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He pulled back, and God help her, he was going to look at her. She didn’t have the strength to look back. She was such a coward when it came to this man.

But he wouldn’t let her off the hook.

Sensing his scrutiny, she finally relented.

So very, very green. So full of emotion.

She looked away.

The tune changed suddenly, the dance floor clearing as a faster song replaced the ballad that had just stripped her denials bare. How could the song be over already? They’d just started dancing a second ago . . .

His hands dropped.

She stood there alone. Bereft.

Her only consolation? Lawrence looked just as shaken as she felt, and that was saying something. He usually appeared so very much in control.

She’d done that. To him. To this man who’d lived for centuries.

“Excuse me,” she said, her hasty retreat from the dance floor as telling as the dance itself. But she didn’t care. She needed to put space between them.

Tyler accepted her, faults and all. And never pressed her to go to college or reminded her of her limited career opportunities. She owed him more than this.

It was time for her to leave.

* * *

Lawrence watched her go.

Toni’s scent remained on his suit, wafting up to him as clearly as if she still stood pressed against him. His heightened senses ensured it would continue to tantalize him until he changed out of his suit, something he was suddenly desperate to do.

He’d been at the reception for over an hour, plenty of time to glean the mayor’s goodwill—just as his substantial gift was sure to do. Time to leave. After giving Toni enough lead time to make herself scarce, he left The Lakehouse.

On the way back to Stone Haven, he regained some of the composure he’d lost on the dance floor. Still, when he reached his Victorian home, one of two mansions sitting atop a hill overlooking Main Street, he found he wasn’t ready to go inside the empty house.

Perhaps his neighbors would be amenable to a visit. He’d been mulling over something he’d like to discuss with Alessandra. Now that she lived next door, and he and Kenton had called a cease-fire, he did this sort of thing. Paid visits. Of course, the newly engaged couple was often indisposed, but surely the housekeeper would warn him if such was the case. Slamming the car door, he walked the well-worn path leading next door to the more Italianate-style home.

One of the town’s founding fathers had built both homes—one for himself and one for his daughter, Addy. Both residences were known as mansions, although he had seen too many true mansions to think of them as such. When he and Kenton had first come here and purchased the houses within days of each other, it had caused quite a stir. Especially since Kenton’s new home had been a popular bed-and-breakfast.

If only the residents knew the truth of how Kenton Morley and Lawrence Derrickson had acquired the funds to purchase the mansions. Nothing grew a fortune quite so much as time.

There were towns around the world where vampires coexisted with humans who knew of their existence. Not many, but a few. Places referred to as “open” towns, where the residents eventually learned of, and accepted, their kind. But such towns were rare.

Stone Haven was not one of those places.

“Good evening, Mr. Derrickson,” said the housekeeper, a rather pleasant older woman whom Kenton had kept on from the bed-and-breakfast.

“Good evening, Mary.”

He peered around her.

“They’re in the living room, sir.”

Sir. It was at least better than my lord or chief, the title he despised most of all. The one he’d never wanted. Funny how reminders of the past—of the man he’d been—still smarted.

“Thanks.”

Unlike his own house, the Henry Hutton Mansion looked more like a home than a museum. Some original pieces remained, as did the artwork of old, but tasteful modern touches gave it a warmth the Addy Hutton Mansion lacked.