“No. What do you want?”
“You’ve been with him. Your scent was on his clothing when I saw him last night.” Animosity poured off the woman, so intense it was almost palpable.
Tessa swallowed hard, her heart pounding, her mind racing. Married! Andrei was married. Why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t it ever occurred to her to ask?
The woman took a step forward. “Stay away from him.”
“No problem,” Tessa said, forcing a note of calm into her voice.
The woman smiled, displaying shiny white fangs. “Smart girl.”
A vampire. Tessa shivered. Why was she not surprised?
She stood there, feeling naked and vulnerable under the woman’s malevolent gaze, sagged against the car door when, with a wave of her hand, Andrei’s wife disappeared from sight.
Feeling sick to her stomach, Tessa opened the car door and sank onto the seat. For a moment, she sat there, hands clenched on the steering wheel, shaking from head to foot.
Wife.
He had a wife.
She blinked rapidly, refusing to cry.
He was a cheat and a liar. He didn’t deserve her tears.
But they came anyway.
* * *
Tessa saw Andrei waiting on the landing outside her apartment when she got home. Knowing she would have to face him sooner or later, she gathered her bags, then took a deep breath.
He watched her, eyes narrowing, as she climbed the stairs toward him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she unlocked the door. “Shouldn’t you be at home? With your wife?”
For once, she had caught him totally off guard. “What are you talking about?”
“I met her today. She warned me to stay away from you.”
Andrei uttered several words Tessa didn’t understand, but cussing sounded pretty much the same in any language.
She held up a staying hand when he started to follow her inside. “You’re not welcome here anymore.”
“Tessa, listen . . .”
“I’m through listening to you.”
“Dammit, Tessa.” His hands curled into fists. “Just listen!”
“You can say whatever you have to from out there.” After setting her bags on the floor, she folded her arms over her chest. “Well? I’m waiting.”
“I should have told you about Katerina, but I never thought she’d come looking for me. Or for you. I haven’t seen her in centuries.”
“Centuries?”
He nodded.
“But you are married?”
“Technically, I guess so.”
Was he being honest with her now? Maybe she was being a fool, but this was a story she had to hear.
With a sigh, she stepped back. “Maybe you’d better come inside and explain. Just let me put these things away.”
* * *
When she returned to the living room, Tessa found Andrei standing in front of the window, staring out.
He didn’t turn around. “I was engaged to another woman when I met Katerina. I didn’t know she was a vampire, only that she was the most beautiful, mysterious woman I had ever met. I broke my engagement and married her. Only then did I discover that Katerina had married me because she coveted my home and the title that went with it.”
“Did you . . .” She hesitated a moment. “Did you have children?”
“No. Vampires are unable to reproduce.”
Tessa decided that was probably a good thing, considering what he’d told her so far.
“Over the course of the next two years, she killed all the members of my family. No one ever suspected her, thanks in part to her deceit and in part to her ability to make people believe anything she told them. I didn’t learn of her treachery until all my elder brothers had been killed, leaving me the only surviving heir.”
“Oh, Andrei, I’m so sorry.”
“She mesmerized the servants so they wouldn’t ask questions when one of the maids turned up dead, drained of blood. She turned me against my will, compelled me to do things—despicable things that haunt me to this day. It took me a hundred years to gain enough strength to resist her compulsions, and another two centuries to escape her.”
Tessa stared at his back, her heart aching for his pain.
And still he didn’t face her.
She hesitated a moment, then slid her arms around his waist.
With a hoarse cry, he turned and gathered her into his arms. For several moments, he held her close.
“Why is she here now? What does she want?”
“She heard about you, about your blood, I mean.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“Some fledgling told her. It piqued her interest and she decided to come to the States and see if she could find the woman with the mysterious blood. I’m not sure what her interest is. Curiosity? Boredom? Who the hell knows why Katerina does what she does. Anyway, she decided as long as she was here, she might as well spend some time with me.”