Page 65 of Taken By The Vampire King

“I’m going to head home, I think. I’ll be back at opening time tomorrow.” I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder, my phone already in my hand to dial the same taxi firm that brought me here. I even had some money in my pocket now.

“Oh, I can give you a ride, if you like? I need to see Nic up at his place, anyway.” Benedict grabbed some keys from behind the bar.

“Uh…” Well, this was more awkward than I’d anticipated. “I’m no longer staying there. I’m going home home.”

To his credit, Benedict merely raised an eyebrow, and that was the extent of his curiosity. He didn’t even look like he was about to ask anything—although he could probably get any information he wanted directly from Nicolas if he was headed there to see him. But I couldn’t worry about any gossiping the men did. I needed to get home and work out how I could hang on to the bar and the house. There had to be a way.

Even if Nicolas only let me work here until I figured it out.

I headed to the door then turned around. “How’s my dad doing?”

Benedict nodded like he’d expected the question. “So far so good, but it’s early days.”

I withheld my sigh. Hopefully I hadn’t fucked up my dad’s chance of recovery, too. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Benedict offered me a wave and concerned eyes as I slipped out into the still-humid night.

The cab didn’t take long to arrive, and my adrenaline and weird buzz faded as I sat in the back. Suddenly, I was just exhausted. I wanted to curl up under my thin blankets and sleep for a week. I didn’t need cable TV after all. Just solitude and safety.

I was barely holding my eyes open against the gentle rhythm of the car and the road noise, but when we turned down my driveway, I automatically braced for the rough, jolting ride over the potholes and cracks. But nothing happened. We continued smooth as silk. I leaned forward to tap the driver’s shoulder and tell him he’d taken a wrong turn.

I’d been bumping over my driveway for years—permanent bruise on my ass to prove it—each rut familiar, and we were definitely headed to the wrong house.

My theory was confirmed when the driver let out a low whistle. “Having some work done, cher?”

“What? No.” I leaned forward and squinted into the darkness, gasping as the cab’s headlights picked up the gleam of metal in front of my house. “What the…?”

The moment the cab stopped, I leaped out and turned my face up, taking in the scaffolding stretching into the sky around the front of my house.

The cab driver got out, too. “This is going to be beautiful when it’s done.” He looked at me. “Back to its former glory?”

“It just might be.” My head spun as I looked at a façade that used to be cracked and dirty that was now smooth and gleaming bright white in the soft moonlight as I dug some cash out of my pocket and held it out to him.

He shook his head. “Looks like you have more important things to spend your money on, cher.”

I walked to the front door, and he waited for me to open it before he drove away, leaving me to watch his red taillights recede down the driveway.

Well, shit. First The Pour House and now my actual house? It was all too much. What the hell was Nicolas up to?

I stepped into the entrance hall and my first breath was of pure fresh paint. In fact, paint so fresh, I could taste it. My hand automatically found the light switch, and I lit the darkness, chasing the shadows away with more than the usual pale-yellow glow.

A chandelier dripping crystal beads hung from the tall ceiling and cast rainbows on the tops of the walls, and the hardwood floor, newly polished, gleamed beneath my feet. I hardly dared walk on it as I headed into the living room, where my feet sank into plush new carpet. When I switched the light on, all I could see was the huge portrait of my parents and me above the refurbished fireplace. Mom’s smile was beautiful as she looked out at me as if she approved of the changes that were taking place, and I could almost feel her presence.

“Oh, Mom,” I whispered. “I think I might have fucked up.”

Up until this moment, I’d been able to tell myself Nicolas was acting solely in his own self-interest, but that didn’t explain why he’d displayed my family so prominently in my house for me, and why he’d gone to all this trouble.

If he’d intended only to keep me, and for me to never return here or to The Pour House, why? This was more than protecting an investment, more than simply refurbishing a house to sell. He’d turned it back into my home, and a home meant to appeal only to one person—me.

Like I mattered.

To him.

Shit. I sank onto the sofa and looked up at Mom’s photo. She continued to smile at me, her joy never wavering, but guilt weighed heavily on me as I looked around my house.

The improvements looked as though they were all being made with me in mind, and I didn’t know who’d been consulted, but there were even new DVDs in a seemingly random stack on the table, most of them ones Jason and I had laughed over.

Someone cared.

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