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For this conversation, she was going to need some caffeine.

* * *

Kenton wasn’t answering.

Was he miffed because she’d blown him off yesterday? Honestly, she had a hard time picturing that. He’d been alive for long enough that controlling his own feelings should be child’s play for him.

Lucky guy.

If she didn’t hear from Kenton until after lunch, Alessandra would take Garrett to his house. She thought it best for her brother to know the full truth, and in this case, experience would be a better teacher than words. Though she could tell him what it felt like to be around a vampire, he was more likely to understand if he felt it. Besides, she didn’t savor the idea of telling him about her relationship with Kenton. She had a good idea of what her brother would say about that.

They spent the morning talking about the mystery of their ancestry.

“I told Toni we’d meet her at noon,” she said after a while, urging Garrett along. He’d started loading the dishwasher. “I’ll do that later.”

Garrett couldn’t go anywhere with things out of place. A coffee mug on the counter, no way. Her brother would make some woman a lucky girl. Of course, she had to admit to a certain bias.

“I’m coming,” he said, slamming the dishwasher shut.

She called in their order ahead, but when they arrived, the hostess didn’t escort them to the usual table. Instead, she began leading them to the back of the restaurant.

“Allie, I have a really strange feeling,” Garrett whispered in her ear. “Like that time you forced me on the haunted hayride knowing I hate ghosts.”

Yeah, she had done that. And she knew exactly what he meant. The feeling had started tickling at her the moment they arrived.

“I think I know why,” she said, spotting Lawrence and his sister sitting in a booth, as if they had been expecting them. Toni was nowhere to be found even though it was at least ten after twelve.

That was unlike her.

“Will you join us?” Lawrence asked, standing.

She looked around the restaurant, about to decline, when he said, “Toni isn’t coming.”

She and Garrett exchanged a glance.

“What the hell—”

“I know them,” she said to her brother. “It’s fine.”

But really, it was not fine. Their presence was not coincidental. Lawrence was, if nothing else, deliberate. This really did not bode well.

She took a cue from Lawrence and sat, urging her brother to do the same.

“I told you about Lawrence Derrickson and his sister, Laria.”

But it seemed her brother had already noticed Laria. With her long, sandy hair and green eyes, she was hard to miss.

“This is my brother, Garrett,” she said.

Though they went through the motions of introductions and greetings, Alessandra could tell they were not needed.

They recognized her brother.

“So what’s going on here?” she asked Lawrence.

That was when she noticed no one was seated around them. The waitress was not even looking their way. It was as if someone had arranged for them to have a private lunch, and she had a feeling Kenton wasn’t the only one prone to tossing around wads of cash to get his way. Undoubtedly they’d managed to preserve a wealth matching his—after all, Lawrence had bought the only other large mansion in town.

“We were coming to see you when I ran into your friend Toni on our way here,” Laria said. “She told us of your lunch plans.”