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Because clearly, this whole door situation had nothing to do with his vampire strength. I just needed to pull harder.
“But you’re doing that right now, aren’t you?” he said, leering down at me.
“I don’t normally.”
“I’m the first vampire client you’ve met?” he asked, eyeing me carefully.
“You’re the first vampire I’ve seen in months,” I lied, smiling pleasantly. “I tend to keep daytime hours. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve finished here. It’s time for me to leave.”
He ignored me, moving closer and closer with every passing second. The doorknob pressed into my back as I strained away as far as possible. “You smell just mouthwatering. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
A frisson of fear bubbled up in my throat. As a matter of fact, someone had told me that, at Cal’s house, just before he sank his fangs into my neck.
I cleared my throat, breathing carefully out of my nose. “No, actually, no one has ever told me that.”
“Do you have any plans later?” he asked.
Yes, I planned to introduce him to the joys of a colloidal silver facial in about four seconds. Four seconds counted as later, right?
“I’m leaving. Now.”
He chuckled. “You think so?”
Dodd slithered into the space between me and the door. He smirked down at me, his face alarmingly close to mine. His lips parted, and he leaned down, either to kiss me or to sink his teeth into me.
Stepping to the side, I jerked the door open and let the weak morning sunlight flood the little entryway. Stumbling back into the shaded living room, he seemed amused by my antics. His lips curled back in a leer as he dragged his gaze up and down my form. “Oh, you are an interesting little thing, aren’t you? I’ll be in … touch, soon.”
Just before slamming the door, I shot back, “Consider our contract canceled.”
I ran to my car, hands shaking as I tried to stick the key into the ignition. I leaned my head against the steering wheel and took a few deep breaths. What was wrong with me? Why hadn’t I just shot that moron in the face with silver spray and run out of there? Was I so afraid of losing business that I was willing to put myself in danger to keep some psycho happy? It was time to reevaluate my business model.
What exactly was the protocol here? Should I call Ophelia to complain about Dodd’s inappropriate behavior? Should I mention that based on the “mouthwatering” comments, it was possible that Dodd had attacked me at Cal’s house? Then again, how exactly would I do that without explaining what I was doing at Cal’s house after the Council closed it up?
I missed my old life. I remembered fondly when my biggest worries were Gigi getting a bad grade on her Spanish midterm or the looming demise of our water heater. I’d carefully constructed a quiet little life for myself, and it had taken just a few minutes in Cal’s kitchen for it to derail. Now I was wrestling vampires in blandly decorated foyers and having angry sex against walls with an ancient Greek boarder.
To whom I was not currently speaking.
Damn it.
—
I didn’t tell Cal about my run-in with Mr. Dodd. First, because I would have to seek him out in the basement to tell him, and I wasn’t ready for that. And second, because I wasn’t sure whether Mr. Dodd was the vampire who attacked me at Cal’s house or just a horny vampire with a poor choice in colloquialisms. But I did call Ophelia at sunset and explain that her subordinate’s contract was canceled and why. The cold, steely tone of her voice when she assured me that “the matter would be addressed immediately” made me want to crawl under my bed in the fetal position with a blankie and actually made me feel a little sorry for Mr. Dodd.
That didn’t last long.
After I worked the Dodd-related adrenaline out of my system, I could almost forget about everything that had happened in the previous week. Except at night—after I’d gone to bed ridiculously early—when Cal moved quietly around the dark house. I could hear him warming up blood in the kitchen, typing on his laptop. After a few hours of work, he seemed to fall into a pattern of moving between the front and back windows, prowling. I wanted to go downstairs and talk to him, to demand an explanation for his jackassery. But it was so much easier to stay curled in my bed with chamomile tea, pretending that he wasn’t there, pretending that I wasn’t watching the door to my room for any sign of him outside.
And as if I needed more testosterone-based drama in my life, Paul started calling again. Those calls were the few I was comfortable sending straight to voicemail, but some sick part of me couldn’t help but listen to them. He just wanted to make sure I was OK, he said. He missed me. He missed us. He wanted to go out to dinner so we could talk. His voice grew more strained with each message.
So I took on a new mission: evasion. If I could avoid Paul and Cal for the next few days, I could collect a handsome fee, put some distance between my family and financial disaster, and perhaps regain a little self-respect. OK, maybe just collect the handsome fee.
My luck ran out on Friday night. According to her Facebook page, Gigi was planning to leave for some vaguely described “party” after she got home from school. To avert disaster, I came home early, while she was still getting ready. I found that the element of surprise was an essential part of parenting.
I walked into the bathroom, following the roaring of Gigi’s high-powered blow-dryer. My sister executed a perfect little hair flip, popping up from her awkward bend with shiny, smoothed locks. She grinned at me, shutting the dryer off long enough to spray herself with a coat of hair shellac.
“What’s the plan for tonight?” I asked.
She watched me in the mirror as she coated her lips with shiny raspberry gloss. “I’m just going to hang out with Kristen.”
