Min's Vampire (44 page)

“
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 exasperated
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
your 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
motives are none of your 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. Something sinister or simply a trick of hormones, 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 discuss.”

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 to watch 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 McDonald’s, 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?”

Chapter 7

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 such a
feeling had washed through him. It was like he’d suddenly woken up,
snapped to 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 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 tabletop 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.