One Lucky Vampire (21 page)

Jake frowned. “Well, it didn’t get in there by accident, Nicole. And it wasn’t put there for my benefit. It had to be put in with the intent of killing you.”

“Right,” she said unhappily.

“I know it’s hard to accept that the man you love would try to kill you,” he said gently. “But Rodolfo—”

“I don’t love Rodolfo,” she protested with amazement. “I’m divorcing him, for heaven’s sake. I’d hardly do that if I loved him.”

Jake glanced away with a sigh. He didn’t really want to tell her that she was divorcing her husband because of Marguerite’s controlling her mind and nudging her in that direction. Marguerite had Nicole’s best interests at heart when she’d done it, so instead of telling her that, he pointed out gently, “You still have pictures of him all over the house, Nicole. That suggests you still have feelings—”

“I still have pictures of him all over the house because the egotistical idiot went and superglued them to the fricking wall,” Nicole interrupted grimly.

“What?” Jake gasped even as Tomasso and Dante spat the word.

Nicole sighed and shook her head. “Rodolfo is a spiteful, nasty, selfish creep. I don’t know what he was thinking. If he thought it was a good way to make me have to think of him even after he was gone, or if he just doesn’t know how to wield a damned hammer, but every single picture is superglued or spackled to the wall. Pierina and I tried to take them down while she was here. We managed to pry one off the wall, but it left a great gaping hole. I’m going to have to have professionals in to remove them, but I don’t know who to call about something like that and I’ve been too busy with all these commissioned portraits to call around, so I’ve just done my best to ignore them.”

She scowled and glanced to one of the half dozen pictures affixed to the kitchen wall and added, “I considered buying a glass cutter and removing the glass from each frame so I could at least remove the pictures, but then I’d be left with empty frames everywhere. Besides, it seemed like I was giving it too much energy that way. Like he’d somehow have succeeded at whatever he was trying to do, so I decided to just ignore them until I could get people in to fix it. And mostly I
have
managed to ignore them.”

“Until someone points them out,” Jake said quietly. It was pretty obvious she was pissed right now just thinking about it.

“Yeah. Then I get annoyed all over again,” Nicole admitted with a grimace, and added, “But that isn’t because I love him. It’s because he’s taken control from me again. He’s decided what will be on my walls and made sure I had to live with it for at least a while. And it’s because it reminds of all the damned, stupid annoying and petty little things he did when I bought him out of the house.”

“Like what?” Dante asked with interest.

“The agreement was he take half of the furniture and whatnot as marital assets . . . Forget that I paid for every damned thing.” Nicole grimaced with disgust, and then continued, “Fine. So he took half of everything, but he also did his damnedest to mess with anything left behind.”

“Mess with them?” Jake asked curiously. “How.”

“Well, the stereo, for instance,” she said. “It was here and in working condition, but he took the power plugs as well as the connecting wires to the speakers. He did that with the PlayStation, the mosquito catcher, and anything else that had a removable cord. So I had them all here, but couldn’t use them until I replaced the wires . . . and then there was the dishwasher, it was missing its silverware holder. There were shelves missing from the refrigerator, and the dining-room set? It was a twelve-chair set, but he took the end chairs. You know, the chairs with the arms?” Nicole said, and when they nodded, continued, “I called him on it, of course, through our lawyers, and he had an answer for everything. He didn’t know what I was talking about. He hadn’t taken any cords or shelves. And the chairs? Those had suffered an unfortunate accident during the year he lived here. Hadn’t he mentioned it to me when we were agreeing on what would go and what would stay? He was sure he had.”

“As for loving him,” Nicole continued quietly. “Not only do I not still love him, in truth, I don’t think I ever did. It turns out I didn’t even know the real him. I suspect I was in love with love, with the whole romance of the relationship, the exotic foreigner, sexy accent, seeing the world thing . . . I was a fool.”

“That’s kind of harsh,” Jake said quietly.

“Yeah,” Tomasso agreed. “Besides, we’re all fools for love.”

“She didn’t love him,” Dante reminded him.

“Oh, right,” Tomasso muttered, then peered at her hard. Jake knew at once that he was reading Nicole’s mind, and wondered what he was finding. His eyebrows rose when Tomasso added, “Well, we’re often fools for sex too.”

Nicole flushed and demanded, “You’re doing that mind reading thing Jake mentioned, aren’t you?”

Tomasso grimaced.

“Stop it,” she said firmly and stood up. Her gaze shifted to Jake. “If you’re done explaining things, I’d like to get back to work.”

Jake hesitated. He hadn’t got to the part about their being life mates, but he’d dumped a lot on her already. Besides, he’d rather discuss that part with her alone without his cousins there to hear. Still, he eyed her briefly. She seemed to be handling everything pretty well so far. He didn’t think he had to worry that she’d slip out of the house and run away, freaked out about everything she’d learned. But he wasn’t positive. It wasn’t every day you learned you were hosting vampires in your home . . . and she hadn’t asked any questions yet. He didn’t know if that was because she needed to process what she’d learned, or what, but he hoped so, he wanted to trust her. That was a hard thing for Jake. His experiences in life had left him with some trust issues and it wasn’t just because of the woman he’d nearly married who had been intent on robbing him blind. His family had aided in those trust issues too, with their deep dark secret and by keeping him in the dark for so many years. But he had to learn to trust Nicole eventually for them to be life mates.

Sighing, Jake sat back and nodded. “Of course.”

Nicole slipped away at once, leaving the table and the room without another word.

Jake watched her go and then glanced from Dante to Tomasso. “Well?”

Dante pursed his lips and then said, “Give her twenty minutes and then take her coffee.”

“And jump her bones,” Tomasso added.

“What?” Jake asked on a half laugh of disbelief.

Dante shrugged. “You’ve rocked her world.”

“Not in the good way,” Tomasso added, in case he’d misunderstood.

“Nicole’s spinning right now,” Dante added.

“You need to anchor her,” Tomasso said.

Jake arched one eyebrow and said, “You want me to anchor her with my cock? Seriously? We barely know each other.”

“Sometimes it’s incredibly obvious you were born in the Leave It to Beaver era,” Dante said dryly.

Jake stiffened and scowled. “Excuse me, you two are older than I am.”

“Yeah, but we’re Italian,” Dante said with a shrug.

“And that means what?” Jake asked dryly.

“The Brits are known for bad food, the French for good food, and the Italians for being the best lovers,” Dante explained.

Jake gave a disbelieving laugh. “You’re delusional.”

“Casanova.” Tomasso rumbled, and then added, “Enough said.”

“One man does not—Ah hell, never mind,” he muttered standing up. “I’m going downstairs . . . to
talk
to Nicole.”

“I’m telling you, sex is the way to go,” Dante assured him as he headed for the doorway. “It will bond her to you.”

Tomasso added. “One taste of life-mate sex and she’ll be hooked like a heroin addict.”

Jake halted in the door and turned back. “Life-mate sex?”

Dante raised his eyebrows. “No one’s told you about life mates?”

“Well, I know about life mates. Can’t read ’em, can’t control ’em, a perfect mate.”

“And crazy, blow your mind, so intense it leaves you unconscious, sex,” Tomasso added.

“It leaves you unconscious?” Jake asked with a frown.

“And blows your mind,” Tommaso repeated.

Jake narrowed his gaze on the pair. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

The twins merely shook their heads solemnly.

“Hmm,” he said dubiously, but then merely turned away and headed for the stairs. He wasn’t sure he believed Dante and Tomasso. After all, surely someone would have mentioned that to him prior to this?

Even as he mentally asked himself that question, Jake realized how ridiculous it was. No one would have told him that before he was turned. It wouldn’t have meant anything to him as a mortal. As for after the turn, he hadn’t given them much of a chance to tell him anything then. Anytime his mother had tried to point out the benefits of being an immortal to him, he’d shut her down. His brother, Neil, hadn’t tried to coddle or convince him his being turned was a good thing. He’d simply stood by him, silent and supportive, but Jake hadn’t wanted support. He’d wanted to be mortal again . . . a real boy, just like Pinocchio. But he wasn’t Pinocchio anymore. He wasn’t exactly happy to be immortal, but he was grateful to be alive. Vincent’s turning him had saved him the first time, and being immortal had saved him from the poisoned hot tub . . . and now he might have a life mate.

Jake considered that without the bitterness of being an immortal that had plagued him on first realizing he couldn’t read or control Nicole. He didn’t really recall his birth father. The only father he recalled was Roberto, and his memories of his childhood were very happy ones filled with love. Love between his mother and Roberto, and the love they’d showered on him and Neil. He supposed the reason he’d reached fifty-one years as a mortal without marrying and having children of his own was because no relationship he’d ever had, had ever come close to the love, friendship, and joy that his mother and Roberto had shared . . . and he’d wanted that. Now, he might be able to have it.

Jake knew how lucky that made him. He also knew he was extremely lucky to find it so soon after being turned. Most immortals waited centuries, even millennia to find a life mate. The twins were over a hundred years old, his cousin Christian was over five centuries, and while Marguerite had found Julius centuries ago, they were only reunited and able to enjoy each other now, and Marguerite was over seven hundred years old. His finding a life mate so young was a gift, and it was one he didn’t want to mess up.

Eleven

J
ake paused outside the studio’s French doors and peered through the window. He wasn’t surprised to see that Nicole was not working. He’d expected the information she’d been given would disrupt her ability to concentrate. He was concerned though to find her simply standing in the middle of her studio, staring at her uncovered paintings. He suspected she wasn’t really seeing the portraits. Her shoulders were hunched and Jake was quite sure he knew exactly how she was feeling. It was the same way he’d felt when he was eighteen and had been told about immortals. Betrayed, confused, as if the world wasn’t the place he’d thought it was.

Jake didn’t knock, but simply opened the door. Nicole didn’t turn, but he could tell by the way she stiffened that she knew he was there.

“I came to see if you were all right,” he said quietly. “I know this is a lot to take in.”

She gave a little snort and Jake smiled wryly.

“Yeah, I guess that’s an understatement, huh? Believe me, I know. Been there, done that, and have a whole wardrobe full of T-shirts to prove it,” he said quietly.

“You said you were turned when you were attacked?” Nicole asked quietly.

Jake nodded, and then realized she couldn’t see him so cleared his throat and said, “Yes.”

“When was that?”

“Seven years ago, give or take six months,” he answered and wondered what she was thinking when she nodded. He wished he could see her face, but she still had her back to him.

“Was that the health crisis that made you run away?”

Jake sighed and pushed the door closed. He walked over to the nearest of the half dozen swiveling stools she had in the room and sat on it, before saying, “Yes, but it was just the last straw of many.”

Nicole was silent for a minute and then asked, “What was the first straw?”

The question surprised him and he took a moment before saying, “The first one was more of a tree than a straw.”

“Which was?” she prompted.

“It was when I was eighteen and my mother and stepfather sat me down and told me about immortals and that they, my brother, and every Notte I had ever met, which was all the family I knew, belonged to that select party.”

“All the family you knew?” Nicole asked, turning to peer at him curiously. “The Nottes are your stepfather’s family. What about your mother and father’s family?”

“My mother had a brother, sister, and parents, and my father had two brothers and parents. Apparently there were cousins and grandparents too, on both sides.”

“But you don’t know them?” she asked.

Jake shook his head. “They didn’t approve of my parents’ marriage. On my mother’s side it was because they were Jewish and my father was Catholic. On my father’s side it was a combination of that and the fact that as far as they were concerned my mother came from the wrong side of the tracks. My father’s family had money, my mother’s didn’t. Dad’s parents expected him to marry a nice girl from a comparatively rich, Catholic family, not a poor Jewish girl whose family didn’t even own their own home. So . . .” He shrugged. “After Dad died, Mom was pretty much on her own with me.”

Jake paused briefly, but when she didn’t comment, he said, “I guess she was struggling something fierce when she met Roberto, working two jobs to try to support us and taking night courses at university in the hopes of getting a better job, to better support us. I gather she had no time for romance and made Roberto work hard to win her.”

“He was immortal?”

Jake nodded. “And he turned her.”

“But not you?” Nicole asked with a frown.

“I was a child,” Jake said with a shrug. “I gather they frown on turning children.”