the Orchard Beach Gazette’s brand new Digital Services division, had barely set foot into the office when she needed the day to be over.
No, that wasn’t right. She needed it to be over since the moment the sun had come up.
After a night fretting over Dominique’s whereabouts and his refusal to complete their ritual, she reeled with both lack of sleep and a ragged sense of loss. As her link with him faded, she felt increasingly adrift, with land in sight, but no way to get to it until he tossed her the lifeline of their re-ignited bond. Afterward, his presence always hummed in her heart like a taut wire, even during the day.
Not today. Today she was untethered.
The usual “good mornings” floated after her, along with a larger than usual number of speculative glances. Rumors still swirled about how she, a penniless rookie, could break her engagement to the son of the Gazette’s most influential patron and somehow end up with a promotion. Cassidy didn’t make sense to her coworkers. Some days, she didn’t even make sense to herself. Like today.
The only genuinely friendly smile in the place was Larry’s. The large, semi-retired court-reporter who had been her champion from day one, handed her a steaming mug of coffee, along with a warning. “Brace yourself, kiddo. There’s someone waiting for you.”
Cassidy turned toward her office—one of only three with a door—and nearly dropped the coffee. Sure enough, through the window that separated her office from the central cubicle bullpen, she could see the close-cropped head of the man sitting in her visitor chair. She closed her eyes. I really need this day to be over.
“He was waiting outside when Jan opened the door this morning,” a disembodied female voice said. A second later, Brandi’s head—every blond hair flawlessly in place—popped up above the cubicle wall. She lowered her voice. “It’s so sweet how he’s still pining for you.”
Cassidy gave the resident gossip columnist an incredulous look. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“On the feisty reporter and the billionaire heir? Oh, honey, that story’s going to have legs for years.”
“Good God.” Her stomach dropped a notch. Yes, that was what it looked like. Not only had she been given the juicy promotion after breaking her engagement with Jackson Striker—correctly implying he had pulled strings for her—she had also accepted the position—erroneously implying she still had feelings for him. That she might need the money or want the experience didn’t seem to register with people like Brandi. Nor would they have a clue about Jackson’s true motives.
“So, are you going to give him another chance?” The woman’s eyes glittered with eagerness; the whiff of a scoop hung in the air. “What’s happening with you two lovebirds?”
Cassidy leaned in, mimicking the conspiratorial attitude. “Nothing that’s fit to print.” At least not in the society pages. Police blotter, maybe.
“Oh, c’mon.”
While Larry chuckled, Cassidy summoned what fight she had left and headed for her office. She didn’t even want to know Jackson’s reasons—as though she couldn’t guess—for showing up here and throwing fuel on the gossip fires. The faster she could kick him out, the better.
By the time she burst into her office, Cassidy was in full battle mode. She dumped her carryall at the base of her desk and set down the mug hard enough to send coffee sloshing over the rim. Her nostrils flared when she caught his painfully familiar scent of masculine citrus and bright sunshine.
“Whatever it is you want, I’m not interested.”
“Good morning, Cass,” Jackson said as he jumped up from the visitor chair, the perfect gentleman except for the patronizing tone. “You look hassled. Rough night?”
“My nights are none of your business,” she countered with a glare. Then she spotted Brandi outside, right behind him, cell phone at the ready, paparazzi mode engaged. Cassidy stabbed a finger in her direction. “Oh no, you don’t.”
Jackson turned. “Hey. Private conversation here,” he barked.
Brandi put up her hands and retreated. “Sorry,” she mouthed unconvincingly.
“That’s all I need,” he grumbled as he went to shut the door. “More coverage in the social pages.”
“It must suck being so well-known when you’re living such a lie.”
He looked her up and down, assessing, his six-foot-four frame making the office feel even smaller than it was. Cassidy straightened to her full five and a half feet and wished she’d gone for the heels and a blazer today instead of her long-neglected boots and sweater.
Jackson appeared oblivious to the chill. In his polo shirt and crisp shorts, his tanned, muscular arms and legs were on full display. Vigorous youth, rugged charm, mind-boggling wealth…Jackson Striker was all that. In every way, he appeared to be the polar opposite of the dark and enigmatic Dominique Marchant.
Cassidy knew better.
Jackson and Dominique had one crucial thing in common: they were both killers. But while Dominique, the vampire, wrestled with agonized guilt over what he had done, Jackson, the vampire hunter, destroyed lives with the cold calculation of an exterminator.
His smile was just this side of condescending. “It’s great to see you up and about during the day.”
“Oh? Would you cut off my head, too, if I weren’t? Or are your uncle’s methods more your speed now? Have you roasted anyone alive lately?”
His expression soured. “Easy, babe. I didn’t come here to pick a fight.”
“Too bad. I’m in a mood.” She shoved up the sleeves of her sweater and propped her hands on her hips.
“I can see that.” His bright gray eyes narrowed. “Trouble in moonlit paradise?”
“You need to leave.”
“Okay, okay, sorry.” He backed up a step and ducked his head. The polished charm she had once fallen in love with surfaced as if on command. “I really didn’t come here to fight.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Well, actually—” He scratched his clean-shaven jaw, shrugged.
“I’m aging here. Out with it and go.”
“Right. Well, I was wondering what you’re doing for Thanksgiving next week.”
“For Thanksgiving?” she said, dumbfounded.
“Yeah. Thanksgiving. I was hoping you and Sam might like to come have dinner with us. If you’re not busy.”
God help her, he looked like he meant it. “Why?”
“What? I can’t invite my ex and my sister over for a holiday dinner?”
“Your ex wants nothing to do with you, and your sister hasn’t spoken to you since you decapitated someone right in front of her.”
“Right.” He rubbed the back of his neck, then toyed with the thin silver chain suspending two small St. Christopher medallions around his neck. Her eyes caught on the stumps that remained of two of his fingers, casualties of a hunt gone unthinkably wrong. “Look, I know how it is, but, well…oh for fuck’s sake, Cass, don’t make this hard. My mom is on my case about making up with Sam, and I really need her to come to this dinner. Will you talk to her? I think she’ll join if you come.”
“Your poor mother still doesn’t have a clue what’s going on with her own family, does she?” He just looked at her, mouth flat. “Unbelievable,” Cassidy said on a stunned exhalation. Of all the people he could ask to help him keep up this charade, she had to rank at the very bottom, if not lower. His pained expression notwithstanding, something here felt beyond wrong.
Something else very wrong presently opened the door. Jim Lawley’s grinning face appeared. “Good morning, Sunshine. Got a minute?”
Since the only person she wanted to deal with less than the veteran newsman was settling back into the visitor chair, this answer was obvious.
“Of course, Jim. Come in.” She ignored Jackson’s glower, sat down, and pulled a legal pad from a drawer. During her first weeks on the job, Jim had been very vocal about his resentment for her. In his eyes, she was the clueless new J-school grad who had landed her then-entry-level job only because her then-fiancé was the son of the Gazette’s most generous investor.
That was then.
Now he appeared in her office every morning with a long-stemmed red rose twirling in his fingers. Giving Jackson only a faint acknowledgment, he tucked the bloom into the vase on her desk where all the others he had recently delivered stood at various states of attention. Their dusty sweet scent permeated the air. Petals dripped from one of the oldest, like ruby splatters of blood.
“A token of eternal devotion.”
She pulled her face into a tight smile.
When she caught Jackson’s hard scowl, she sobered. “What have you got for me today, Jim?”
“I’m working on a series about the rise of overdose deaths right here in Orchard Beach,” he began, and detailed sources and findings with grim delight. There would also be a digital exclusive for her about the police response.
She made notes and mentally shuffled scheduled posts. “I appreciate it, Jim, but…aren’t you going out of town tomorrow?”
“For my cousin’s wedding in New York, yes. Don’t worry,” he intoned, lifting a reassuring hand, “I’ll have it to you by end of day today.” He retreated toward the exit, steps bouncing. “Carry on,” he told Jackson before closing the door behind himself.
Jackson frowned at the door, then the vase of roses. He swung a finger between the two. “Is this the same Jim who said he was going to ‘bury’ you? Professionally?”
She sucked on her lower lip and folded her hands on the desk, waiting for the inevitable conclusion.
“He had a visit from your resident bloodsucker, didn’t he?”
“Why are you even asking?”
“Cassidy. That guy’s compelled out of his fucking gourd.”
“Only where I am concerned. He’s still a son of a bitch to everyone else.” Which caused speculations of an entirely different sort she didn’t even want to contemplate.
“And he brings you flowers.” Jackson smirked. “Nice.”
She clutched her hands tighter, fighting the urge to move the vase out of his reach. The roses Jim delivered were Dominique’s way of reaching her during the day when they couldn’t be together.
Jackson leaned back in the chair, legs wide. “So, you know that there are people in your life that don’t act of their own free will because of the company you keep, right?”
“And your point is?”
“More of a question. If you know he’s compelled, why don’t you think you are, too?”
“Oh, not this again.”
“Yes, this. It’s always this with me. Your well-being is, and always has been, my top concern, Cass. Even before you got sucked into my reality.”
“Well, I’ve been living in your reality”—she made air quotes around the term—“for months now, and as you can see”—indicating herself with both hands—“I’m doing just fine. Dominique is no threat to me.”
He leaned forward, his tone hushed and urgent. “You only think that. It’s what he wants you to believe. Cass, listen—”
She threw up her hands and pushed her open palms toward him. “Oh my God. Can you just please leave already? I. Am. Not. Compelled.”
Their eyes locked, the sudden silence tense enough to scoop with a spoon. In his jaw, a muscle twitched.
“Fine. Prove it. Prove you’re not compelled.”
“Seriously? Me being here, working my day job, having this conversation isn’t proof enough?”
“Nick…Dominique is one of the strongest we’ve ever seen. Whatever hold he’s got on you is deep and complicated. So, no. It’s not enough.”
Beyond deep, she thought. But not at all complicated. She had tried to explain their connection to Jackson once, to make him understand that not every vampire was like the monster that had slaughtered his twin brother. It had been like shouting at a wall.
She suddenly felt tired, longing again for the day to be over. “Maybe I don’t care what you believe, Jack. Maybe I just want you to leave us alone.”
“Maybe you’re being evasive.”
Cassidy huffed out an at-the-end-of-her-rope sigh. “How can I prove something to you that you don’t want to believe?”
“Simple. Come to Thanksgiving dinner next week and bring Sam.”
“You’re joking.”
“No. A holiday dinner is a totally human experience. No vampire would care for it, but it might do you a world of good. Remind you of what you’re turning your back on.”
“Oh, right. Your mom would think we’re back together, I’d make you stammer an explanation of why we’re not, and your father would plot to poison my plate while I’d be swiping the carving knife so I can defend myself against your uncle when he pulls a gun on me again on my way to the powder room. Yeah, that sounds about like the real human Thanksgiving I just can’t wait to experience.”
He flashed a grin of pure wickedness. “Now that sounds way more fun than last year’s dinner. Except you wouldn’t have to worry about Uncle Garrett. He’s out of town on—”
“Still hiding from Dominique? Or off killing someone?”
“My mom knows we’re purely platonic now—”
“Platonic enemies, right.”
“And my father is seeing reason.”
“Oh, do tell.”
Jackson became grim. “Cassidy. I know there’s hope for you, or you wouldn’t still be alive, much less looking as good as you do.” He swept her with an almost suggestive appraisal. She didn’t react. He cleared his throat. “My father is finally coming around to that, and he wants to help you as much as I do. You’re human, for God’s sake. How can we not?”
She stared at him, though in her mind she saw again the horrific abuse Dominique had endured at Garrett Striker’s hands, the manipulation she had fallen victim to from Jackson, the bullet that had almost killed her. She shook off a shiver.
“Um. No. I’ll pass. Of my own free will, thank you.”
“Would it change anything if I said that if you come over and have dinner with us, it would be so unprecedented that we’d have no choice but to be open to the idea that maybe, just maybe, Dominique really is…different?” To his credit, the vampire hunter’s face cringed only mildly with discomfort at these words.
She considered the possibility of a truce between Dominique and the Strikers for all of three seconds before realizing that the vampire didn’t need one. As long as he could hide during the day, he knew how to avoid the Strikers at night as well.
“But if you tell me no,” Jackson continued, “that can only mean you’re compelled and he is, in fact, the lying, bloodsucking demon I know him to be.”
Cassidy rolled her eyes. “Why? Because you think Dominique would never let me go to such a dinner?”
“You tell me. Would he?”
“Dominique doesn’t tell me what to do, but he would…” She broke off as the realization slammed home. There was only one reason Jackson Striker did anything. With a bitter smile, she nodded and finished her thought. “…follow me. Of course. You’re counting on me wanting to prove my point and Dominique following me to your house because you know he would never trust you. I bet you’ve got some fancy new trap all ready to go for him there. Am I right?”
Jackson said nothing. But the way his mouth paled and face turned dark red told her all she needed to know. She could only manage a hissing whisper. “And you call him a lying demon?”
He slid to the edge of his seat. “I’m trying to save your life.”
She got up and leaned across the desk. “You’re trying to use me, you lying, cheating, manipulative son of a bitch. You’re trying to con me into helping you lure the most important person in my life to his death. Again. How dare you?”
“He is the one who’s manipulating you, Cassidy.” Jackson pounded a finger into her notepad for emphasis. “I know you can’t see that right now, but—”
“What I see is you telling me that killing the man I love is doing me a freaking favor.”
“Nice. Okay. Believe what you want.” He burst from the chair and marched to the door. Halfway there, he turned back, and it was like she had never seen him before. All pretense dropped away and a man far older and more cunning than her twenty-four-year-old ex-fiancé stood before her. “You’re a game to him, Cassidy, nothing more. Eventually he’ll remember that you’re mortal and he’s not and what that really means. You’re prey to him. If you’re lucky—if he has even an ounce of compassion in that black heart of his—he’ll move on. More likely he’ll kill you. Or worse, he’ll turn you, in which case you’ll become our target, and there will be no mercy. That’s your future, Cassidy Chandler. That and nothing else.”
Her jaw dropped as tremors of nameless shock rattled her body. Had he really just threatened her life?
Apparently realizing he had crossed a line, Jackson’s tone shifted yet again. “I’m sorry, babe. I really do only want to help—”
“Get. Out.” The words emerged in a raspy whisper.
He raised a placating hand. “Fine. Okay.” He turned toward the door, turned back. “I’m here for you. Any time, anywhere. Please believe at least that, Cass. Remember it in your heart, for when you figure out I’m right. If it’s not too late.”
She could only stare at him, adrift in an emotional storm.
With a brief nod, Jackson strode out her office door and through the cubicle farm, looking neither left nor right. Heads popped up and swiveled to follow him and glance at her. God only knew what anyone might have heard. Nothing fit to print, certainly.
Not that Cassidy cared. She wasn’t there anymore. She was back in her bedroom a few short hours ago and saw Dominique walking out another door. Dominique, who hid from the light of day, who was not human.
And whom she no longer felt in her heart.