Хлоя Нейл - Twice Bitten

“You know it’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple, Ethan. Take me as I am or let me go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t have you.”

“Yes, you could have. You did. And then you changed your mind.” I thought of Lacey, of the photograph I’d seen, of his having had a relationship with her despite his strategic considerations. Maybe that was what bothered me the most—what made me different? What did I lack? Why her, but not me?

“Was I not tempting enough?” I asked him. “Not classy enough?”

I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. And that was almost worse. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He’d stood up and slipped his hands into his pockets. I met his gaze and saw the green fire in his eyes. “You’re perfect—beautiful, intelligent, intractable in a kind of . . . attractive way. Headstrong, but a good strategist. An amazing fighter.”

“But that’s not enough?”

“It’s too much. You think I haven’t thought about what it might be like to return to my rooms at the end of the night and find you there—to find you in my bed, to have your body and your laugh and your mind? To look across a room and know that you were mine—that I’d claimed you. Me.”

He drummed a finger against his chest. “Me. Ethan Sullivan. Not the head of Cadogan House, not the four-hundred-year-old vampire, not the child of Balthasar or the Novitiate of Peter Cadogan. Me. Just me. Just you and me.” He moistened his lips and shook his head. “I don’t have that luxury, Merit. I am the Master of this House. The Master of hundreds of vampires I’ve sworn to protect.”

“I’m one of your vampires,” I reminded him.

He sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “You are my greatest strength. You are my biggest weakness.”

“You called Lacey here. She’s not a weakness?”

He seemed startled. “Lacey?”

“You two had—have—a relationship, right?”

His expression softened. “Merit, Lacey is here for an evaluation. We’ve been—in my limited free time—reviewing the financial status of her House. This trip was scheduled six months ago. I didn’t invite her here for a relationship.”

“Everyone thought—” He gave me a sardonic look. “You should know better than to regard the rumors that swirl around this House as fact.”

I looked down, sufficiently reprimanded and silently thankful. But that didn’t change the bigger issue. “I told you that you had one chance, and you decided we were better off as colleagues. I can’t play the game of wondering—each and every day—where we stand. I’m your employee, your subordinate, and it’s time we acted like it. So I’m asking you not to bring it up again—not to bring us up again. Not to remind me with a word or a glance how conflicted you are.”

“I can’t help that I’m conflicted.”

“And I can’t help you with being conflicted. You made your choice, Ethan, and we can’t keep having this conversation over and over and over again. Do we or don’t we? Do we or don’t we? How are we supposed to work together like that?”

He asked the better question. “How are we not supposed to work together?”

We stood there quietly for a moment. “If that’s all you wanted,” I said, “I’m going back outside.” I walked toward the door, but he finally stopped me in a word.

“Caroline.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my hands into fists. I was eager to resist him, but he was my Master, and he’d called my name, and that alone was enough to halt my march to the door.

“Unfair,” I told him. “Unfair and too late.”

“Maybe if I had more time.”

“Ethan, I don’t think there’s enough time in the world.”

“What did I tell you about the Breckenridges, Merit?”

“Never burn bridges,” I recited back to him, and turned around, knowing where he was going. “Before you accuse me of that, Ethan, recall that you’re the one who walked away. I’m only complying with your request. We’ll forget it happened, we’ll work together, and we will do everything in our power to protect the House, and that will be the extent of it.”

I stopped before walking into the hallway, unable to take that final step without glancing back at him. When I looked back, there was an ache in his expression.

But I’d given him my best shot, and I wasn’t up for sympathizing with a man who refused to reach for what he wanted.

“If that’s all?” I asked.

He finally dropped his gaze. “Good night, Sentinel.”

I nodded and left.

I walked through the first floor of the House, and I didn’t stop at the front door. I took the sidewalk to the gate and nodded to the guards, then scanned the street to the left and right, checking the road for paparazzi. They were obediently clustered at their designated cordon at the corner to the right.

An easy call—I headed left.

I crossed my arms over my chest, head down as I walked. I knew Ethan would do this. It was the way he operated—one step forward, two steps back. Rinse and repeat. He’d make a move toward intimacy, then pull back. Then he would regret pulling back, and the cycle would start again. It’s not that he didn’t want me; he’d made that clear. But each time he let himself be human, the strategy chunk of his brain powered on and he retreated back to coldness. He had his reasons, and I could respect him enough not to imagine they didn’t matter. But that didn’t mean I agreed with him or that I thought his reasons—his excuses—were good ones.

I frowned at the sidewalk, feet moving beneath me, even though I’d hardly paid attention to the motion. We were going to have to work together; that much was clear. I had to adapt. I’d adapted to being a vampire, and I was going to have to adapt to Ethan.

I looked up as a limo pulled up to the street.

It was long. Black. Curvy. Sleek. Undoubtedly expensive.

The back passenger side window rolled down. Adam Keene looked back at me from the backseat, boredom in his expression.

“Adam?”

“Gabe wants to meet with you at the bar.”

I blinked, confused. “Gabe? He wants to meet with me?”

Adam rolled his eyes sympathetically. “You know how he is. Give me what I want, when I want it. Which usually means immediately. Probably not unlike a Master vampire?”

“Why me? Why not Ethan?”

Adam made a little snort, then looked down at the phone in his hand. “Mine is not to question why . . . ,” he muttered, then flipped the phone’s screen toward me.

“GET KITTEN,” read a text message from Gabriel. Okay, so the request was legit. But that didn’t mean getting into a limo with Adam was the right move.

I hesitated, glancing back at the gate, light from the House spilling onto the sidewalk. If I went, I figured I’d get a lecture from Ethan about leaving the House to talk to Gabe without permission . . . and without his oversight.

On the other hand, if I didn’t go, I probably had a lecture in store about not being a team player and jumping when an Apex asked me to jump. And then I’d still have to hightail it to the bar, and not in the back of a swank limousine.

Besides, I had my dagger and my beeper. Ethan could find me if he needed to.

“Move over,” I growled, then opened the door and climbed inside, pulling the door shut behind me. “Start me off with a Shirley Temple,” I told him, nodding toward the bar on one side of the limo, “and we’ll see how far we get.”

The limo stopped in front of Little Red. The street was empty of bikes, and the plywood was still over the window. The CLOSED sign still hung from the door.

The driver got out and opened the back door, his face flat and emotionless. I threw out a “Thanks,” then glanced back when Adam made no move to exit. He stayed in his seat, thumbs clicking at the keys on his phone. When he realized I’d paused, he looked up at me and grinned.