A Bite to Remember (6 page)

Vincent considered that briefly, then said, “Her father’s dead?”

“Yes. Cancer,” Tiny said grimly. “Two years ago.”

“So she’s been running the company for two years?”

“Three,” he corrected. “Ted was pretty sick the last year. Jackie pretty much took over. He was just a figurehead.”

Vincent nodded. “It must have been hard. I mean when it comes to detectives, one just always assumes it will be a man in charge. I suppose most men would want a male detective.”

Tiny smiled faintly. “Not so much nowadays. Women are in every field and in charge more often now. Actually,” he added with amusement, “more often than not, the only ones who give her a hard time are your kind.”

Vincent raised his eyebrows in surprise and Tiny shrugged. “A lot of immortals are older; from a time when women weren’t in power positions. They aren’t always comfortable with her being in charge. Like you weren’t when you slammed the door in her face. Jackie often works twice as hard to earn their respect.”

Vincent frowned, ashamed now that he’d given her a hard time.

“Not Bastien, though,” Tiny went on. “He treats her with the same respect he gave Ted. And he will intercede if one of your kind gives her too hard a time…or he tries, anyway. Jackie often won’t allow his help.”

Vincent could believe that. Jackie seemed the stubborn, hard-headed sort, determined to do it on her own. He supposed she’d had to be. Despite what Tiny said, he knew there was still sexism in the business world today and not just among his kind.

Vincent dipped his spoon into his bowl, and found it empty. He’d finished off the ice cream. “This was good, Tiny. Thank you.”

Standing, he carried the bowl to the sink and rinsed it before setting it in the dishwasher as he’d seen Jackie and Tiny do. Vincent headed for the kitchen door. “I have to go out.”

“Out? By yourself?” Tiny scowled, obviously not pleased.

“Out,” Vincent repeated firmly. “By myself.”

“Do you think you should? If the saboteur has turned his attention to you…Maybe you should tell Jackie—”

“Jackie said I was to go about my business. Unfortunately, I need to feed two or three times a day. So, I’m going about my business,” he said simply.

Tiny hesitated, then nodded and asked, “What do I tell your aunt if she comes looking for you?”

Vincent paused with his hand on the door, then seemed to come to a decision. “I suppose I’d best go see if she wants to go with me. It would be rude to just abandon her on her first night here. I’ll take her to a couple of clubs, show her the night life. We shouldn’t be too late.”

“I’ll tell Jackie. Have fun,” Tiny murmured as Vincent pushed out of the kitchen.

“It’s four minutes after ten,” Tiny announced. “Two minutes later than it was when you last checked the time.”

Jackie forced her eyes away from the clock and scowled at her friend and co-worker. To look at him, one would have thought Tiny was completely absorbed in whatever he was doing on the portable computer on the kitchen table. Apparently, they would be wrong. At least, Tiny wasn’t so absorbed he hadn’t noticed the way her eyes kept wandering to the clock to check the time.

“He’s fine,” Tiny assured her, then stood and walked over to begin opening and closing cupboard doors. He added, “The saboteur hasn’t struck out at him personally in any of the previous attacks.”

“The saboteur was targeting his business then. Vincent has taken those targets away by closing his plays. He and his home are the only targets left to the saboteur,” Jackie pointed out. “Besides, I’m not
worried
about him, I’m just…concerned.” She frowned at the admission, then asked with irritation, “What are you looking for?”

“I’m checking to see what ingredients we have. There’s a recipe I want to try.”

Jackie rolled her eyes and began to tap her nails on the table, then realized what she was doing and folded her hand closed to end the telling action. After a moment, she stood abruptly. “I’m going to bed.”

“It’s just after ten,” Tiny pointed out with surprise. Jackie never went to bed before eleven o’clock at night.

“It’s just after ten here,” she agreed. “But in New York—where we got up this morning—it’s just after one.”

“Oh, right.” He nodded and turned back to close the cupboard door. “Well, I’m not tired yet, I’m going to bake some muffins for breakfast. It should only take an hour, then I’ll probably go to bed too.”

Jackie paused at the door and glanced back to find him donning the pink
“I’m the cook!”
apron Vincent had insisted on purchasing that day. The sight of him in the ridiculous thing made her irritation deepen.

“You don’t have to cook, Tiny. It’s your cover, not your job.”

“I know,” he responded calmly. “I like to cook. It relaxes me.”

“Right,” Jackie murmured and knew it was true. Tiny had taken a gourmet cooking course years ago and she’d often caught him leafing through women’s magazines over the years, looking at recipes. She suspected Tiny was a very small woman in a large man’s body, which was probably why they got along so well. Her father had always claimed she was a big, tough guy in a little woman’s body.

“What a pair,” Jackie muttered under her breath as she walked down the hall, then winced at how loud her voice sounded in the silent house. The security men had finished with the ground floor and left a little less than an hour ago. Allen Richmond had promised to have them back first thing in the morning to start work on the second floor. Jackie had been pleased with his assurance at the time, but now realized that might not be too convenient. Marguerite and Vincent were vampires. They slept during the day and wouldn’t be up “first thing” for the men to work in their rooms.

Frowning over the problem, she walked upstairs and glanced along the hall, silently counting rooms, the master bedroom, her room, Marguerite’s room, Tiny’s room, and two more guest rooms presently unused. With her and Tiny up, she supposed that would give the men four rooms to work on until Marguerite and Vincent got up. She’d have to warn them to work quietly so they didn’t wake up Vincent and his aunt.

It was the professional thing to do, but part of her resented the need for it. Jackie was never quite comfortable working
with vampires. Bastien teased her that she had a bad attitude when it came to his kind, and he wasn’t wrong. Fortunately, Bastien Argeneau knew the source of her attitude and was understanding enough to overlook it. Jackie wondered now if Vincent would be as understanding. She suspected he would. He seemed intelligent, nice, good-humored…he also seem to get along great with Tiny, whose judgment she’d always trusted. He was also drop-dead gorgeous with a nice smile and sexy silver-blue eyes.

He’s a
vampire,
Jackie reminded herself. It was something she couldn’t forget…mustn’t forget. She feared the moment that happened, she might be foolish enough to start to like the guy in more than a professional manner, and she
so
wasn’t going there again. Jackie had learned her lesson young and learned it well with Cassius.

Her teeth set at the very thought of the vampire she’d been involved with at nineteen. An image of him rose in her mind: six feet, four inches tall, with shoulder-length gold hair. The man had been as beautiful as a Greek god.

Jackie instinctively started to push him from her mind, then stopped herself and let the memories play. Not so much as a punishment, but in the hopes reliving the memory would save her from doing something foolish now, eleven years later. Jackie suspected it would be a good thing to reflect on the lesson she’d learned, especially in lieu of the fact that she was living in the home of a vampire that she found very attractive.

“There! You’ve admitted it,” Jackie said on a small sigh as she entered her room and closed the door. “You find Vincent Argeneau attractive.”

It was a scary admission for Jackie and immediately made her feel vulnerable. She hadn’t felt anything but mild disdain and anger toward a vampire since Cassius.

Jackie had been a good student and a dutiful daughter until the summer she met Cassius. She’d been a naïve and foolish child…but had thought herself a woman. She’d met the vampire when he came to her home to see her father about a case he was working for him. He’d been a pale, blond god in her eyes, Adonis as he’d surely been meant to look.

Awestruck by his beauty when he’d come calling, Jackie had worshipped him with her eyes as she’d stammered out that her father wasn’t yet home. She could still recall the amused smile that had curved his lips at the time. Jackie hadn’t understood it then, but did now. The man had been silently laughing at her shy adoration.

Jackie had hardly been able to believe her luck when he’d asked if he might wait for her father. Blushing and smiling and chattering away, she’d seated him in the living room, then excused herself to make tea, too nervous and overset to recall that vampires didn’t drink tea. Something she’d known since she was eighteen and had started to work in her father’s company.

Ted Morrissey had been excited and eager when he’d got the first call from Bastien Argeneau with a job he wanted looked after. His company had been small then and the referral from another client to the head of such a large multinational company had been like winning the lottery. However, it was soon after that her father had stopped talking about his cases, at least ones involving the Argeneaus or anyone
connected to them. Jackie hadn’t understood why until her first day of work for her father when he’d taken her into his office, sat her down, and said what he was about to tell her could never be revealed to anyone…Vampires
did
exist.

Young and eager to believe in the unbelievable, she’d gotten over the shock quickly, and then had spent the first couple weeks of her apprenticeship going through every file her father had on each of the immortals. By the time she was nineteen and faced with the handsome Cassius, she’d considered herself something of an expert on the immortals.

Oh, the arrogance of youth, Jackie thought sadly. She’d been fussing over the tea tray in the kitchen when Cassius had joined her there. He’d told her she shouldn’t trouble herself, then had pressed a hand gently to her cheek and stared into her eyes. Jackie’s breath had caught in the back of her throat at the action, her mouth suddenly dry. She could still recall the trembling that had started in her body, leaving her shaky and weak so she’d had to lean back against the kitchen counter to stay on her feet.

When he’d kissed her, her mind had filled with passions she’d never dreamed of; a wave of want and need that had seemed to consume her. Jackie had been lost.

Cassius had broken the kiss when they heard the front door open. By the time her father found them in the kitchen, Jackie was nervously finishing with the tea tray, and Cassius was seated at the table, but Ted Morrisey had eyed them both with a concern that told her he suspected something had been going on. He didn’t say anything, however, not right then. He told Jackie to forget about the tea and ushered Cassius into his office.

Jackie had sagged against the counter once alone, her hand pressed to her heart. It had felt like it would beat its way right out of her chest. She was sure she’d met the man of her dreams and had been horrified when he left and her father came to her and said she was to stay away from Cassius. It was for her own good.

Jackie’s obedience had ended there. When Cassius called to invite her out, she lied and snuck about to see him, resenting her father for not understanding young love. Somehow, the lies and sneaking just made it all that bit more exciting, if it were possible.

Cassius had taken her to fine restaurants and plays. Jackie had felt terribly sophisticated on his arm, and while she’d at first been nervous and anxious when he’d started to make love to her in the limo on the way home, that had soon given way to mindless passion. By the time she’d gotten out of that limo, Jackie was sure she was in love.

Cassius had appeared equally enamored of her. Seeming unable to keep his hands off her, he’d started things in the most inappropriate places; kissing her and running his hands up under her skirt in restaurants with only the table to hide what he was doing, pulling her into alleys and making love to her against the wall of the building with only the cover night offered, and finally making love to her in his private box at the theatre where anyone might look over and see. Jackie was always reticent when he first initiated these encounters, but soon found herself overwhelmed by passion and eager to do whatever pleased him. He was like a drug and she a junkie who couldn’t get enough.

Her father soon learned she was seeing Cassius behind
his back. How could he not? While she was lying and sneaking out, their dates were always in public and someone eventually mentioned it to him. Jackie came home from what would be their last date to be confronted by her father. They had a terrible row, ending with Jackie yelling that she hated him and would see Cassius if she wanted and there was nothing he could do about it. She’d then run out and taken a taxi straight to Cassius’s apartment. She’d buzzed his apartment and the door was immediately released for her, but when she’d reached the apartment she’d found it full of strangers. Cassius was having a party, anyone could have buzzed her in, he probably didn’t even know she was there.

Forcing a smile, she’d greeted everyone as if she’d known about the party and been invited as she wound her way through the crowded rooms, looking for Cassius. His office was the last place Jackie looked, and it too had appeared empty at first. Confused and desperate to find him, she was backing out when a laugh made her pause and glance back. It was only then Jackie noticed that the door leading onto the balcony was cracked open. Realizing he must be there, she’d crossed the room to the door, then paused when she saw he wasn’t alone. Jackie hadn’t recognized the two men with him, but the shine of their eyes in the night told her they were immortals like Cassius.

Jackie had reached for the door to slide it further open to let him know she was there, but one of the men had said something that made her pause.