Single White Vampire (Argeneau #3)(4)
The door whipped open, and Kate quickly pasted a blatantly false but wide—she should get high marks for effort—smile on her mouth. The smile nearly slipped when she got a look at him. She hadn't really taken the opportunity earlier. A second before, she had been too busy trying to recall the speech she'd composed and memorized on the flight here; now she didn't have a prepared speech—didn't actually even have a clue what to say—and so she found herself really looking at Lucern Argeneau. The man was a lot younger than she'd expected. Kate knew he'd written for Edwin for a good ten years before she'd taken over working with him, yet he didn't look to be more than thirty-two or-three. That meant he'd been writing professionally since his early twenties.
He was also shockingly handsome. His hair was as dark as night, his eyes a silver blue that almost seemed to reflect the porchlight, his features sharp and strong. He was tall and surprisingly muscular for a man with such a sedentary career. His shoulders bespoke a laborer more than an intellectual. Kate couldn't help but be impressed. Even the scowl on his face didn't detract from his good looks.
Without any effort on her part, the smile on Kate's face gained some natural warmth and she said, "It's me again. I haven't eaten yet, and I thought perhaps you'd join me for a meal on the company and we could discuss—"
"No. Please remove yourself from my doorstep." Then Lucern Argeneau closed the door once more.
"Well, that was more than just a 'no'," Kate muttered to herself. "It was even a whole sentence, really." Ever the optimist, she decided to take it as progress.
Raising her hand, she pounded on the door again. Her smile was somewhat battered, but it was still in place when the door opened for the third time. Mr. Argeneau reappeared, looking less pleased than ever to find her still there. This time, he didn't speak but merely arched an eyebrow in question.
Kate supposed that if his speaking a whole sentence was progress, his reverting to complete silence had to be the opposite—but she determined not to think of that. Trying to make her smile a little sunnier, she cleared her throat and said, "If you don't like eating out, perhaps I could order something in and—"
"No." He started to close the door again, but Kate hadn't lived in New York for five years without learning a trick or two. She quickly stuck her foot forward, managing not to wince as the door banged into it and bounced back open.
Before Mr. Argeneau could comment on her guerilla tactics, she said, "If you don't care for takeout, perhaps I could pick up some groceries and cook you something you like." For good measure she added, "That way we could discuss your fears, and I might be able to alleviate them."
He stiffened in surprise at her implication. "I am not afraid," he said.
"I see." Kate allowed a healthy dose of doubt to creep into her voice, more than willing to stoop to manipulation if necessary. Then she waited, foot still in place, hoping that her desperation wasn't showing but knowing that her calm fa?ade was beginning to slip.
The man pursed his lips and took his time considering. His expression made Kate suspect he was measuring her for a coffin, as if he were considering killing her and planting her in his garden to get her out of his hair. She tried not to think about that possibility too hard. Despite having worked with him for years as Edwin's assistant, and now for almost a year as his editor, Kate didn't know the man very well. In her less charitable moments, she had considered just what kind of man he might be. Most of her romance authors were female. In fact, every other author under her care was female. Lucern Argeneau, who wrote as Luke Amirault, was the only man. What kind of guy wrote romances? And vampire romances at that? She had decided it was probably someone gay… or someone weird. His expression at the moment was making her lean toward weird. Serial-killer-type weird.
"You have no intention of removing yourself, do you?" he asked at last.
Kate considered the question. A firm "no" would probably get her inside. But was that what she wanted? Would the man slaughter her? Would she be a headline in the next day's news if she did get in the door?
Cutting off such unproductive and even frightening thoughts, Kate straightened her shoulders and announced firmly; "Mr. Argeneau, I flew up here from New York. This is important to me. I'm determined to talk to you. I'm your editor." She emphasized the last word in case he had missed the relevance of that fact. It usually had a certain influence with writers, although Argeneau had shown no signs of being impressed so far.
She didn't know what else to say after that, so Kate simply stood waiting for a response that never came. Heaving a deep sigh, Argeneau merely turned away and started up his dark hall.
Kate stared uncertainly at his retreating back. He hadn't slammed the door in her face this time. That was a good sign, wasn't it? Was it an invitation to enter? Deciding she was going to take it as one, Kate hefted her small suitcase and overnight bag and stepped inside. It was a late-summer evening, cooler than it had been earlier in the day, but still hot. In comparison, stepping into the house was like stepping into a refrigerator. Kate automatically closed the door behind her to keep the cool air from escaping, then paused to allow her eyes to adjust.
The interior of the house was dark. Lucern Argeneau hadn't bothered to turn on any lights. Kate couldn't see much of anything except a square of dim light outlining what appeared to be a door at the end of the long hall in which she stood. She wasn't sure what the light was from; it was too gray and dim to be from an overhead fixture. Kate wasn't even sure that going to that light would bring her to Lucern Argeneau's side, but it was the only source of light she could see, and she was quite sure that it was in the direction he'd taken when walking away.