Olivia blinked. The false eyelashes were also annoying, but much needed on stage. “They’re not real.”
“Like Santa? Daniel told us Santa isn’t real.”
“He did?” How dare he? Though she shouldn’t judge. She had no idea the mood or context in which he’d said that to the girls. “Santa is real if you want him to be.”
“But he still doesn’t bring presents to girls who don’t live in houses,” the little one said and followed with a dramatic sigh.
She didn’t know what to say to that. Hell, she could write a check and put the girls and their mother in a nice hotel for months. But that would never solve their problem if the mother had no stable form of income.
“Aren’t you girls cold?” She placed her hand on the little one’s head and felt little warmth. “How about I buy you some hot chocolate at the café down the block?”
The girls exchanged looks, but Olivia could read the warning flash in the elder’s eyes to her sister.
“Right,” she said. “I’m a stranger. You should never go places with strangers. You two are very smart.”
The soft tones of “O Holy Night” echoed out from behind the fence. Daniel was singing with a woman. For what reason, she couldn’t know. But it wasn’t her place to intrude. She’d wanted him for herself tonight, but obviously, he had more important things to do.
He has a life away from your bed. Get that into your brain. You scared him off by confessing love. The risky move failed.
A life that obviously had much more meaning than she could ever see beyond his fangs and danger.
“Daniel’s a good man,” she said to the older girl. “You can trust him.”
“I know that. He’s been here almost every night since my mom was bitten. Except that one night. Don’t know where the heck he was then.”
Snuggled in Olivia’s bed beside her. Hell.
“He’ll save her,” the oldest offered. “I know he will.”
Olivia managed a weak smile. For the sake of the girls, she hoped Daniel could save their mother. Her heart warmed to know what he was doing. Truly, his soul was worthy.
“Merry Christmas,” she offered, and wandered down the street. The driver followed at a slow creep.
In the café she ordered three cups of hot chocolate to go, and upon spying a lost and found box full of mittens and caps, asked if she could take two. The owner said they’d been in there for months, so she was welcome to them.
THE MIDNIGHT BELLS from a church down the block had chimed over an hour ago. Daniel eyed the moon, noting it had fallen in the sky. The bright disk reminded him of the Christmas tale of the wise men following the star. Pray, Laura’s soul had followed the bright this night.
He held her tightly still, and she hadn’t moved in a while. Maybe she had fallen asleep? It was the best option to fight the cravings.
Thinking about cravings… She had been here. He’d felt her presence outside the fence earlier. Had smelled her delicious sugar cookie scent. She’d come looking for him? He was glad she’d not interfered, but sad he’d missed her gorgeous smile.
Until he remembered that kiss onstage. She would have never let it happen if the man hadn’t meant something to her. He couldn’t accept it had been a sweet peck, either. He’d lost her, yet he’d never really had her.
How to possess a bright star when she belonged in the sky, shimmering for the masses to follow?
The smell of hot chocolate stirred his appetite. Giggles from outside the gate surprised him. That Charity and Mary could find some humor on this bleak night heartened him.
In his arms, Laura stirred and lifted her head. She stretched her mouth in a yawn and tugged out of his grasp to sit against the makeshift cardboard walls of her lean-to.
“How do you feel?” he asked on a raspy whisper.
“Oddly…not hungry for blood.” She shifted her tongue in her mouth and tilted her head. “Do I smell hot chocolate?”
He nodded. It was too incredible to believe, but he couldn’t prevent jumping into the excitement of what they may have accomplished tonight. “I think it worked,” he said.
She nodded. “I think so, too. I mean, I feel that it did work. I made it.” With new wonder, Laura looked to the gate. “My girls? Tell them to come here.”
He called them in, and Mary allowed her sister to lunge into her mother’s arms first.
“Did he save you, Mommy?”
All three women looked to him. Daniel could only shrug.
“He did,” Laura said. “I know he did. Thank you, Daniel.”
“Merry Christmas,” he said, but regretted that it meant little.
He slipped out through the gate while the reunited family hugged and sniffled back tears. He wasn’t much for Hallmark moments. He’d saved one woman from a horrible life. But how many more had transformed because they’d not had someone to help them?
He shoved his hands into his pockets and strode down the street, but noticed the car parked across the way. The black Mercedes did not blend into this neighborhood. Seriously?
Hell, he didn’t want to talk to her.
Yes, he did. It was going to hurt, but it was best to exorcise this wicked ache from his heart swiftly.
Daniel beelined toward the car. The back window rolled down to reveal an angel’s face.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Don’t be angry. I had my driver follow you from the concert. I needed to see you tonight. To apologize for the things I said.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“For what you said.” She’d said she loved him. And now she was apologizing? He nodded and looked over the top of the car. His chest tightened and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her again. “That it?”
“Y-yes. Come inside, and let’s talk. What you did for that woman and her daughters was amazing.”
“You must have bought the girls hot chocolate. I noticed they had caps.”
“Is their mother going to be all right?”
“I think so. She made it to the full moon without drinking blood. I think she’s going to be as fine as a homeless mother of two can be on a cold winter’s night.”
“I offered the girls money, but the older one only took a twenty. She’s very proud.”
“I offer their mother money every time I see her. Always refuses. She just needs to find a place to live and get a job.”
“It’ll happen,” Olivia said. “Santa will find them.”
Daniel smirked and shook his head. “Charity thinks Santa only comes to kids who live in houses.”
“Then we’ll have to change her mind, yes?”
“Olivia.” He winced at the rush of emotions that welled in his chest, squeezing his broken heart, and wished he’d been smarter and had walked away, but now he was here, and he was no man to walk away without all the answers. “I saw him kiss you.”
“Him? Oh.” Her hands fluttered to her lap and twisted within one another. “Daniel, that wasn’t—”
“No need for an explanation. I know where I fall on the scale of all things starstruck and famous. Dead bottom. It’s expected. That’s the way life treats me. Just swell.”
“Daniel.”
“Things never go my way. I thought me and you were going to be a one-night thing, or maybe a flash in your holiday vacation. I was cool with that. Until…”
He locked his jaws shut and beat the top of the car. Out with it then, and then you can cleanse this star from your heart and toss it back into the sky where it belongs.
“I fell in love with you, too. It’s been nice knowing you, Olivia. Luck with your career.”
And he pushed from the car and swung around, beating a path to the opposite side of the street and down the sidewalk. He heard her call after him, and started humming that damned drummer boy song to tune her out.
CHAPTER SIX
HE DIDN’T WANT TO GO to Olivia’s Fifth Avenue sanctuary.
; He did want to go there.
It had been two days without the smell of her sugar cookie skin brushing his cheek. The shimmer of her hair over his face. The hush of her voice tendering into his heart.
And he missed her so much it hurt worse than the blood hunger after he’d been bitten.
In an attempt to block out the soft call of her haunting spirit, Daniel stalked down the alley behind a nightclub booming with techno music. He wanted blood. He needed it coursing through his body, fulfilling and darkening his lighter desires. It was the only way to rip her cleanly from his soul.
He passed a gaggle of women in skirts too short for winter and makeup too gaudy for all seasons. A couple guys in suits and smoking clove cigarettes nodded at him. He didn’t care for this scene, but it was the furthest from her he could get.
Until he walked right up to the tour bus with that bastard’s face on it—Parker Troy. The man stood in the bus’s open door, flashing his expensive fake teeth at the crush of screaming women who wanted to touch him, grope him, have his baby. Whatever.
Ramming a fist into his palm, Daniel wondered how easy it would be to circumvent the screaming fans to get inside that bus. Ripping out the guy’s throat played through his brain, and then…
He turned and marched away from the bus.
“Idiot,” he admonished. “You don’t rough up a guy because he got the girl and you didn’t.”
He turned sharply and headed for the liquor store, which had become a weekly ritual for him over the past year. His life had changed from suits and business lunches to scamming for blood and late nights watching lovers in Central Park. But all in all? He wouldn’t go back. Because it was the small things that mattered to him now. Like Charity and Mary and Sam.
As usual, Sam was sitting on the broken iron bench out front of the all-night liquor store. He nodded to Daniel.
“Saturday Night Sam.” He acknowledged the old man. “How’s life treating you?”
“Well enough.” He was a man of few words and even fewer teeth.
“As it should. Give me a few minutes. I’ll be right out.”
He entered the store, crowded down the short aisles with doodads and snack foods and alcohol in every flavor, color and proof.
“Give me a pack of Marlboro,” Daniel said as he selected a pint of vodka and set that on the counter.
The guy at the register reached for the cigarettes while managing to not take his attention from the TV sitting on the side of the checkout counter.
The service nowadays, Daniel started to think, but then his attention found the screen, as well. She glowed, her face all soft and delicate. She was wearing the white gown she’d worn nights earlier, so the interview must have been previously taped.
“Olivia is so hot,” the clerk said as he leaned on an elbow, pushing aside a display of silver snowflake ornaments.
“She is,” Daniel agreed, but not with any conviction.
He fingered a snowflake, wondering if it was real silver. Couldn’t be. But the shiny metal couldn’t distract from the bright star shining on the television screen. His heart pounded as her voice burrowed through his flesh and into his soul. But seeing someone else swoon over her cemented for him how unattainable she was.
“So you and Parker Troy are an item now?” the television interviewer asked.
Olivia chuckled and looked aside, not answering. Her dark lashes flicked the air.
Daniel gritted his jaw. She used to dust those lashes across his bare skin. Of all the times to walk into this store, he had to pick this one?
And then Olivia straightened and looked directly into the camera. “No, we’re not an item. That was staged on Christmas Eve. You know how the record companies are. Well, if you don’t, they do things like that. It’s a part of the job. Parker and I are going to sing a duet together but that’s it. But…”
She sighed.
Daniel leaned forward, his heart pounding.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to the kiss onstage. I hurt someone that I care for deeply. And it wasn’t being honest to my fans. I’m so sorry.”
Daniel whispered that he was sorry, too.
“What’s that, dude?”
He swung a look to the clerk, who had put the vodka in a brown paper bag.
“Uh…nothing.” He grabbed one of the snowflake ornaments and muttered he’d buy that, too, then shoved it in his pocket. Tossing some bills on the counter, he thanked the clerk. Walking outside, he pressed the bag and pack of grits to Sam’s chest. “Here you go, man. Take it easy.”
Sam called after him, “Merry Christmas, Daniel!”
“Yeah, that’s what they tell me,” he said, and for the first time in days, he smiled.
It had all been a performance.
THE RITUAL OF PACKING away everything in the kitchen until next Christmas vacation was never fun. Olivia went through the cupboards, aligning the pots and pans, made sure the dishwasher was empty, and scrubbed the counters and washed the tile floor. She went through the tiny apartment with a vacuum, even though Lisa always suggested she hire a maid to do it.
Maids were for sissies, she thought with a smirk. Getting a chance to do anything domestic was her kind of excitement. It reminded her that she was just like everyone else, somewhere, deep inside, where no camera or television recording could ever venture.
She wrapped up the vacuum cord and tucked the machine away, then wandered into the bedroom to straighten the closet where she kept clothing year-round, but only winter stuff.
When finally she sat on the bed and realized it would be only an hour before the limo arrived to pick her up and take her back to her celebrity life, tears spilled down her cheeks. The bed felt too big and awkward when she sat on it alone. It was missing Daniel’s wide shoulders and strong, powerful muscles. And his intense kisses and even his sharp bites.
She stroked her neck. The bite ached a little. When she touched the small wounds it felt as if he were blowing softly upon her skin, marking her with his delicious darkness. Her blood stirred to think of the vampire who had stolen her heart with a kiss and a bite. And a dance.
That had been what made her fall in love with him, that dance in this very bedroom, swaying against him, learning there was more to the monster than just fangs.
You took the risk and it paid off. She’d gained confidence, and had made the decision to be seen with Parker on her own, no approval necessary. It hadn’t been a good decision, but she was learning.
But it had been a risk Daniel could not accept.
It would probably never have worked out. But she wished she’d had the opportunity to learn that for herself.
“You did learn that,” she said. “It didn’t work out. End of story. The guy hates you because he thinks you’re Parker Troy’s woman. Ugh.”
So what if she had been ready to figure out a way to make it work? Singers had relationships with regular people all the time, and they managed to keep their private lives private. Daniel didn’t need to tour with her, and she could fly him in to major cities and meet him at hotels under an assumed name.
It would have been worth the trouble.
She’d gotten due karma after that stupid stage kiss.
So back to the crazy, monstrous life of a singer. She’d lose herself in her music and touring. It was the only way to keep thoughts of him away.
A flicker outside the window caught her attention. The streetlight beamed over fluffy, gently falling snowflakes. Olivia strolled to the window and before she could admire the sight, she noticed the man standing across the street, back against an iron fence fronting a walk-up brownstone, head bowed.
Willing him to look up, she pressed her palms to the cold window and it fogged around her hands. She wiped away the condensation but that only smeared the glass.
Rushing for a coat, she pulled it on, stuck her bare feet into her boots by the door and clattered down the iron staircase. Running toward the street, she didn’t pause to think that he might reject her. He had come to her. H
e wanted to see her.
They had a chance. They two—monsters—could really make this work.
Before she could cross the street, the familiar click of a camera and a blinking flash paused her at the curb. Daniel took one look at the photographer who’d been waiting around the corner and rushed him.
DANIEL HAD BEEN WATCHING the guy for fifteen minutes. He’d been lurking outside the front foyer of Olivia’s building, trying to pass himself off as just another guy, perhaps waiting for a friend, but Daniel had seen the glint of a camera lens sticking out of his pocket.
He’d wanted to go up the side stairs to Olivia’s apartment, but his suspicions about the lurker had been confirmed. Damned paparazzi. How had they found her?
This was not a situation he wanted to get into, but there was no way he was going to allow the guy to take photos of Olivia in a place she considered her sanctuary.
He dashed across the street and shoved the photographer against the wall. “Back off, buddy.”
“You touched me!” the guy yelled.
Olivia tugged his sleeve “Let’s go, Daniel.”
“Of course I touched you.” He jerked his arm from Olivia’s grasp and approached the man, who had the audacity to act affronted. “You’ve no right following the woman all over the place and taking pictures without her permission.”
“She’s a public figure,” the cameraman argued. “That means she belongs to the public, buddy. They—we—put her where she is today. The least she can do is repay that generosity with a few pictures.”
“Your concept of public and private is whacked,” Daniel argued.
“So is yours. I think I’m going to bruise.” The cameraman touched his arm where Daniel had shoved him. “I’ll sue.”
“Yeah? And I’ll—”
Before he could reveal fangs, Daniel felt Olivia tug his arm again. “It’s not worth it.”
“Is he your new boyfriend, Olivia? That was quick. You and Troy didn’t work out?” The cameraman shot a few clicks of Daniel. “Much ruder than the last one. Who are you? What’s your name? You a singer? An actor?”
His anger boiling, Daniel lunged toward the man. “Can’t the woman have a day or two to herself? It’s Christmas. Give her a break.”
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