by Anthology
This time she was prepared for his kiss on the back of her hand, infinitely glad that he hadn’t tried to greet her the Italian way with kisses to both cheeks. She would’ve flushed redder than the poinsettia that decorated the restaurant’s interior.
“You look lovely,” he said.
Ellie had opted for a simple black, sleeveless flare dress with narrow straps that fell to just above her knees; nothing too overtly sensual.
Not one to take compliments very well, she stammered, “Th-Thanks.”
She didn’t know why, but she had expected him to be dressed in something similar to the three-piece business suit he had worn yesterday, not a more casual navy-blue sweater over a black, collared shirt that seemed to enhance the blue of his eyes to something almost unearthly but still exquisitely beautiful.
Perhaps sensing her rising discomfort, Val merely smiled and offered her his arm without another word. He escorted her to a partitioned, recessed area in one of the back corners that she was relieved to see hid them completely from view of the other diners. It also only held a single table, but it was wide and spacious enough that she didn’t feel boxed in.
Once they were seated, a server appeared as though conjured and asked for their drink order.
“Any preferences?” Val asked.
Ellie pointed at the lump on her forehead. “I should probably stick to water, tonight.”
He nodded. “Water for the lady, then, and bring me a glass of my usual.”
“Wine, beer, or whiskey?” she asked curiously.
“I’m always partial to a good Chianti, especially one from the family’s vineyards.”
“I’m usually a white wine kind of girl, so I’ve never tried it.” She offered him a tentative smile. “Now I’m starting to regret my decision not to drink tonight.”
“Speaking of, how is your head feeling?” Val asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as he tried to see beyond her bangs.
“Tender to the touch, but at least the headache and dizziness is gone,” Ellie replied.
She hoped he wouldn’t ask to see the lump as it looked much worse than it was.
He nodded. “Good. I thought maybe you would wake up with one or even both of your eyes blackened.”
Ellie made a face. “That would’ve completely ruined all the plans my sister has for us over the holidays. No way I would’ve shown my face in public for people to whisper and speculate.”
“Yes, you did mention going to New York.” He suddenly grinned. “I would ask if that’s where you’re originally from, but your accent is answer enough, I think.”
She couldn’t help smiling back. “Yep. Born and raised in Austin. My sister’s husband is a surgeon, and he was offered a job at one of the hospitals in Long Island right after they got married. We’ve always been a pretty close family, so my parents and I decided we would spend Christmas with Liz and they would come down to Austin for Thanksgiving. I had planned on spending a couple of weeks with her, but…”
“…but you weren’t planning on having an accident and getting snowed in,” Val finished. “Why on earth didn’t you just fly out?”
“My parents did, but—I’m scared to fly,” Ellie admitted sheepishly.
Val sighed and shook his head. “Two car accidents in one day, and you’re scared of getting on a plane,” he teased.
“Only one of those was an accident,” she replied defensively.
“If you say so. Although—your phobia did allow our paths to cross. To think I could have missed out on such an intriguing mystery.”
“I really don’t think there’s anything to figure out,” Ellie insisted.
Val raised a challenging eyebrow, but before he could reply, their server returned with their drinks.
“I’m never wrong about these things, trust me,” he said once the server had left with their food orders.
Ellie absently ran the fingers of her left hand through her long hair. “There’s a first time for every—”
“What’s that?” Val abruptly demanded, leaning forward so quickly that he nearly knocked over his wine glass.
“Huh?” came her intelligent reply before she realized where or rather what he must have just seen.
Her hand automatically clamped over her neck, but she knew it was too late. Val was out of his chair and tugging her hand away before she could blink, his face only inches away from her neck.
“An old dog bite that happened when I was just a kid,” Ellie said stiffly as he silently stared at her hideous scar with an unreadable expression.
“Looks like more than just a bite,” he finally said after a few more seconds of tense silence.
She shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess.”
“Forgive me,” Val said as he straightened. “It’s obvious by your expression that you don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s okay.” She swallowed against the huge lump of anxiety that had suddenly formed in her throat and forced herself to add, “I might as well tell you. Practically everyone else in the state already knows about it, anyway. I’d rather you heard it from me than from someone who might have heard some of the more crazy accounts that have made the rounds over the years.”
Rather than look intrigued, Val merely nodded and took his seat again, his expression utterly neutral. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or bothered by his sudden seriousness.
Her mouth dry, Ellie began, “When I was five, my parents brought Liz and me with them to a weekend medical conference here in the city. Cassie’s parents and our parents went to med school together, so pretty much every time they came here for work, we’d tag along and hang out with her and her sibs. That first night, we all were supposed to go to dinner together. Cassie’s nanny drove all us kids to the hotel—it wasn’t yours, by the way— where the conference was being held. I fell asleep along the way.
“To this day, I’m not sure what woke me up—a sound, a touch, some primal part of my brain sensing that something wasn’t right. Who knows? Most of what happened that night is still pretty hazy, anyway. All I do remember was that I was suddenly awake, and a strange man was looming over me through the opened car door, reaching for me. I think I might have screamed.”
Val was suddenly kneeling at her side, a comforting hand on her forearm. “It’s all right. You don’t have to say another word,” he said firmly.
It was only then that she realized that she was trembling. Damn. She usually didn’t show this much emotion when recounting the story. Of course, it had been years since the last time. Either she was still a bit messed up mentally from the terror she had experienced last night, or her old ghosts had never really gone away.
“Maybe I should take you back to your room.”
Ellie was shaking her head before she turned to look at him. His brow was knitted with blatant worry, but she couldn’t quite understand the expression in his eyes. Maybe he was just realizing that he had asked out a potentially unbalanced woman. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.
“I’m okay,” she assured him, offering him a small smile. “It’s just been a while since I last talked about that horrible night with anyone, but I can understand if you’re a little freaked out by this.” Her smile was self-deprecating. “Telling someone about my past kidnapping is a bit too much for a first date, after all.”
“Don’t sound so guilty,” Val chided gently. “I was the one who foolishly started us on this course in the first place. Really, it was terribly rude of me to have asked you about your scar at all, but—” He paused and looked into her eyes searchingly for a long moment. “If you need me to listen, then I will most certainly listen.”
Val sounded so sincere that Ellie was almost afraid to believe it. Although she was pretty much one hundred percent sure that she had killed any chances of romance between them in the last few minutes, could Cassie have been right? Could he end up becoming a really good friend, instead? She had been so quick to think of him as a stereotypical rich man, but what did she really know about
him? That he was considerate? Kind? Someone who liked to tease?
Maybe Valerio Marcello really was a knight in shining armor, and as was typical, she had gone and blown her chances at possibly the best thing that could have happened to her just to avoid being embarrassed over some rumors he might have heard later on down the line.
“I don’t really remember much after the man grabbed me,” Ellie found herself saying before she even realized she was going to speak. I’m such an idiot. However, Val nodded encouragingly and she continued, “Just some blurred images of trees, the sound of harsh breathing, and dead leaves rustling in the wind. I was found crumbled and bleeding from a neck wound on the sidewalk in a residential area a couple of miles from the hotel parking lot where I was snatched by a young couple out walking their dog. My parents speculated that I had somehow managed to get away or the kidnapper had gotten cold feet and had dumped me. Then, while wandering around, probably in shock, I was attacked by a large dog that was luckily scared off by the approaching couple.”
“You don’t sound as if you believe that.”
Ellie let out a dry laugh and touched the scar on her neck. “That’s because I remember something much different about how I got this, something much crazier than being dumped unharmed by a kidnapper only to be attacked by a dog.”
She paused and then continued almost challengingly, “I remember being bitten. Even now, I can still feel the sharp, burning pain of teeth piercing the skin of my neck as clearly as though it had just happened a few seconds ago. Only instead of a dog, it was my kidnapper who had latched onto my throat, who I could feel sucking out my freaking blood, and it most definitely wasn’t a couple and their dog who pulled him off me so quickly that his teeth tore open my throat. And it sure as hell wasn’t either of the two people that later visited me in the hospital and swore up and down that they had saved me or my kidnapper who started gently licking at my wound and made that godawful pain go away before I blacked out.
“My parents, the shrinks, everyone had an explanation for that last bit. They assured me that it really was just a dog that had bitten me and that my already traumatized mind had mixed up my kidnapper with the dog biting me, that people didn’t have fangs.”
In the silence that followed the complete insanity she had unceremoniously dumped into his lap, Ellie looked back at Val with an air of resigned expectancy, waiting for him to laugh, waiting for the disbelief and then that look her parents, her shrink, even Liz had given her when she had told them the same.
That look of utter pity. That look that marked her as damaged.
“I’m not going to say it, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” Val said rather calmly—too calmly.
“Say what?” Ellie asked warily.
Ignoring her question completely, he said, “Instead, let me ask you this. What if I was to tell you that you were right and they were wrong?”
4
There was no more doubt. The bastard was definitely playing with her.
However, instead of getting pissed off, all Ellie could feel was tired. “Sure, let’s humor the crazy person,” she said dully.
The small smile Val directed at her was tinged with sadness. Then very deliberately, his smile widened, and she literally felt the world go completely still.
“You have fangs.”
Softly and said without any inflection, Ellie might as well have been blurting out an offhand comment about the weather and not something that, if true, would completely turned her world upside down.
Never once breaking their eye contact, Val slowly, carefully stood up and just as slowly stepped backwards until he was even with his chair. Ellie didn’t dare blink as she watched him retake his seat.
Another wide smile. “I do.”
“But—I saw your breath when we were outside in the cold,” she said faintly.
“Vampires aren’t dead,” Val said with a chuckle. “We need more than blood to keep us alive, so of course we need to breathe. Did my hand feel cold when I took your hand? My lips when I kissed it?”
Vampires…
Ellie shook her head. “No. I can’t believe it. You have fangs, yes, but so do lots of people now that veneers are a thing.”
“An excellent point. Hmm…how to prove it to you?” His eyelids suddenly lowered seductively and he leaned forward. “Should I take you to your room and finish healing that wound on your neck?” he asked playfully.
Ellie stilled. Heal her wound? She stared back at him, at both the effortless sensuality and amusement that seemed to radiate out of his every pore. She could just barely see the tips of his fangs as he smiled. He certainly fit the modern image of a vampire, as gorgeous and sexy as an incubus with the teeth of a predator. If there was a chance…if only…
Would physically erasing what had been done to her all those years ago be worth the very real danger of accepting his offer? It didn’t matter if he was just a psychopath playing at being a vampire or the real deal. Both realities could be equally deadly.
“Okay.”
Val blinked and sat back in his chair, a perplexed look replacing the playful look in his eyes. “Okay?”
Ellie drew in a deep breath and fixed him with an utterly serious look. “Let’s go to my room. Prove that you’re not just messing with me. Prove that you can give me the one thing I thought I could never have.”
“And what would that impossible thing be?”
“The truth of that night.”
He tilted his head and stared back at her with those too blue, scorching eyes for a long moment before he slowly nodded. Val stood up and held out his hand to her. Ellie’s hand trembled as she gave him her own and he threaded their fingers firmly together, though because of fear or excitement, she wasn’t sure.
She couldn’t help but notice the warmth of his skin as he silently led her out of the restaurant to the nearest elevators.
“What floor?” he asked once they had entered the elevator.
Taken completely off-guard, Ellie blurted out, “You don’t know?”
Val raised an eyebrow. “And that wouldn’t be disturbing at all.”
A nervous laugh burst from her lips. “Completely stalker-ish, yes,” she agreed, “but—you knew where to send me the rose and your note this morning.”
“I left them at the front desk with instructions to deliver them to you at noon.” He lifted his hand to the control panel. “The number?” he asked, his tone tinged with amusement.
“Oh—right—sorry. It’s 1054,” Ellie stammered, watching his movements closely as he pressed the button for her floor.
Except for his sometimes intimidating aura and maybe the color of his eyes, there was really nothing about him that screamed “other” or “supernatural.”
“You’re calm,” Val spoke abruptly before slowly turning to look down at her, his expression opaque. “Back in the restaurant, I was prepared to take hold of your mind, to keep you from running from me in terror—at least until I could properly explain myself—but you didn’t even flinch. I thought that perhaps you were either too trusting or suicidal, but now I don’t believe it’s either of those. You simply don’t believe that I’m a vampire. Earlier, you accused me of just humoring you, but I think it’s the other way around.”
And in that moment, staring back at him, Ellie realized that no, she didn’t believe him but at the same time, desperately wanted it to be true. She wanted it so badly that she had willingly followed Val into a place where she would be at his complete mercy to have her answer, no matter which of all the amazing or terrifying possibilities that answer would turn out to be.
He was the owner of the hotel. No doubt there were security cameras in each elevator that he would have complete access to. She could disappear tonight, this time for good, and only Cassie would suspect what might have happened to her.
Ellie’s heart sank at that thought. What the hell she was she doing? Never in a million years would she wish that for her friend, for her family.
Then some
thing about Val’s demeanor changed, something so subtle that only her subconscious picked it up, but it was enough to send a surge of adrenaline through her system a split-second before he—moved. At least she thought that’s what he did. One moment her brain started to shriek in warning, the next, her entire body jolted as the steel wall of the elevator behind her seemed to jump forward into her back at the same time her front was being pressed into Val’s chest.
Other than an initial gasp of shock, Ellie stood frozen, her heart racing, and utterly confused about what had just happened. In some far corner of her mind, she noted that the elevator had stopped moving.
A warm hand gently cupped one of her cheeks, drawing her eyes upward from the chest in front of her. “How about now?” Val asked quietly, his eyes darkened and indecipherable.
She could feel one of his arms tightly encircling her waist, as strong and unbendable as a steel bar. It was now painfully clear that she really was completely at this man, this creature’s mercy.
“I think I just did something incredibly stupid,” Ellie whispered.
Did her rising fear show in her eyes? Her voice? She didn’t know, but suddenly, the warmth against her was gone, and Val was now at the opposite side of the elevator, looking at her with something like a pained expression.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Val said, his voice tight with tension as though he expected her to start shrieking at any moment.
What the hell was she supposed to say to that? I know? Yeah right? She seriously must have sustained a concussion last night after all because what else would explain all the recklessness she had exhibited to get herself in this totally insane situation to begin with?
“We’re almost to your floor. When the door opens, you can go on your way, and I promise I’ll never try to contact you again. Or—we can continue on to your room, and I will do my best to fill in all the remaining blanks of that long ago night. The choice is yours.”
