“Thanks.” He stared at the money before shoving it in his pocket.
Julian reached for the door, finally releasing his grip on me. He opened it and moved to the side. I crossed my arms and stood there.
“Get in the car, Thea,” he said with forced calm.
I shook my head.
“Now,” he added.
I raised an eyebrow and didn’t move. We were locked in a vampire-human standoff.
“Please,” he said with gritted teeth.
I waited for a second before releasing a sigh and climbing into the passenger seat, which took a bit of effort between the low ride of the car and my long gown. He closed the door muttering a frustrated string of curses but looking relieved that I had given in. He thought he had won the battle, but I had questions for Julian Rousseaux, and he was going to answer every one of them.
Julian circled the car, pausing to put my cello case in the trunk, before sliding behind the wheel. He filled the entire seat, reminding me again of his muscular body. I ignored the tick of interest between my legs that the thought sparked. He reached into his pocket, but didn’t pull anything out. Instead he frowned and studied the dash.
“Fucking electronic bullshit,” he swore.
“Huh?” I craned to see what had him so frustrated.
“My brother told me I could get directions on this,” he said as he pressed a bunch of buttons. The display screen in the car flashed between settings as he searched for something.
“Like GPS?”
He shrugged one of his broad shoulders. “Is that what it is?”
“You don’t know what GPS is?”
“I took a little break from the world,” he admitted.
“Like a vacation?”
“Like a nap,” he said.
“For how long?” I asked slowly.
“About thirty-five years.”
Another couple dozen questions added themselves to my list. For now, though, the flashing screen was making my head hurt. I shooed him away. “Let me.”
He watched as I input my address into the car’s navigation system. It spoke the first direction and he grimaced. “This explains a lot.”
“Like what?” I asked curiously.
“Nothing,” he said as he pulled onto the street with a cautiousness that did not match the ostentatious car. We fell silent as he made his way through the streets of San Francisco. Cars zipped past as we drove.
“Do you always drive like a grandmother?” I finally blurted out.
“Only when I have fragile cargo.” He didn’t bother to look at me.
“Fragile? What…” It dawned on me that he was referring to me. I was fragile–pathetically human–and he was stuck babysitting me. I slouched in my seat, no longer wanting to ask him anything. But one question kept resurfacing, even as I tried my best to ignore it.
“What did your mother mean?” I asked. “When she said to look after me?”
“You don’t want to know,” he muttered, his eyes never leaving the moonlit street. It had begun to drizzle and the city’s customary fog was rolling in.
“I really do,” I said. Too many things didn’t make sense. For one, Sabine Rousseaux had not seemed at all keen on me spending time with her son, so why tell him to look after me?
“She wanted me to compel you,” he finally said after a few moments of silence.
“Compel?” I repeated the word as a traffic light turned red. “Like what you did to Carmen?”
“Yes.” Julian slowed to a stop before turning to face me. “I’m supposed to make you forget everything you saw and everything you know about vampires.”
I should want that, too, so why didn’t I? My head fell as I murmured, “Oh.”
“I’m not going to do it.”
I lifted my head to stare at him. He didn’t want me to forget. Hope blossomed in my chest. Maybe Julian didn’t hate me.
Before I could question why I cared how the rude, old-fashioned vampire felt about me, he continued. “Because I have a better idea.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULIAN
The BMW was a terrible idea. Not the car itself. I liked the car, apart from the electronic bullshit. No, it was the close quarters I regretted. It was impossible to ignore her scent, especially with the heat on. I couldn’t exactly allow her to freeze to death. Hunger burned my throat, but it wasn’t Thea’s delicate neck I was thinking about. It was something else–something forbidden.
