"I-don't know him."

"So he wasn't lying."

I frowned as I returned his gaze. "What do you mean? What did Michel say?"

"You say his name funny. Is it Mitch.e.l.l or Mich.e.l.le?"

"Mish.e.l.le. French. But he's not really French by birth. Just more so in att.i.tude."

Brandon snorted. "That's obvious. He likes to fake that accent though." He gave a long, arduous sigh and my heart skipped. "You should have told me."

"Why?" I blurted out the question before I thought about it. Seemed like an honest question. Why not a good answer?

"What do you mean why? I think I have the right to know about a fiance don't I?"

"Why?" This time I added the shoulder shrug. "Why should you know anything about my personal life? We were starting a friendship, right? Friends. You needed help in math and I gave it to you. I did that because I like you. If we were starting a romantic relationship, then I could see your argument."

"So...you don't want a romantic relationship? What about what happened in the park?"

I gaped, then closed my mouth. He was right. "I-we were getting to know each other."

"I needed to know that about you."

"Well," I said in a voice a little more terse than I intended. "Now you know."

He nodded. "So, you'd be interested in getting to know me better, even though you're dating that guy."

"We're not dating," I said. "We've never gone out formally."

"But...you're marrying him?"

"You can call it that." I wondered where Brandon's heads.p.a.ce was. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain things to him. I realized at that moment I was doing what Jared often referred to as winging it. "It's a long story. Something that was sort of arranged before my birth."

And by birth I meant...vampire.

But I just wasn't ready to deal with that right now.

"Carly-" he blushed a bit in his cheeks and looked at his coffee. "I like you. A lot. I mean-I don't want to sound like some perv or a stalker or anything-but I dream about you all the time."

Uh oh.

He sighed. "Well that does sound kinda stalker-ish, doesn't it? Look, it's not like that," he put his hands on the table, palms down, as if to steady himself as he focused on my eyes. "When I was in the hospital, when I thought I'd had the s.h.i.t beat out of me by Paoli and his goons, I had these dreams..." he licked his lips. "About a girl. A beautiful girl with bright red hair and eyes the color of the sky after a rain. I could see her lips and they were red. Ruby red. And I dreamed of...blood..."

He dreamed of me...and I knew it was because of the blood. My blood inside of him. This wasn't an honest attraction-this really was something my blood triggered in him.

Realization that his feelings for me might be artificially induced and not genuine made my heart plummet into my stomach. It...wasn't real for him.

It was because of something my being me caused. And I think I'd sort of known this all along. Suspected it, but didn't want to admit.

"Carly?"

I hadn't realized I'd turned my gaze away. "Sorry. I-I guess then when you saw me-you thought of this dream?"

"Not at first. Like I said, I'd noticed you the first day I walked in here," he gave me a half smile.

I'd known this man for only a week, if that long. And yet I'd met him that afternoon on the path in the woods. And he'd tasted my blood. The blood that calls to us. That makes him to call to me. I pursed my lips. "I think you're right. I think you seeing me here...and the attack on you sort of merged the two images. And maybe it would be better if we didn't see each other-"

"No!"

I wasn't prepared for his emphatic response. Neither was he. He put his hands to his face and then ran his fingers through his curly hair as it looked like he tried to calm himself. "No...I don't believe that. Carly-I've always done what I was told, all of my life. And what I was told was that Heather would make a great match for me. Our parents-both sets-want Heather and I to marry and I-"

When he didn't finish the thought verbally, I finished it in my mind. You rallied against it. You fought it. And you've fought it ever since. "Believe it or not, Brandon...I can understand."

He gave me a half laugh that turned into a snicker. "Yeah...I guess you can. If you say it's an arranged marriage. Though our circ.u.mstances might be different, it's still not a marriage either one of us want." He leaned in closer. "You know...your fiance is kind of a d.i.c.k."

I leaned forward as well. "Yours is kind of a b.i.t.c.h."

Brandon smiled. I loved it when he smiled. His eyes lit up, and his heart beat sped up. It was heaven. He lifted his coffee and I lifted mine. "I'll drink to that," he said and we touched cups.

He finally asked me about Michel, and about me, and Craft, nearly an hour after he finished his coffee and mine. I made some excuse that if I drank coffee this late I wouldn't be able to sleep.

"So what do you want to know about first?"

"You." He leaned back in his chair. "You already know about me. About my family. I'm really what you see is what you get. You on the other hand-" he rubbed at his chin. "Not so sure about."

He had that right. I leaned back and narrowed my eyes at him. "Brandon-first-you never answered my question."

"I've answered all your questions-so no more changing the subject."

"No, you haven't. You were upset about my bonding, and demanded that you should have known the truth. I noted that we were just friends-and as friends our personal lives shouldn't-"

I sat as still as I could. He'd reached out and pressed two of his fingers to my lips and was leaning in very close. "Carly...I want to be more than friends."

I pulled his hand away. "You had dreams, that's all."

"And I want them to be real, Carly."

"You don't know anything about me."

He grinned. "Then answer my questions and I will. Back to you. I want to know about you. When you were born, where you were born, your parents, what you want to do in life, what your grades are-"

"Ah!" I held up my right hand to stop him. "Please, I'm getting lost." I was also doing mental math just to figure when the right birthday would be for my air-quotes, age, end air-quotes. I was actually born in 1986, but I couldn't tell him that. That would make me 27 and not 17. No wait, the driver's license said 18. So I needed to calculate that. "I was born in December of 1995, in Baltimore, Maryland. But if you ask me about my parents, I'm afraid I can't really tell you much. I was adopted from an orphanage. So, even my birthday is still a little fuzzy."

"You were adopted?"

I nodded. "My adopted Father is Delancey Wyndham."

"But...your name is Piper."

"Actually, that's my middle name. In some circles, the Wyndham name throws around a bit of weight so I like just being called by my name."

"So..." he leaned to his right on his elbow on the table, his attention turned fully on me. "Is Carly Piper your real name or one you made up?"

"Real name. Those were the only names the sisters had."

"Sisters? You mean you were in one of those Catholic orphanages in the movies?"

I laughed at him. "I was. I was around four when Father came for me. He already had a son, Jared. And we grew up together."

"I'd like to meet Jared."

I thought about Jared for the first time since the whole night began. I hoped he was all right and avoiding Michel. "You will. He wants to meet you too."

"Is he the same age?"

"No....he's a bit older."

"College?"

"No."

"Job?"

"Yes and no. He has a full time job taking care of me."

"I thought that Craft guy took care of you."

I cringed inwardly. I had been hoping to avoid talking about Craft. "My father hired him while I'm here alone with Jared. He loves Jared and trusts him, but- "

"He's irresponsible?"

Well that would be a lie. Jared was very responsible. So much so it drove me nuts. He just wasn't...neat and tidy. "Jared's a good guy. It's just that he and Michel don't get along."

"Oh I like him already."

"And Craft's kind of a buffer." Which wasn't a lie. That's exactly what Craft had done in the brief time they'd been in town. Speaking of Craft...I wondered where he'd wondered off to. I sensed he was nearby, but he wasn't in the coffee shop. "He's a good guy too."

"He like Michel?"

"He...tolerates him."

"I like him too."

I laughed at Brandon. "So what did Michel say to you?"

He pursed his lips. "You won't like it."

"Try me."

"He said that I should pick fruit in another man's garden. That you were his and he would appreciate it if I'd run along."

My jaw dropped. "He said that to you?"

"Which was why I asked him who the f.u.c.k he was. When he said he was your fiance-" he sighed. "It felt like someone had hit me with a two by four. I'd been looking forward to last night since you said you'd be there. And when you were late, I was terrified you'd changed your mind. You know, realized I was nothing but a stupid jock-"

"You are not a stupid jock."

"I am, kinda. At least in math." He reached out and grabbed my hand on the table. "But you're going to change that, right?"

"I'd...I'd like to." I looked from my hand into his eyes. "You still realize I'm supposed to bond with Michel, right?"

"And you realize my parents expect me to marry Heather."

We were pulling closer as we spoke, as if we were magnets and unable to stop. "Then I guess..."

"We're both..."

"...lonely."

Our lips were touching as he said, "Not anymore, if you want it to be."

It was the fourth time he'd kissed me. The first had been in the woods that day, after he'd tasted my blood and looked up at me with delirium.

Then there was the second in the car. The third in the park.

And now together. And it was better than before. The sensation of his lips on mine. The warmth. Their suppleness. His smell-overwhelming all of my senses-and most notably- My common sense.

I dropped him off at his house again, and after a long, lingering kiss goodbye, we agreed to meet up at the coffee shop tomorrow. The Sunday crowd would be cleared out around four-or that's how I shrouded my inability to be there first thing in the morning.

I didn't remember the drive back to the house. My thoughts revolved around Brandon. I pictured his face in my mind. His smile. His touch. Heard his laughter in my ear. What had started out as a bad evening had turned into one of the best nights of my life.

So enamored with my thoughts of Brandon was I that I wasn't nearly as surprised as I should have been when the pa.s.senger side door opened at a stop light and Jared jumped in. I frowned at him. "I told you I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong..."

"Nevermind about that right now. Have you seen Michel?"

All those happy thoughts wilted as I held back a growl. "No. Not since last night."

Jared sighed as I pulled the car forward after the light turned green. Three more streets and I turned down the one where we lived. It wasn't until I parked the car in the garage and the door was on its way down behind us that he spoke again. "He's gone."

I unfastened my seatbelt. "Who's gone."

"Michel."

"You mean he's still out?"

"No," Jared glared at me. "I mean he's gone. His things are all gone. All the blood we packed down there. It's all gone."

I reached out with my senses into the house to check. He was right. There was nothing else there. "Did you try calling him?"