Chapter 20
TWENTY
It turned out that Francesca had forgotten how to sit still — and also that while Luis had thought to get her an entire grocery store’s worth of food, he hadn’t provided her with a stitch of clothing.
She tried watching the television feeds, but the news stressed her out too much. A part of her still felt like she was back at the mansion, as if another terrible, violent thing was about to happen, and another part didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting ready to go to work.
She was restless, bored, and desperate to find something to take her mind off the many deaths she’d witnessed.
So it was with considerable relief and dread that she answered the knock at the door.
Not wanting to reveal the robe to a stranger, she peered cautiously around the partially opened door.
Two women stood waiting for her. One was a petite blonde dressed all in red and the other was a curvaceous, dark-haired beauty in a silk coat and tight white leather mini dress.
And her hair, like Luis and Milo’s, was streaked with a single band of white.
“Um… I’m sorry, Luis isn’t here.” Francesca cringed, her mind spinning with all the possibilities of who these women could be. One was obviously related to him, but the other… Well, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen him with a blonde.
The blonde tossed her short, curled bob out of her eyes. “Of course he isn’t. He’s with my husband, getting his ass handed to him for being the biggest idiot on the planet.”
The dark-haired woman propped her hands on her ample hips and chirped, “You must be Frankie!”
She gave the women a wary look. “Uh, yes?”
Clapping her hands together, the blonde wasted no time pushing her way through the narrow gap Francesca had opened. She stumbled back several steps, pinching the sides of her robe together, and gawked as the women waltzed in.
“A pleasure to meet you,” the blonde sing-songed. “I’m Dahlia and this is my cousin Marietta. We’re here to check on the newest member of the family.”
Marietta, apparently, kicked the door shut with the business end of a stiletto — a move she’d now seen three consecutive Amauris perform. It was like no one in the family knew how to use a doorknob.
“I can’t believe I lost the damn bet,” she sighed, fluffing her mane of black hair with both manicured hands. “I really thought it’d be Nash and Ginny before anybody else settled down.”
Dahlia wiggled her finger in front of her cousin’s nose. “Don’t be a sore loser. It was so obvious that something’s been up with him for weeks. Do you know he asked me whether a sauce pan exclusively cooks sauce a couple days ago? That’s weird even for him.”
“I thought it was a sex thing,” Marietta protested, hands up. “I don’t know what a sauce pan is used for either, you know.”
Francesca’s attention bounced between the two women, one who looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of a glossy business magazine and the other who could’ve walked off the runway. They bickered like she wasn’t even there.
Sensing that they might continue indefinitely, she delicately cleared her throat. “I don’t know what Luis told you, but we’re not together. I keep telling him that.”
Both women stilled. They fixed her with twin stares of deep and unsettling intensity before, as one, they burst into cackles.
“Ugh, that’s just what I needed today,” Marietta sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Do you think I could set up a camera to get you telling him that to his face for posterity? I think it’ll do some real numbers around town.”
Getting a little annoyed now, Francesca crossed her arms and coolly asked, “Is he really so irresistible to women that saying no would be worthy of comment?”
Dahlia slung her arm around Francesca’s shoulders. Walking her toward the living room, she gleefully explained, “It’s not that so much as… Well, how long have you known Luis?”
“A few months,” she answered stiffly.
“A few months is more than enough time to pick up the fact that the man has an ego the size of the Solbourne family’s private blimp.
” They sat down together on the couch. Dahlia gave her shoulders a little squeeze when she added, “We Amauris enjoy nothing better than a good razzing, that’s all. You’ll get used to it.”
Throwing off her coat with an impressive amount of flourish, Marietta confirmed, “We’re still making fun of Felix for that time Dahlia climbed out the window and down a pergola to escape him.”
Francesca’s eyes widened. In a soft, urgent voice, she asked, “Is he holding you captive? Do you need help?”
Dahlia visibly swallowed a laugh. Giving her shoulders another friendly squeeze, she assured her, “I’m most certainly not being held captive. I love my husband very much. Just don’t tell him I said that. Gotta keep him on his toes.”
Marietta sank onto the opposite couch and crossed her legs. Balancing her chin on her palm, she asked, “So, how did this whole thing go down? I want all the details. The more embarrassing for Luis, the better.”
Suddenly aware of the fact that she was in the precarious position of being interrogated by two charming but keenly intelligent women, Francesca braced herself.
Folding her hands in her robed lap, she hedged, “There’s really not that much of a story. I’m just his housekeeper.”
Dahlia’s arm fell away. Shrugging out of her crimson coat, she lounged against the armrest, keeping Francesca’s profile in her sights.
A flash of bite marks on her neck nearly made Francesca do a double take, since she was pretty sure she’d seen fangs in Dahlia’s mouth, but she managed to restrain the urge just in time. It seemed rude to gawk.
“Funny,” the blonde drawled, “because I heard from my cousin Tomas that Luis won your contract in the Blood Games.”
Francesca pursed her lips. “Well… two things can be true, can’t they?”
Dahlia’s crimson smile was wickedly beautiful and terrifying. “They can indeed.”
“If you know about the Blood Games, then you know that whatever this is between me and Luis, it’s not…” She trailed off, unable to find the right words. Maybe because they didn’t exist. Or possibly because saying them felt a little too close to a lie.
Marietta and Dahlia exchanged a look.
It was Marietta who said, “Listen, I’m not going to force you to tell me all the intimate details.
As someone who grew up with the man, I really don’t need to know more about his freak sex life than I already do, thanks.
But what I will say is that no Amauri, no vampire, puts themselves on the line like he did for someone he doesn’t really, really care about.
When the goddess pulled us out of the pit, she made us selfish.
Terribly selfish. We don’t do anything out of the purity of hearts.
When we do things for others, it’s because we want to. ”
“Alvin calls it a biological imperative,” Dahlia cut in. “He says that the vampire virus exists solely to perpetuate itself, and that requires being a huge asshole sometimes. And being really into having kids. So watch out for that.”
“Oh.” Francesca really didn’t know what to say to that.
Desperately uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons, not simply due to the fact that she was practically naked in front of two glamorous women she didn’t know, she said, “I’m sorry.
This is all a little overwhelming. I’ve had a stressful couple of days and I really don’t know what to do with myself. ”
Marietta perked up immediately. “What do you want to do?”
Francesca rubbed her forehead. “I really don’t know. I haven’t had free time in… Well, a long time.”
Dahlia patted her knee. Standing up on her sky-high heels, she asked, “How about we start with some food? I’ll make you something. It’s really important you eat regular meals if you’re supporting a vampire.”
Following her purposeful stride into the kitchen, Francesca ventured to ask, “You know how to cook?”
Marietta took up a spot on one of the stools arrayed around the kitchen island. “Allegedly. Cecilia says she is really only good for putting frozen things in the oven.”
“Ha! Like you could even manage that!” Dahlia opened the refrigerator and began to pull out what looked like the makings of a decent breakfast. This included an enormous block of cheese, tomatoes, eggs, pre-chopped onion, and a handful of those frozen pucks of hash browns one could acquire at any grocery store.
Francesca watched from the doorway, befuddled, as the fashionable blonde vampire hiked up her sleeves and placed one of the brand new pans on the cooker. “Not to be rude,” she finally ventured, “but I’ve never heard of a vampire cooking before.”
Dahlia wiggled her ring-encrusted fingers over her shoulder. “Sit, Frankie. I’ve got this.”
Unable to do much else, she meandered over to the island, where she took up a spot beside Marietta. The dark-haired vampire gave her a cheeky wink. “Dahlia used to be arrant,” she explained.
Francesca’s eyes widened. She knew that the vampire virus could be caught in theory, but it happened so rarely that it never popped into her head as a possibility. As far as she knew, almost all vampires were born with the virus.
“How did that happen?” Francesca slapped her hands over her mouth, horrified that the question slipped out. Mumbling behind her fingers, she apologized, “I’m so sorry. That’s super insensitive. You absolutely do not have to tell me.”
Dahlia turned to wave a spatula at her. “If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that, I’d have, like, twenty to thirty nickels. I’m used to it.”
“Still,” Francesca insisted.
The blonde turned back to the pan, where the hash browns were beginning to sizzle. “It’s fine, I promise. But it’s a long story, so I’ll give you the quick version. I worked in a vampire bar in San Francisco, where I met my husband Felix. That’s also where his aunt—”
“A stone-cold cunt. May she rest in piss,” Marietta grunted.