CHAPTER 14
Iro
Iro needed fresh air after her dinner-and-drinks meeting that had gone on for far too long.
The potential partner for one venture had been annoying and definitely enjoyed his alcohol a little too much.
He had suggested they go to a cigar lounge after the first round of drinks, but Iro had insisted that they keep their dinner reservation instead, not liking the scent of cigars.
He had relented and had three more rounds before letting them be seated at their table.
It had already been an hour before she’d even ordered an entrée, and it had gotten worse after that.
He had insisted on ordering three appetizers so he could sample them and asked for at least twenty minutes between the entrées in order to more fully enjoy them and not feel rushed.
He had hardly been interested in talking about the deal until the entrées had been on the table and he had been on his next round.
When she’d gotten out her credit card and prepared to pay, he’d requested dessert.
Iro had seethed and thought about how she had better things to do than watch this man eat a plain cheesecake or tiramisu.
He had ordered both, of course, expecting her to share, which she had not, and when he’d switched from his vodka tonics to brandy for his dessert, Iro could smell that cheap brandy and thought that this man had known nothing of good liquor.
Finally, he’d stuffed himself enough, and she had been able to pay.
Then, they had shaken hands, and their deal had been done.
He’d offered to give her a ride in his town car, but she’d declined, with her own SUV waiting right outside the restaurant.
She had climbed in so that she could make a quick getaway, but two blocks later, she’d asked her driver to pull over, and she had given him the remainder of the night off, deciding she would walk the rest of the way.
She had been walking aimlessly for twenty minutes and had no intention of stopping anytime soon.
She only wanted to get home by a reasonable hour in order to text goodnight to Arwen, which wouldn’t end with that goodnight message.
They’d probably end up texting each other for a while, or she would work up the courage to call.
Iro had no idea why Arwen made her so nervous.
She’d dated before during her breaks from Cassia, but she’d never been so worried that she would be found out.
Lying to Arwen about her upbringing wasn’t something she took pride in, although she hadn’t technically lied.
Well, she supposed telling Arwen that her sister had died in a car accident had been a lie.
Cars hadn’t existed yet, and it had been a barn fire.
She had gone to Oxford, but not recently, and her name wouldn’t be on any alumni registry since she had gone under a different name entirely, centuries after her birth.
As the time passed, she’d had to change her name several times throughout the years, but every so often, she returned to her given name and went by Iro.
Arwen didn’t need to know all of that; at least, not yet.
That should give Iro some time, at least a few years, before Arwen would start questioning why she wasn’t getting any older, and by then, she could tell her.
She stopped walking when she realized that by then, she was due to be back with Cassia.
“Hello, my love.”
“I thought that was you,” Iro replied.
“I got a little too close, didn’t I?”
Iro turned to see Cassia standing about ten feet behind her on the abandoned sidewalk and said, “Oh, I doubt that. If you’re here and letting me know it, it’s not by accident.”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’ve missed you,” Cassia told her and took a few steps closer to her.
“Cassia, this is our time apart. I told you I wasn’t ready in Florence.”
“I know. I know.” She waved Iro off. “I couldn’t resist following you. What can I say? I love you. I miss you being around.”
“Cassia, we don’t interfere when we’re apart. That’s how this thing works between us. It was already bad that you called and I showed up.”
“Oh, please; you loved that. You always love that,” Cassia said and took another step closer.
“I need you to leave DC. What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to get you back a little early, obviously. I came here for you. I rented a place. Gigi and Miranda are there, as well as a couple of others, but I’ll happily tell them all to go elsewhere if you come home with me right now and we end this silly time apart.”
Cassia took Iro’s jacket in her hands and pulled on it.
Iro breathed in the scent she’d always know and probably respond to a little bit.
“Yes, my love. I can tell you want me. Let’s go back to Florence.
Let’s go home and make love for hours and hours.
And if you still insist on this whole non-human diet thing, I’ll even think about joining you, if you want.
We can sit by the fire and read poetry, and we can walk around the city and talk about how it’s changed and how some things have always remained, like we used to do. ”
Iro took a step back and said, “No, Cassia. I don’t want that. I’m here for work.”
“Just work?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw you the other night, Iro; with that woman at that horrible-looking restaurant. Tell me you’re not trying to bed a vegan. I can’t imagine she’d feel good about the fact that you used to eat people if she doesn’t even eat cows or pigs.”
“Stay away from her, Cassia,” Iro warned.
“So, you’re here not just for work?” Cassia asked as she crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring Iro’s posture.
“I am here for work. I just had a work meeting. It was horrible, and I’m tired and want to go home.”
“I’ve watched you from afar, circling this block twice.
But you’re tired and heading home? Why are you lying to me, Iro?
We don’t lie to each other. It’s always worked between us because we’re perfectly honest all the time.
I know you like these breaks in our relationship.
You explore things. I do the same, just differently.
God, the women I’ve been with since you left me this time…
” Cassia looked skyward. “The sex has been exquisite.”
“Sounds like you should be perfectly content for a while longer, then.”
“I’ll have no problem managing my own contentment, but, darling, I love you, and you love me.
We always find our way back to each other.
All I’m asking is that we shorten this little break of yours, and maybe you take another one in another ten years or something.
Maybe twenty. If you want, I’ll even go back to traveling with you.
We don’t have to remain in Florence. I’ll book us on a trip around the world. Whatever makes you happy, my love.”
“Not yet, Cassia.”
“Not yet? Why not? I’m conceding here, Iro. I’m giving in to all your demands. Are there more? I’ve already offered not to feed on humans, even the willing ones, and to try your horrible pig-and-cow diet. Just please don’t make me eat squirrels and rabbits.” She cringed.
“Cassia, I’m dating someone right now.”
“Yes, I’m aware. Dump her. It’s early. What has it been, one whole date? She’ll be fine. She’ll move on. She’ll probably meet someone who wants her even more than you, apparently, do right now, to be denying me what you know we both want.”
“I don’t want it,” Iro insisted.
“Now, because of this silly human. But give it a month, Iro. You’ll be back in my arms, and we’ll sip champagne off our bodies before we deliver them more pleasure.”
“Cassia, I don’t want that.”
“Don’t want what?”
“I don’t want to get back together again. Don’t you see? I haven’t wanted that for the longest time. Haven’t you noticed that I’ve wanted more breaks, and longer ones, for the past several decades?”
“You like different things than I do, and we’re going to live forever, my love. I’ve been very understanding and very patient with you and your little adventures, Iro, but I’m losing patience right now.”
“I don’t need your patience, Cassia. I need you to go.”
“Why? Because of this woman?”
“Yes, because of her. I want to be with her.”
“It’s brand-new, Iro.”
“I know. And I want to see where it goes. I don’t want to have you waiting. I want to be with her without having a backup plan if it doesn’t work.”
“Backup plan? Centuries together, and I’m the backup plan now because you met a pretty girl and she’s smitten?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Iro said.
“I gave you the gift of eternal life, Iro.”
“I didn’t ask you to!” Iro argued a little louder than she had intended. “I didn’t ask you to, Cassia. I had just lost the woman I loved, and I was drunk because you kept feeding me drinks in your fancy house that I didn’t know you had stolen from someone you’d killed.”
“I asked you, Iro,” Cassia argued back. “I gave you the choice.”
“Yes, but I was heartbroken, and drunk, and had nothing else. I–”
“Your father only let you be unmarried because he had you taking care of that house. He hadn’t wanted a wife to deal with, even though he thought of having a son all day, every day.
Did you know that he frequented prostitutes?
After I met you in that pub, I followed him.
He went somewhere with one, and he fucked her for as long as his money would allow, Iro.
After you turned, I kept an eye on him until we left.
He was a horrible man. He was not nice to you, but he was worse to the women he bedded.
One of those women got pregnant, and he–” Cassia paused. “Well, then she wasn’t.”
“What are you talking about?” Iro asked on a swallow.
“You were already too old to be unmarried and not in a religious order, so it was either you turn, you flee on your own and try to support yourself, or you let him marry you off to get a dowry. Those were your options. I gave them to you that day. You chose this.”
“You’re rewriting history. I was so drunk, I passed out, and when I woke up, I was a vampire.”
“You woke up beautiful and healthy. That horrible man hardly let you eat, but then, you were healthy, despite the fact that, as a human, you were sick and didn’t even know about it. I saved you from a horrible future, Iro.”
“I would’ve just killed myself,” Iro spat back. “I’d lost Mary. My father was a miserable man. I didn’t want to live. The only thing keeping me from doing that was my sisters, but then, I lost all of them, too. I would’ve just died.”
“No one is stopping you now,” Cassia suggested.
“One silver stake to your heart, and you can find Mary in that eternal life you spent that whole night talking to me about before I turned you. You have lived this long knowing you could end it at any time, and you haven’t, because you don’t want Mary anymore.
You wanted me from that day forward, and you still do. ”
Iro took a deep breath and replied, “No, I don’t.”
“Be careful, Iro… You’ve never angered me before; not really. Don’t start now.”
“If you want to kill me, do it, Cassia. I am not coming back to you.”
“What happens when this new plaything dies, Iro? She’s human.
And once she finds out what you are, she won’t want anything to do with you.
You have never gotten serious with another woman before.
Eventually, you’d have to tell her, and she would be a risk.
You know what we do when there are risks, Irabella. ”
“Do not threaten her, Cassia,” Iro stated.
“I’m not. I’m simply telling you the facts.”
“Cassia, go back to Florence. Enjoy your women. Do whatever you want. Just leave me alone.”
“And what happens in a year or a few years, when you come knocking on my door, begging me to take you back? Am I supposed to just take you in?”
“I’m not some stray puppy, Cassia. I have my own life, my own money. I don’t need you to take me in.”
“And you’re going to continue to pursue this woman?”
“Yes. And I mean it, Cassia. You’ve never made me angry, either, but if you do anything to Arwen, if she is hurt in any way, I–”
“I don’t care enough about this miserable human to do anything to her, but I’m not leaving this city and returning to Florence yet, Iro. I have my own business here.”
“As long as it has nothing to do with mine, be wherever you want. Now, I have to go.”
“Go, but you’ll be back. You always come back, Iro. I’ll be dreaming about it until then.”
“In that case, you’ll be dreaming for a long time,” Iro said, turned around, and walked away, wishing she hadn’t told her driver that she wouldn’t need him for the rest of the night.