Eight

When Chloe turned back to the door, he was surprised and delighted that she kept hold of his hand. With the other, she tapped lightly, then used a key she’d pulled from her pocketbook to let them in. He’d noticed, too, that she’d slipped off her sparkling new wedding band and engagement rings—the ones he’d paid a cool quarter of a mil for—to hide them from her mother and leave her left hand once again bare and unclaimed.

They were inside, front door closed behind them, when footsteps sounded from the rear of the house. A lovely older woman appeared from around the corner, smiling widely when she saw her daughter.

“Chloe! What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Mom,” Chloe greeted her. “We came to see Jake. Is he still awake?”

The older woman nodded and tipped her head in the direction from which she’d just come. “He’s in his room, playing.”

She answered readily enough, but Aidan saw the interest gleaming in her eyes. She was happy to see her daughter, but curious as all get-out about the man at her side.

Chloe must have noticed her mother’s subtle body language, too, because she said, “Mom, this is Aidan. We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and I wanted to introduce him to Jake before we . . . got too serious. Aidan, this is my mother, DeeDee.”

Aidan held out his hand—the one Chloe wasn’t holding like a lifeline. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Monroe.”

Was it possible he was actually nervous about meeting Chloe’s family? He was so old, had met so many people and been in such a wide variety of situations over his many, many years on this earth, that he wouldn’t have thought anything could truly shock or rattle him. But it seemed he would have been wrong. Because standing here, shaking hands with his new bride’s mother, had his palms sweating and the rest of him feeling clammy and jittery.

DeeDee took his hand in a firm grip, testing him, he suspected. Her indigo eyes, just a few shades darker than Chloe’s own violet ones, were sharp and intense. She was sizing him up, and he could only hope she approved of what she saw.

At least he’d remembered to use Chloe’s real last name instead of the more flamboyant one she used professionally. He’d also cleaned up a bit and changed clothes before leaving his apartment, so the pants and shirt he wore now weren’t as wrinkled as the ones that had lain on his bedroom floor all day after he’d ravished the woman’s daughter six ways from Sunday.

“Aidan,” DeeDee intoned. Not coldly, but not fireplace warm, either. “I’m afraid Chloe’s never mentioned you.”

He offered a small smile. “I hope that means I hold a special place in her heart.” Tipping his head more in Chloe’s direction, he winked. “One can hope, anyway.”

DeeDee offered a low, non-committal hum. “So what do you do, Aidan?”

Slapping a hand over her face, Chloe groaned. “Mother.”

“It’s all right,” Aidan told her, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Your mother has a right to know how the man who’s interested in her daughter makes his living.”

Turning his attention back to DeeDee, he said, “Actually, Mrs. Monroe, I guess you could say I dabble.”

She didn’t look terribly impressed by that bit of information.

“My brother is Sebastian Raines,” he added, only to watch her eyes go wide. Oh, yes, Sebastian’s name had a tendency to impress just about everyone the world over.

“He has his fingers in quite a few pies, as I’m sure you probably know, and I mostly help him with those. I don’t have anything quite as large or impressive as the Inferno under my belt, but I do all right for myself.”

That was certainly an understatement. He didn’t mind being linked to his brother most of the time, but he also didn’t like people believing he relied on Sebastian for everything he did and owned. No, Aidan had a few of his own projects going, and his own money in the bank . . . as well as other, much more secret and less impenetrable hidey-holes.

“Don’t worry,” he added. “If your daughter and I stay together, I’m more than capable of taking very good care of her.”

Chloe’s mother arched a dark brow. Down to the curve of her lips and her long, lithe dancer’s figure, she was nearly a perfect cut-out of her younger daughter. Which made him wonder just how much of their father’s DNA had made it into the gorgeous twins.

“I should say so, Mr. Raines.”

The stressing of his surname let him know he’d passed the first familial hurdle. He would have released a pent-up breath, if he had any, but he’d been so wired since stepping inside the house that he’d forgotten that part of his human persona.

Picking up with some even breathing before anyone noticed he hadn’t been using his lungs, he continued to curve his lips in an easy smile. He was careful not to flash his fangs, even though they were recessed enough at the moment not to pose much of a problem.

“Well, you two go back and see Jake while I get us all something to drink,” DeeDee told them. “What would you like, Aidan? Coffee, tea, maybe some iced tea? Or something stronger?”

“Whatever you and Chloe are having will be fine,” he replied. “Thank you.”

Almost before he got the words out, Chloe was grasping his sleeve, dragging him out of the entryway and through what looked to be a small family room. He barely had a chance to see more than lemon chiffon carpeting and sandcolored walls dotted with framed photographs before she was steering him down a narrow hallway also decorated with family photographs.

“My mother never offers guests something to drink,” she all but snarled back at him. “She doesn’t like them to overstay their welcome.”

He wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. Was she angry that her mother seemed to like him well enough to offer him refreshments, or because now that she had, they might be forced to stay longer than Chloe had planned?

“I’ll bet you anything, when we come back, she’ll not only have a pot of hot tea brewing, but a plate of cookies set out on the table. She’ll try to pass them off as homemade and hope you don’t notice the word ‘Keebler’ stamped into the center of the little elves’ shortbread butts.”

He nearly chuckled at that, then thought better of it.

“I’m . . . sorry?” he offered instead, hoping like hell it was the right thing to say.

Coming to a complete halt at the end of the hall, she turned on him and lowered her voice even more. “It’s because you’re loaded,” she told him. “She thinks I’ve landed myself a nice, big fish and doesn’t want me to blow it, so she’s going to pretend to be Miss Manners in hopes of showing you that we deserve to be part of the vast Raines empire.”

“You do,” he readily assured her.

She rolled her eyes, letting him know precisely what she thought of that declaration.

“I don’t deserve a bank vault full of money or my weight in jewels just because I’m good in bed. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life listening to her bitch and moan about how I ‘let you get away’ if we don’t end up growing old together.”

He raised a brow, silently reminding her that there was pretty much zero chance of that, even if they stayed married for the next millennia.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she huffed with the flip of her wrist.

Knowing it probably wasn’t the wisest question to pose at this point, he asked cautiously, “Do you and your mother not get along?”

Chloe blew out a breath, all of her steam and annoyance seeming to seep away with it. “I love my mother,” she told him. “Normally, we get along very well. The problem is, we’re a little too much alike, so she sometimes thinks she should be allowed to make decisions for me . . . or badger me into doing things the way she thinks I should.”

“Should I simply write her a check for a million dollars or so to get her off your back for a while?”

Chloe’s eyes went as wide as Lake Tahoe a second before she realized he was teasing.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned, punching him in the arm with far more force than he thought necessary.

Offering her a confident smile, he pulled her close, kissing her hard and quick right on the mouth. “Stop worrying so much. Your mother likes me. Now let’s see if Jake does. Come on . . . introduce me to your son.”

It occurred to Chloe suddenly and out of the blue that she didn’t really need Aidan’s money. All she had to do was devise a way to bottle his kisses—infused with his minty, masculine flavor and unwavering confidence—and she would be a zillionaire overnight.

But he’d done exactly as he intended; rather than being a bundle of nerves and anxious energy, she was beginning to calm down and realize that having him meet her mom and little boy was not the end of the world. They met new people every day, right? Some who stuck around, some they never saw again. Whichever category Aidan eventually fell into, they—all of them—would deal. She would just have to have faith in that.

“All right,” she said softly.

At the end of the hall, Jake’s door was open a crack and she went to it, tapping softly to keep from scaring him if he was deeply involved in some imaginary game or another.

He was on the floor in his sea-blue and yellow Spongebob Squarepants footie pajamas, pushing a toy train around in front of him and making soft chugga-chugga-chugga noises, punctuated by the occasional whoo-whoo!

As always when she saw him—especially after a long night at work or off trying to seduce a rich daddy for him—her heart turned over inside her chest. Most mothers probably thought their children were the sweetest, cutest, most adorable children on the planet, but Chloe knew for a fact that hers was. He was also—thankfully—her spitting image, getting only his two-shades-lighter-than-her-own hair and possibly the curve of his nose from his deadbeat of a father.

When he heard her knock, he turned his head, and when she pushed the door open and he saw her, his eyes lit up like the stage lights at Lust.

Jumping to his pajama-bootied feet, he yelled, “Mommy!” and raced straight for her.

“Hey, beanpole.” Dropping to one knee, she caught him up in a giant bear hug, rocking him from side to side and nuzzling the side of his neck until he giggled.

After a minute or two of tickled greetings, Jake pushed her hair away from one ear and leaned close to whisper, “Who’s the fancy man?”

Chloe smiled, cocking her head a few degrees until she could see Aidan from the corner of her eye. “This is my friend, Aidan. He wanted to meet you before you went to bed.”

“Me?” Jake asked, sounding surprised. “Why?”

“Why do you think, silly? Because you’re cute and smart and funny, and he didn’t believe me when I told him you had a pair of Spongebob pajamas.” She plucked at the lightweight material, making sure to tweak his tummy in the process.

He giggled, covering his stomach and wiggling away. Then he turned his attention up to Aidan, tipping his head like a museum curator studying a particularly interesting new acquisition.

Seconds ticked by, and Chloe waited to see what her son’s reaction would be to the first man she’d ever brought home to meet him. To his credit, Aidan merely stood where he was, offering Jake a friendly smile and letting him lead things wherever he wanted.

“I’m Jake,” he said, with a hint of challenge to his voice.

“Hello, Jake. I’m Aidan.”

Then Aidan did a truly remarkable thing—he stepped forward, tugged at the razor-sharp seams of his slacks, and dropped to the floor, sitting cross-legged beside her. Not something she ever would have expected from a man like him, especially given how much she was sure his clothes must have cost. And this was his casual look.

“I like your pj’s,” Aidan told Jake.

Jake glanced down at himself, then back at Aidan. “Did you really want to see them before I went to bed?”

“Absolutely. I love Spongebob. He’s my favorite.”

Jake beamed. “Me, too. I have more, you know.”

“You do?” Aidan said, feigning awe.

“Uh-huh.”

Running to the dresser, Jake pulled open one of the drawers and started pulling out every set of pajamas he owned. Well, the ones they kept at Grandma’s house, at any rate.

“Spongebob, and Elmo, and Buzz Lightyear . . .” As he ticked them off, he laid them over Aidan’s lap so he could get an up-close-and-personal look at every animated character known to man. “. . . and cowboys and trains and motorcycles. I have Finding Nemo at home, but I don’t like them as much anymore. They have a hole in the knee Mommy keeps saying she’s going to fix.”

Aidan cast her a glance, and she pulled her mouth to one side, caught between amusement and chagrin.

“Little Suzy Homemaker, I’m not,” she muttered with a shrug.

Better for him to find that out now, before he started expecting her to cook and sew and walk around with a feather duster permanently attached to her hand. Yeah, she was so not going to be that kind of wife, regardless of what she’d thought she would be willing to do before he’d actually slipped a ring on her finger.

Besides, he was rich; let him hire a cook and a seamstress and a maid, if he wanted that sort of work done. Come to think of it, she might ask him to hire a few of those folks so they could do that stuff for her, too.

If they remained married, of course. Nothing had been decided for certain yet. Although, if his interaction with Jake so far was anything to go by, the Magic 8 Ball was definitely bobbing around all signs point to yes.

A shiver stole through her at the thought. When had she started leaning toward making their impromptu marriage permanent? When had she begun to think that maybe being tied to a vampire for life—hers, his, however that whole deal worked—might not be so bad, after all?

Turning back to Jake, Aidan fixed him with a solemn gaze. “Can I ask you something, Jake? It’s kind of important, so I’m going to need an honest answer.”

Jake’s eyes widened slightly and his face got tense, the way it did when he thought he might be in trouble.

Chloe went tense, as well. She didn’t know what Aidan was about to say, but if he did anything to hurt or scare her child, she would not only hand him divorce papers on his way out the door, she’d also hand him his head on a silver platter. Maybe even literally, if he was telling the truth about the whole vampire thing, and that’s what it took to kick his undead butt.

Mimicking Aidan’s serious demeanor, her son nodded.

Aidan waited a beat, then lifted one of the pairs of pajamas from his lap and said, “Do you think they make these in my size? I’d really like a pair. Especially if they were just like yours. Then we could be pajama buddies.”

For a second, Jake didn’t respond. Chloe knew that hadn’t been what he’d been expecting at all. Neither had she.

Then he threw back his head and laughed, and Aidan chuckled with him. So did she. She couldn’t believe how well they were getting along. Or how good Aidan—a selfprofessed vampire who drank human blood and had been around for what she assumed was a really, really long time—was with her little boy. He didn’t mind getting down on Jake’s level, both literally and figuratively, and seemed to know just what to say and how to say it.

Yes, he could be playing a game, being nice to her kid only long enough to convince her he was father material. Behind her back, he might be a total jackass, the kind of guy she never, ever wanted anywhere near her son.

But something told her that wasn’t the case. If he were that much of an all-around jerk, she thought she would have seen some of the signs before now.

Bouncing up and down a little on the pads of his feet, Jake said, “We could have popcorn and watch movies. Do you like Despicable Me?”

“I love it,” Aidan replied with all the gusto of a man who’d just won a bundle on the ponies.

Of course, Chloe was pretty sure he was lying. If he’d ever actually sat through Despicable Me, she’d eat the feathers off her headdress.

“Do you like popcorn?” Jake asked, sounding a little worried. As though not liking popcorn might just be a dealbreaker in this new friendship they were forming.

“Only if it has lots and lots of melted butter on it,” was Aidan’s heartfelt reply.

Clapping his hands together, Jake threw his head back and did a little happy dance. Then, without warning, he threw himself against Aidan and arranged himself soundly on his lap.

Chloe blinked, shocked at Jake’s open and enthusiastic response to Aidan. He was a happy and exuberant boy, but tended to be much more reticent around strangers.

Aidan, too, seemed more than comfortable with Jake. He held him on his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like Jake was his very own son, and he’d been doing it for years.

Emotion clogged her throat and tears began to prick behind her eyes. This was the kind of relationship Jake should have had with his biological father from the very beginning, what he’d been missing all of his life. And now maybe, just possibly, she’d be able to give it to him.

“Speaking of late-night snacks,” Aidan mock-whispered, “your grandmother said something about having cookies. Do you think we could talk your mom into letting us have a couple before you go to bed?”

Jake’s face lit up, and both males turned baleful expressions on her. Normally, she wouldn’t let Jake have sugar before bedtime, but since he was already so riled up, he would probably be awake half the night, as it was. What would a couple of cookies hurt?

Pushing to her feet, she wiped her hands on the back of her jeans and said, “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll see what Gramma says. Will the two of you be okay up here by yourselves?”

She was mostly asking Aidan, and he knew it. Grinning up at her, he nodded. “We’ll be fine. Especially if Jake lets me play with his awesome train set.”

That was all it took to have Jake bouncing off his lap and leaping over to the trains he’d been playing with when they first came in. A second later, he and Aidan had their heads together, so immersed in their conversation that even if she wasn’t going for cookies, she still would have been invisible to them.