A Vampire for Christmas(15)
So what happened then?”
During the party, she walked into one of Sebastian’s little sexcapades.”
Jackson whistled. “I’m assuming she saw more than a little horizontal action?”
Yep. Apparently, she saw him in all his glory. Fangs, blood, sex. All of it.”
Jackson’s brow furrowed. “You wiped her memory of just what she’d witnessed, though, right?”
No.” He grabbed his suit jacket, which had been hanging over the back of a chair, and pulled out his folded scorpion knife. Opening and closing the dual blades a few times, he nodded, satisfied, at the clicking sound it made. “I wiped her memory of the whole time we were together.”
Jackson spread his hands, palms up. “Dude, why?”
Trace shrugged. He recalled the deathbed promise he’d made to his father about duty and honor and family. “I realized things had to change.”
Sure, he could’ve wiped her memory of the incident and continued on as normal. In fact, he’d automatically touched a hand to her forehead to begin the simple process of sifting through her memories. But as he looked into her eyes, he’d realized how unfair and selfish he was being. He had lied to her and would need to continue to lie in order to maintain their relationship. For his sake, and his sake only. In the end, he’d respected her too much to do that, so he’d done what he thought was best, even though it was one of the hardest decisions he’d ever made.
It was best to just clear her memory of the whole thing.”
That’s intense. Was it hard? I mean, you guys seemed pretty close.”
What was it with the goddamn questions? “Yeah, and what does a guy like you mean by that? You get close to every woman you meet. It can’t be that difficult to break things off with them. Why are you flipping me crap?”
Whoa. You need to chill out.” If Jackson’s eyes were daggers, Trace would have been sliced in two. “My definition of close is obviously very different from yours.” The guy patted his pockets, searching for something. Not finding it, he walked over to the other set of bunk beds and spent a good minute smoothing a hand over the pillow.
When he spoke again, his voice was uncharacteristically quiet. “I’m talking close. You know, talking and shit, really getting to know each other? Not just rolling around in the sack. Hell, that needs no communicating. When you play poke in the dark as much as I do, it’s obvious what fits where.”
He flicked the red-streaked hair out of his face with an angry toss of his head and turned back to Trace. “In case you didn’t realize it, my friend, there’s a very big difference.”
His friend’s words hit Trace like a punch to the kidneys. He’d had that kind of relationship with Charlotte, but he’d thrown it away.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ESTATE IS DIFFICULT to find,” Trace had said on the phone. “I’ll send my driver to pick you up.”
Charlotte forced herself to sit back against the leather seats as the limousine slowed and turned into a long, winding driveway. She’d been in the car for over an hour and was anxious to see the place. Although she strained to see through the tinted windows, she could only make out a few landscape lights marking their way in the darkness.
It had been more than a week since he’d left her house at dawn without saying goodbye. If she’d had his number or a way to contact him, she might have considered calling him herself, thanking him again for coming to her rescue, but she couldn’t. But then, the more she thought about it, even if she had his number, she probably wouldn’t have called him anyway. He was the one who left her, not the other way around.
At first, she had to admit she’d been a little disappointed when he hadn’t called the next day. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t get her number. He knew the name of her company and could easily search the internet for her website. But she, on the other hand, knew nothing concrete about him. Not his cell number, his place of business, the city or suburb he lived in. Hell, she didn’t even know his last name.
They’d talked about many things that night—their mutual love of travel, sushi, old horror flicks, watching golf on TV though neither of them played, early Aerosmith tunes. He made her laugh and seemed truly interested in her. And then there was Augustus. God, that cat loved him, which was really saying something. Augustus hated everyone.
But whenever she delved into topics about Trace’s work or family, he’d deftly changed the subject. She hadn’t realized what he was doing until she thought about it later. Like a politician, he presented only what he wanted her to know about him. Even though she’d had what was probably the best sex of her life, the man was a mystery.