"Before or after you shoot me?" His hand latched around her wrist. He lifted her arm so he could see the clip in her hand. "Shame on you, Butch."
"Shame on you. Refusing to answer my questions. Embarrassing me about my bra. I ought to drag you to the precinct and stick you in holding for a few days-"
He grabbed both her wrists and pinned her against the wall. "You refused to answer my question, too. What is your name?"
"How did you erase their memories?"
"Drop it," he growled. "You don't want the answer."
"I'm a good detective. I'll figure it out."
He gave her a beseeching look. "Just leave it be, Boucher. Go away from here and forget you ever met me."
She searched his face. "How can I forget you? Who are you? What are you up to?"
"I do not harm anyone. Can you leave me be?"
Could she? Could she walk out of here and never think of him again? No, she couldn't. She would wonder about him for months. Years. "What about you, Jack? Do you want to forget me? Do you never want to see me again?"
His eyes darkened. He stroked the inside of her wrist with his thumb, and it sent a delicious shiver down her spine. "If you knew what you're doing to me, you would run. You would run like the hounds of hell were after you."
Run? She couldn't manage to move an inch. "Aren't you being a little overly dramatic, Jack?"
"Am I?" He leaned close, and his chin grazed the edge of her brow.
The scrape of his whiskers sent a shiver down her arms, prickling her skin with gooseflesh.
"I believe you asked for a kiss, Butch," he whispered in her ear, then drew back to look at her mouth.
Her breath caught when she noticed the reddish glint in his eyes. That couldn't be normal.
A knock sounded on the door. "The ceremony is starting," Robby's voice called out.
Jack released her and stepped back. "I have to go." He walked over to pick up her tote bag. When he turned to face her, his eyes had resumed their usual golden brown color. "You should go, too." He handed her the tote bag.
She quickly loaded her gun, then checked the safety before snapping it back into the holster. As she carefully placed it in her tote bag, a defeated feeling dragged her down. She was a lousy interrogator. She'd found Jack, but she still knew next to nothing about him. He dressed well. He was gorgeous. He apparently had issues with his parents, but then, who didn't? And he could make people forget. "Why didn't you do it to me? Why did you make everyone forget but me?"
He gave her a sad look. "I tried, bellissima. You are immune to me."
She hugged the tote bag against her chest. "Not entirely." He'd just admitted to causing mass amnesia. She shivered. Was he some kind of psychic? Or worse? And how could she feel attracted to him?
"Would you accept this?" He drew a business card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "My cellphone number is on there."
He wanted to see her again? Her heart expanded in her chest. She took the card and examined it. Giacomo di Venezia. Was his last name Venice, or was that his hometown? Beneath his name, it read MacKay Security and Investigation.
"I want you to call me if you're ever in trouble."
She glanced up at him. "Only if I'm in trouble?"
He frowned at her. "Especially if you're in trouble. I am worried about your safety."
She flicked the card into her tote bag. "Now you sound like my father." She strode toward the door.
He opened it for her. "I am serious, Boucher. It is a dangerous world out there. More dangerous than you know."
She glowered at him. "I'm not incompetent, Jack. Just because you managed to disarm me, it doesn't mean anyone else can."
"Signorina, you have disarmed me."
She swallowed hard. Did she actually have an effect on him? Or did he just say these things to keep her constantly off balance?
She walked into the vestibule and halted at the sight of the bride. She was a lovely young woman with long blonde hair partially hidden beneath a gossamer white veil. She clutched a huge bouquet of white lilies and roses. Her eyes glittered with excitement, and she glanced their way with a brilliant smile.
The "Wedding March" began, and she started down the aisle. The train of her elegant white gown skimmed the floor behind her.
"Wow," Lara whispered. "What a beautiful bride. She was absolutely beaming with joy."
Jack rested a hand against his chest and smiled. "Amore. It makes people glow from the inside."
"You believe in true love? And happily ever after?"
His smile faded. "Ever after is a very long time. It hasn't been that happy for me." He led her to a side door.
What had happened to Jack? Damn, but she wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything about him.
She glanced back. "I left the gift in the storeroom. Will you give it to the bride?"
"Yes." He held the side door open. "Will you call me if you're in trouble?"
"Maybe." She glanced at him, and their eyes met. Her heart stilled as if time had stopped. And in that timeless moment of a few seconds, she knew she would call him. She would not be able to resist him. There was something about him that awakened her senses and made her ache with want.
But how could she trust a man who could manipulate peoples' minds? And what if he was manipulating her? Was her attraction to him real, or was he tricking her?
He touched her hair. "Be careful out there, Butch."
Her heart squeezed in her chest. "My name is Lara." She hurried down the steps, but heard his whisper float toward her on a night breeze.
"Lara Boucher. I knew it would sound beautiful."
CHAPTER 4
Jack winced at the blood-curdling shriek. How could such a tiny bundle of humanity be so loud? And so terrifying? "I don't think she likes me." He quickly handed the newborn back to her father.
Roman Draganesti chuckled. "You were holding her like a sword being used to knight someone." He cradled his tiny daughter close to his chest and jiggled her up and down.
Jack stepped back, afraid that more than noise would emerge from the babe's mouth. "That jostling doesn't make her ill?"
"It soothes her." Shanna Draganesti gave them a weary smile from her hospital bed at Romatech Industries. "It reminds her of being inside of me."
"She's a bonny lass." Angus MacKay gave the newborn an appraising look. "She'll be needing a godfather, no doubt?"
Angus's wife, Emma, laughed. "Now that was subtle."
She perched on the hospital bed next to Shanna. "How are you, dear?"
"I'm fine," Shanna said. "But I hated missing the wedding."
"I was there!" Her two-year-old son, Constantine, sat at the foot of the bed. "I was the ring bearer."
"And you did a great job," Jack said, then turned to Roman. "What have you named your daughter?"
"Sofia." Roman swayed slightly as the baby fell asleep in his arms. "After my mother."
"A lovely name for a lovely little girl," Emma said.
Jack kept a tactful silence. The babe looked too fragile and frightening to him. But then, he hadn't had any experience with infants before this.
After the wedding ceremony, there'd been a short reception at the church to keep up appearances for the bride's mortal friends and family. Then the party had moved to the banquet hall at Romatech Industries where the Vamps could be themselves and toast the newlyweds with Bubbly Blood, a mixture of synthetic blood and champagne.
Jack had congratulated Ian and his bride, then wandered down the hall to the Romatech clinic where Shanna Draganesti had given birth to her second child.
He still marveled over the recent changes in the Vamp world. All his bachelor friends were suddenly succumbing to the lure of amove. Roman and Shanna seemed quite content. His boss, Angus MacKay, was deliriously happy with his wife, Emma. Jean-Luc had found Heather, and now Ian had married Toni.
You would think there was something in the water, but none of the Vamps drank water. They all survived off synthetic blood, first invented by Roman in 1987.
Only their enemy, the Malcontents, continued to feed off mortals, often killing them in the process.
Roman lowered his sleeping daughter into the bassinette next to the hospital bed.
"Isn't she beautiful?" Shanna whispered. "She has her daddy's dark hair."