Blood Entangled (27 page)

Kos shuffled toward the door. “Yeah, well, sorry.” He shrugged. “I’m going to take a shower and then finalize some arrangements for the launch party tonight. Is the bottling finished?”

“Almost,” Andre replied. “If there’s time, I’ll deliver the bottles tonight after the party.”

Kos’s fingers closed around the cool brass doorknob, and his nose filled with the cellar’s must. Before he walked into that dark hall, he owed them something more. He craned his neck.

“Zoey, I’m glad you’re bonded to my father. I wish you an eternity of happiness together, if such a thing is possible. I just don’t think it is.”

Chapter 20

L
ENA
A
WOKE
W
ITHOUT
T
HE
F
ANTASY
Kos would be there watching. There weren’t even traces of her recurring dream, only panic that she’d left his copy of Galway Kinnell’s
A New Selected Poems
in the miscellany drawer at Kaštel. Losing it might have broken her heart, but there wasn’t anything left to break. Maybe today she could walk to one of the bookshops on Union Street and see if they had a copy. It wouldn’t be the same—his fingers wouldn’t have touched the pages, the fingers that had also touched her everywhere…

Still, she needed that book.

She dressed in clothes as stylish as the ones she’d worn last night. Style seemed important to Mason. Then she went searching for him. He lounged at the kitchen table reading a newspaper.

“Good morning, lovely.”

He had a rakish smile, like the bad-boy heroes in one of those novels where women drank brandy as medicine. It wasn’t a smile a girl fell in love with, like Kos’s lopsided, dimpled grin. No, not like his. But Mason’s had appeal. She couldn’t help but smile back.

“Good morning.”

He didn’t glance up from the paper. “I made coffee. All humans drink it, right?”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or being naïve, but it amused her. On a laugh, she replied, “Perhaps not all, but most. And I do, so thank you.” She poured herself a cup. For a moment, she faltered, remembering Kos’s habit of carrying around a half-full mug just to smell. Mason cleared his throat, and she came back to her senses, scanning the counter for cream. When she didn’t see any, she perched on the chair across from him. “How many people will I be cooking for in your household?”

“It’s just you, and my man Nicholas—he’s my driver, housekeeper, all that stuff.”

“So two, including me? You hardly need me.”

“Lena.” With her name, he captured her gaze and held it.

Oh, right. Now she was the one being naïve, he needed her for the other household duties. But no cooking? She was getting paid for…

A blush seared her cheeks. Paid to be his whore, his blood whore—but then, she’d known that all along. Wasn’t that her destiny? She sipped the coffee. Black and bitter, not how she liked it at all.

“Just me in your household? Surely you need more blood than that.”

“I do, you’re right. But I mostly eat out.” He winked.

She swallowed another caustic mouthful, determined to learn to like it. “Oh. You pick up women in bars and things like that?”

“Yes, and things like that.”

Lena composed herself, aiming for nonchalant and sophisticated as her imagination scrolled through all the ways Mason might hook up with his food.

He shook the newspaper then folded in half. “Please, make yourself at home.” He pressed the crease of the paper into a crisp line. “There’s a gym and an entertainment center, a garden.
Mi casa es su casa
.”

“So should I go out to get some groceries for myself?”

“Out? No, no, don’t worry about that. Nicholas is shopping right now and if there’s something else you want, just tell him.” He came around the table and crouched so that they were eye to eye. “I very much hope you will come to want me as much as you want Kos.”

Before she could argue, he kissed her artfully, as if he had practiced kissing the way Michelangelo practiced sculpting. It was beautiful, and absolutely without sentiment. She tuned out her heart’s protests and enjoyed his lips and his tongue. Her skin heated, and her pulse quickened.

“Later, lovely.” He pulled back, grinning with satisfaction at her response even as he turned toward the door.

“Mason, I left a book at Kaštel. I think I might walk over to Union Street to look for it in a bookshop.”

He froze with his hand on the doorframe. “Nonsense, Nicholas will get the book for you. What’s it called?”

“
New and Selected Poems
, by Galway Kinnell.”

“Never heard of it. One of Kos’s?”

She nodded, reaching for her mug as an excuse to look down and hide her second blush. He’d probably seen it anyway, but she hoped he assumed it was arousal, and not embarrassment.

After working for a while to organize the sparse pantry, she grew restless. It was about two miles to the Golden Gate Bridge where she could walk along the bayshore. She dressed in layers and left a note in the kitchen explaining her plan.

The front door was locked.

The knob turned, but the door didn’t budge. She searched for a bolt somewhere. Nothing. No key pad either. Obviously, she was missing something. There had to be a way to open the door in case of an emergency. What an idiot—why couldn’t she find it? She examined the same stretch of the door and wall over and over again. After the umpteenth time, her hands clenched, and she pounded on the door.

“Mason. Are you here?”

No answer. Her heart pounded. She slid to the floor, panicked.

Don’t be silly. You’re not a prisoner.

She shook with nerves. Of course she was overreacting. But she couldn’t make it stop. The best thing would be to wear herself out. In the small gym in Mason’s basement, she found a treadmill. She climbed on and set the pace to a fast jog. Her breathing fell into a rhythm with the exertion, and sweat rolled down her spine.

She ran hard and fast for a solid hour, until she’d flushed the last trace of adrenaline from her system. Unsteady legs carried her up the stairs, and she collapsed on the bed, falling asleep in her sweaty clothes.

A soft rap on her door woke her up, but no one was in the hall, only a parcel wrapped in brown paper. Inside was a spotless copy of
A New Selected Poems,
and underneath it a bit of folded silken fabric. She shook it out, to see a quintessential little black dress. It was silk, with a draping halter neck, and not too short. Sexy, but tasteful, and of course, the perfect size. From it fell a notecard that said:

Dinner at eight. Wear this.

The third time her phone rang, showing Kos’s number, she turned the damn thing off. She drew another bath and punished herself with the pristine copy of Kinnell while soaking in the floral scented bubbles.

A different poem at the back of the book captured her imagination. It was an ode to the secret rapture of Kinnell’s marriage bed, a poem of content domestic intimacy. It squeezed her heart so hard the vital organ was at risk of turning to coal, then brilliant diamond. Kinnell had painted a picture of what a life with Kos would be, if he weren’t a lying coward.

Glancing through the bathroom door, she saw the red numbers on the display of the clock radio. Four p.m. She had hours until dinner. Why not continue to wallow?

She read the poem over and over, like hitting her head against a wall, until her tears fell onto the pages. At the sight of wet streaks slicing through the lines of verse, fury seized her. Shaking, she gripped the book and hurled it into the mirror.

She sunk into the tub, submerging her head and holding her breath, until the shakes finally stopped. Tilting her head back, she came up and stared at the ceiling as water sluiced off her face.

A skyscape of fluffy gray and white clouds against cornflower blue adorned the ceiling. The clouds were so real, she could almost see them move. She hadn’t seen clouds like that since she used to go hiking with her father.

Her memory took her back to the last time, the summer before she’d left for San Francisco. They’d flown in his two-propeller airplane to his favorite lake and hiked all morning, then sat on a Black Watch plaid blanket and shared a picnic lunch. The red and white plane bobbed gently on its pontoons, floating in the lake. It caused her a jolt of longing; he’d died when it crashed two summers later.

That same wild angelica grew along the creeks, perfuming the air. She gazed up at enormous clouds and enjoyed the sun warming her face.

“Sweetheart,” he used to call her, just like Kos did. “I wish you would stick around and go to college here.”

She bristled, hands fisting. They’d had the discussion so many times. Why did he have to bring it up again? “This is what I want, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of.”

“But you could do anything, Lena. You’re as pretty as you are smart. Why spend your life serving one of them?”

She huffed. “It’s what I want.”

Oh how she wished she could take back that stubborn whine, now that he was gone.

Still, he’d scratched his head, the picture of fatherly patience. “Don’t you think it’s possible your grandmother idealized her life with those vampires? To an old widow, it probably looked rosier than it really was.”

“Sure, a little. But, Dad, I have to try.” In the silence that followed, Lena passed him a bag of dried fruit and nuts. “It’s not like I’m going to work at a strip club or something. I’m going to culinary school.”

“I know, I sent the tuition check.” He jabbed her hiking boot with the toe of his shoe. “Believe me, it’s the only part of your plans I feel good about.”

“So maybe I’ll never meet a vampire, and I’ll become a celebrity chef with my own show on the Food Network.”

“I love it! Let’s send them those head shots from when you were modeling.”

“Dad.” She poked him with her elbow. He’d always insisted she was pretty enough to model, and she’d always thought he was blinded by fatherly love.

“I know you think this is about me being uptight about sex. But it’s not. You’re an adult and I trust you can make responsible decisions.”

“Uh huh,” she said, not believing him. Adolescent Lena hadn’t, but adult Lena kind of did.

“The thing is, Lena, you’re a good girl. And you’re signing up for the type of life that doesn’t make good girls happy.”

She blinked, and the ceiling of Mason’s house came back into focus.

The kind of life that makes good girls happy, the Galway Kinnell life of motherhood and domestic contentment? She tried to picture meeting some nice human guy and settling down. Her stomach twisted. He wouldn’t be Kos. He would never make her feel the way Kos did, in bed or out.

If she didn’t get to have Kos, it had to be the household life.

She picked up
New and Selected
from the floor. It was damp from tears and bathtub steam. She shredded it, one page at a time, into the toilet.

Sorry, Dad. You were wrong. Nona was right. I have a destiny to live.

Kos surveyed the dining room. “Zoey, the house looks festive and inviting. Don’t be disappointed.”