Vamps: Human and Paranormal (9 page)

Lucy beamed her brightest smile at him, thinking that maybe he was uncertain of her, or that he was just shy.  She offered him her hand. 

He looked upon it like he didn’t know if her hand was clean enough to touch. 
Obsessive
Compulsive disorder?
  There were no less than six kids in her old school that had extreme cases of the illness.  She almost sighed with empathy.  Those kids were a mess, and miserable as all get out.  

But then Gabriel Enoch reached out and took her hand.  He was hot.  Not as in visually appealing, which he was.  His hand, his flesh, was hot to the touch.  He shook her hand and then suddenly let it go, looking at his own hand as if it had been infected or something.

“She won’t work,” he said to Dante Enoch.

“Gabriel?”  The Lawyer’s voice was smooth as silk, but there was irritation there too.

“It won’t work.  She’s so…”  He was glaring at Lucy with loathing.

“She’s Beautiful,” Dante tried to finish for his nephew.

“Shallow and greedy, I’d say.”

Luvici cut in.  “She comes from a good family.  That is what you were looking for.”
             

“Not that good,” Gabriel said.  “Not if she’d do this for money.”

Both lawyers stood there with shocked expressions on their faces.  Gabriel turned to Dante.  “I’m sorry, Uncle, but I have things I need to take care of.” 

Lucy knew she should have been hurt.  Any other girl in the world would have been pushed to tears by the words that fell from Gabriel Enoch’s lips.  But she wasn’t like any of those girls.  She’d already had every kind of degradation visited upon her in the last six months.  She needed this, no matter what kind of jerk she had to work with.

Lucy blocked his escape by walking up to him and laying one of her freshly manicured hands on his chest.  The gesture was intimate, as was the smile that she knew would bring out her dimples.  This made Gabriel gulp, which was good.  It meant she had his full attention.

“I might be shallow and greedy, and I may be the sort of girl that would do…” She gave him a slow, dismissive up and down look, “this for money.  But you need this just as much as I do.”

He scoffed.

“Come on, Gabe…”  His eyes flashed angrily at Lucy nicknaming him. 
Interesting
.  “What is it anyways?”

“What is what?” 

Lucy noted how his irritated tone suddenly shot down in volume.

“Well, from your lack of an accent, I’d say you don’t need a fiancée for immigration purposes, so this all has to do with the object of your affections.”

Gabriel scowled, anger glowing in his gaze.

“So what’s the what?  Is your family racist or something, so you can’t bring your non-Anglo Saxon girlfriend home to meet the folks?  Or…”  Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes.  “I get it.  I get it.”  She sat down and took a sip of the ice cold bubbling water that sat at her place setting.  “I’m going to be your beard.”

“You’re going to be his what?”  Dante looked completely confused.

“His beard,” Lucy answered.  She looked up into Gabriel’s scorching gaze.  “So you’re gay and you don’t want your family to know.  Well, I wouldn’t have guessed.  Course, it’s hard to tell nowadays.”

“I’m not gay,” Gabriel said flatly.

“Not that it’s any of my business, but I think trying to hide that kind of thing from your folks isn’t good for you.”

Gabriel looked taken aback.  

“I mean, stress like that can ruin your complexion.  Not to mention put lines on your face before their time.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Gabriel shook his head and Lucy saw that his fists were balled up.  “I’m not gay.  But there’s nothing wrong with being so.”  He shot her through with his eyes.  “Only low people still find homosexuality something to hate or be embarrassed about.”

Whoa…this guy is serious as a heart attack,
Lucy smiled.
   More interesting
. 
And kind of likable, if you ignore the whole “low people” barb.

But,
Lucy peered up at Gabriel Enoch’s exacerbated face
, I like yanking his chain.

“So, Gabe…then your family’s a bunch of bigots?”

The look on Gabriel’s face turned downright scary.  He bent down, one of his fists on the table, lowering his face to mere inches from Lucy’s.   “My family is none of you goddamn business.”

Lucy felt a stab of fear.  But instead of leaning away from him, she leaned toward him, her smile still in place but her eyes turning cold.  That wonderful annoyed heat was building in her head again.  It was such a relief, how that feeling seemed to clear her head and make her calm.  Well, calm wasn’t quite the word for it.

Determined maybe?  That heat seemed to let her see where she was supposed to go, what she wanted, and what she needed to do to get it.

“Then my family and my motifs are none of you goddamn business either.  And I’m not a prostitute, so quit looking at me like I am!”

A smile flickered across his lips.  There was something, suddenly, passing through the air between them.  Be it something sinister of simply a trick of hormones, but whatever it was made Lucy’s toes curl and the back of her neck tingle.

He smells so good…

But he is such a jerk!

The heat evaporated from Gabriel’s expression as he straightened to his full height.  He was smiling and shaking his head.  Lucy didn’t like his smile.  She liked him better when she was pissing him off.

“She’ll do,” he told his uncle, and then he nodded to Lucy as he started to walk away.

“Gabriel?”  Dante said.  “Where are you going?  There is much to discus.”

Gabriel spoke as he walked to the door:  “You know the terms we need.  I’m certain you can handle things from here.”

And with that Gabriel Enoch was gone out the front door, disappearing into the bright Californian daylight.

Luvici sat down and pawed through the menu.  Dante turned and looked at Lucy.  She couldn’t stop smiling.  Had she passed the test?  What came next?  She was seeing the sparkling diamond at the end of her journey again.  And this time, it was twice as big as before.

Dante sat down, shaking his head and then looked up at his lunch guests with a weary look in his eyes.  That look extinguished when Luvici called out an order for a bottle of Chateau Margaux 1995, and an appetizer of oysters.

“Very well, Francis.”  Luvici glared at Dante, but didn’t say anything back.  “Shall we order?  Then we can talk business?”

“Fine by me.”  Luvici went on to order a huge and exurbanite meal.  French onion soup and a Cesar salad—as if his breath needed any help being disgusting.   Then he ordered a porterhouse steak (rare) with provolone cheese and scampi shrimp on top.  Throw in a baked potato with butter, sour cream, bacon bits and chives, and Lucy thought she was going to throw up if she was going to have watched him eat all that.

But since this was her fantasy restaurant, she wanted to order something really good.  She’d been eating mostly her grandmother’s cooking and McDonalds, so eating at a high class eatery was an event. 

Her mouth watered as she looked over the choices.  Everything on the menu looked good, especially since there weren’t any prices on it.  Maybe a combo platter of a little of everything…maybe the size of the table?  
             

Then she thought of how she hated feeling so thankful for being there.  Being like that, feeling that way, it just made her mad.  How had she gotten this far down?

“I’ll have the grilled chicken and a spring leaf salad with honey mustard dressing on the side.”  She was going to trim down to her old size—she’d just decided.  And she was going to demand weekly trips to this very restaurant in their negotiations.  That way she’d get over this whole “thankful for things” phase.

~*~

Negotiations went well until Luvici asked for too little money.  Why he’d decided to low ball the other lawyer made no sense to Lucy.  All she could think was,
That’s not enough.  That’s not even half what I need.

“I’m sorry Mr. Enoch,” she interrupted, “but Frank misunderstood what amount I require to do this…bit of acting.”  This made Luvici flinch, and made Dante squint at Lucy like she was out of her mind.  “I need at least three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.  And that’s just at the end of the job.  What I need now is a charge card for shopping.”

“Shopping?”  Dante squinted even harder at her.

“Shopping…you know?  Every young woman’s favorite past time.  I need a whole new wardrobe…that is if you want Gabriel’s parents to believe I come from a good family.  I imagine since you’re their lawyer that you’ll keep my father’s legal problems, and my family’s money problems, from them.  You’d handle that sort of investigation for them, right?”

“Well, yes…” Dante said, looking surprised.

“So, I’ll need to shop to pull off the rest of it.  And I’ll need use of a car.”

The look on Dante’s face was wide eyed surrender.  Lucy had to smile.

“Well, I can’t be expected to take the bus to go shopping, or to go wherever it is I’ll end up having to go during this hoax.”

“This isn’t just some childish prank, Miss Hart.”  Dante’s tone was scolding, and his expression could be taken as the beginnings of a heart attack.  He looked stressed and weary as hell.  “This is a very important, very serious matter.  Gabriel’s father…everyone in the family must be convinced that you are Gabriel’s betrothed.”

Lucy leaned forward and instinctively took Dante’s still very warm hand and smiled reassuringly.  “I can do this.  I promise.  I’ll make even you think that I’m in love with that arrogant jerk.  So no worries, okay?”

A sudden understanding passed between them.  They knew that they needed each other, and that they would both uphold their part of the deal.

“Done,” Dante said pulling his hand gently from Lucy’s and straightening his tie and suit.  “Three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars at service end, use of a car and a credit card for shopping purposes.”

“And some mad money.”

“Mad money?”

“And a cell phone.  I’ll run through the minutes on this thing in no time.”  She held up her little pre-paid phone and waved it at Dante.     

      
              “Maybe you’d like a computer too.”  Dante said wearily, yet with definite sarcasm.

“No,” Lucy said, sticking out her lower lip, thinking.  “Just make it an
iphone.  Then I can do whatever I need, internet wise, through that.”

Luvici coughed and turned away in his seat so Dante wouldn’t notice he was laughing.

Dante smiled as Luvici’s oysters, salad and soup arrived.  Then he turned that smile on Lucy.  “Gabriel is going to have his hands full with you, isn’t he?”

HIS SPIRITS
high, Gabriel returned to Enoch Industries and threw himself into his work.  He fired off e-mails, made phone conferences, even let his assistant, Laurel, schedule a lunch with his mother.  He felt good about the girl he’d chosen to be his red herring fiancée.  She was shrewd and devious, and thought fast on her feet.  He always respected a goal oriented person. 

Lucy Hart had been attractive, yet too young.  He’d loathed her on sight.  No one so juvenile and clearly narcissistic would be capable of pulling off such an intricate, important deceit.  Yet in the brief time he’d spent in her presence she’d shown she was skilled in a wide range of nefarious behaviors.  He’d wanted to kill her where she stood when she’d insulted his family.  But just watching her shift gears from hostile to beguilingly seductive, and then to shrewdly perceptive, convinced him that she was the girl for the job.  Young or not, shallow and money hungry, he could tell she would stop at nothing to achieve her goal.

He would use his lunch with his mother to tell her about his secret fiancée.  He would have to be careful, though.  He would have to be deliberately vague.  He would need to keep his mother in the dark until they’d had time to get their stories straight.

He sat in his office and stared out the window as the last hint of daylight receded from the sky.  There had been a moment, as brief as it was confusing, when Lucy had placed her hand on his chest.  It had been a simple gesture, used merely to get his attention and to halt his leaving, yet the feeling that had washed through him.  It was like he’d suddenly woke up, snapped too by some sort of pleasurable jolt.  It had ended the moment she’d removed her hand, but the feeling lingered—it still lingered.

He returned his attention back to his laptop and dismissed thoughts of Lucy Hart from his mind and started typing a reply to a distributer from Indiana.

He felt his
Blackberry vibrate in his pants pocket and retrieved it.  It was a text from Delia.  He smiled, welcoming his yearning for her, letting it push aside everything else he had been contemplating.  She wanted him to meet her.

“When and where?” He typed with his thumbs, a smile spreading across his lips.

“Funeral Peak.  I’ll be waiting.”

Gabriel knew where that was.  Again with the heights!  She never tired of making him face his greatest fear.  Funeral Peak was a mountain overlooking Death Valley National Park.  Delia would no doubt scale the sheer cliff on the southern side.  He would need to ascend the other side of the craggy mountain until he reached the highest mesa.  He’d been there once before.  It had been the first time they’d kissed.

~*~

The road leading to Death Valley National Park was nearly clear of traffic, and Gabriel made good time.  He refused to speed, though he came perilously close.  He left his car at the base of the mountain, and then jogged swiftly up the steep incline.  He side stepped boulders and then finally slowed when the ground pitched at too steep an angle to keep running.  Now he would have to climb, and this he hated more than anything.

But being with Delia was worth it.  He took off his tie and dress shirt, throwing them over a dead, spindly tree.  He scrambled easily up the first third of the climb, but then it began to rain.  Nothing heavy, and there was no wind, but it made the earth and rock he clung to slippery, and that made his fear of falling all the more potent.

By the time he made it to the topmost mesa he was soaked with rain and sweat, and his arms and legs were shaking from effort and fear.  Breathing heavily he strode toward the edge of the cliff, to where he knew Delia would be awaiting him.  A boulder shorn flat like a tablet sat mere feet from the edge of the cliff.  Gabriel gasped, his eyes widening with surprise and lust.  Delia lounged naked on the stone tablet, the rain pattering off her ivory white flesh, her eyes closed, expression at peace.

Gabriel approached, heat throbbing through his body, making his flesh burn.  Delia turned her head and opened her eyes.  A smile stole across her lips and her blue eyes sparkled mischievously.  “I thought you weren’t coming.”

He stopped, towering over her naked form, mesmerized.  He reached out a hand and stroked the cold flesh of her cheek, and then trailed his hand down her neck, over her supple breasts—she arched her back and moaned.  As his hand moved even lower, gliding over her ribcage, and then down her smooth belly, Delia leaned up and kissed him, drawing his lips to hers.

He gasped as she raked her nails over his shoulder, making him bleed.

~*~

The two lay naked under a now clear sky, the stars and a crescent moon made their skin glow in the dark.  Wrapped in each other’s arms, Delia rested her head against Gabriel’s chest and listened to the hypnotic beating of his heart.  She had never had a heartbeat.  Gabriel having one had always fascinated her.

“Tell me about this girl you’ve found…is she pretty?”

Gabriel chuckled, his chest expanding and jerking with the effort.  She loved the feel of his body, especially at times like this, when it moved unexpectedly. 
So alive.

“Jealous?”

Delia stabbed her finger into his stomach, making him groan.

“Okay, okay!  You’re above petty things like jealousy…and gratuitous violence.”

“You think that was violent?”  She looked up into his eyes and fought off the craving for him, and the yearning to just melt into those fathomlessly deep brown eyes of his.  “See what happens if you say she’s prettier than me.”

“Not even close.”  He leaned in and kissed her, tasting warm and alive. 

After Delia nestled back into the muscles of his chest, Gabriel continued.  “She seems to possess the attributes that will impress my family.  And she’s shallow, manipulative and a complete gold digger.”

“She will fit in well with your family.”

Gabriel sighed and pulled her tighter to him.  “I’m going to ignore that one.”

She smiled and inhaling the delicious aroma of his naked flesh.

“But she is goal oriented, and she has prowess when it comes to acting out a part and manipulation.  I truly believe she’ll be able to play her role more than well enough to fool my family.”

“Good,” Delia whispered, though the feeling the thought of someone else being at his side made her feel anything but. 

“And once she’s in place and my family is no longer so fixated on finding me a mate, we’ll be free to be together.” 

“Ironic how you need to get married to someone else so we can spend more time together.”  She could hear the bitterness in her own words.

Gabriel looped his forefinger under her chin and pulled her face up to his.  “This was your idea.”

She closed her eyes and pushed back the sudden wetness and burning.  “I know, I know.  It’s just…”  She pushed all the crazy thoughts out of her mind.  She would do anything to be with Gabriel.  Anything. 

She looked deep into his eyes again.  “It’s nothing.”  But there was something there.  Something new and uninvited.  It was a feeling.  That feeling that comes when you just know things are going all wrong.  She pulled herself up on top of Gabriel, their bare skins sliding with the remnants of the fallen rain.  She straddled him, pushing her hands hard into the muscles of his smooth chest, making him groan.

She stared into his eyes.  If there was something wrong, wouldn’t she be able to see it in his eyes?  But his eyes were filled with his usual longing for her.  But was it love?  She needed more than anything to believe that indeed it was.  For if she didn’t have his love, then what did she have? 

~*~

Lucy slept deep and hard that night.  Her dreams were of shopping in boutiques and huge high-class shopping Mecca’s, of driving something sleek, expensive and midnight blue (a new color for a new life) and receiving acceptance letters from every university she’d applied to.  Even Stanford—that one had come in a golden envelope and the words glittered magically as she read them. 

She woke the next morning still sore but filled with purpose.  Luvici was to pick her up shortly after she left for school.  He was to park three blocks away so that her grandmother and mother wouldn’t suspect. 

Her mother was still asleep—the late shift always took it out of her.  Lucy’s grandmother made her breakfast, and Lucy picked at it, only taking a bite or two when her grandmother was looking.  She poured herself a cup of coffee after discarding the rest of her food in the trash.  If she didn’t eat it, she wouldn’t have to work it off later.  She would put off starting her work out regime until her shoulder had healed, but she would start dieting in earnest now.

She would miss her grandmother’s cooking.   Her own mother had only been a microwave kind of cook.  If it wasn’t for the full time cook her father had employed year round Lucy would have never known there was such a thing as place settings and silverware.  Also, having a cook meant that when Lucy had started eating low-fat, low-carb, the cook simply cooked something different for her.

But her Gram’s cooking was special.  Though full of fat and sugar and salt, it was also filled with love.

Lucy grabbed her book bag and gave her grandmother a kiss as she made to leave. 

“Do you work tonight?”  Her grandmother asked, catching her at the door.

“Oh, ummm…yes.  So don’t wait up for me.”  Lucy kissed her grandmother again.  She didn’t like lying to her, yet since she would be doing things in preparation for her new job, then she truthfully wasn’t lying. 

Sure you’re not, Princess.        

Five minutes later Lucy found Luvici parked in a sweet, shiny red convertible.  He had on a pair of shades and was leaning back in the driver’s seat soaking up some rays.  He looked happy
...too damn happy
.  Lucy stood there just staring at him. 
Sure,
he’s really feeling that financial crunch.

Finally she got into the passenger’s side seat, wanting nothing more than to slap him good.  All that feeling sorry for him—finding he had layers, like some rumpled puppy/onion cross breed—was gone.  She was going to hold her tongue, at least until Luvici drove her into San Bernardino, so she could pick up the car Dante Enoch had waiting for her, and of course the credit card.  She would try not to be too late to school.  But she absolutely wanted to break the card in. 

She was wondering what kind of car Dante would pick out for her.  Probably something practical; he seemed a very practical man.  But he was elegant too.  Whatever it was, it would be elegant.  That, at least, was a comfort.

Luvici hadn’t moved a muscle.  Was he asleep?  Lucy finally took a breath to tell him to wake up, but ended up saying what was really going through her head.  “I thought you said you were broke?”  She looked to him and saw a smile slide across his face. 
Jerk… 
“I don’t call having this as a second car being financially strapped.”

“What would you call it, then?”  Luvici was looking downright smug behind his sunglasses. 

“I’d call it a mid-life crisis.  Darla, Kenny…this shiny new penis shaped car.  Looks like someone’s feeling over the hill, trying to regain some of his lost youth.”  Luvici still had that irritating smile on his face.  “What would you call it?”

Luvici held out a set of keys in Lucy’s direction without actually looking at her.  “I’d call this penis shaped midlife crisis yours.”  He gave them a shake and the keys jingled merrily, sparkling new in the sunlight.

“Mine?”  Lucy felt tingly all over.  Suddenly she started looking around her at the sleek lines of the car, how the red paint blazed in the sun, at the soft as butter tan leather seats.

“All you have to do is drive me back to my office and you’re free to rack up all the speeding tickets you want.”

Lucy smiled.  “What makes you so sure I won’t just take off and leave you in the dust?”

“My unwavering belief in human decency.” Luvici said. 

Lucy snorted. 

“And I have your credit card in my wallet.  And you don’t get that until I’m safely deposited at my office.”

Lucy reached out and took the keys form Luvici.  “I was just kidding.  I’d never just ditch you.”

“Sure you wouldn’t.”  He didn’t sound as if he believed her.

Lucy got out of the car and headed over to the driver’s side.  Luvici awkwardly crab walked over the gear shift and plopped into the passenger seat.  Lucy was surprised the man could move like that.  She was sure from his belly that he hadn’t done exercise of any kind for over a decade.  Unless you counted boffing Darla and Kenny as exercise, then maybe he was fitter than he looked.

“Where’s the trust?”  Lucy slid in behind the wheel and turned the engine over with a wicked roar. 

“Just don’t kill us, okay Hart?”

Lucy smiled at him calling her “Hart.”  It was funny and made her almost like him. 
Almost.

~*~

A credit card through Enoch Industries, in her name, and a spanking new iphone came with the car.  And after Lucy left Luvici in a cloud of dust at the curb of his office building, she decided an impromptu ditch day to break in the credit card was in order.  Every boutique on the main drag of San Bernardino was calling her name.  She chose a store that was new—since she wasn’t really in the mood to run into one of her former girlfriends—and the shop really did look promising.  Gucci and Prada adorned the front windows.