A Demonic Bundle (43 page)

She thanked him with a small smile, and he marveled at the way that slight curve of her lips made his spirits soar. Of course, every sign of her growing more comfortable with him brought him closer to getting the sex he wanted.

And he could keep telling himself that was all that mattered.

Jean-Pierre, the maître d’, came forward as they entered, straightening his bow tie. He bowed to Maksim.

“Good evening, Mr. Kostova. Your usual table?”

“Yes, thank you, Jean-Pierre.” Maksim placed his hand on Jo’s lower back as he escorted her into the restaurant, and was very pleased when she didn’t move away from the touch.

All good signs.

Jean-Pierre led them straight through the main dining room with its dusky blue walls, crystal chandeliers, and heavy, gold brocade curtains adorning the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The smaller, more private room off the main room was decorated in burgundy and gold with more extravagant chandeliers and velvet.

“Here we are,” Jean-Pierre said, waiting at the side of the table as Jo took a seat. Maksim pushed her chair in. Then he took the chair across from her, the table in a small alcove that made it private and quiet enough to talk easily.

“Enjoy,” the maître d’ said, handing first Jo, then Maksim a menu.

Jo looked around, then fidgeted with her shirt, tugging at the button front.

“You look lovely,” Maksim assured her, his voice low and full of sincerity. He told himself that was just part of his usual shtick, his way of getting what he wanted. Manipulation—as natural to him as breathing. And that was the only reason why he was thrilled by the rosy blush that colored her cheeks. Certainly
not
because that frightening paleness had disappeared.

Jo busied herself with her menu. He did the same, not wanting to push too hard. This was a game of moving forward, then retreating. Giving the one you wanted the chance to become comfortable with the situation—the inevitable situation.

Of course, he didn’t know which one of them he was trying to let get comfortable.

“So you eat here often?” she asked, still scanning the fare.

He looked up from the menu. “Yes.”

“I have to admit, this is a little out of my price range.”

“Well, tonight is my treat. I don’t like eating alone. And I do all too often.” Maksim wondered why he’d admitted that. He’d like to think it was because he was angling for her sympathy. Sympathy that would again lead to her trust, then more intimacy. But he wasn’t really sure why it had popped out of his mouth.

“I find that hard to believe.” There was no sympathy in her voice. She thought he was fishing. “I’m sure there are plenty of ladies who would love to join you.”

“But you’re not really one of them, are you?” This time he was angling. For an admission. And the answer was more important than he wanted to admit.

“Tonight, I am,” she said, and he thought there was much more to that answer than she was admitting.

What had she been running from?

“But I can’t let you pay,” she added. “I already owe you for a lunch.”

“No, you don’t.”

Jo gave him a reprimanding look that she’d seen her use on the children at the center when they weren’t listening.

“I’m paying. So just enjoy it. Or else I will think you are rude.” He raised an eyebrow, daring her to challenge him.

She held his gaze for a few more moments, then relented. “Okay. But you have to let me pay you back.”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned slowly, suggestively.

“With a lunch,” she added firmly, but then smiled, too. For the first time, she seemed to let go of whatever happened back at the center.

“Lunch on me?” she said, waiting for him to agree.

The image of a buffet set up on her bare body flashed in his mind. His body reacted instantly. Mmm, his two favorite things. Food and a naked woman.

He looked across the table. Especially this woman. Her hair had been pulled back in a haphazard knot, tendrils framing her face. Pink still colored her high cheekbones and her dark eyes watched him in return. Her seashell-pink lips parted just slightly.

“I’m a great cook,” she blurted, clearly uncomfortable with his attention. Then she blushed again, as if she knew that was a leading comment.

And he didn’t miss the chance to take the lead. “Well, that’s how you can pay me back. I don’t often get a home-cooked meal.”

Jo didn’t answer, and Maksim wondered if that was because she didn’t want to cook for him and didn’t know how to tell him so. Or if she did want to, and wasn’t pleased with that desire.

“So where is home?” she asked, obviously trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground. “I realized I’ve never asked, and I haven’t been able to pinpoint your accent.”

“I’m from Russia, a little village called ??????? ????.” His limited Russian sounded fluent since it was his pat response, and because the accent in the eighth circle of Hell was remarkably similar to that of Russia. Which was just a coincidence, not a commentary on Russia and its inhabitants.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Jo said. “Although, I must admit, I’m not that familiar with Russian towns.”

Maksim shrugged. “It is very small. I wouldn’t expect you to have heard of it.” Plus it was fictional place literally meaning, “eighth circle.”

“Is your family still there?”

“No, my family is a bunch of vagabonds.”

“Really. How many are there in your family?”

“I come from a very large family. But the ones I’m close to are my father, who, while I don’t see him much, plays a big role in who I am. I occasionally see my twin brothers, Pasha and Andrey. And I was…am very close to my half-sister, Ellina.”

Maksim’s phrasing about his sister instantly caught Jo’s notice, tugging at her. “You said
was
? Did something happen to your sister?”

Maksim waited to answer as the waiter in crisp white and black came to the table to take drink orders. Jo stuck with just ice water, while Maksim ordered wine.

When the waiter left, Maksim continued, “My sister disappeared about six months ago. I don’t believe she’s dead. I don’t want to believe that—but all leads have gone nowhere. It’s like she just vanished.”

Jo’s heart went out to him, understanding the quiet despair in his voice better than most. But along with her sympathy was the apprehension she’d been feeling, seeing, for the past two days.

“Have the police offered you any suggestions? Are they still looking?”

Maksim’s lips thinned, making his beautiful features appear grim even a little harsh. “They haven’t been any help.”

“So what are you doing now?”

He shook his head. “Following any lead I can find. Waiting.”

Jo nodded, understanding that feeling, too. Waiting, and waiting. Before she realized what she was going to say, it was out. “I had a sister, too. She died when she was ten. I was thirteen.”

Maksim met her eyes, his own darkening to a verdant green. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”

“It was.”

The waiter reappeared with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He placed one in front of each of them, then turned to Maksim and uncorked the bottle. The waiter made a big show of pouring the red wine for Maksim’s approval.

Maksim nearly grabbed the wineglass from his hand, his impatience not hidden. He took a sip.

“Fine.”

The waiter filled his glass, then turned to Jo. “For you?”

Jo held up a hand. “No, thank you.”

The waiter set the bottle on the table and hurried away, finally sense—from Maksim stern glare, no doubt—when he wasn’t wanted.

“How did your sister die?” Maksim asked, finally getting to continue this conversation.

Jo hesitated, momentarily wishing for the waiter to return. “She drowned.”

Maksim shook his head. “That must have been awful.”

“It was. It was really awful.” And all those horrible feelings were back in full force. The strange hallucinations, last night’s dream, they had brought all that terror and all the pain of the event right back to the foreground. And she’d spent a lifetime trying to forget, trying to stay ahead of her memories.

“Were you there?”

Jo knew Maksim was just asking out of concern, but she heard censure that wasn’t there. Not from him. But she still heard it, felt it. Just as she did every time she thought about Kara. Every time someone mentioned her. She had been there. She should have saved Kara.

“Yes.” That was all she could manage.

“That must have been frightening and traumatic.”

Jo nodded. It still was. The events of her childhood were never far from her—and closer than ever of late.

“Yes, I always blamed myself for her death. For not saving her.”

“But how could you? You were just a kid yourself.”

Jo nodded, having heard and told herself that very thing dozens and dozens of times.

“It’s just…” She couldn’t believe she was even thinking about going there. She’d never told anyone what she’d nearly admitted to this man. Why? Maybe because he’d lost a sister and understood helplessness. Or maybe because of the strange events of the past few days.

Maybe because she was just cracking up.

“It’s just what?”

Jo started to shake her head, to keep her secret where she always had. Close to her chest. Unknown by anyone else. Even Maggie and Erika didn’t know. But then the words just blurted out as if she couldn’t contain them any longer. Her guilt, her shame, her confusion had finally, after all these years, boiled over.

“I knew she was going to die.”

M
aksim stared at her. He hadn’t expected that. “You knew? How?”

She shook her head, and he didn’t think she was going to continue.

The waiter, who looked more than a little tentative, edged up to the table. Maksim almost sent him away, but Jo informed him she was ready to order.

She asked for the salmon. Maksim ordered the filet mignon. The waiter scurried away, obviously uncomfortable with Maksim and his impatience. Maksim didn’t care.

“How did you know?” Maksim asked Jo softly, not willing to let this get brushed aside. She’d started to tell him, and he got the feeling she needed to talk about it.

Jo shook her head again, fixing her attention on straightening and restraightening the cloth napkin on her lap.

Finally when he thought he was just going to have to drop the subject totally—and struggle to find something innocuous to get her to interact, period, she met his eyes.

“I saw it happen. I—I had a premonition.”

Her eyes looked pained, as if she was already preparing for his disbelief, his ridicule.

“That must have scared you.”

She studied him, her gaze roaming his face, still trying to decide if he was being sincere.

“Yes.”

“How did you see it?”

She frowned. “I just saw it. Like a vision, I guess.”

“Well, I get that, but was it like you were seeing it, and you were there, too, and you could have stopped it. Or was it like you just watching it like a show on television? Removed from it.”

“Is there really a difference? I saw it. I could have stopped it.”

Maksim shook his head, even before she finished speaking. “No. That isn’t true. Some premonitions are designed to prepare us for the inevitable. While there are few premonitions that are shown to us so we can stop the events before they unfold.”

Jo frowned, puzzled. “I still don’t see the difference.”

“Well there is. Like I said, if you saw the event with you in it, then maybe, and only maybe,” he added, because premonitions were always dicey at best, and she had to know that for her own piece of mind, “you could have helped.”

She was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. But I know that I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t tell Kara. And that might have saved her.”

“Maybe. But there could have been a reason you didn’t tell anyone.”

Jo laughed at that, the sound sharp and bitter. “Yeah. Because I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t believe it.”

“Or you were just a kid and it scared the crap out of you.”

Jo stared at him, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But I should have done something.”

“And who’s to say anyone would have believed you, anyway?”

Jo nodded, but still looked as if she didn’t believe him. She straightened her napkin again.

“Just like no one would believe me now,” she muttered.

“What?”

She shook her head and waved her hand as if to brush the murmured words away. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

A strange sense of disappointment filled his chest. He wanted her to tell him things that worried her. Things that made her happy. Things that just needed to be said.

Then he promptly told himself those feelings were ridiculous, and not what he was actually feeling. He was horny and mistaking a major case of lust for something more. He had been the whole time.

But he couldn’t help himself from asking again, “What are you talking about, Jo?”

She shook her head again, waving off what she’d said as if the words had never passed her lips. Instead she asked him, “How do you know so much about premonitions?”

He considered pressuring her further, but then decided against it. Pushing didn’t seem to work well with Jo, and he could understand that.

So he let the line of questioning go, setting his attention back to the food the waiter placed before him. He cut into his filet, noting how juicy and tender the meat was. He took a bite, fully preparing to enjoy the expensive cut of meat, but the flavor didn’t satisfy as it should.

He glanced at Jo. She toyed with her salmon, flaking bits off with her fork. Not eating any of it.

Determined not to care—she was a big girl after all—he cut another piece of his steak. But still, even though the seasoning and preparation was perfect, the taste didn’t appease him. Didn’t distract him from his feelings of concern and helplessness.

He put down his fork and regarded Jo.

Again her skin was pallid, making the dark circles under her eyes stand out.

“You’ve got to eat,” he said softly.

She glanced up, seeming almost startled that he was there. For a brief moment, he wanted to jump in her head and see what was happening behind those sad eyes. What was scaring her? What was the secret she was hiding?

But he couldn’t do that. She was clearly having enough problems, and just because he hadn’t seen her thoughts last time, it didn’t mean he wasn’t part of what was going on with her now. He could have affected her somehow.

And she’d affected him somehow, too.

Jo didn’t respond to his gently stated recommendation. She just continued to pick at her food, so he leaned forward and speared a piece of her salmon. Then while she watched him with surprised eyes, he popped the fish in his mouth.

“What are you doing?” she finally managed to sputter, her astonished look causing him to smile.

He reached over and stabbed another piece. He ate it with great relish before answering.

“Well, that’s a pricey meal you’ve got there,” he said, holding back his smile. “So I’m not going to let you just shred it into pieces.”

He started to lance another piece, when she trapped his fork with her own against the plate. He raised an eyebrow, giving her a questioning look.

She cocked her own eyebrow in response, then released his utensil, tapping it away a few times, the metal clinking.

“I get your point,” she muttered grumpily, but Maksim saw a hint of a smile before she dug into her fish.

Maksim watched her for a moment, then began eating his own meal again, the filet suddenly tasting absolutely delicious.

“Thank you for a great dinner,” Jo said as they exited Laforesterie.

Maksim smiled over at her as they walked, and despite herself, her body reacted. He was so handsome, utterly and breathtakingly handsome. His dark hair was sexily disheveled, a slight, wonderful breeze ruffling it. His green eyes twinkling with a naughty little spark. His smile crooked and charming.

And while her body was definitely reacting to his looks, she was also reacting to his behavior tonight. He’d been there when she’d been truly panicked. He’d talked to her, made her laugh. He listened to her talk about her sister. He’d listened to her admission of the premonition—and he hadn’t mocked her, doubted her, or judged her.

And he’d made her eat. Which she had to admit had made her feel so much better. Much less fragile and strung out. It was very, very stupid for her to not eat. She had to remember that. Her blood sugar was touchy at the best of times, but now…

Well, she just appreciated him being there tonight. Against her better judgment. But maybe she could let judgment go, better or otherwise. Just for tonight.

They strolled quietly back toward Esplanade. The streets were pretty quiet as they opted to travel down Royal Street rather than heading toward the busier and wilder Bourbon Street.

“Are you still working at the bar?”

He shook his head. “Once in a while. It’s really not my thing.”

“What, were the scads of adoring women too much for you?” she teased.

“Jealous much?” He winked at her, buffering his teasing.

She pulled a face at him, enjoying that she could be relaxed and playful with this man. Which she hadn’t expected. Again she wondered if she’d been too quick to judge him, just because of Jackson and his failings.

Still lost in her thoughts, it took her a few moments to realize she was back in Esplanade and only a few houses from her rental.

“It’s right up this way,” she said, then realized it was unnecessary. She also thought of something she hadn’t last night in her surprise at finding him at her door. “But you know that. How did you know where I lived last night?”

“I have my ways,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you move into Ren’s apartment building? He has some vacant apartments, doesn’t he?”

Jo nodded. “I didn’t want to invade the little love nest they have going on over there.”

“Ah, yeah, I can see that.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jo said as she rifled around in her oversized purse for her keys. “I’m very happy for them. I think they are wonderful matches. But well, it’s just—”

“A bit much?”

“Yes,” she said with a pained smile. “Does that make me an awful friend?”

“Not in my book. Love is often an overrated emotion.”

“Hear, hear.” Jo found her keys and unlocked the front door. She paused, the key still in the door.

“Would you like to come up?” She wasn’t sure what had prompted the question. She’d like to blame it on her nerves still getting the better of her. But she knew that wasn’t the case. Not at the moment, anyway. Her mind was too occupied with Maksim.

“I’d
love
to,” he said, emphasizing the word “love,” which made her laugh.

She opened the door and he followed her up the stairs to her second-floor apartment. Once inside, she asked him if he’d like something to drink.

“I have coffee—it’s decaf, though. And tea—also decaf,” she told him.

He grimaced. “You actually like decaffeinated tea?”

She smiled, not surprised that he had no use for anything that supported moderation—even with caffeine.

“You’d be surprised. It grows on you.” She went to her cupboard, stretching up on her tiptoes to get down a new box of decaf English Breakfast.

Warmth encompassed her as she felt rather than saw Maksim come up behind her. Then his chest pressed against her back as he reached over her to get the tea. He set the box on the counter, then he braced his hands on the worn Formica, caging her in.

She remained still, her breath growing shallow, as her body reacted instantly to his large, powerful body surrounding her.

“Am I growing on you, too?” he murmured, his mouth right beside her ear.