Page 36 of Vanessa’s Bravery

Beneath the table, she placed her hand on his thigh, then slid it up to his groin.

Cole almost choked.

“Not just nice,” Vanessa whispered, leaning in. “Sexy, hot, passionate. A selfless lover. What woman wouldn’t want that?”

He put his hand over hers, stopping her from moving it even farther up. “Okay, so now that we’ve established why you slept with me, would you please tell me who the guy in the red Lamborghini was?”

Surprised, Vanessa pulled back and looked straight at him. “You followed me?”

He quickly shook his head. “No. I was on my way to a business meeting, when I noticed the car. And it’s such an unusual one to find in San Francisco that I stopped for a moment to admire it, when you got out of it and went into that Victorian on Pacific Avenue. Last night, I thought he was a client of yours, but since you don’t work for Vera... Is he your boyfriend?”

Relieved that Cole hadn’t been stalking her, she smiled at him. “He’s my brother. He dropped me off because my car broke down.”

Cole let out a breath. “Thank God. But who was the woman he drove off with?”

“Scarlet, my sister-in-law. She’s the mother of the twins.”

“So that was her husband? Pretty young.”

“Actually, she’s married to my oldest brother.”

“And you had to babysit for them?”

“Yes, the twins are a handful. They can’t just get a regular sitter. It has to be a family member or a good friend. Nobody else will put up with them.”

Because a regular babysitter would find out pretty quickly that the twins weren’t human. They flashed their fangs at the most inappropriate times, and when they were naked, everybody would see the growth on their groin.

Cole nodded. “Okay, now that that’s cleared, there’s still one thing that I don’t understand: what were you doing in a brothel?”

As he asked his question, the waitress came with their meal, and placed the plates in front of them. Vanessa caught her shocked gaze, before she pivoted and hurried away.

“I work with the City of San Francisco to look after streetwalkers, the homeless, and the drug addicts. Occasionally, I bring prostitutes to Vera’s to shelter them if they get in trouble with a john or a pimp. That’s what I was doing there that night.”

“Fuck me,” he said on a breath. “I had it all totally wrong. Will you forgive me?”

“Forgive you for what?” She shook her head. “I was the one who let you believe that I worked there. I lied to you.”

Cole took her hand into his. “I don’t care. Though it does bring up something else. Now that I can’t hire you to sleep with me, how am I gonna get you to be with me?”

She hadn’t expected him to be so easygoing. This had gone better than she’d expected. She wished telling him that she was a vampire would go just as well, but she doubted it. However, that was a matter for another day.

“In your bed?” she murmured, lifting her hand to his face to run a finger along his jaw.

“More than that. I’d like the whole girlfriend experience…”

She brushed her cheek against his, the contact making her aware of just how hot her own skin was. “How about you get the check, and we get out of here and go to your place, before we totally traumatize the poor waitress?”

“I like the way you think.” He turned his head and caught the waitress’s attention. When she came to the table, he addressed her, “Can we get this food to go? And the check, please? Thank you.”

As the waitress hurried away with a relieved look on her face, Cole turned his face back to Vanessa. “You know that we’ll never be able to eat here again, right?”

Vanessa chuckled. “I think that’s a fair assessment.”

He dipped his face to hers and kissed her lips tenderly, while he slid his hand to her nape, making her entire body tingle with arousal.

18

While walking back to his condo, Cole held Vanessa’s hand and realized that she felt hot despite the cool outside temperatures. Was this an indication that she was a satyr too like Gabriel had suggested? A thousand scenarios of how to reveal to her what he was whirled around his mind. What would be less traumatizing? Show or tell? Fuck, this wasn’t easy. He should have asked Gabriel how his current wife had found out what he was, since clearly, she’d accepted him.