Page 35 of The Devil and the Dancer
“Sounds good.” Her lips were swollen from his kiss, and she looked a bit rumpled.
Good.
Of course, the idiocy of calling his new lover to work in his vampire-friendly bar hit him only a few minutes after she walked behind the bar. Gavin wanted to kill every immortal who spoke to her.
Yer a bampot, Wallace.
At least Vivian wasn’t here. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, his sister could read him like no other immortal on earth. A consequence of their early years together, but annoying nonetheless. If he wanted to keep his relationship with Chloe private, he could not let Vivian and Chloe be in the same location.
Even those few moments at the Dancing Bear the other night had made Vivian more curious about “that pretty curly-haired server at your bar.” Gavin had distracted her, but Chloe had clearly caught Vivian’s attention.
Gavin settled into a corner booth for his meeting while Chloe tended the bar with Lettie, Mathias, and a new server who’d just started that night. All three wore a discreet red button on their lapels that told vampire customers they were available for feeding. There were private rooms in the back for that sort of thing, and Gavin kept all of them monitored with both video and audio surveillance. Some vampires bristled at the intrusion, but he made no secret that his servers were professionals and not pawns.
“Mr. Gardner.” He rose and greeted the human in the impeccable three-piece suit. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Can I get you a drink?”
The meeting held no surprises, which was a relief since Gavin was distracted. He couldn’t stop checking on Chloe. Who was she talking to? She’d taken a break; had she been gone longer than normal? She received a text on her phone that made her smile. Who was texting her?
Get ahold of yourself, Wallace.
It was a complication he hadn’t anticipated, and one that gave him pause. Was this normal when one become attached to a human? How was he supposed to moderate his instincts when everything felt so precarious between them?
You want a commitment from her.Gavin had resigned himself to being in love, but he had no idea if Chloe’s feelings ran as deeply as his own. The uncertainty was maddening.
He was checking his accounts later that evening when an unexpected visitor walked in the bar.
Giovanni Vecchio.
The notorious fire vampire caught Gavin’s eye immediately and nodded in greeting. Gavin waved him over before Giovanni could find another seat.
“Hello.” He rose to greet Giovanni. “I didn’t know you’d be coming in tonight.”
“Cormac,” Giovanni said. “I’m meeting him at one.”
“You’re early.”
“I am.” Giovanni sat in Gavin’s booth and folded his hands with an air of careful nonchalance. “I thought we might have something to discuss.”
Ah. Well, he knew he’d have to have the conversation eventually. Tenzin had warned him. Chloe, after all, was under Giovanni’s aegis, which made him her guardian in the vampire world. Lettie stopped by the table, and Gavin ordered two scotches from his private reserve.
“Both neat,” he said. “And a glass of cold water. Thank you, Lettie.” Gavin angled himself to face Giovanni, unwilling to appear supplicant. “You already knew we were involved.”
“I did.”
The two men had been allies in the past, but Gavin would hesitate to call Giovanni a friend.
“We’re more involved now,” Gavin said.
“I sensed that.” Giovanni didn’t say he’d smelled Gavin all over the loft, but he didn’t have to. His scent would have been in the secure room and all over Chloe.
“I’m not asking permission,” Gavin said. “Asking permission would be an insult to her and me. She’s a grown woman.”
“She’s a young woman.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “She’s not sheltered. And she knows her own mind.”
“I know both those things.” Giovanni unfolded his hands and folded them again.
Good Lord. Was the vampire… nervous? The fact that Giovanni might be as uncomfortable as Gavin was put him at ease.
