Page 45 of House of Royals

“You sure know how to win a lady over, Ian Ward,” I say as I open the pantry.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

I dig through the bins and shelves. The pantry in this house is bigger than my bedroom back in Colorado. “I’m hungry, and do you know how long it’s been since I baked anything?”

“Right,” Ian says, taking the flour and sugar canisters I hand him. “You’re Martha Stewart.”

I snort at that. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

“Deal. I’d never want to do the things I want to do to you with Martha Stewart.”

“You’re bad,” I chuckle as I cross to the kitchen and grab eggs from the gigantic fridge. Seriously, why do we need so much food and so much room when it’s just me and Rath they’re feeding? “Are you this forward with all the women you come in contact with?”

“Not exactly,” Ian says as he sets the ingredients on the gigantic granite bar. “I haven’t been on a ‘date,’” he air quotes, “in about two years.”

“Too busy slaying vamps?” I tease him as I start digging around for a mixing bowl. I find one and a stash of measuring cups.

“Something like that,” he says as his eyes follow me around the kitchen.

I give him a little side smile. I double-check all my ingredients, sure I’ve got everything.

“There’s just one thing missing,” I realize. “Hang on a sec.”

Except, in this giant house, running to my bedroom doesn’t take just a second. I have to run through the dining room, loop around through the foyer, up the staircase, down the hall of the north wing, and finally burst into my bedroom. I snatch it off of my dresser and dart back down the stairs and skid around back into the kitchen. I have to tuck my towel back in to keep it from falling.

“How old is that thing?” Ian asks with a laugh.

I plug my old school iPod into my portable speakers on the counter. “I’ve had it since I was a sophomore in high school, probably,” I say as I click it on and scroll through playlists. I click on the one that says “RISE THE ROOF.” An old rock song starts blaring through the speakers. “I brought it with me to work every day back home. I’d put my headphones on and just…”

“Get in the zone,” Ian says in a half teasing tone.

“I guess,” I chuckle as I start measuring out my dry ingredients and mixing them in a bowl. “I think it started ‘cause my mom always listened to music when she was cooking in the kitchen.”

“You don’t talk about her much,” Ian says. He slides the sugar toward me when I point for it. “How’d she die?”

That familiar feeling of sadness sinks in my stomach as I remember the police call. “She was walking home from work one night. Her car was having problems and she really wasn’t that far from the diner where she worked. The girl was on her phone texting, the cops said. She didn’t even see mom crossing the road—or the red light.”

“I’m sorry,” Ian says. His voice is quiet and low and I can tell he means it. “That’s pretty horrible.”

I nod and crack an egg. “It was. I mean, I was nineteen. I was living on my own, so I’m sure if I’d still been at home, it would have been a whole lot worse. But still.”

“Of course,” he says. And I realize that Ian is one of the only people who can know what it felt like. Our parents died in different ways, but they’re both dead.

“I guess we’re both orphans, huh?” I say, trying to make a small smile.

Ian shrugs. “I do have Lula. What about your grandparents?”

I shake my head and tip in the vanilla. “They were pretty old when they had my mom. Grandpa died when I was like six, and Grandma died only a year later. I don’t really even remember them all that much. They lived in Levan, that’s where my mom grew up.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ian says. I pass the bowl to him and the whisk. He sets to mixing all the liquids together.

I nod as I pull out a baking sheet and the parchment paper. “Yep, my mom grew up there. She got a summer job here in Silent Bend after she graduated high school. She was only here for three months, but I guess that’s when she met Henry.”

It’s depressing, thinking that there was no love between them, no deep meaning, just one night—and they made me.

“I’m sorry you never got to meet him,” Ian says as he passes the bowl back to me. “I hate vampires, but he’s the only one that I ever respected. Didn’t know much of anything about him, but sometimes you can just tell when someone wants to be a good person. Henry never wanted to hurt anyone. He just wanted to be left alone.”

I nod. Maybe that’s what my mom felt when she was around him, that he wanted to be a good person. Maybe that’s why she spent a night with him and later left, not knowing what she carried.

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