“Get out,” Giovanni said.
“I can see that it worked even better than I’d hoped,” he sang as he turned and left the room. “I’ll be seeing you! Both of you. Soon.” He sailed out of the reading room with a flourish, and in a second he was down the hallway. They heard the door to the stairwell click behind him.
Giovanni took a deep breath and finally turned to Beatrice. He had been able to smell the waves of adrenaline rolling off her during Lorenzo’s visit and he could hear her heartbeat pounding, but he was not prepared for the tears that poured down her face.
“Beatrice?”
She choked and waved a hand in front of her face, trying to turn so he wouldn’t see her crying, but he placed his hands on her shoulders to examine her, looking her up and down her to make sure she wasn’t hurt. It didn’t seem possible that she could be, but her reaction startled him.
She finally choked out. “He-he wants me. He wants my father. I can’t…I’ve never been more-” She panted and tried to pull away from him. “I need a bathroom. I’m going to throw up.”
“I’ll take you.”
“I don’t need someone to take me to the bathroom,” she shouted.
“And I’m not letting you out of my sight while he’s around,” he shouted back.
She lifted her hands and shoved him back. “This is your fault! I wish I’d never met you. He’s going to kill me and it’s your fault!”
He felt a twist in his heart and it gave a quick thump. He took a deep breath and tried to remain calm.
“One, he doesn’t want to kill you. Two, the only one in the wrong is Lorenzo. Don’t blame me-”
“Why didn’t you just kill him?”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “So eager to collaborate in a murder? Ready to explain a rather large burn mark on the floor? It’s a small room. Not that attached to your eyebrows, are you?”
She wiped the angry tears from her eyes and sniffed, her upset stomach apparently settled. “Well-”
“You have no idea what you speak of. I can’t say I’m not impressed by your blood lust, tesoro, but you really must learn to pick your battleground.” He rolled his eyes and walked to the table to pack the Pico letters away. Next he walked over to the scroll and closed the large document box it lay in.
“What are you doing?”
“These need to be put away, you need to lock up, and we need to go to my house. We’ll stop on the way and get your grandmother.”
“But it’s not nine o’clock.”
He turned to her, his irritation finally spilling over. “Are you serious? I’m going to assume you’re still in some kind of shock, Beatrice, because I refuse to believe that after being threatened by a rather powerful, centuries-old, water vampire-who we just confirmed killed and turned your father, and now seems to have a sick fascination with you-you’re not arguing with me about closing the reading room a couple of hours early!”
The color drained from her face before she turned and ran down the hall. He heard her throwing up in the bathroom and sighed, quickly packed up the documents and placed them on the counter before he walked down to stand outside the door.
Giving her a few moments to collect herself, he waited in the hallway and thought about his son’s appearance at the library.
He had thought of the girl first.
It was…unexpected, even with his earlier reaction to Lorenzo’s scent on her. He had been thinking defensively as his son entered the room, but his first instinct had been to protect the girl and not his letters.
He could still hear her sniffling alone in the bathroom. The urge to walk in and comfort her was also unexpected, though with his growing attraction it probably shouldn’t have been. He had avoided long-term attachments to women for this reason. Once his protective instincts were triggered, he became much less rational.
He needed to call Carwyn and Tenzin. He would have to leave a message for the priest, as he would still be traveling. Hopefully, Tenzin was talking again, but he had no idea whether her airy visions would allow her to travel.
Then there was Livia in Rome. She had been brushing him off, and he needed to know what exactly had happened to Stephen De Novo. There was no longer time to put up with her dawdling attempts to draw him into a visit, which was no doubt her aim in putting him off in the first place.
He needed to talk to Gavin Wallace. For the right price, the Scot could tell him everyone who was new in town and who they belonged to. The man could probably tell him what their favorite drink was as well, but Giovanni didn’t know if he really wanted to spend that much.
He needed to get Caspar out of Houston and up to the house in the hill country, along with Isadora. The last thing he needed to worry about was their well-being in this mess. Lorenzo had a passionate disgust for the elderly, so hopefully they hadn’t even registered his attention.
Giovanni heard the sink running and knew Beatrice would be out in a minute. She had surprised him with her tears, but he sensed more anger than fear from her. He had dealt with this kind of danger for so many hundreds of years, he’d forgotten how shocking it was for someone so young.
She opened the door, and he saw her without the mask of her make-up for the first time. She must have washed it off, and a faint smudge of black mascara still marred the bottom of her right eyelid.
He had thought of her first. He crossed his arms and pushed down the urge to embrace her.
“Better?”
She nodded silently and walked back to the reading room. He sped by her, and quickly checked it to make sure no one had entered while his mind had been elsewhere.
“Let me shut down the computers and I’ll lock up.”
“Can I do anything to help?”
“Put the documents away. The combination to the stacks is the last four numbers of my social security number.” She didn’t ask if he knew it, and he would have laughed at her correct presumption if only she had not looked so shaken.
He quickly put everything back in its place, keeping an ear open to listen for anyone entering the reading room while he was out of sight. He noted the meticulous organization of the document shelves and the empty spaces where the boxes needed to be placed and the faint honeysuckle scent of her that lingered in the small room. For a brief moment, he considered simply taking the letters that were his, but he brushed the temptation aside and focused on the present danger. By the time he slipped out of the stacks, Beatrice had shut down the computers, grabbed her bag, and turned off the lights.
They walked down the hall together and silently made their way downstairs. She let him guide her toward his Mustang, and he unlocked the door for her, pausing before he opened it.
“Beatrice-”
“I know it’s not really your fault,” she murmured. “If anyone’s, it’s my dad’s, though I’m sure he didn’t plan on being attacked by a vampire when he went to Italy. You were just the closest one here, so it was easy to blame you.”
He was surprised by her apology, but felt an unfamiliar tension ease when he heard it.
“Are you really sorry you met me?” he asked in a low voice.
She paused and glanced up at him in the dim lights of the parking lot before she reached out to grab the door handle, opening it for herself.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
He took surface streets to her grandmother’s house, trying to give her time to collect herself before she saw Isadora.
“So he’s really your son?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Why on earth did you turn him? Was he always so awful?”
Giovanni frowned. “He wasn’t-no, he wasn’t always like this. As a child, he was almost timid. He hadn’t had an easy life. I thought I was doing the right thing when I did it. There was a time that I had a kind of affection for him. I had hoped with guidance, he would… Well, he had his own ideas about immortal life at a very young age. We only stayed together for around five years before we parted ways.”