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She shrugged. “I get caught up on stuff.” Like sleep. “My nights can be busy.”
“Yes, I would imagine they are.”
Cassidy eyed him over the rim of her glass and waited.
He cleared his throat. “So. I have some news. Two bits of news, actually. Well, three if you count the news I have for Dominique.” He patted the case.
She waited some more.
“I’m getting married.”
Three pieces of news, and that’s what he was leading with? Unsure she wanted to know the rest, Cassidy swallowed the last of her juice along with an impulse to express condolences for the bride-to-be. His expression hovered just a notch below pained.
“So your uncle finally broke down your resistance with his parade of ‘suitable brides’ to choose from?” None of which had captured Jackson’s interest in the past, as far as she knew.
“No.” Wry grin. “Actually, my mom set me up with this one. Ollie’s the daughter of a friend of hers.”
“Ollie?”
“Olivia. Henning-Toliver.”
“Oh. One oftheHenning-Tolivers?” This was a name with weight in local banking and financial circles. Socially then—unlike middle-class Midwest Cassidy—this Ollie was a good match for the heir to the Striker fortune.
“The youngest daughter, yes.”
“Okay. And you’re marrying this one because…?”
Jackson sat back. “Turns out we have a lot in common. She’s got an MBA and a future at her father’s firm, and neither one of us wanted to be forced into a marriage.” He laughed a little. “After we got done bitching about the manipulation, we actually had a lot of fun on our first date. She’s got spirit.” He sobered and dropped his gaze into his glass. “And she’s pregnant.”
Cassidy watched him toss back the juice as though wishing it was something stronger and wondered if she had heard correctly. More than that, she wondered what that peculiar niggle was doing at the bottom of her heart. Children had never been a priority for her, nor were they even possible for her and Dominique. Full stop. The end.
“I see.” She leaned on her forearms, studying him. “You must really have it bad for her if you forgot how to use condoms.”
He still didn’t look at her, but he nodded, and his face pulled into adon’t-I-know-itgrimace. “She’s okay, considering—” He caught himself before adding the “she isn’t you” Cassidy heard anyway.
“We may have vodka around here somewhere,” she murmured and turned away to cover her own discomfort.
“No. Thank you, but no. I need a clear head when I talk to Dominique. Juice is fine.”
“Okay.” She refilled his glass. Her own head was a muddle. He was moving on with his life despite still loving her. While she felt a grudging respect and a hard-earned but cool friendship for her former fiancé now, she had loved him once—back before she knew he would walk over bodies in the name of revenge.
An awkward silence settled beside the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Outside, the daylight had dimmed. Night would fall like a dropped shroud within minutes. She wanted to count the seconds. Instead, she said, “Don’t you usually talk to Dominique on video?”
Again, he placed his hand on the case. “This is something he and I need to discuss in person.”
“What is it?”
The discomfort evaporated in a broad smile. “A gift.”
She arched a brow, relaxing as well. “Now what sort of gift would a vampire hunter give the lord of the vampires?”
“Enforcer,” he corrected.Daytimeenforcer, to be exact. He and his uncle Garrett both were enforcers. Not everyone agreed with the Lord of Night’s new directives, especially the younger ones and those in far-flung places who imagined themselves immune from his influence. With Dominique’s blessing, the Striker Foundation, once dedicated to exterminating all vampires, now used its considerable resources to locate and bring under control—or destroy—these rebels. The arrangement freed him to concentrate on bigger goals and gave the hunters an outlet for their well-honed skills.
“Which brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about,” he continued.
“Oh?”
“I need to figure out how to tell Ollie what I’m really doing when I go on all those ‘business trips.’”
