He grinned back at her, more relieved than she could possibly know that they’d achieved, if not friendship, then at least a détente. “And now?” he asked, knowing he was pushing her, but unwilling to let it go.
“And now I’m here, and we’re working together. I’d be stupid to sit around sulking instead of doing my job.”
So. She wasn’t yet ready to accept what was between them. He could wait.
He nodded once and said, “Bring whichever colleagues you think are necessary or useful while we figure this out. Did your father tell you how to invoice the Fortalesa for the services or supplies you need?”
“He left notes. I’m sure I can figure it out, but if not, one of the guys I’m bringing in is a mathematical genius. How difficult can it be?”
“Not at all. Or so I’m told. I don’t do accounts payable.”
She chuckled. “Was that a joke, Lord Xavier? Did you hurt anything?”
“Very funny,” he said dryly. “There’s much you don’t know about me.”
She gathered her papers and stood. “I’m sure that’s true.” But then she looked at him in chagrin. “I’m sorry. I’m getting ready to leave here, and I didn’t even ask if there was something else you wanted to address.”
“No, that was everything. When will your people arrive?”
“Tomorrow probably, the next day at the latest. I’m not asking for the whole team, just a few specialists who really aren’t necessary at the damn vineyard.”
“If you all dislike the assignment in France, why are you still there?”
“We signed a contract for eighteen months, covering two harvests. That’s the big party time in the world of vineyards, apparently. Especially the ones that are nothing but vanity properties for billionaires. It pays well, and Wilkerson isn’t a bad guy. When I took the contract, we’d just come off a brutal assignment. Every one of us was injured and exhausted, a couple of the guys pretty seriously. A peaceful cruise of a job sounded pretty good, so we took it.” She sighed. “You know what they say, right? Be careful what you wish for? Yeah, well, turns out we’re a bunch of adrenaline junkies who, after three months of sitting around the vineyard, started getting stir crazy. It’s been over a year now, and we’ve begun inventing dangerous things to do.”
“And now you’re here, where people are shooting at you.”
She made a dismissive noise. “This barely qualifies as being shot at, believe me. You don’t know some of the places we’ve all been.”
Actually he did, but he didn’t tell her that.
She picked up her whiskey and drained the glass. “Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
He nodded. “Same.”
She gave a little salute and said, “See you then.”
XAVIER LISTENED to her footsteps moving down the hall, heard the heavy door open as she took the stairs up to the shaded courtyard outside the Fortalesa’s vampire wing. She was only able to come and go freely because he’d inputted her likeness into the biometric database controlling the various locks. It gave her access to most of the vampire wing, but not all. There were vaults on the floor beneath this one. A second basement level where he and his vampires slept during the day. Very few humans ever gained access to that floor, much less to the vaults themselves. And no one did so without his personal approval.
Layla would eventually be one of those people, although she didn’t know it yet. She probably didn’t even know, didn’t understand, that she very likely would become important to him, that she’d be given extraordinary access. That someday she might even hold the very lives of his vampires in her hands. She would hold his life, too. And he had never sufficiently trusted anyone, vampire or human, to put his life in their hands.
But he would do it for Layla. Because he’d finally figured out what the pull was that he felt toward her. The same kind of pull that he’d bet millions she also felt toward him. Because Layla was the one woman whom he could truly love, the woman who was destined to be his mate. He hadn’t believed in destiny when he’d been human. The church taught free will and he’d believed, helped by the fact that he’d come from two loving parents and enough wealth to determine his own future.
Now, centuries later, fate seemed determined to prove its power. He and Layla were both either totally fucked, or incredibly lucky. From the vantage point of his much greater lifespan, as well as the fact that he’d figured out what was between them a long time ago, he knew he had no choice. He loved Layla as much as he always had, but those feelings had matured over the years. She’d become a woman and gained experience of life and death. Layla was the love of his life, his mate.
But only if she made the same choice. And he had no fucking clue whether she would or not.
LAYLA WAS GLAD for the moonless night when she opened the outside door and stepped into the courtyard. She’d managed to make it up the stairs and out of the building without crying, but as if opening the damn door had flicked a switch, a silent flood of tears began flowing over her cheeks to drip off her jaw. She didn’t want anyone to see, didn’t want anyone to ask her what was wrong.
What could she tell them? That she was fool enough to fall in love with a vampire? Hell, there wasn’t any falling involved. She’d fallen a long time ago, but had worked so hard convincing herself that she hated him that she’d begun to believe it.
But not any longer. One look at him and she’d known it had been a mistake to come back. It hurt to sit across the table from him without touching, to talk about inventory and weapons, and training and all the other bullshit that was so important, but wasn’t what she wanted to say. Wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, with no knowledge of what it meant to have sex. That it could be so much more than an athletic exercise. That your soul was laid bare and the only barrier you had was the absence of any deeper emotion. Love. She’d never loved any of the men she’d dated, had sex with. Hell, some of them had been more sex than dating. They simply hadn’t mattered to her, any more than she’d mattered to them. And she’d been fine with that.
But she had no barriers with Xavier. He was so circumspect with her, so damn careful to maintain his distance, to limit their exchanges to professional concerns. That smooth whiskey voice of his that could be so warm and inviting with others, remained cool and distant with her. Just the sound of it was like a knife in her chest.
She wanted to think it had been a mistake to come back, after all. That she could have found someone else to step in until her father returned, excusing her reluctance by insisting she wanted to be in Barcelona with her father and mother. Hell, Brian would have done it, and with a lot less drama on both sides. Would Xavier have approved Brian, she wondered? Or was there a perverse part of him that had wanted her to be the one to come, so he could prove, without a doubt, that there could never be anything between them, that he’d done the honorable thing, the moral thing by turning her away all those years ago.