AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh.”
He turned to me, his eyes sad. “I haven’t always lived as I do now, Cassie. In my younger days I ate as others of my kind did, and fucked anyone on two legs. Men, women, humans—everything.” He looked away. “There was a party in Paris during the Regency period where Miss Jameson and I—”
“I get it,” I said quickly, cutting him off. I put my hand on his. “I don’t need all the details.”
“Good. Because I’m not quite up to sharing them.” He closed his eyes. “I am not the person I was in the early nineteenth century, Cassie. I haven’t been that person in a very long time.”
I had so many questions I wanted to ask him about how he became the person he was today. But there were other things I wanted to know first. “How long have you been engaged to her?”
“It happened during my coma,” Frederick said dourly. “My mother never approved of the changes I made to my life when I decided to live among humans instead of viewing them as dinner. She thought that when I woke, marrying me off to someone with more traditional values would be a way to bring me back into the fold.”
“Traditional values?”
“Yes.” He gave me a humorless half smile. “Drinking human blood from the source, rather than acquiring it from blood banks. Or, if blood banks are necessary, leaving nothing behind after raiding them.” He paused, then looked away. “Murdering humans indiscriminately.”
I shivered at the thought of Frederick living that way. “But that isn’t who you are.”
“It’s not,” he said fervently. “Not anymore.”
“But itiswho Miss Jameson is,” I guessed. “And your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Reginald?”
Frederick paused, considering his words. “He’s... changing. I think I’ve had a moderating influence on him.”
I stood then, and made my way over to the window overlooking the lake. The enormity of what he was telling me was sinking in little by little. I needed space to think about what all of this meant—for Frederick, and for us.
“I don’t know what to say,” I murmured.
His solid presence was at my back a moment later, his strong arms going around me before I had a chance to protest. He rested his cheek against the top of my head. I breathed in his reassuring scent, wishing that everything that had just happened here with his mother had been nothing more than a nightmare.
“I’m not marrying her,” he murmured fervently into my hair. He kissed the top of my head so gently it broke my heart. It felt like a promise. “I was never going to marry her, not even before I met you. That’s the only reason I didn’t tell you. I thought I had the situation handled. It never crossed my mind that my mother or the Jamesons would take things this far.”
His assurances went a long way towards loosening the knot of pain that had settled in my chest. I sighed, turning in the circle of his arms until my head rested against his chest. His hold on me tightened.
“I made a serious miscalculation when I assumed they would drop this,” he continued. “I know now that they will not take no for an answer from afar.”
My mind caught on the wordsfrom afar. I pulled back a little so that I could look at him. “Are you planning to tell them in person?”
He blew out a breath. “The Jamesons are expecting me. My mother is here and will not leave without me. Yes, I believe I need to go to them directly. It’s the only way they will understand I am serious about staying here in Chicago and living my life the way I have chosen to live it.” He swallowed, and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “If I don’t, it’s only a matter of time until theyallshow up on my doorstep. And I will not allow that to happen. Not while you are living with me.”
I tried to ignore the way my stomach sank like a stone. I had a very bad feeling about this. “So you’re going to the Ritz-Carlton tomorrow night, then?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I hated how needy I sounded. But it had been a wild twenty-four hours. I’d had myself someglorioussex with one vampire and an unplanned altercation with another. I got rejected from one professional opportunity and landed an unexpected job interview with another.
I probably needed to cut myself some slack.
“Yes.” He brushed a lock of my hair that had fallen into my eyes behind my ear. His free hand came up to cradle my face. “All I intend to do is go to the hotel, tell the Jamesons I will not marry Esmeralda, tell my mother she can go to the devil for all I care, and then come right back.”
“Somehow I don’t think it will be that easy.” I’d only spent a few minutes in his mother’s presence, and had only known he was in the middle of a messy Regency-era betrothal situation for the past half hour. Even still, I saw at least five different ways this could end badly.
“I do,” Frederick said, with a confidence I absolutely did not feel. “I don’t remember Miss Jameson well, but it’s the twenty-first century, isn’t it? She can’t want to marry someone she barely knows any more than I do.”
He sounded so confident, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a terrible plan.
