Dante felt as if someone kicked him in the chest when Cassidy’s beautiful face broke into a grin that lit the shop more than the overhead lights. His body’s visceral reaction to her made him feel like a horny teen all over again.
He grasped his coffee cup and pulled it closer as if that would somehow calm him; it didn’t. It had been years since he drank coffee, but he didn’t want to stand out when he entered the place, so he ordered a cup.
Now, he was glad he had it as he took a sip of the bitter liquid and tried not to eye fuck her while she glided through the crowd. He didn’t think she had any idea of her effect over him, and every other man, as she didn’t acknowledge the heads turning as she walked by.
Up until she entered the place, it was a bad day. Paris canceled on him and rescheduled for tomorrow, but without her lead to follow, he didn’t have much to work on all day. Which meant he spent a good portion of his day fantasizing about the woman coming toward him.
As she neared, Dante got himself under control enough to rise and pull out the chair across from him. When he glared at the men still watching her, they ducked their heads and turned away.
“Thank you,” Cassidy said as she settled on the chair.
He almost closed his eyes and inhaled deeply when her sweet scent drifted up to him. Instead, he stepped away from her. “You’re welcome.”
He settled in the chair across from her and, reclaiming his coffee cup, grasped it in both hands as he held it before him.
“You still like coffee?” she asked.
“I haven’t had it in years,” he admitted. “I was trying to blend in.”
Cassidy refrained from telling him that he would stand out wherever he went. There weren’t many men as handsome as him. He could easily grace the cover of any magazine, but seeking that kind of attention as a vampire was a horrible idea.
That was why she would never live her dream of standing in front of a sold-out stadium and entertaining thousands. The idea of seeing Dante again caused her palms to sweat when she entered, but the idea of standing in front of all those people calmed her.
But then, music had always been her escape from reality. When she was little and her mom sang to her, she would close her eyes and let the words envelop her in a cocoon of love. As she got older, music and singing became the one thing all her own—the one thing her siblings couldn’t do or try to take from her.
When she was still too little to have found her voice, she was drawn to the living room while her uncle Doug played the piano. Dragging her ratty yellow blanket behind her, she’d wander into the room and stand beside the bench where he sat. Often, he’d break off in the middle of a song, pick her up, and set her beside him. Sitting there, she’d watch in fascination as his fingers flew across the keys, creating the most beautiful sounds.
As she grew, he stopped having to lift her onto the bench, but she would still crawl up to sit beside him. When she was still too young to know the words, she hummed the tune of whatever he played until, one day, she found her voice. And for years, he accompanied every song she sang.
Until the day he died. It had been almost six years since Doug’s death, but she still felt the sharp knife of it twisting in her heart. Every time someone else played the piano for her, she recalled his loss and missed his smile.
He’d taken her innate love of music and nurtured it into a passion. She wouldn’t be this good of a singer or love it as much as she did if Doug hadn’t been there to guide her for so many years.
After his death, she stopped singing for a time. He was her teacher, her accompaniment, and her rock. He was her friend as well as her adopted uncle, and though she loved all the Stooges, she was closest to Doug. He was the one she relied on the most, the one she spent the most time with, and the one who refused to let her be mediocre.
She didn’t know how to be a great singer with a broken heart. But not singing broke her heart almost as much as Doug’s death. It took her nearly a year to realize that giving up singing was the last thing Doug would want her to do.
He’d be heartbroken if he learned she’d given up her passion because of him. If there was an afterlife, then he was watching her, and she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint him. It took a couple of years for her to stop feeling like she was betraying Doug every time she stood beside a piano someone else played.
When Dante set his coffee down on the table, he drew Cassidy from her melancholy reverie. “Are you ready to track down some vampires?” she asked.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come with me.”
Now that he was seeing her again, Dante didn’t want to part from her, but he had a feeling they might end up in some shitty places, and he couldn’t get her involved in that.
“Do you think I’ll get in the way of your investigation?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go into these places,” he said. “I have no idea what I could be walking into.”
Cassidy almost rolled her eyes. “I’ve got enough overprotective men in my life. I’m not a fragile little girl; I can handle myself. Besides, if Kyle can go into these clubs, then so can I.”
“There’s a big difference between you and Kyle.”
Cassidy didn’t speak as she waited for him to continue.
When the silence stretched on, Dante realized she would have made an excellent detective. Many suspects would have squirmed beneath her unrelenting stare.
“And what is that?” Cassidy finally asked.
