Page 23 of Night's Reckoning
She smiled and set her bags on the cobblestones. “Oh, Nino. What was it this time?”
“Can’t I just want to dance with…” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “…a beautiful woman? Who lives with me… but refuses to kiss me?” He ducked his head down to meet her eyes. “You used to kiss me.”
She put her hand on his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist. “When we were teenagers. When we were still figuring out what went where.”
“Maybe I’m still figuring out what goes where,” he said. “You could give me lessons.”
“Oh no.” She laughed. “I have no interest in a man who is very obviously in love with someone else.”
He swallowed hard. “I’m not in love with her.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No.” He took a deep breath. “And even if I was… it’s not healthy.”
“And I’m not your cure.” She gently pushed him away. “Let me get you some water. You need to sleep.”
Ben stood in the middle of the courtyard, staring into the blue-black sky as a heartbreaking trumpet solo floated through the air. “I thought love was supposed to make you feel good.”
“Oh, Ben.” Fabia sighed. “I wish that were true, but it’s not. Elias and I are proof of that.”
Ben forgot about his own dysfunctional heart and looked at Fabia. “Elias was an idiot.”
“No, he was just normal. And I’m not.”
Fabia and Elias had made it for three years before the necessary secrets of Fabia’s life had alienated her boyfriend, who had no idea that vampires existed. Fabia had let Elias move on without any of the answers he begged for, even though she loved him desperately.
“You could have told him.” Ben walked over and put his arms around her. “I trusted him. Giovanni trusted him.”
She spoke in a quiet voice. “He wouldn’t have wanted to know.”
Ben had nothing to say to that, because that was simply the way it was sometimes. Some people didn’t want to know. Some people wanted to live simple lives, and Ben couldn’t fault them for that.
“Would you rather not know?” he asked. “If you had the choice?”
Fabia wiped her eyes. “Sadly, I would never choose ignorance. If there’s a thing to be known, I want to know it. That’s probably why I spent so much time in school. I’m a glutton for knowledge.”
“Yeah. I get that.” He swung her around as the song changed to a quicker tune. “You know, who gets to say what’s normal and what’s not? I think we’re very normal.”
Fabia laughed through her tears. “Oh yes. So normal.”
“What? Why are you laughing?”
“Did you finally open the letters from the scary thousand-year-old vampires in China who want to hire you for something? ’Cause, you know, that’s a very normal thing to do.”
He nodded slowly. “Right. About that. What do you know about maritime archaeology?”
She frowned. “I did part of my graduate studies in Calabria mapping the wrecks in Crotone. You know that. I love diving.”
“Are you still certified?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“How hard do you think it would be to find a house sitter by next week?”
7
Beijing, China
