-REMUS-

I'm going to lose it one of these days, I think, digging into my plate pretending I don't feel shit. Three centuries I've lived, and I can't believe I'm being stirred out of my elements by a twenty-two-year-old girl. Veronica is a walking contradiction I can't seem to figure out. In the number of days I can count on one hand that I've been around her, she's shot at me twice, insulted me with her rough manners, then she flirted and seduced me with R-rated images that gave me a hard-on for days afterward.

Now she's sitting in front of me wearing an old t-shirt that looks like it's been worn since she was ten over a pair of gym shorts, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we're having a formal, candlelit dinner even if it's a made up one for the sake of practice. She's the first woman in three centuries that I've dined with who doesn't wear makeup to meet me. Her hair is always a mess, and that ponytail looks like it's been through four hours of cardio in the gym. The woman makes no effort whatsoever to impress me - or anyone, for that matter - and I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or happy that for once I'm not treated like a target or a gold mine.

But just when I think she's uninterested, she tugged on my bond and sent me an image that took everything I had to not jump out of my seat and take her on that table - repeatedly - old t-shirt and all. A few minutes later, she's sitting in front of me like a little girl who's just been refused candy, chewing furiously on her bottom lip, and I can't tell if I want to give her a pat on the back or suck her blood dry for the fifty emotions she managed to put me through in precisely thirty minutes that we've been sitting together. I should be out of this place as soon as I can before she drives me mad or makes me dig my own grave. The problem is I don't want to, and I am enjoying this a little too much. Not a healthy habit to be forming, considering the fact that she kills vampires for sport.

I watch my sommelier pour her another glass of wine, and I realize he's just opened a third bottle. The woman drinks enough to rival an alcoholic, and she doesn't seem to be halfway done. That, and I have a feeling she's been raiding my cellar for the past two days, judging from a few missing bottles from the shelves - the vintage shelves, I might add.

"So," I say, trying not to smile at her reaction when she sips the wine, looking like she just had a small orgasm, "how was your day? Besides having devoured my most expensive bottles in the cellar, of course."

She laughed, and something comes alive in my stomach. I make a mental note to kill the damn thing as soon as I walk out of here. "It's not my fault you didn't lock it," Veronica says, her light, melodic voice a strange contrast to her intense personality. "Only fools would trust a poor woman with a $1,000 bottle of wine on open shelves."

One thing I like about Veronica is how confident she appears to be. Not a lot of people would admit to being poor so blatantly and without a trace of shame. Not a lot of people would admit to stealing my wine with that attitude after being caught red-handed either. From the first day she's moved in, she's been utilizing my penthouse with the same carefree excitement of a two-year-old being given a truckload of ice cream, and still has no intention whatsoever to suck up to me, or at least give me the appreciation I deserve for all the things I give her. I haven't met a woman like Veronica, and I can never tell if she would laugh or yell at me for anything I say.

"For your information," I tell her with a grin I usually use with Aelia and the rest of the highborn ladies who'd made it their life's goal to rope me, from which they'd either get insulted or try harder to get my attention, "a man with my income only locks up the $10,000 bottles, not these $1,000 ones."

I was so sure a girl like Veronica would be insulted, and then throw me a haughty response for it, but she merely narrows her eyes at my statement, as if she's onto something else beyond what my words implied. "You're trying to bait me with money."

That's a statement, not a question. She's trying to read my motives. I smile. "Is it working?"

"No." She takes a long sip from her glass and grins. "But for one of those bottles, I'll give it a consideration."

I can't help but laugh at that. The fact that she's more relaxed and playful tells me she's a little lightheaded from the drink. Maybe I am as well. "What would you give me in exchange for one?"

She leans back on the chair and crosses her legs, making sure I see the whole length of them. "Well, what do you want?"

What do I want? The first thing that comes to my mind happens to be out of the question and very much in the gutter, but besides what she's already doing for me, I can't think of anything else right now. "For one thing, you haven't answered my question."

She blinks. "You want a report of what I did today?"

"If I want a report, I'll get it from Chris." Since Lucien and Chris aren't really talking, I've been getting them from Rae and Chris directly for the past few days. I'm going to have to talk to Lucien about that soon actually. "I'm just trying to have a conversation."

"A conversation," she repeats, wrinkling her nose as like she's just swallowed something foreign in her mouth that's not supposed to be there. I wonder if she knows how childlike she looks at the moment. "Like two people on a date?"

"A date in my dictionary implies that you end up on my bed tonight, which is not going to happen even if you're dying for it," I tell her casually. The truth is, I'm actually the one dying for it, but she doesn't have to know that, does she? "This is me buying the pleasure of your company with a bottle of wine, which requires you to please me in whatever way I see fit that doesn't involve sex. How about it?"

I was certain she's going to say no when I said it, but to my surprise, Veronica looks at me with those harmless doe's eyes that don't go with her lifestyle whatsoever and appears to be considering it seriously. Too seriously, in fact, that I end up being the one feeling anxious.

She cocks her head to one side and squeezes her brows together like she's trying to figure out a math equation. Something about it makes me hold my breath. "You don't get that a lot, do you? A normal conversation?"

I find myself staring at her, unable to move and at a loss for words. When was the last time I had a normal conversation that didn't involve work or a fight against someone or something? My mother died giving birth to me, and all the conversations I'd had growing up were commands I'd given to my nursemaids and the staffs of the Westwood Estate. The only sound I get from the asshole I call father was of his fist as it slams into my face, and when my aunt stepped in to take me away to the Southwood, I was sent off to school in the countryside along with her children. Now that I've taken the Westwood from my father, I don't think there's anyone I can hold a casual conversation with, not even Lucien who remains as formal to me as the first day we'd met.

No, I haven't had that kind of conversation for a long time, not since Marcus died, and I realize it must be why I enjoy these sessions with her, why I linger way past the point of necessity. I must have been needing this without even knowing it. The acknowledgment stings a little.

Then I look at Veronica, and I see it staring right back at me. I see my reflection.

"Neither do you," I reply without thinking. The images of that day at the cemetery replays in my head and something settles in my chest, taking up a corner of space in it. Whatever it is, I'm going to have to take care of it soon, before it becomes more permanent and irreplaceable.

From across the table, I can see her taken aback by my words, and for a moment, I catch a glimpse of vulnerability in her eyes. It quickly subsides and is soon replaced by a look of mild irritation. "And how would you know that, exactly?"

"How?" I grin at the speculation I've made a while ago that has led me to that conclusion. "You're probably the only woman your age who hasn't touched her phone since I walked in here. I figured you're not into socializing much. Or am I wrong?" The fact is, Veronica doesn't even have a phone on the table or in her pockets. I detected no scent of other presence than my staff in her cabin when I walked in either. Veronica doesn't just live alone, she has no guests, no visits from friends or whatever family she has left. For a girl that young, it's considered pretty rare and perhaps also unfortunate.

She stills for a moment before shrugging at my comment. "My lifestyle doesn't exactly leave room for that kind of company," she says easily and then gestures towards me with her glass. "What's your excuse?"

My excuse. I find myself with the need to swallow. My excuse is that he died.

The answer to her question pricks me like I'm being stabbed by a hundred needles all at once. I look down at the diminishing content of my glass, and suddenly I see blood, not just anyone's blood, his.

"You know, a conversation is a two-sided thing," she says when I didn't answer for some time.

I look back at her once more, and something in that faint smile of hers makes me say it, "I've lost that person a long time ago."

I expect her to say she's sorry, or tell me something people find appropriate to reply to a mention of the death of someone they don't know. Veronica makes none of those responses. She simply sits still and quiet for a long time, as if trying to absorb it all in or to figure something out.

"That grave," she says thoughtfully, carefully, after a moment. "That's him?"

I don't talk about his death with anyone but Amelia. I don't even allow myself to think about it. The cost of bringing it up is too much for me to pay. That night, out here on the outdoor platform that overlooks the pool and the city's skyline, having dinner and a few drinks with Veronica, I feel strangely calm and perhaps also a little lightheaded. For a thousand reasons for me to hold back that information, I somehow choose not to heed any of it. "It is."

One word, and there I'm laying myself bare in front of her. What I'm doing is dangerous, and yet all I feel is a weight being lifted off my shoulders, off my chest. In the back of my mind, I wonder what she'll do with that information, or what she'll do with me, knowing my only weakness, but I've also discovered a big part of me that simply doesn't care.

The small smile she gives me then feels like a finger on my heart.

"Well then," she says softly, raising her glass. "I suppose that makes two of us."

A cool breeze brushes past her shoulders, sending strands of her hair flying towards me, bringing with it the scent of what I believe is her shampoo. It smells of citrus mixed with a hint of peppermint. I breathe it all in and let it settle in my lungs, into the pit of that hole I haven't been able to close as I touch the rim of my own glass to hers. It rings like a bell, a signal that marks the beginning of something new.

"I suppose it does."