You might bite.”
“Very funny.”
“I know,” he said, his smile all mystery. “I amuse myself.”
She felt unaccountably disappointed. After the trials of the day, his calm, confident strength was a soothing balm, a promise of safe harbor. But a promise was all it remained. He would let her get no closer. Companionable lounging on the same piece of furniture and reminiscing about happy times was the best she could hope for, and she thought—while the phone in her bag chirped with yet more text messages—that might be for the best. Keep it simple. At least she knew where she stood with one guy.
Cassidy was about to dig out her phone and send a reply when the last document disappeared from Dominic’s screen, replaced by a dragon of blue flame against a black backdrop. The creature held a login box in its paws, and Dominic entered the longest password she had ever seen. Cryptic techno-babble poured across the screen, some of it in ominous red lettering.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for an unlisted phone number.”
She leaned closer, hovering by his shoulder to watch, even though nothing much on the display made any sort of sense. “Aren’t they unlisted for a reason?”
“Like network passwords?” The corner of his mouth curled up in irony. She had defaulted the Internet connection four times before he agreed to give her the Wi-Fi password.
“Uh huh. So what are you gonna do? Reset the phone company?”
“I’m checking personnel records.”
Taken aback, she looked closer. The screen still didn’t make much sense, but ‘Garcilla’ figured prominently in the text scrolling past. “Wait. You hacked Garcilla’s network?”
Right on cue, a web page appeared, inviting him to search by employee name or social security number. Señora Lopez’s private information popped up seconds later.
“If it is on the Internet, it is mine.”
“You’re . . . you’re a hacker? That’s what you do?”
“Not a hacker, chérie. The hacker.”
“So I’m living with a criminal,” she murmured.
“I am also very good at writing malware.”
Cassidy sank back into the sofa cushions. “I don’t believe this. What other laws do you break? No, don’t answer that,” she added when he looked like he actually might. “I don’t want to know. Honest. I need plausible deniability all the way.”
He shrugged, his eyes flashing amusement. “Suit yourself.” Picking up his phone from the side table, he dialed a number from the personnel file.
Before Cassidy could comprehend all the ramifications and tell him to hang up, Rosa Garcia Lopez’s tiny, surprised voice pitched from the speaker. She hadn’t answered any of the numbers on her card earlier and sounded in no mood to conduct business at this time of night on this number either.
Dominic spoke in brisk and fluent Spanish. When Cassidy’s name came up, she froze in shock, the specter of guilt by association looming large. He made a calming gesture, placed the phone on the table, and pulled her laptop across. He began adding to her notes in English. The conversation continued for a while, Rosa’s disembodied voice becoming relaxed, babbling more. Dominic sounded all charm, making encouraging noises as he worked.
Cassidy leaned in against his shoulder, reading. From time to time, she got distracted by his scent. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised that she dreamt of snow. His cologne, or shower gel, or whatever really did smell like that—like ice on a winter day so cold it glittered.
“Et voilà,” he said when the call concluded and he handed back her laptop. “You can now write an article so boring it will put to sleep the paper it is printed on.”
“Who did you tell her you were?”
“Your research assistant.”
She choked a little. “Did she ask how you got that number?”
“I’m a good researcher?” he said, winking.
“You’re a good liar.” The words were out of her mouth before she could bite them back. He had stolen Rosa’s private number and lied to her about who he was. While Cassidy had heard of reporters who thought nothing of doing much worse to get a story, this felt different. This wasn’t her spinning facts to a faceless stranger. This was someone she knew doing so on her behalf with a casual ease that took her breath away.
Dominic studied her face, his smile fading. “When I need to be.”
“Have you lied to me?” She didn’t know why that should matter. They were only strangers passing in a cottage after all. Yet somehow it did.
“No,” he said with a slow shake of his head.
“Right.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry. You helped me out big time here, and I sound like an ungrateful twit. Thank you, Dominic. I mean it.”
“De nada.” He s
hut down the hacker software. “My pleasure.”
The velvet sound of that last word moved through her like a soul caress. It felt so natural to lean against him, sighing, drawing strength and comfort. “What can I do to pay you back for this?”
He put his laptop aside and fidgeted in the pockets of his gym pants, forcing her to back away. “One morning you will think of something.” He stuck a cigarette between his lips. Catching sight of her scowl, he paused.
“Is that necessary?”
“Oui,” he said and flicked the lighter. His face narrowed as he drew the smoke.
She held her breath, shut her laptop, and got up. “And here I thought I might start to like you. My mistake.”
Smoke streamed from his nose and mouth, though he did at least turn his head away before exhaling. He smiled a little. “No mistake. You do.”
“You conceited French pain in the ass.”
“Please do not take this so personally. This is my problem, not yours.”
“But it is my problem,” she fumed. “Do you know what that filthy stench reminds me of? My father.”
Unlike her, Dominic had no trouble hiding his true thoughts behind a blank expression, which in and of itself was annoying enough. Added to the smoke, every friendly notion she may have entertained evaporated.
“My father smoked for years, but he’s still healthy as a bull and busy screwing a woman half his age while my mother died of the cancer she caught from his second-hand smoke. And, oh, yeah, he moved in with his mistress when my mom got sick, because he couldn’t deal with it. So, no. Not a happy smell. Thank you very much.”
Dominic watched her, completely transformed from easygoing computer hacker and ‘research assistant’ to the poster boy for French aloofness. After a brief hesitation, he pulled another drag from the cigarette.
