Page 29 of Cinderella and Her Vampires (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 5)

CINDY

A few hours later, I was back at the bar. Things had been steady for most of the shift and was just starting to pick up when someone strangely familiar took a seat at my bar. As I busied myself, I tried to figure out where I knew the guy from. I met his eyes when I glanced toward him. They flashed gold.

There was only one person I was aware of that had eyes like that.

I instantly was angry and ignored him. He pissed me off. He thought he could pull the wool over my eyes. Him and his two buddies. Besides, what was the point of a one-night stand if he was going to play… whatever it was he thought he was doing? Didn’t he realize one night meant literally never having to see each other again once the night was over?

Never mind I was planning to break into his home again after my shift was done. But he didn’t need to know anything about that, and him sitting at my bar in a loose disguise was not anywhere close to what I had planned.

He wasn’t obvious about it, though. He looked different, sat differently, carried himself differently, but I had little doubts it wasn’t him. Of course, if it wasn’t because he flashed his eyes at me, I probably would have still been guessing. Probably not for too much longer, because every nerve ending in my body sparked with fire, pulling me toward him.

Though I couldn’t understand how he chose his appearance. It was the polar opposite of his true self. Yet, he had somehow managed to make himself appear plainer in comparison to his gorgeous features from before. Almost like he had found a way to snuff out the light underneath his skin and behind his eyes.

I shook the thoughts from my mind and continued keeping myself busy. His being in my bar, much less sitting so close to where all the action happened, was going to be a distraction I couldn’t afford. But maybe when things died down, he could at least give me a couple of answers.

I was still breaking into his house after my shift regardless.

I passed off an order of drinks and turned my attention toward the vampire again. He smirked.

Silas, the asshole.

He was fully aware of exactly what he was doing to me, and he was enjoying every second of it.

Two could play the same game. I decided to make a point of glaring at him every chance I could. And if he thought his appearance into the bar was going to distract me from my goal, he had another thing coming. If he thought I was going to fall for his scheme so easily, he had another thing coming. If he so much as got it in his head that he was winning? Well, he was in for a rude awakening.

I walked past him to address the customer who had taken a seat on the other side of him.

“Hello, Cindy,” he said as I walked by.

I stopped and glared at him. If he thought he was being cute, I had news for him. But seeing as how he wasn’t in my bar as Silas, I decided to pretend I didn’t know him at all. “Funny. I don’t remember meeting you before. Who are you?”

“You know very well who I am,” he said and smiled. “But I will play your game.”

“Not playing a game,” I said simply. “How did you get my name, stranger?”

I emphasized “stranger.”

He smiled. “I am aware of a lot about you that you didn’t need to say to me.”

“People call that stalking and that’s illegal,” I said and moved on to the customer.

There was something in the way he said those words that told me he was telling the truth though, and I was slightly curious about that. What he thought he knew about me was irrelevant, though. I sighed and shrugged off the disruption in my flow.

Once again, ignoring Silas.

Actively.

It wasn’t much longer when the bar got beyond busy. It was a rare occasion when the bar was of a rush so heavy, I had a hard time keeping up. Those were the times when I was truly able to shine. I thrived on the chaos. Shouts of drink orders, the door opening and closing, the patrons shouting at various levels of their drunkenness.

I smiled to myself.

Challenges like how crazy business was getting were what I lived for.

But despite how busy Nightingales had gotten, I managed to notice another patron pestering Silas. It was never a good thing to get onto the bad side of a vampire… at least, one would think. And it was even worse for that to happen in my establishment. Because I valued my business and the state of its current furnishings, I moved closer to get a better idea of what was going on.

“Hey, buddy,” the guy said. “I asked you to move and let me sit at the bar.”

Then I realized one terrible mistake. People didn’t sit at the bar if they didn’t have something to drink. It was an unspoken rule, a form of proper etiquette. It was something everyone expected. This whole time I was too consumed with being a jerk to Silas, I didn’t think to place so much as a cup in front of him.

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