My stomach churned. I placed the wine glass on the coffee table.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, scowling.
“Those girls,” I whispered.
“What girls?” He sat back, confused.
I felt tears surge to my eyes. “The ones you take home?”
“What about them?”
I couldn’t stay here if he did that. I couldn’t. My emotions felt like a Yo-Yo. I launched to my feet and moved over the fireplace. I turned back to look at him, I needed to see his face when he answered. He was standing up, looking pale as the moon. Guilt I thought, he knows what I’m going to ask. Lunch moved into my throat.
“Just ask then?” he snapped, furious. The audacity of him.
I gritted my teeth together. “Do you mind control girls into sleeping with you?”
He reeled back. “No. Christ, Amy, I’m not a rapist. I can’t believe you’d even need to ask me that!”
“I don’t know what to think,” I raised my voice. “That girl, she just followed behind you like she was on a lead.” I threw out an arm. Not a lead, a trance of some kind.
“Fuck,” he grated, “I can’t believe you could think that.”
I wanted to believe him, I did, but surely he would say no. He stepped in front of me.
“I have done many things. Things you would find appalling, but I am not a rapist.”
There was pain in his eyes. He turned away and moved over to the couch, staring at the fireplace.
The anger leaked out of me and in its place, was guilt. I swallowed and stood silent, struggling to find the words to apologise.
He drowned the last of his drink and poured another. He refused to look at me. I couldn’t blame him for that, I had just accused him of being a rapist. God, what was wrong with me.
“Sorry, I just . . . I didn’t know, I just . . . had to ask,” I said, weakly.
He threw me a disgruntled look. “No. You didn’t. You should have known.”
“I just found out my housemate is a vampire,” I attempted to defend myself, badly. “Who can read and control minds. I don’t know how . . .” I stopped. I was about to say how many people he had killed, let alone anything else. If I said that, he might answer, and I wasn’t strong enough to hear it, not yet. I moved over to the chair and sat down, I fiddled with the hem of my skirt. I could feel his gaze considering me. I looked up, the anger had dispersed on his face, but not by much. “How do you do it then, surely there aren’t that many girls with such bad taste?” I chided, attempting to ease the mood.
He blew out a breath and visibly relaxed. “I happen to be excessively good looking. I only have to pay them a bit ofattention, and girls can’t resist me. Or I read their minds and I know which ones are going to say yes. Which is all of them.”
Such conceited arrogance. Not rape, his looks, charm and that magnetic appeal. An appeal even I wasn’t immune to. “Not quite, some of us say no.”
“Yes, I still can’t figure out how your taste can be so deplorable. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
I smiled, feeling a warm flood of relief. “I think I’ll manage.”
Mischief found a place in his eyes and they shimmered. “You realize this is the part where we should kiss and make up.”
Before I could respond three fast taps sounded against the door. I knew who it would be; I hadn’t even been home an hour. I entertained the thought, even though she had some magical powers, she might be a stalker. She was always on her own at the bar, seemed to be there watching me more than anything. She took zero notice of any man who approached her, of which there were many. Was she gay—was I some kind of weird fascination? She did her best to steer me away from Karson. It seemed unlikely, there were many girls much more attractive than me she could target. But stalkers didn’t necessarily always go for the prettiest or the smartest, they targeted someone they thought would fill some emotional void. And she had followed me across the country.
Ethan sat his empty glass on the coffee table and rose leisurely.
I was tired after the long trip and in no mood for her crazy talk. “It’s probably Dahlia. Tell her I’m not back yet,” I whispered.
Ethan went to the door. “She’s not here.”
“Bullshit,” Dahlia said, “I can feel her vibrations.”
