She did. She gave advice to people twenty years older than she was without thinking about it, and talked to people who were in their sixties as if they were the same age.
She let out a small breath. “I understand the ‘you’re only as old as you feel’ concept, but it has nothing to do with eight hundred years of living versus twenty-five.”
His eyebrows went up. “You’re only twenty-five? Well, then, forget it. You’re much too young for me.”
She opened her mouth, shook her head, and then realized she had no response to his comment at all. None.
“We’re just going to have to wait until you’re thirty,” he said.
She reached the hotel and turned left into the parking garage. The attendant waved at her. She waved back.
“Wait for what?” she asked as she pulled into the same parking space she’d had that morning.
“A relationship.”
She shut off the car and shook her head again. “A relationship?”
She couldn’t quite believe that. Why would he be interested in a relationship? A friendship, a one-night stand, but a relationship?
He chuckled. “You actually believe me.”
Her face grew so warm that it almost hurt. He had tricked her into admitting her feelings. How could an eight-hundred-year-old man make her feel like she was in high school all over again?
He frowned. “I meant about being twenty-five instead of thirty. Not about the relationship.”
She nodded, made herself breathe, then popped the car door open. “It’s hot in here, don’t you think?”
He took her hand. “I’m actually interested in you, Megan. The relationship comment wasn’t a joke. Seriously.”
“Sure,” she said and got out of the car, slamming the door so hard that the sound echoed in the concrete bunker so like the one she had just left.
He got out, too. “I mean it. I haven’t met a woman who has attracted me like you have in centuries.”
“See?” she said. “There it is again. Centuries.”
“You want me to say years?” he asked. “That’s trivial in the context of my life. I mean centuries. Since Marian.”
The last two words hung between them. He looked appalled by them; she felt helpless, as if she were floating against a tide she had no control over.
“Is that a line you use on all the women?” she asked after a moment.
He shook his head. His expression was tight.
She suddenly regretted her question. She had wanted him to feel as uncomfortable as she did, and she had clearly achieved that. In fact, she had made him feel more uncomfortable.
She had hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude of me.”
He blinked and seemed to get control of himself, but his eyes were wide and pain-filled. Still, he forced himself to smile.
“I deserved it,” he said. “I guess it’s odd to think that someone like me, someone who has been around forever, would fall for someone else in less than a day.”
Her breath caught. Fall for? He wasn’t lying. She would be able to sense it if he were lying.
Wouldn’t she?
“It does seem improbable,” she said, and her words sounded lame. Worse than lame, they were slightly cruel.
Why was she hurting him? Because she was afraid of him?
Not him, exactly.
She was afraid of the powerful emotions he was drawing up from inside her. She had worked for most of her adult life at masking her emotions, hiding behind the screen she’d learned, being as calm as she could be.
She was anything but calm around Rob.
“Yeah,” he said and smiled again ever so slightly. “It does seem improbable. But everything about me is improbable.”
She had to give him that. She had to give him more than that. She had to stop fighting whatever it was between them.
“Everything about this day has been improbable,” she said.
“I’m moving too fast for you.” He leaned against the car and rested his arms on the roof, staring at her.
She resisted the urge to look around him to see if the attendant was listening.
“Everything is moving too fast for me,” she said. “I’m not good at surprises.”
“It seems to me you are,” he said. “You were able to handle the Interim Fates better than I could have.”
She shrugged. “I work with teenagers.”
“Not teenagers with enough magic to destroy the planet.”
“Oh,” she said softly, “some of them think they do.”
“I mean literally.”
She nodded. “I know that. But there’s not a lot of difference between thinking you have that power and actually having that power.”
“Unless you use it,” he said.
“With their father around, do you think they would?” she asked.
He grinned. “You see, you do really well with surprises. You have a lot of this figured.”
“And a lot of it is just me swimming upstream.” She was used to swimming upstream. When her parents had adopted her, they’d already had Travers and Vivian. Megan had felt like she was behind the curve from the moment she had arrived in that house.
The world had always been an inexplicable place, and she worked hard at not being noticed.
And here was a gorgeous man—a gorgeous, accomplished man—a gorgeous accomplished man in many countries and many lifetimes—noticing her.
More than noticing her.
Wanting her.
For whatever reason.
“So,” he said. “I was right. I scare you.”
Megan nodded. It was difficult to be honest with him, but it felt good at the same time. Still, she wanted out of the conversation.
“I scare you,” he said, “because of who I was.”
She shook her head. “Because of who you are.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Rob Chapeau, Billionaire Playboy? I already told you that’s made up for the press.”
“Magical, good-looking, a little—” (a lotta, but she wasn’t ready to say that) “—old-fashioned, smart, and strong.”
He smiled, clearly flattered and a bit bemused. “Why would that frighten you?”
Honesty time. She had promised herself. “Because you’re interested in me.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re beautiful—”
She snorted.
“—smart, strong, and intuitive. I like all of that.”
“I’m sure there were countless women in your past with all of those traits.”
He nodded. “But none of them with the ability to see me, and see me clearly.”
Her gaze met his. “I don’t know if I see you clearly.”
“You walked into my magic circle last night,” he said.
“Drove in,” she said.
“And your questions this afternoon kicked my magic enough out of control that I showed you parts of my past no one has seen. Then you were able to talk with the Interim Fates. That’s amazing. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“So,” she said, trying not to let disappointment into her voice. “It’s all about that empathic ability you were talking about. That rarity.”
He shook his head. “It’s about you. I find you fascinating, and I want to protect you, and I want to hold you—”
“I don’t need protection,” she snapped. She hated it when he brought this up. If he persisted in this attitude, there would be nothing between them.
“Ah,” he said, leaning his chin on the backs of his hands. It almost seemed like he was part of the car this way. “But you do need protection, Megan. You—”
“I can take care of myself. I have for twenty-five years. I’m a very strong woman, you said so yourself, and I can—”
“I know you’re strong,” he said. “I know you can take care of yourself. But no one has looked out for you, have they? Not once. No one told you that you have a special ability. No one showed you your magic, like they showed your b
rother his.”
“My brother had no idea until this week.” She was glad the car was between her and Rob. She needed the shield. She was getting more and more unsettled.
“But you’re so sensitive about how you look and your own abilities,” Rob said gently. “That comes when someone has to take care of herself, when she has no one to defend her.”
“My family’s great,” she said. “It’s just weird. I have a pretty, petite sister, and a brother who looks like a 1950s version of an All-American basketball player, and then there’s tubby little old me.”
Tubby. She winced when she said that word. It just came out.
“Was that what your parents called it?” Rob asked gently.
She shook her head. “They said it was baby fat. They said I’d grow out of it.”
“You’re voluptuous. Bottitcelli’s Venus,” he said. “So incredibly beautiful. Women need to celebrate their looks, their femaleness. You do.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I’d give anything to be a size six. But I could starve and never fit into anything smaller than a ten. I’m big-boned and big-hipped and big, big, big.”
He could probably hear the self-loathing in her voice. Her counselor had told her to work on body image, and she tried. But that meant accepting she would never be small, she would always be short and round, and nothing she could do would ever change that.
“Womanly,” he said.
“Fat,” she said.
“In today’s culture,” he said, “I can see how you feel that way. But women like you were rich in most of the years I lived through. Rich and strong because you had to be lush to bear children, to live through the hardships. Women like you represented the ideal female beauty, warm and soft and curvy.”
She stared at him but continued to lean against the car so that he couldn’t see her body.
He actually seemed to mean those words. He said each one as if it were a sensual detail, as if he were describing the best meal he’d ever had or the tastiest bottle of wine.
“You believe that, don’t you?” she said.
He nodded. “My Marian was built like you, not like the thin things that portray her in the movies. She was a great beauty. Like you.”
Megan shook her head slightly. “I’m not beautiful.”
“Half the cultures in this world would think you are. And most of the cultures in the past. America has a sickness. It has infected you, so that you believe you have no beauty at all. You are stunning.” Then he smiled. “This is what I mean by protecting you.”
She frowned. “I’m not following.”
“I mean that like all of us, you have damaged places, hurt places, and those places need a champion, someone to help them heal. I don’t want to take over your life and diminish you. I would like to be beside you, and keep those harmful attitudes from hurting you worse. There is nothing wrong with having someone strong beside you, to give you added strength.”
She tilted her head slightly. She’d never heard anything like this, and she wasn’t sure if it was true. It certainly wasn’t anything she’d been taught in her courses, although it had a certain validity for her practice.
If she had been able to go home with some of her patients, defend them — protect them — against the verbal battering they received from their parents, or point out the neglect, the lack of love, then she would have been those children’s champions. And she would have been able to help them strengthen. Maybe their parents wouldn’t have changed, but the kids might have seen where their parents were deficient, where their home life was deficient.
“Everyone needs a protector,” Rob said. “Even me.”
“I couldn’t protect you,” Megan said softly. “You’re a bona fide hero. There are books dedicated to all you’ve done.”
“And yet,” he said just as softly, “in order to do those things, I’ve had to separate myself from my heart. I thought that heart was gone. But you found it.”
Her gaze met his. His eyes were warm, sincere.
“We can protect each other,” he said, “if we but try.”
He was winning her over, and so quickly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be won.
She needed a little time, time to reflect, time to see if this was real or as ephemeral as that trip to the Interim Fates had been.
He stood, obviously feeling her change of mood.
“First,” she said quietly, “I need to see if Kyle’s all right.”
“Then we have to save the world for true love.” Rob’s words were mocking.
“We did promise to help the Interim Fates,” Megan said.
“You promised,” he said. “I just agreed to help you.”
“You don’t think they’re worth helping?”
“I think Zeus will destroy us for trying.” Then Rob grinned.
Megan felt even more confused. “What’s the smile for?”
“You truly are an empath,” he said. “You know how to manipulate me.”
She shook her head slightly. She didn’t like this empath talk. “I didn’t mean to manipulate you.”
“Maybe not consciously,” he said. “But you did.”
He was right; she hadn’t been aware of what she had done. “How?”
His smile widened. “The best way to get me to join any cause is to ask me to defend the powerless against the powerful.”
“Zeus’ daughters,” Megan said.
He shrugged eloquently. “How much more powerless can you get?”
Twenty-one
Wait for him.
Megan had waited for a man like Rob all of her life.
And, in this postfeminist era, she was embarrassed to admit it, even more embarrassed to admit she was attracted to man whose attitudes were so out-of-date that they had been old-fashioned in the medieval era.
She was tired. And very confused.
Those Interim Fates had taken all of her energy, and she still wasn’t sure she’d helped them.
She wasn’t sure she had helped anyone.
The doors in front of her were warm from the Vegas sun. Above her, an air-conditioning vent sent chills down her spine. She needed to move.
She pushed on the doors just as Rob caught up to her. He slipped a hand onto the small of her back, sending a different kind of chill up her spine.
Maybe she was attracted to him because he was so very handsome. He moved beautifully, and she was always attracted to graceful men. Then he had that melodious voice, with its unusual accent, and she was lost. Just lost.
He could be a Neanderthal and have those qualities (although a Neanderthal wouldn’t have those qualities—not in the looks department or the movement department, but maybe in the voice department [although the accent would be completely different, provided, of course, Neanderthals had the physical ability to speak a complicated language like English]) and she’d still be attracted.
The bottom line was, simply, that the combination of looks, brains, movement, and accent was just lethal, at least for her, and he could think she was property, hit her over the head with his club, and drag her away by her hair, and she would let him.
She’d probably even enjoy it.
And that just made her even more disgusted with herself.
They stepped outside into the blazing afternoon heat. It didn’t matter that there was an awning above them or that the nearby building pumped cool air onto the street; it was still the middle of the desert and so incredibly hot that she felt as if she would melt at any moment.
The chills from the air-conditioning dissipated immediately. The chills from Rob’s hand remained.
She walked at her normal pace to the parking garage, forcing him to keep up with her. She had blamed him all day for having emotions that ran the gamut from anger to kindness, but her emotions had been all over the place, too.
Too many times, she’d let a man’s kindness blind her. A man who treated her with respect, a man who listened to her, a man who acted as if she were important, she used to misread those
signals and think that he was falling for her.
She rounded the corner into the parking garage. It smelled of old gasoline, and wasn’t really much cooler than the sidewalk.
Rob had managed to keep up with her and keep his hand against the flat of her back. She liked that.
She liked it a bit too much.
Even if she discounted the fact that he believed women needed to be taken care of, even if she ignored the way that he had stomped all over her in the conversation with the Interim Fates, there was still the matter of their eight-century age difference.
Yes, he might have a love for Maid Marian that had lasted for the ages, but she had died ages ago. And in that time, he had to have known other women.
Maybe this was how he met them, charming them, showing flashes of himself, using his magic to woo them, and then getting what he wanted—whatever that was (could a man who had lived 800 years still think with the wrong part of his anatomy? She’d always heard that older men started using their upper brain long about fifty, but did that apply to men who aged slowly over several centuries? And who could she ask? She didn’t know anyone else who had met someone as old as Rob. Except Zoe, whom she didn’t know well either).
“You’re very quiet,” he said, his voice echoing against the concrete dividers.
“It’s been a difficult day.”
That was an understatement. She had discovered that her brother was not only magic, but engaged; that her poor nephew had been able to read minds ever since he could remember; and that there was not one, but two, groups of Fates—ditzy women/girls who somehow controlled the universe.
Anyone would be stressed after all that.
Her Mini Cooper sat alone in the section of the parking garage designed for small cars. Hardly anyone owned a small car anymore. Across the divide, dozens of SUVs vied for space.
She waved her hand at the passenger side—she didn’t even want him to think he could drive her car—and unlocked the doors. As she crawled in, she watched Rob fold himself into his seat.
Fates 06 - Totally Spellbound Page 28
