He stares at me. I stare back, feeling dumber by the moment.
“Well,” he says eventually. “I’ll give you some time to settle in. Dinner will be at three, if it would please you to join me.”
He leaves me there before I have a chance to respond. I sigh, setting down my purse and flopping onto the too-big bed.
Just a year, I tell myself as I stare up at the glaringly white ceiling. But right now, it feels like an impossibly long stretch of time.
* * *
I doze on and off—I’m still adjusting to a vampire’s nocturnal schedule after a lifetime of being an early riser. But despite feeling like I’d rather hole myself up in my room until I can forget the embarrassment of our earlier conversation, I head out to join Claude in the dining room at three a.m., like he asked.
I pause in the doorway, struck by the sight of him sitting at the end of the long glass table. With a cluster of lit candles and the beautiful view of the sea through the window, it should be romantic, but there’s something sad about him sitting there at this big table alone.
“Is it just the two of us?” I ask, still standing in the doorway.
Claude glances up at me and frowns. “Who else would be here?”
I step into the room, shrugging. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d have staff, or…?”
“No,” he says. “It’s just me. Sorry to disappoint.”
I shake my head, tucking hair behind my ear as I take my place at the opposite end of the table, where my plate has been set. There’s a Mediterranean salad, crisp greens with bursts of ripe red tomato and crumbly feta, along with a rather generous pour of red wine. “Then who made the food?”
He blinks, as if surprised by the question. “I did.”
“You cancook?”
He blinks. “Well, it’s a salad tonight, so there wasn’t much cooking involved, but… yes.”
“You know what I mean,” I say. “You can’t taste food, so how can you prepare it?”
He quirks a brow. “Still perfectly capable of following a recipe, I assure you.”
I flush, feeling foolish. “I… guess I didn’t think of that.”
He stares at me, one corner of his mouth curling. “You’re surprised at my ability to perform basic tasks and maintain a clean house,” he says. “These assumptions are interesting.”
I stab a forkful of salad to save myself from speaking further, since I seem to only be able to blurt out the wrong things. It’s good—fresh and vibrant, with a pleasant sharpness from the vinaigrette. Claude is watching me across the table, so I smile after I swallow my first mouthful. “It’s good. Thank you.”
His eyebrows rise. “A compliment? How novel.”
I roll my eyes and take another bite. “I wasn’t aware compliments were part of my job description.” After a third bite—and the peculiar sensation of being watched as I eat—I frown at him. “You aren’t eating.”
He wets his lips, and a hint of fang catches the light. “I’ll eat after you do.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right.” I take a gulp of wine to hide my flush. I can’t help but remember the way he cradled me as he bit me at the ball, and the heat rushing to every part of my body. But surely I’ll get used to the sensation if I’m doing it every night. I have to. Right?
The room is quiet as I eat. The wholehouseis quiet, almost stiflingly so. I didn’t imagine that it would be just the two of us in this big house. And before I came, it was just him. Maybe itshould sound pleasant, after my lifetime of cramped spaces and nosy roommates, but instead it sounds… lonely.
I’m not the dramatic artsy type like he is, though. He probably loves brooding in solitude on the porch, looking out at the ocean. He probably prefers it this way. I wonder if I’ll start to get on his nerves, after a while.
When I finish eating, I dab at my lips with my napkin, set it aside, and then sit there, unsure what to do with myself. Claude is still watching me across the table, his expression impossible to read.
After a moment, he gestures with two fingers and says, “Come here.”
I raise my eyebrows pointedly.
His lips twitch faintly upward. “Please.”
