“How did you end up moving from restaurants to hotels?” she asked with surprise.
“Well, I had opened one of my restaurants on the main floor of a hotel in Paris. The restaurant earned a reputation and did a booming business, but at the same time the hotel was beginning to flounder. I was considering moving the restaurant elsewhere before the hotel folded altogether, but I was becoming a bit bored. I had lost my interest in food after a couple of centuries, and it took a lot of the joy from cooking. The moment I had noticed that happening, I’d hired the best chefs I could find to take over the actual cooking in my establishments, but it left me basically a pencil pusher. I needed a challenge, so rather than move the restaurant, I decided to buy the hotel and see if I couldn’t make it a successful concern again.
“I renovated it floor by floor, and the restaurant handled the room service. We built a reputation, and the hotel started to flourish as well. So I opened another, and then another.
“Everything rolled along nicely, but I soon grew bored again, and then in . . . I think it was the 1920s,” he murmured, then shrugged it away as unimportant and continued, “I read an article about a brand-new technique for preserving food.”
“Frozen food,” Drina said with amusement.
Harper nodded. “I got in on the ground floor. We started with vegetables, and then branched out to entrees, and, as I said, we recently added wine to what we do.” He smiled wryly. “See, I told you that my history wasn’t nearly as exciting as yours.”
Drina shook her head. “I don’t know. It sounds exciting enough. Truth be told, my life wasn’t nearly as exciting as it sounds in the recounting. I mean titles like gladiator, pirate, and madam sound exciting I suppose, but in reality they were just another day in the life. Being a gladiator was hot, sweaty, bloody labor, hacking away at other gladiators. Being a pirate wasn’t much different than being a sailor. It was night after night of hauling rope, raising sails, and steering into a storm with the occasional battle to get the blood going. And as a madam, I mostly greeted the men at the door like a Wal-Mart greeter, reading their minds as they entered the establishment to be sure they had no nefarious plans. Then I sat about, reading or playing cards until the evening ended, and the men left. The only excitement that occurred there was when the occasional fellow got too rough, or tried to make one of the girls do something she didn’t want to. And then that was a momentary adrenaline rush as I saw them off the premises.”
She shrugged wryly. “If I’ve learned anything in all my years, it’s that nothing is as exciting or glamorous as it sounds. I suspect if you read the minds of movie stars and rock stars, you’d probably find their lives were a daily grind with the occasional fan frenzy to scare the crap out of them and get the blood going.”
Harper smiled. “You’re surprisingly sensible for one who has been so rebellious most of her life.”
Drina shrugged. “We all live and learn.”
Harper nodded, and glanced around as the car slowed. “We’re here.”
Drina leaned forward, stretching her upper body in front of his to peer curiously out the window at the very uninteresting building they were stopping in front of.
“Nondescript like our clubs in Europe,” she commented, placing her hand on his shoulder as if to keep her balance.
“Yes,” Harper agreed, sounding a tad husky.
She turned her head and smiled at him, close enough to kiss, as she said, “I suppose it’s to avoid attracting mortals.”
“Yes,” he repeated, this time in barely more than a whisper. His head began to move forward, and Drina moved her own head closer, and then they both froze as the front door slammed shut. Harper glanced past her to the now-vacant driver’s seat, then out the side window, and sighed. “Right, we’re here.”
Drina straightened as the driver opened the door on Harper’s side. She then followed him out of the car and into the cold night. Harper paused long enough to give instructions to his driver before hustling her to the door of the Night Club.
A wave of heat and sound hit them as they entered and Drina peered around curiously, not at all surprised to find it looked like any club in any city. They were in a large room with shadowed booths around the edge of a lit dance floor. Loud music blared from all corners. Harper started to lead her to one of the few empty booths, but she caught his arm and leaned up to ask, “Is there a lounge area? Somewhere quieter, where we can talk when not dancing?”
Nodding, he changed direction at once and led her to a set of swinging doors. They pushed through into another room, this one wholly made up of tables and booths and much quieter once the doors swung shut behind them. They chose a booth along the wall.